I just saw a shadow person! It was there and gone in a second, but I saw it out of the corner of my eye!
Do you think shadow people are real? Have you ever seen one? It often amazes me that a majority of paranormal investigators do not wear a POV camera. You won't catch any of the TV ghost hunters wearing one, but can you think of a better way to validate what your own eyes saw for an instant? How about using a 360-degree Go Pro type camera? While there is no definitive proof available at this time, there is another kind of shadow person in existence. It is real and not paranormal related. What am I talking about? The answer lies in a little history lesson going back to World War II.
The U.S. dropped two atomic bombs on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan. The Hiroshima bomb caused temperatures at ground level to reach 7,000 degrees Fahrenheit, vaporizing people up to a half mile from ground zero. The Nagasaki bomb caused temperatures at ground level at over 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit, again vaporizing people. But there was a curious effect also produced by the intense light and heat from these explosions.
As the light and heat from the explosions spread out, some people and objects actually absorbed the heat in effect shielding what was behind them. Shadow imprints were left on the stone and concrete surfaces. The explanation for this is that the surrounding light bleached the stone and concrete around the shadow of the person or object, making the unbleached area look like a dark shadow. The pictures accompanying this post are examples of such.
A well established belief by some in the paranormal community is that of residual hauntings. If you are not familiar with this term, it is when the alleged "energy" of a person suffering a traumatic event such as murder, sudden death, etc., is imprinted on the surroundings where it happened. Not to be confused with an "intelligent haunting," it is suggested the absorbed energy is metaphysically recorded and periodically gets released, replaying again at as of yet undetermined, timed intervals. They may take the form of footsteps, banging noises, voices, et. al.
If you are one to believe in residual hauntings, I would dare to suggest that perhaps these Hiroshima and Nagasaki spots would be a prime candidate for it. Has anyone tried investigating these spots, or is that not done out of respect for the deceased (something I personally believe in, among other things like not disrespecting the dead in a cemetery). You could also add the locations of roadside memorials to traffic accident victims to the list of places that should be respected and left alone.
Aside from violating all known laws of physics, shadow persons remain something elusive to empirical proof and cannot be ruled out as simply being cognitive bias related, with individuals creating their own subjective reality from their brief, visual perceptions.
I'll close this article with a selected few lines of lyrics from a very old song:
Me and my shadow
Like the wallpaper sticks to the wall
Like the seashore clings to the sea
Like you'll never get rid of your shadow
you'll never get rid of me
Me and my shadow
Let all the others fight and fuss
Whatever happens, we've got us.
Me and my shadow
We're closer than pages that stick in a book
We're closer than ripples that play in a brook
Wherever you find him, you'll find me, just look
- MoonJoey