49- Creatures Unraveled: The Black Eyed Children

Hatter dives deep into one of Alabama's most chilling modern legends: the Black Eyed Children. These seemingly ordinary kids, with their unsettling pitch-black eyes, appear unexpectedly, asking for help or permission to enter homes, leaving witnesses with an overwhelming sense of dread. We explore the origins of this eerie phenomenon, examine eyewitness accounts, and discuss the psychological implications behind these encounters.

(00:00) Intro

(02:52) The black eyed children phenomenon was born during the infancy of the Internet

(06:52) Black eyed children's terrifying description

(14:21) Inside of Brian Bethel's encounter

(15:26) Psychology, subtle social cues, and unconscious danger detection

(20:02) Bethel's story hits the internet

(26:18) Several other encounter reports

(35:04) What happens if you let them in?

Join our Patreon for exclusive content! https://www.patreon.com/cw/InvestigationPodcast

Works Cited

Bethel, Brian. Black-Eyed Kids FAQ. Archived writings and follow-up commentary on the Black-Eyed Children phenomenon, 2013.

Burke, Brigid. "Black-Eyed Kids and the Child Archetype." The Cultural Construction of Monstrous Children: Essays on Anomalous Children from 1595 to the Present Day, edited by Simon Bacon and Leo Ruickbie, Anthem Press, 2020, pp. 205–216.

de Becker, Gavin. The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence. Dell Publishing, 1997.

LeDoux, Joseph. The Emotional Brain: The Mysterious Underpinnings of Emotional Life. Simon & Schuster, 1996.

Loftus, Elizabeth F. Eyewitness Testimony. Harvard University Press, 1996.

Mori, Masahiro. "The Uncanny Valley." Energy, vol. 7, no. 4, 1970, pp. 33–35.

Monstrum. "Don't Let Them In! The Urban Legends of Black-Eyed Children." PBS Digital Studios, hosted by Emily Zarka, 2021.

Nickell, Joe. The Science of Ghosts: Searching for Spirits of the Dead. Prometheus Books, 2012.

Weatherly, David. Black Eyed Children: Revised Second Edition. Leprechaun Press, 2017.

Alabama Folklore Sources

Cline, Erin. The Big Book of Alabama Ghost Stories. Stackpole Books, 2010.

McWhorter, Jake, and Victoria H. Jackson. Alabama Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities & Other Offbeat Stuff. Globe Pequot Press, 2018.

Urban Legends and Folklore

Brunvand, Jan Harold. The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends and Their Meanings. W. W. Norton, 1981.

Brunvand, Jan Harold. Encyclopedia of Urban Legends. ABC-CLIO, 2001.

Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press, 1949.

Psychology and Human Perception

Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.

Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. Little, Brown and Company, 2005.

Historical Research Methods

"Historical Research." History Detectives, PBS.

Folklore Resources

University of Southern California. "Black-Eyed Children." USC Digital Folklore Archives. USC Digital Folklore Archives