Thursday, February 5, 2009

Black Eyed Kids Are Back!


As predicted, Black Eyed Kids show signs of heating up as the new paranormal meme. And, of course, Oklahoma wants to get in on the mix. Jason Offutt of the blog "From the Shadows" speculates whether there is any truth to the tales or if the whole thing is an Internet Legend.

According to Offutt, the phenomenon (involving spooky Children-of-the-Cornesque kids with solid black eyes) arose in 1998 when journalist Brian Bethel first wrote about an encounter. Recently, Offutt received an e-mail from a reader (henceforth referred to as "Bill") who recounted his own encounter with these creepy kids while driving through Afton, OK.

Afton is a negligible settlement on the Will Rogers turnpike some miles northeast of Tulsa. It lies within the Spooksville Triangle, an area of paranormal activity most often connected to the mysterious noctilucent phenomenon known as Spook Lights. Bill had stopped through to catch up with old friends. While there, he noticed the family's new dog and inquired about its origins. Bill's friends responded with a queer and cryptic "the weird kids left her when they left town."

The couple proceeded to tell Bill about their strange encounter with a group of kids who drove an old but noiseless van and had knocked on their door one day. The group asked if they could come in, but the couple didn't feel right. Something was off. They later described the youths as "junkies" because, they said, "their pupils were huge". In fact, according to the Bill's friend, they were solid black voids.

After turning the kids away, they left in their van and a short time later, the dog was seen wandering about. The family saw no more of the mysterious kids with their pleas of entry and their strange black eyes.

The unsual thing about these stories - aside from the eyes, of course - is the fact that nothing sinister or untoward happens. People just state that something didn't feel "right". If, as many suspect, this is simply another paranormal zeitgeist, born from that altogether paranoid collective consciousness, then why has it now settled into the guise of children, forever the bastions of innocence and faith? Have we as a society become so distrustful and paranoid that we can't even look toward the young without suspicion and fear? What does this say about the world we now live in, and what does it bode for our future?

6 comments:

RRRGroup said...

C:

Those "gut feelings" by people visited by the black-eyes shouldn't be discounted.

Covert instinct has often been set aside by those conditioned to Christian charity toward others, much to their dismay.

Reports of bad things happening to people who open their doors to strangers are rife.

But I am intrigued by the change from "men in black" to kids with "black eyes" -- and not the kind one gets from a fight or encounter with a door.

RR

Cullan Hudson said...

The whole thing is rife with undeniable symbols and archetypes. In shadow people cases, MIB cases, and BEK cases, there is a strong thematic element of black, a color long associated with evil. The latter two cases frequently consist of individuals who don't seem to speak or act quite right, as if there was something alien about them. There is the implicit (and sometimes explicit) threat. There is always a sense of paranoia. However, with MIB cases, there always seems to be a clear mission, an understanding of what it is they want (or don't). These BEK cases seem to personify the social shorthands of a 21st century digital age: u don't need 2 explain n e thing. We can draw upon a wealth of shared ideographs (supplied by the film, TV, and the Internet) to fill in the blanks, and in doing so, the most fearful element of all - our imagination - finds purchase in the story's many gaps.

RRRGroup said...

C:

You're getting into some extreme Jungian material, updated for the 21st Century it seems.

The whole topic is fascinating though, isn't it?

RR

Cullan Hudson said...

undeniably fascinating - be it sociologically or paranormally. Yeah, I examined the heck out of it. In another life, I think I would be a psychologist - but not a therapist.

Cullan Hudson said...

Here are a few more thoughts from Mysterious Universe: http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2011/04/black-eyed-kids-insidious-threat-or-myth-in-the-making/

Boo Rhodes said...
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