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Black Stick Man

I was thinking about the reason for stick-men, when they so obviously look like "bad" drawings. SOme people here use that as a reason to believe that they are mostly in peoples minds.
However what if...they are some sort of creatures that can shape shift and have taken their "look" from a drawing they found?
Ok, here are the downsides to this theory:
1) Once they get out into the world they "see" that humans actually look completely different, so why do they keep the "look"?
2) Why are they observed in different continents and for so many years, have they not learned yet that they look "wrong"?
3) If they are all "in the head", why look like a bad drawing?
4) What are they anyway, what is the point of them?

Possible answers to that could be:
to 1) Maybe they don't want to look like humans. Maybe they meant to look like something really harmless and hence chose an averaged look of childrens drawings. Believing that this would make us feel at "ease".
to 2) If they existed they might very well sent their people to as many places as possible. They might also not be able to mimick a "proper" human and have to opt for the stick-look instead.
to 3) Maybe some peoples fantasies are as crap as their drawings. So instead of seeing a vicious werewolf or an alien, their heads can only come up with a stick-man. {would be interesting to find out about the artistic abilities of witnesses}
to 4) I have no idea and I have no idea.
 
Tangent Warning: I worked on the door of a city centre jazz club for a few years in the early 90s. One night I got home about 3am and was due in work for my dayjob at 6am, which wasnt unusual and Id only have had one drink if that. As I lay in bed the strangest feeling came over me, my head felt huge, enormously big, the rest of me felt tiny, like a childs stickman drawing. This feeling was accompanied by the sound of police helicopters (not an unusual feature where I was living around that time) only they got closer and closer until they seemed to be right outside my bedroom window.

When I called in work, sick, that morning all I could say was I felt "like a stick man". I lived alone at the time, dont know what happened that day but fairly sure I got over it pretty quick.

But what if for that time I had become a stick man? What if that was what I looked like?

The common theory behind this incident is that someone spiked my drink in the jazz bar. Ive never done drugs so cant be sure, but I was drinking heavily pretty much all the time, except while at work. But it was definitely some kind of altered state and major internal disortientation.
 
Stick People in Illinois

My personal favorite "stick men" account comes from Illinois and not all that long ago - the events supposedly transpired on May 2, 2003. (Another source says May 3rd. The fact that the events reportedly occurred at 3:30 AM may account for this discrepency.)

A group of teenagers held a party in a large backyard which abutted an open field. The centerpiece of the festivities was a large, roaring bonfire.

As the teen hosts began cleaning up after the party, they noticed that approximatrely THIRTY "stick people" had gathered around the still-burning fire. They were each between three and four feet tall and stood arranged in two rows of about 15 each.

Alas, that's all I know about this one. But it seems an odd thing to make up.
 
Re: Stick People in Illinois

OldTimeRadio said:
As the teen hosts began cleaning up after the party, they noticed that approximatrely THIRTY "stick people" had gathered around the still-burning fire.

:shock: OMG. Unless there was drink/drugs involved? Still..code brown time. :shock:
 
Yes, this one continues to give me the jim-jams.

Unless it's all fraudulent, of course. But it doesn't sound made up.

As for a natural explanation, my first guess would be "insects." But what kinds of insects normally found in Illinois (or any place else in the US or Canada, for that matter) come three to four feet tall? Praying mantises and walking sticks don't.

But 30 walking sticks arranging themselves in rows around a bonfire would likely give me the willies too.
 
Also - there was the 'It Happened to Me' FT story set in a water plant in the 70's, whereby a black, featureless figure expanded its' arms towards the guy in the office.

Could these guys be linked to shadow people?
 
Oooh, that waterplant one was feckin scary. I was sleeping with me head under the covers for days after reading that one......
 
I find this thread very interesting and want to share

I find this thread very interesting and want to share an experience that happened to me about twenty-five years ago.

I was living in Monahans, Texas and my family and I were just returning from an evening church service. We were renting a small home on a corner lot with a detached garage.

We were just returning and I was carrying my son who was not yet a year old and as I approached the back door I could see through the bathroom window into the master bedroom. There was a lamp turned on inside on the bureau and as I looked in I saw a black silhouette turn around the corner and run into the bedroom.

Three things struck me at the same time. First was that we had an intruder, second was the fact that the intruder had absolutely no features. He was a black silhouette—like a shadow, except for the fact that when he ran in front of the lamp the light did not pass through him so he had substance, but no dimension—flat and totally black. Third, I instinctively new the intruder was masculine.

I immediately handed my son to my wife and went into the house searching for an intruder and found no one inside. There was no exit from the bedroom other than the window and my wife and other children remained outside while I went in and no one left the house.

I do want to add that we had been experiencing some other “odd” goings on in this house prior to and after this experience and moved not long after.

When I related this story to a lady friend several years later she exclaimed rather excitedly “the gingerbread man!” It seems she and her sister had seen a very similar being in another place, but that is her story to tell.
 
Re: Stick People in Illinois

I've jut re - read this thread, (one of my favourites), it's interesting how many people who see these things make the observation it was "male". No genitalia can be seen but a sense of them being male is felt.

Frank knew he was masculine. Andyssh on page 1 states "They both felt it was a man." The girls in the field see a man before seeing the things.

Why men only? Why no Black Stick women?

"I'm going to fight this" too!
 
I wonder if the solid black figures are products of our visual cortices interpreting the blind spots in our eyes as solid figures under certain conditions.....

:_pished: Maybe the white orbs are lady black stick men?
 
Re: Stick People in Illinois

Moooksta said:
Why men only? Why no Black Stick women?

Because women don't play the clarinet? ;)
 
Sounds more like a shadow man than a black stick man.
 
Re: Stick People in Illinois

OldTimeRadio said:
As the teen hosts began cleaning up after the party, they noticed that approximatrely THIRTY "stick people" had gathered around the still-burning fire. They were each between three and four feet tall and stood arranged in two rows of about 15 each.

Thirty of them should keep the fire burning for some time!
 
And beware buying books...It will suck you down into a vortex of 'mmmn, that's a curious fact, maybe I should read that book he's refering to' until you end up with a veritable LIBRARY of them and you STILL don't know a fraction of it all. Your friends then start to worry about your grip on reality. Which reality? you ask knowingly, tensing to spring into a discussion that only we, here, will find as fascinating as you, as your friends back away in consternation...

My God you've described my entire existence. Have we met - perhaps in another dimension - or at the uncon? :shock:
 
Can someone define a "black stickman" for me?

I thought they were the stick men I drew as a child, one line for a body, two for the arms, two for the legs and a circle for the head. Isn't that a stickman?

O
-i-
/\


A man shaped shadow, a black version of the red man that tells you not to cross, is a shadow man/person? The body is thick like a human torso, at least until it turns sideways, where it appears paper thin? That's a shadow being, yes?

Have I misinterpreted the title of the thread? How do you apply a scale? When does a stickman become a shadow person?

If it is the stick man of my childhood, the circle that makes the head, is that filled in? Or does it appear as a circle?
 
the way i read it, the stick man is literally that. A man seemingly made of stick limbs just as we drew as children. the head so far as i understand is also just a stick, like straight up from the 'shoulders' area. that is perhaps the scariest way I can think of it to be and so obviously is the most appealing.

If the fellows were paper thin then surely they would be in the 'paper thin man' catergory.

I think the cross over and confusion as to the nature of the creepies in this thread is people relating stories from similar places (the country side for example)
 
So there's two seperate entities reported. Shadow men/paper thin men I don't find disturbing...but Stick Men gives me the heebie jeebies!! Too weird for me!
 
no, hold on. there is no 'paper thin men' catagory.. that was me being flippant and so far as shadow beings go, they do appear in some creepy tales here abouts
 
milk23 said:
the way i read it, the stick man is literally that. A man seemingly made of stick limbs just as we drew as children. the head so far as i understand is also just a stick, like straight up from the 'shoulders' area. that is perhaps the scariest way I can think of it to be and so obviously is the most appealing.
I know of one story in which the stick man's head is described as a "big O". (See the second post by philothefourth on this page) It was also wearing a top hat!
 
milk23 said:
no, hold on. there is no 'paper thin men' catagory.. that was me being flippant and so far as shadow beings go, they do appear in some creepy tales here abouts

Shadow men/paper thin....whatever we wanna call 'em. I wasn't listing "paper thin men" as entities.

Shadow men and Stick men. That's the two I mean. These are two seperate entities from what I can gather from the posts. And as I said, for me, personally, the idea of shadowmen doesn't disturb me, or wouldn't if I saw one, but for some reason a stick man seems very, very wrong..

Shadow man coming toward me, no problem. Let's go check it out Scooby!

Stick man!!!!! Run and hide!

Personally.
 
Moooksta wrote:
Shadow men and Stick men. That's the two I mean. These are two seperate entities from what I can gather from the posts.

I agree, the two seem to have become confused on this thread. I thought "shadow figures" had a separate thread.

....and yes Stick men still scare me.
 
Re: Stickmen in mediums' autobiographies?

Orbyn~ said:
Despite the total lack of evidence I've managed to gather since posting this on another thread, I'm *positive* that either Betty Shine or Doris Stokes mentions, in her autobiography, seeing a stickman "made out of the landscape" more than once during her youth.

My memory of the actual description (and, indeed, source) is iffy a I read this in my early teens; my parents owned both books but it was definitely in one of them (I wasn't a big fan of clairvoyance -- ti was just a long boring summer and I had nothing to read..) and it made a lasting impression on me.

As far as I can remember, Doris (or Betty) is on a journey somewhere when she looks out of her window and sees a giant stick figure bounding along the landscape, keeping up with the car/train/whatever, and it appeared to make itself out of whatever bit of landscape it was passing at the time -- fields, trees, bridges, etc. :eek!!!!:

Doris/Betty (or "Boris", if you prefer) seemed to find this quite peaceful and reassuring, but I was deeply terrified, and soon gave up my habit of staring dreamily out of the window on long car journeys. Even now it gives me a bit of a chill if I think about it.

Brr.

I’ve been meaning to relay this personal story for some time now, but never really got around to it. It was the early 1960s. As a child of around 4 or 5 or so, I have a memory of seeing this exact same thing. I was on a drive with my family. We were poor and our only entertainment on Sundays was the Sunday afternoon drive. Gas at that time was much less expensive in those days and, in comparison with other entertainments like going to the movies or out to dinner, much easier on the wallet for my father to bear.

This particular afternoon, I remember not feeling well. Very tired and cranky, and not wanting to ride in the car. I looked out the window and saw the stickman running alongside, keeping pace with our car. He seemed to be made out of the trees and stone walls and buildings and meadows. I tried to point it out to my brother, but he said nothing was there and to not be stupid.

Suddenly the stickman ran toward the car, as though it were about to collide with our car. I remember feeling that weird sensation of “he’s going to get us!” When he hit the car, of course nothing really happened. A short while later down the road, the entire stickman episode happened again, and again the rest of my entire family totally discounted my comments.

Come to find out I had the flu and an accompanying 102 degree temperature and ended up sick for a few days.

All this time I have wondered if the experience was real, or was the entire episode made up of a young mind warped by fever. Did the fever along with my young mind somehow open a doorway into another reality? Was it a hallucination? Why would the hallucination be so similar as others who had seen and talked about? It all seems weirdly coincidental that what I saw was also seen by another, but who was not apparently sick.

Any thoughts?
 
Time-warp hover-bus

Digging this up from a long, long way back in the thread, so it's a bit off-topic, but anyway:

Chant~ said:
It's really annoying because I can't remember where I saw it but I once read that a woman thought she'd fallen into a time warp one day as she was walking along her street and everything went quiet until she saw a bus with no wheels - a hover bus if you will, modern-looking, full of passengers in strange dress- going down the road. The wierd part is that she said a couple of people looking out of the window looked disconcerted, and then increasingly horrified, by seeing her stood there as they passed and she could see pandemonium breaking out on the bus as it disappeared!

This sounds like John Wyndham's short story "Pawley's Peepholes" - except that there the hover-bus passengers were time-travelling tourists who were amused rather than horrified by their view of the past.
 
Tangent7 your story really does tally with the previous one. You wouldnt be able to give a very rough location of where this was would you?

I am going to see if I can chase down the other "Betty Shine or Doris Stokes" story and see if that gives a location as well.

Mr P
 
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