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Black-eyed children or black-eyed kids, in American contemporary legend, are paranormal creatures that resemble children between ages 6 and 16, [1] with pale skin and black eyes, who are reportedly seen hitchhiking or begging, or are encountered on doorsteps of residential homes. [2] [3] [4]
While tabloid coverage of these creatures has claimed that tales of black-eyed children have existed since the 1980s, [5] most sources indicate that the legend originated from 1996 postings written by Texas reporter Brian Bethel on a "ghost-related mailing list," relating two alleged encounters with "black-eyed kids." Bethel describes encountering two such children in Abilene, Texas in 1996, [6] and claims that a second person had a similar, unrelated encounter in Portland, Oregon. [1] Bethel's stories have become regarded as classic examples of creepypasta, and gained such popularity that he published a FAQ "just to keep up with demand for more info about the new urban legend." [2] In 2012, Brian Bethel told his story on reality TV series Monsters and Mysteries in America . He wrote a follow-up article for the Abilene Reporter News, describing his experience and maintaining his belief that it was legitimate. [6]
In 2012, the horror film Black Eyed Kids was produced with Kickstarter funding, its director commenting that the creepy children were "an urban legend that's been floating around on the Internet for years now, I always thought it was fascinating." [7] A 2013 episode of MSN's Weekly Strange that featured reports of black-eyed children is thought to have helped spread the legend on the internet. [1]
During one week in September 2014, the tabloid Daily Star ran three sensationalistic front-page stories about alleged sightings of black-eyed children, connected to the sale of a supposedly haunted pub in Staffordshire. [8] The paper claimed a "shock rise in sightings around the world". Alleged sightings are taken seriously by ghost hunters, some of whom believe black-eyed children to be extraterrestrials, vampires, or ghosts. [9]
Science writer Sharon A. Hill was unable to find any documentation of black-eyed child encounters, concluding that the tales are passed on as "friend of a friend" ghost stories. Hill considers the legend to resemble "typical spooky folklore stories" such as the phantom black dog, where the subject is not supernatural, and there may never have been an actual original encounter. [3] Snopes rates tales of black-eyed children as a legend, and cites an Inquisitr article that advised readers to "(f)ile black eyed children under the same heading as 'bigfoot'. Believe it if you like, but realize that there is no evidence of their existence, just subjective testimony that ranges from reasonable to suspiciously fame-whoring". [1]
Urban legends is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not.
Edward Warren Miney and Lorraine Rita Warren were American paranormal investigators and authors associated with prominent cases of alleged hauntings. Edward was a self-taught and self-professed demonologist, author, and lecturer. Lorraine professed to be clairvoyant and a light trance medium who worked closely with her husband.
The Hook, or the Hookman, is an urban legend about a killer with a pirate-like hook for a hand attacking a couple in a parked car. In many versions of the story, the killer is typically portrayed as a faceless, silhouetted old man wearing a raincoat and rain hat that conceals most of his features, especially his face.
Truth or Scare is an American television series on the Discovery Kids network. The show aired from October 25, 2001, to January 1, 2003. It was hosted by Michelle Trachtenberg in a style similar to Maila Nurmi as horror host "Vampira" and Cassandra Peterson as horror host "Elvira, Mistress of the Dark." The series first aired on Discovery Kids as a part of the network's Scary Saturday Night Sleepover lineup. After the series ended, reruns of the show aired on The Hub until October 29, 2012.
In the American folklore of Ohio, Michigan and Connecticut, melon heads are beings generally described as small humanoids with bulbous heads who occasionally emerge from hiding places to attack people. Different variations of the legend attribute different origins to the entities.
In West Virginian folklore, the Mothman is a humanoid creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area from November 15, 1966, to December 15, 1967. The first newspaper report was published in the Point Pleasant Register, dated November 16, 1966, titled "Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something". The national press soon picked up the reports and helped spread the story across the United States. The source of the legend is believed to have originated from sightings of out-of-migration sandhill cranes or herons.
The following are reportedly haunted locations in California, in the United States. This list is sorted by county.
The Haunting of Sunshine Girl is an ongoing supernatural horror web series that is currently broadcast on YouTube. The series was created by Paige McKenzie, Nick Hagen, and Mercedes Rose, and is produced by Coat Tale Productions. The series first launched in 2010 and its premiere episode was uploaded on December 10, 2010. The Haunting of Sunshine Girl quickly rose in popularity and between December 2010 to October 2011 the show received more than 4.3 million total hits. The average length of the episodes is about two minutes but can run less depending on the episode and content.
Changi Hospital is a now-defunct and abandoned general hospital located in Changi, Singapore. Its closure came with the merging with the former Toa Payoh Hospital and was renamed as the Changi General Hospital, which relocated new operations to nearby Simei, not far from Changi. It began winding down activities in February 1997 and remains abandoned to this day, but is off limits to the public.
Herobrine is a Minecraft urban legend and creepypasta, originating from an anonymous post on the imageboard website 4chan in 2010. He is depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils. In numerous iterations, Herobrine has possessed several different unnatural abilities, from constructing unusual structures to possessing animals such as sheep. Other claims about Herobrine include those that describe him to be the deceased brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. After the original sightings were published on 4chan, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own takes on the story, staging sightings and the former creating a webpage oriented around the character.
A creepypasta is a horror-related legend which has been shared around the Internet. The term creepypasta has since become a catch-all term for any horror content posted onto the Internet. These entries are often brief, user-generated, paranormal stories that are intended to frighten readers. The subjects of creepypasta vary widely and can include topics such as ghosts, cryptids, murder, suicide, zombies, aliens, rituals to summon entities, haunted television shows, and video games. Creepypastas range in length from a single paragraph to extended multi-part series that can span multiple media types, some lasting for years.
The Charlie Charlie challenge is a divination game in which the putative answer to a yes–no question is found by waiting for a balanced pencil to point towards the word "Yes" or "No" written on a sheet of paper. As with a Magic 8-Ball, most players, typically teenagers, do not sincerely believe in the power of the mechanism. The game is a modern incarnation of an older Spanish game called Juego de la Lapicera. It was popularized in the English-speaking world in 2015, partly through the hashtag #CharlieCharlieChallenge. On 29 April 2015, an alarmist tabloid television newscast about the game being played in Hato Mayor Province of the Dominican Republic was uploaded to YouTube, and the unintentional humor in the report led to the game trending on Twitter, crossing the language barrier to be played around the world.
Lavender Town is a fictional village in the 1996 video games Pokémon Red and Blue. Stylized as a haunted location, Lavender Town is home to the Pokémon Tower, a burial ground for deceased Pokémon and a location to find Ghost-Type Pokémon.
The Russian Sleep Experiment is a creepypasta which tells the tale of 5 test subjects being exposed to an experimental sleep-inhibiting stimulant in a Soviet-era scientific experiment, and has become the basis of an urban legend. Many news organizations, including Snopes, News.com.au, and LiveAbout, trace the story's origins to a website, now known as the Creepypasta Wiki, being posted on August 10, 2010, by a user named OrangeSoda, whose real name is unknown.
