Paranormal creatures come in all types, appearances and sizes. Today, however, I’m focusing on things that are seen time and time again and described as being hooded. There are more than a few of them. I’ll begin with what are probably the most well-known hooded things of the last two decades: the Black Eyed Children. I have numerous cases on file of these creepy kids. One such case, however, will suffice to make the point. Marie’s experience with the BEC occurred in 2012 – and in none other than Point Pleasant, West Virginia, which of course is where the Mothman phenomenon took off in 1966 and into 1967. In my Paranormal Parasites book I wrote that Marie “…worked irregular hours in her job. As a result, on a Saturday night, shortly after 11:00 p.m., she was stretched out on her couch, in front of the TV, after a ten-hour-long stint at work. She had got herself a pizza and a couple of cans of Coors Lite. All was good. For a while.

“Marie practically flew off the couch with fear as there was a loud knock on the front door of her second-floor apartment. She thought: who the hell could that be at this time of night? It was a very good question. Marie carefully crept silently to the door and looked through the spy-hole, her breathing already slightly labored. There were two boys, staring back at her, and both wearing black hoodies. She asked if they were okay. No reply. That wasn’t a good sign: Marie put the chain on the door and then opened it the couple of inches that the chain would allow. Two things immediately struck Marie – and filled her with fear: their skin was as white as a sheet of paper. One of them, in a monotone and blank fashion, demanded ‘food.’ Not surprisingly, Marie slammed the door, and ran to the furthest wall in the living room.”

Moving on: Flatwoods, West Virginia, is situated in Braxton County and is a town of less than three hundred people. It dates back to the latter part of the 19th century and makes for a pleasant visit. The landscape is wooded and hilly, and provides a captivating picture. For such a tiny town, though, Flatwoods has become famous: it was the location of one of the most legendary of all UFO encounters of the 1950s. September 12, 1952 was the night on which something bizarre, out of this world, and beastly paid Flatwoods a menacing visit that they have still never forgotten, decades on. There’s more, though: as is noted at The Mothman Wiki: “Kathleen May [who was one of the key witnesses to the monster] described it as green but others say it was a shiny metallic black that maybe reflected the green of the nearby bushes. It was dark and they only saw the creature for a few seconds by the view of a flashlight. The entity has been referred to as ‘The Green Monster.’ The witnesses described the monstrous form as having a red glowing, non-human round head and a large, circular pointed cowling appeared behind the head in the shape of the ace of spades. All of the witnesses agree on the hood-like shape.”

On the matter of definitively supernatural entities, there are these words from Stephen Wagner, who says: “Experiences with dark, hooded entities seems to be relatively common in the reports of ghost-like beings. Usually (but not always) they appear in the dead of night in the shadowed corners of a room. They can be intimidating, foreboding, and downright terrifying. Are they products of the deep recesses of our imaginations where fear and uncertainty lie? Archetypes of what we dread about the unknown? Or are they real entities from some twilight dimension with some nefarious agenda we cannot comprehend?” They are all important questions.

In the early 1930s, a cousin of Albert Bender (the man who, in almost single-handed fashion, started the Men in Black mystery) had repeated encounters in the dead of night with what can only be termed as a Woman in Black. On the fourth night of terrifying experiences, the boy was woken up by the horrific sight of a hooded, female form – dressed completely in black, and with sickly-looking skin. She slowly and silently glided across the room, right in the direction of the boy. The boy’s father jumped up, lit a candle, and firmly thrust it in the face of the WIB. Bender said: “They could see a pale, chalky-white face staring at them.” In an instant the terrifying hag screamed at both parents; her wild and hostile eyes flashing quickly from father to mother and back again. Suddenly, she was gone.

Throughout the summer and fall of 1997, the skies of south Devon, England were filled with UFOs, bizarre aerial vehicles, and mystifying lights. Strange creatures – including large black cats resembling mountain-lions, flying beasts that had the appearance of huge jellyfish, and ghostly black dogs with blazing, hate-filled eyes – provoked terror in those that encountered them. Unidentified robed and hooded figures were seen prowling around local, dark woods by moonlight, seemingly engaging in infernal, occult-driven rites and rituals. Animals were found dead, and hideously mutilated, under mysterious circumstances. The mystery was never solved. Are all of these hooded entities connected? Or, is it just a coincidence that so many supernatural things are seen with hoods? Is there something going on that we haven’t come to grips with? The answers remain elusive.

Note: all of the italics are mine.