The Man Under the Tree

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
​Many times the reason for a haunting remains unknown, and even the identity of the ghost is a mystery. Such is the ghost story reported in 1890 by an unwilling witness. 

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Paris, Texas
It happened on a Saturday evening as told by a well-known businessman of the city, via the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Several years ago I was living in a cottage in the outskirts of this city. The yard was very large and back of the house was a big apple-tree. One bright moonlight night I had been uptown and returned home about 9 o'clock. Before I got there I heard the yard-dog barking furiously. I found the women alarmed. They said that there was a man in the back yard. I looked out at the window and saw his figure clearly outlined under the tree. His body, arms and legs were in plain view but his head was hidden by the branches of the tree. He was in his shirt sleeves and had on dark pants.

I took my revolver and walked out. The dog would run around the tree, but would not go nearer than twenty feet of the spot where the man stood. I hailed him but he neither moved nor made answer. I walked slowly toward him with pistol presented, but he stood mute and motionless until I got to the very spot, when to my amazement there was nobody there. A breeze swayed the branches of the tree, but aside from this I neither saw nor heard any thing.

I said, "There is no one here." The woman said, "Yes there is. There is a man standing by you." I walked back to where they were standing and looked back. There stood the man as before. I then made a circuit around the tree, keeping my eye on the spot, but from every point the figure of the man was plainly visible. Three times I passed under the tree, but every time I walked under it the man disappeared. Every time I went to the spot he was not. Neither was he in the tree.

Meantime the dog kept up a continual barking, but nothing would induce him to go under the tree. I was at first puzzled. There was no object anywhere that would reflect such a shadow as that. Besides I had viewed it from so many points that I knew that it was no shadow. I became thoroughly alarmed, and the idea of a spook flash upon me.

On going in the house, the figure was still plainly visible from the window. The dog moaned to piteously that we took him in the house. He would go to the window and whine and growl until we closed the blinds and pulled down the curtains. The next day we moved from the place. I never solved the mystery, but I noticed that after that no tenant ever remained there long.

Time brought about great changes. The town grew and a street was opened up through the yard, and the house was moved away. I always kept my adventures to myself for fear of being laughed at. 

Could this sighting have been what in modern day parlance is a shadow man? Many persistent, negative hauntings involve Shadow People.

There is even a connection between ET abductee experiences, and the shape-shifting beings known as djinn mostly familiar to Middle Eastern cultures.

Based on the djinn folklore they can disguise themselves as a human or an animal but not entirely. There is even a theory that shadow people who are seen with hats or a cowl are hiding their non-human head. If you're close enough, and they are not disguised as a shadow person, their eyes will change to an odd (non-human) color or have a reptilian appearance.

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