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Black-Eyed Kids

I do wonder if echos travel differently at night. The other night I was walking round the empty streets at around midnight... I was constantly followed by invisible footsteps about 100 ft behind me. There was of course no one there, and I realized that it was my echo. The thing is, that particular effect never happens in the daytime.
 
I agree with McAvennie, and not just because he was one of my favourite footballers ;)

I think they're good stories, and they are scary. And once or twice, when I've been popping outside to the bin or scullery out in the back yard at gone midnight in the pitch black, the story has popped into my head and I've scared myself a bit. But I don't actually believe them. They smack of urban legends to me. Too much of the 'kids shouldn't be out alone and at night - therefore they must be Evil with a capital Ev' about it.
 
What do you get if you cross BEKs with Mothman?


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Electric_Monk said:
Dingo667 said:
I absolutely believe that the story from Brian Bethel is made up.
...snip...
So in short, there is no doubt those first BEK stories are made up and because they were told in the "IHTM" way, they seem to have spawned more stories from other people.
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"no doubt"? Why not? Brian's own "FAQ" says it's true, and also that he prides himself on accuracy and such. Like you say, he could have made it up for fun, but why then would he start distributing it as truth? It could of course be a hoax, but so could many things. And are you implying journalists lie by default? (That, of course, could be another argument. Any stories I've known the truth behind, what's printed in the paper has often been wildly inaccurate ;) )
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The BEK story is not a bad one, but I don't trust the writer. I don't know if it's been mentioned previously (I read most of this thread, but not all) one story on that site -that the author claimed to have written himself- is definitely from a now out-of-print book with few existing copies...but I happen to have one of those copies.
It looks like he tried to use a journalistic trick to slide it by, but it still violates AP rules.
American journalists are held to surprisingly high standards.
His words about it being the "truth" don't mean much to me.
That said, the story itself is fairly good, with a creepy atmosphere.
I hope no one takes offense at this :/
 
bunnymousekitt said:
Electric_Monk said:
Something I posted 3 years ago and totally forgot about
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The BEK story is not a bad one, but I don't trust the writer. *snip* I hope no one takes offense at this :/
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Absolutely - in retrospect I don't really believe the story any more. It's nice and creepy, but there's plenty of sightings of traditional mythological creatures still going on for me to think about for me to take an interest in made up stuff ;)
 
H_James said:
I do wonder if echos travel differently at night. The other night I was walking round the empty streets at around midnight... I was constantly followed by invisible footsteps about 100 ft behind me. There was of course no one there, and I realized that it was my echo. The thing is, that particular effect never happens in the daytime.
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As Ginoide says, there are sounds that occur during the day that don't happen at night.

During the day, there is so much ambient noise that it can mask sounds like the echo of your footsteps. The silence of night allows you to hear things you wouldn't normally hear.
 
Electric_Monk said:
bunnymousekitt said:
Electric_Monk said:
Something I posted 3 years ago and totally forgot about
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The BEK story is not a bad one, but I don't trust the writer. *snip* I hope no one takes offense at this :/
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Absolutely - in retrospect I don't really believe the story any more. It's nice and creepy, but there's plenty of sightings of traditional mythological creatures still going on for me to think about for me to take an interest in made up stuff ;)
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oh, thanks :) I love a good story, too, but I agree completely.
 
There's an advert on British TV at the moment, showing a load of kids with huge eyes inside a car. The premise of the advert is that if you've done drugs, your eyes will go huge and the police will be able to spot you from a distance (sounds like bollocks to me).
Just an idea perhaps, but maybe some of these black eyed kid stories are about some kids who've done drugs?
 
Mythopoeika said:
There's an advert on British TV at the moment, showing a load of kids with huge eyes inside a car. The premise of the advert is that if you've done drugs, your eyes will go huge and the police will be able to spot you from a distance (sounds like bollocks to me).
Just an idea perhaps, but maybe some of these black eyed kid stories are about some kids who've done drugs?
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I just looked it up - good heavens! :shock: Can't think of what drug they were supposed to have taken!
Dialated pupils might be a sign of (some) drug use, but since it's also one of the signs of attraction, I wonder if there's a way it could be seen as threatening? Or would the natural inclination be otherwise?
I dunno, but I keep imagining that entirely black eyes would be sort of shiny and comical looking, like in a bad sci-fi film.
An eye-less appearance would be much more horrible, IMO
 
Well, that's the thing I was puzzled about with that drugs advert.
What drugs cause kids to end up with gigantic eyes as shown in the advert?
The ad shows some kids in a car at night-time. Surely the natural reaction of people's eyes at night is for the pupils to get bigger, because of the lack of light?
 
Mythopoeika said:
Well, that's the thing I was puzzled about with that drugs advert.
What drugs cause kids to end up with gigantic eyes as shown in the advert?
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I'm pretty sure the makers of the advert weren't trying to represent a single and specific physical change in drug users (although it would give some logic to the phrase 'getting out of your skull', because there'd be bugger all room in there for anything else if that did actually happen). Rather, they were pointing out that being under the influence of drugs does physically affect the individual enough for it to be noticable to an experienced (and, often, not that experienced) observer. Although the eyes are affected by drug use I'd suggest that within the context of this film the eye thing is just symbolic.
 
I can't be an expert, because when I saw the advert for the first time I saw nothing wrong and was waiting for the inevitable accident or other mishap that would teach us something. Only the last sentence revealed that I was supposed to have looked at their eyes...Stupid advert IMHO.
As to the roadside memorials, I don't know if I wrote this already but I find them a very good method to make me drive slower at those points, far more than any blinking 30's sign or traffic camera will ever do. My idea was to put them into dangerous spots but that wouldn't generate any money. :?
 
Whether or not the original BEK story/s are true there does seem to be a 'resonance' that attracts people. Partly there does seem to be a 'real-life' plausability about them - no supernatural powers displayed or fantastic abilities - added to the feeling that something/someone is not quite right + feelings of dread. I'd say that it's reasonably common amongst us all. I'm had that a few times; some with mundane people, some a bit stranger but I'll leave them to one side for the mo'

Here is not quite a BEK story, but connected:

A few years ago (~2004 I think) I was bored at work hence was (cough) researching on the web and had come across the BEK stories (and probably the start of this thread). Creepy, but fun to read, I couldn't quite get them out of my head. There was something about these stories... Eventually I got home and around midnight went to bed.

Now this was London in summer, and a very calm and still night, with the temperature over 30 deg C indoors. I had opened every single window on my second floor flat to try and get some air movement but the atmosphere was like treacle (unusual even for summer in London...) Probably hotter outside than indoors (and for those outside the UK, most houses here do not have any air conditioning what-so-ever).

Now this didn't help my sleeping patterns and probably helped generate a major hypnogogic activity. Now I've had all sorts of experiences in this state from ' "evil entity" at bottom of bed' and ' "old lady" sitting on my shoulders' to ' "greek" goddess massaging my back' and 'two women screaming' so it doesn't really bother me too much now. But even hynogogic events can be unusual and unique...

...so after an initial sensation of pressure on my upper body I found my self in a very clear and lucid dream. This is unusual as I normally wake up to get rid of the pressure sensation and reset the brain. But for some reason I hung on and got into this lucid dream state. In this I was in a bed so I got up as I knew that I was sleeping poorly. The view out of my window was of a large 6-7 storey building with rows of identically shaped square windows, about 30 metres away. It was pitch black and no lights were on. As you do in dreams you know things. I knew that this strange building was a school.

In my dream I went to a small bathroom next to the bedroom. Looking out the window now I could see that one of the lights in the 'school' was now on. Also I could here childrens voices. They were singing. I can't remember the song now, but think of a group of young kids singing 'Ring a ring a roses' but La'ing it rather than using the words. I thought "That's strange that there are children in there at this time of the night."

Then, remembering this is a lucid dream, so I' sort of three quarters sentient and practically awake, I was marvelling at the ability of my dreamstate to give me a very real bathroom mirror whilst holding a glass tumbler of water, the voice of a boy suddenly appeared right next to my left ear, as if he was standing right next to me. I could feel the pressure of his breath as he whispered in time with the music "...and David will come out to play" (David being my name).

I did two things almost at once. One. In the dream I throw the tumbler of water in the direction of the voice. Two. woke up in the very next instant. I was shocked. Like I said, I've had a wide range of sensations from hynogogic activity, but that felt very real. Very, very real.

I was spooked. Lying in the hot dark humid night air wasn't helping. All I could think about was the stories of the BEK's I'd been reading that afternoon. It got worse. I thought about all those open windows. That didn't help. What if all that needing to be 'invited in' was a load of tosh and they could float up a'la Salem's lot.

I decided to shut all the windows. They weren't helping with cooling anyway I thought.

I have a small flat so it didn't take me long to get to the last one, I paused and made sure that there really wasn't any strange kids on the street. None there. It must have been around about 2ish in the morning, and the time and heat seemed to have stopped anything moving. It was deathly still. But I was still hypersensitive and flooded with adrenalin. All my senses were in fight or flight mode. As I started to shut the last window I thought I heard something in the distance. Faint and weak, but reasonably distinct. Laughter. A boy's laughter.

The rest of the night was uncomfortable but nothing else happened.


Ok, so no BEK's and mostly all in dream states - but even for me and my myriad of hypnogogic hallucinations it was pretty intense and unusual. And I'd say that the BEK's did at the very least trigger it.

Now my experience suggests a solid 'scientific' view that hypnogogia and related experiences are a sleep state, sort of half-way between being awake and deep sleep. But I've thought of loads of other possible explanations. What if the human brain at that point is susceptable to communication with 'other entities' in this state....black eyed entites for example...
 
oh, Amendum to the above.

This morning I was sleeping when I dreamt that I was in my flat and two children were outside. Somehow a boy came up to my second floor level and through the open window asked me if he could come in. I must have said yes as he strode in (as if he floated up) and I asked what he was doing here. "Security" he replied. His friend, a girl, came in the other window and started to push me down onto a sofa...

I decided to wake up at that point. Didn't notice the eyes :)

After writing down the experience above, I don't like how the subconscious can play tricks on you! At least I hope it was that....
 
Reading through this thread has reminded me of something that happened to by cousin way back in the 160's.

He had been to a concert in Liverpool and was taking the late ferry back to Birkenhead. There were a few people on the ferry coming home from concerts or clubs but he was particularly struck by two boys. They appeared to be too young to be out that late, he put them at about 12, and both were very pale and shivering with only light jackets.

He saw them again waiting for the bus at Woodside. They approached him asking for some money as they did not have enough to get the bus home. My cousin asked where they lived and where they told him they lived was far away from where any of the buses went.

They then changed their tack and asked him to take them to a nearby late night cafe for something to eat. He knew that it would be closed but they became very persistant.

He only got away from them when his bus arrived and he jumped on. He was very disturbed by the whole event and had a number of nightmares about the two boys who he stated were uncanny in the extreme. He made comment about the fact that they seemed to be full of ill intent.

Even today he will mention the two boys he met that night and the lasting impression they had on him.
 
on sundays a few years ago i used to work as a dishwasher in a pub nextdoor to where i lived. it didnt pay much but i got a free sunday roast and was allowed to read when there was nothing to wash

occassionally when the chef was off they would have another chef come in who lived in an adjacant town. I quite liked this guy because he was not one of the ussual overly-moneyed snooties who frequented said pub and i got along quite well with him

he was very very, how shall i say it...., large and used to struggled getting about and he used to drip buckets of sweat because of his weight and the heat from the kitchen (not that he dripped the sweat into the food i hasten to add).

one day, he suggested we have a drink after work and so we sat in the beer garden in the pub chatting about this and that. with him talking about his love of the band led zepelin when something happened that made me s*&t my pants for weeks afterwards.

all of a sudden the guy blinked and his eyes went totally black. everything not just the pupils but the whites everything.

i didnt say anything and whether i protrayed any hint of shock i dont know. but i s@*t myself because at the time i was also working in a book shop and had breifly scanned over - with distain i might add - some david ike books.

the only rational explenation that i could think of was that because of his huge weight was that somehow is eyelids had got turned back to front and sagged over his eyes when he blinked because when he blinked again his eyes where back to normal.

terrified that i was going mad I (rather foolishly perhaps) decided a few weeks later to tentetivelly broach the subject as carefully as I could with the normal chef who looked at as though i was a few stiltons short of a cheeseboard.

i kind of kept my mouth shut about it after that. i mentioned it once to some girl i worked with in a bookshop during the week when we were talking about strange experiences and she didnt seem to think i was crazy but to this day ive told no one else ha ha :D
 
brother said:
all of a sudden the guy blinked and his eyes went totally black. everything not just the pupils but the whites everything.
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That is, indeed, highly unusual unless the person is a certain type of lizard or a very black cow. (Yellow would indicate a liver problem, but black?)

Thank you for sharing this story!
 
I've been reading a lot about this phenomenon recently (the current issue of Nexus has a lengthy article on them) but I can't find anything on here. Maybe I'm using the wrong search string.

Anyone have any info this topic?

To summarise for anyone who hasn't heard of this it usually involves someone alone who is confronted by young children - typically 10 to late teens in age - who request and then demand entry to the experiencer's house. The experiencer then is overcome by a feeling of utter dread and terror and then notices that the childrens' eyes are completely black. Not just the pupil and cornea but the sclera (i.e. the whites of the eyes) too.

Edit to add example: http://www.hecklerspray.com/awesome-or-off-putting-black-eyed-kids/200940206.php
 
danny_cogdon said:
I've been reading a lot about this phenomenon recently (the current issue of Nexus has a lengthy article on them) but I can't find anything on here. Maybe I'm using the wrong search string.

Anyone have any info this topic?
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Well, there is this:
Black-eyed kids

;)

link removed as topics merged - stu
 
danny_cogdon said:
Oh what a difference a hyphen makes when doing a search! :D
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I didn't use a hyphen - I searched on "black eye*" 8)
 
I searched "black eyed kids" and got "Sorry, no articles matching your search were found"

Thanks for finding the thread, though.
 
Many search engines, like Google, ignore all punctuation.

I don't know how the FTMB one works - I suspect it's one way on Mon, Wed and Fri, another way on Tue, Thu and Sat, and completely at random, or not at all on Sundays! :twisted:
 
I don't know if this will be merged with the other thread, but in the original story the sclara is still white.

It was only the iris that was as black as the pupil, making it impossible to tell one from the other. That's why he didn't notice it at first. He noticed when the children became aggressive, because he looked more closely - "searching their eyes" as we do, when we're trying to tell the mental state of the person talking to us.

Anyway, fun story. I just wanted to correct that little detail because it's a common mistake in the retelling.
 
You're correct, Gwen. In his original account Bethel says "For the first time, I noticed their eyes. They were coal black. No pupil. No iris. Just two staring orbs reflecting the red and white light of the marquee."

Its only in subsequent accounts from other people claiming to have encountered similar children that mention of black sclera are noted.
 
Yeah.. I heard him being interviewed by Art Bell or Whitley Streiber. He explained it, then had to explain why black appearing-eyes would be so unusual, especially in the dark. So, that was kind of funny. 8)

I don't remember what was said specifically. He said it wasn't the same as just having black irises - they looked different or perhaps it felt different. Either way, you're getting on really shaky ground if Art or Whitley turn skeptic on you. LoL
 
rynner2 said:
danny_cogdon said:
Oh what a difference a hyphen makes when doing a search! :D
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I didn't use a hyphen - I searched on "black eye*" 8)
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Topics merged, and I've altered the title to remove the hyphen as an aid to searching.
 
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