Black-eyed children

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Artist's impression of a "black-eyed child".

As a Black-eyed children (in German "black-eyed children") are fictional humanoid called in the shape of children and / or young people who initially look like normal people ostensibly, but conspicuous by completely pitch-black eyes. Corresponding urban legends are particularly popular in the USA and England .

description

The myth tells of humanoids who look like children between the ages of 6 and 16. They should be dressed normally and use a precocious way of speaking. It is always said that they rang the doorbell at randomly chosen houses at night and asked the surprised house owner to let in. Most of the time they would use an easily understandable pretext: they would have to “make an urgent call” or “go to the toilet”. The victim, who is mostly alone at home, becomes suspicious at the latest when he notices the completely pitch-black eyes of the visit. Strangely pale skin color is also reported. When the homeowner tried to send the child / children away again, the latter would sometimes be intrusive: Despite polite language, they would refuse to leave and try in various, often rhetorical ways, to persuade the homeowner to let the children in after all or to keep them sheltered. After all, they left voluntarily and when the victim looked after them on the street, it would allegedly not infrequently see the children literally vanish into thin air before his eyes.

background

The "black-eyed children" is an urban legend that emerged in Staffordshire , England in the 1980s and was first discussed in the British magazine Birmingham Mail . In 1996 the first reports also appeared in the USA. There the legend seems to have started in the US states of Texas and Oregon . Around 1998, the American journalist Biran Bethel published several articles about alleged eyewitness accounts of encounters with "black-eyed children". The phenomenon eventually gained worldwide fame. In September 2014, the British magazine Daily Star reported several times about alleged encounters in Great Britain. The myth about the “black-eyed children” reminds skeptics and authors such as Robert B. Durham and Sharon A. Hill of comparable urban legends such as Slenderman and The Black Dog . So far there has been no scientific proof of the existence of “black-eyed children”.

literature

  • Ina Batzke, Eric C. Erbacher, Linda M. Heß, Corinna Lenhardt: Exploring the Fantastic: Genre, Ideology, and Popular Culture . transcript Verlag, Bielefeld 2018, ISBN 978-3-8394-4027-8 , pp. 252-254.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Aja Romano: The definitive guide to creepypasta — the Internet's scariest urban legends . Retrieved November 21, 2014.
  2. ↑ Patrick Smith: Black-Eyed Ghost Children . Internet article from October 3, 2014 on buzzfeed.com (English); last accessed on June 13, 2019.
  3. ^ Daily Star: getting into the Sunday Sport spirit? , The Guardian, Oct. 3, 2014
  4. ↑ Michael Freeman: Here's the actual story behind the 'black-eyed ghost children'. Daily Edge, October 2, 2014, accessed March 11, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Mike Lockley: Black Eyed Child returns to haunt Cannock Chase. New sighting of ghostly legend reported at Staffordshire beauty spot. In: Birmingham Mail . September 28, 2014, accessed May 13, 2020 .
  6. ^ Robert B. Durham: Modern Folklore . Lulu.com , Raleigh (North Carolina) 2015, ISBN 978-1-312-90969-4 , p. 62.