He was just 6 years old when Julian was awoken by a scream. A scream that at the time he had no idea would have a profound impact on the rest of his life. In the middle of the night, he slowly walked down the steps of his family home until reaching the living room where he found his father. Sat in the armchair. He looked terrified. Julian had never seen his father like this. He was instantly worried. Next to his dad, his mom was consoling him. The pair looked up at Julian and told him not to worry.
Everything was fine. His dad had just had a nightmare. Reluctantly, Julian was sent back to his bed, and he took himself back up the stairs slowly. He didn't hear the words his dad said to his mother as he left. He wouldn't know what he had said until years later. But his father had turned to his mother and said, "It appeared right in front of me. It screamed in my face. Then it was just gone." Julian never heard the scream again, but he did hear his dad downstairs often late at night, pacing up and down in
the living room, unable to sleep. Something was bothering him, something that the young boy couldn't understand. This continued for months until one day Julian's father would pace no more. There was a tragic accident. He was dead. Julian didn't know it, but a chain of events had been set in motion that night. For the next two decades, Julian would never know what it was like to be truly alone. It was there with them. Maybe it had always been there, but now it wanted to make itself known. Good evening. This wasn't the episode I had initially planned
to kick off 2026, but over the Christmas break, I was catching up on some TV and I sat down to watch the Uncanny TV series that was Broadcast in early 2025. For those who don't know, Uncanny is a hugely successful paranormal podcast from Danny Robbins that is produced by the BBC. While I know Uncanny has a decent following outside of the UK, the podcast has been turned into a TV series over here that I'm not sure is easily available globally. I got into episode 3 of season 2, which tells Julian's story, the story I want
to talk about tonight, and I was completely captivated. It was terrifying, different, but there was something about it that really got to me. I couldn't quite place it straight away. But I realized it really reminded me of a case I covered on the tape library back in early 2024. And once I made that connection, I couldn't get it out of my head. Julian's full story, as told by [music] Uncanny, is a little spread out. Elements of the story come to light after the initial episode was broadcasted, and there are Additional shows. So, if you want
to hear every detail, you'll need to watch the TV show episode, the episode that comes after for the updates. Then there is a televised and an audio only post show, both of which fill out even more elements of the story. I wanted to try and share Julian's story in a slightly more linear fashion. Some of the timeline is also a little confusing when pieced together from these short interview clips, but I've tried my best To get the narrative straight. This episode will be broken up into the following sections. First, we will be piecing together the
entirety of Julian's story as featured on Uncanny. Then, we will look at the case I was sent a couple of years ago and look at the similarities before finally we get into the broader ideas of the shadow man phenomena and looking at possible explanations of what could have happened here. If this story interests you, I Strongly recommend checking out the episode of Uncanny. While I want to try and present the story in a more straightforward fashion here for the archives, I think hearing about the experiences directly from witnesses [music] adds a lot of weight to
these events. So, please do try and check out both if you can. Just one last thing before we begin. I asked this in a post a couple of weeks ago, but I'm putting together plans for the rest of the year. So, if there are any paranormal cases you really want to see me cover, please drop me a comment below and tell me what ones. [music] And if you can click like on any suggestions you see that you also want to hear, the most popular ones will rise to the top and make it more likely I
won't miss them. With that out of the way, it's time to get yourself a warm drink, dim the lights, and get comfortable. This one is legitimately terrifying. This is the dark case of the Croftton shadow man. Welcome to the tape library. Julian was a happy child living in the small village of Croftton just outside of Wakefield in West Yorkshire. While there was clearly something going on with his father, Julian was young and mostly unaware of that fact. But that all changed when he was 7 years old. The exact details of what happened were understandably kept
private, but a Tragic accident happened. Julian's father fell and hit his head in the home. The ambulance came, the police came, but nothing could be done. He was dead. Julian's mother, distraught, took her son and headed to stay with her parents. Julian's grandparents had a bed set up in the loft space where he and his mother could stay as long as they needed to. But that first night would be etched into Julian's memory for a different Reason than just the grief they were both feeling. Julian was laying there in bed, his mother to his side,
fast asleep. But Julian understandably couldn't sleep. The last 12 hours had been chaotic for this poor child. and he lay there in the darkness trying to make sense of it all when suddenly something caught his attention. Julian slowly turned to his other side away from his mother and towards the Window. That was when he would see it for the first time. The thing that would haunt him for years to come. He was sure it was there. A man but impossibly tall. back lit by the street lights outside. He was standing there by the window, looking
down at Julian and his mother. Julian estimated that he was around 7 ft tall and dressed in all black clothes. Julian, frozen in fear, looked at the figure with intensity, But then he began to question if he was wearing clothes at all. It was so dark, blacker than black, like a shadow, but solid. Finally, the paralysis gave way to sheer panic, and Julian began to scream. His mother shot up in bed, but rather than trying to comfort her son. She began to scream, too. That was the moment that Julian knew this thing was really there.
There really was a man in the room. She Could see it, too. Julian's mother picked him up and ran out of the room. But when her parents came up to look, there was no sign of anything wrong. There couldn't have been anyone else in that room with them. This incident was easy enough to brush off as a nightmare. Both Julian and his mother had been through a truly traumatic experience that day and was sleeping alone in an unfamiliar place. The boy simply saw a shadow of something in the room and Scared himself. His mom, also
in a dark mental state and sharply pulled out of sleep, instinctively reacted to the cries of her child. Maybe she didn't really see anything. It all happened so fast. Years passed and this memory faded into the background for Julian. By the late '9s, he was a teenager, still living in Croftton with his mother in the same house. As a teenager, there wasn't much to do in Croftton. Julian And his friends would mostly just spend their free time wandering about and that's exactly what they were doing on this particular evening. He was with a handful of
his friends and they were walking through the graveyard. When one of them, Martin, was suddenly startled, Martin pointed and said, "Who's that?" Initially, the others just assumed he was messing with them, just trying to spook them as they walked through the graveyard. But sure enough, when they looked, there was someone there. Someone was watching them. Stood just 20 odd feet away up an incined dirt path. Someone was standing next to a tree, but they all knew something was off about this person. To start with, it was like they couldn't make out any features of them.
What's more, they seemed very tall. Julian froze. the hairs on the back of his neck standing up on end. Instantaneously, he was Transported back to that room in the loft all those years ago. He was sure of it. This was the thing he had seen that night. His friends were creeped out, but none of them knew the relevance to Julian of seeing this figure. Before they could decide if they should approach or run away, they looked back at the tree and the figure was gone. Again, it feels easy to pass off in some ways. It
was dark. It could have just been Someone else in the graveyard. But Julian couldn't shake the similarities of what they had seen. It looked just like what he remembered seeing that night. But memories are fragile things. Maybe he was just freaking himself out. Julian kept it all to himself for the moment at least and didn't tell his friends. Sometime after this, one of Julian's friends parents were going out for the Night, meaning the teenagers had somewhere to hang out that wasn't just the streets of Croftton. The group were hanging out in the back bedroom of
his friend's bungalow, playing the guitar and just generally chatting. There was nothing odd about this evening. It was just like any other. At some point, they decided to relocate to the living room and they all walked into the darkened space. When instantly they all froze, there was Someone in the room sat in the armchair in the corner. They instantly all noticed the man's shadow just sitting there in silence. They all jumped. Julian's mind instantly panicked that it was his friend's dad home early and that they were all in trouble. But something about the figure troubled
him. It looked dark. Unnaturally dark. He didn't have long to process this though. As his friend flicked on the light switch, everyone Went silent. The chair was empty. This was just the start. Julian began to spot the shadowy figure in different places around the village, normally only catching a quick glimpse of it before it would vanish again. But it wasn't just him. His friends were noticing it, too. Not always the same group. Different people would report seeing it. There was seemingly no pattern. It would appear in different places at different times of the day and
Night. This same dark silhouette of a very, very tall man. They all quickly began referring to it as the shadow man, debating what it could be. But Julian was keeping tight lipped about his previous experiences and concerns. Julian was the one constant. He always seemed to be there when someone caught a glimpse of it. There was one occasion when Julian was with two of his friends at school, a boy named Stuart and another who has not Been named when Stuart looked at Julian and noticed it. Just a little further down the hall behind Julian, Stuart
was shocked, asking what on earth it was, this strange shadow behind his friend. But strangely on this occurrence, when Julian turned around, he couldn't see it. He tried his hardest not to let on that he knew exactly what Stuart had seen. Although to jump forward a little, it was revealed years later that it Wasn't only strictly when Julian was present that this entity was spotted. We talk about some of these other sightings in more detail later, but I just wanted to highlight another that happened at the school. After the initial episode of Uncanny was broadcast
last year, one of Julian's childhood friends, Andy, got in touch with the show. He and Julian were close when they were young children, but drifted apart as they got older and now haven't seen Each other for around 30 years. Andy had played with Julian when they were kids, so wasn't around when all the regular sightings of the shadow man began. In fact, he claims that seeing the show was the first time he had heard about all of this. But as he was watching, it unlocked a memory from his own childhood. He had seen the shadow
man, too. Round the back of their junior school, Andy had been walking along a gravel footpath That led towards some trees. He said that he and his friends looked up to spot a figure standing just to the side of the path by the trees. He remembers it as being a tall, dark silhouette. Despite being daytime, it was like it was completely shrouded in darkness. He remembers seeing the general features of a human being, arms, legs, and head. But it had no detail, just pure black. It was there for just a few moments and Then it
suddenly vanished. It was a creepy moment, but Andy said he just put it to the back of his mind until hearing Julian's story all those years later. It was Stuart who started piecing together that Julian seemed to be the common denominator in these sightings. The group had been constantly sharing theories, and Julian was beginning to reveal small details of what he was seeing to his close friends. One afternoon, Stuart got his first real Good glimpse of it, as it appeared on one of the villages streets as they walked past. It was exactly the same as
the thing that he had seen behind Julian in the school, stood totally still, a solid black figure. But in the daylight, he could see this was no shadow. It was real. It was three-dimensional. But once again, its appearance only lasted a brief moment. Stuart had gone back to Julian's house with him. At one point, Julian nipped upstairs to get something From his room, and Stuart, clearly concerned for his friend and genuinely quite scared by this point, decided to tell Julian's mother about what had been going on. The pair spoke about the sightings, a fact that
Stuart and Julian's mother kept from him. In fact, he didn't know about this conversation until Stuart's interview on the uncanny episode. Interestingly, Julian's mother had her own theory. When Stuart explained how it stood and the slightly odd movements that some of his friends had reported seeing on some occasions, she believed it sounded exactly like the posture of Julian's father. Had he returned to watch over his son? or was Julian's mother trying to convince herself that whatever this presence was was a positive entity because she knew at least deep down more than she was Letting on.
One night, Julian was in his room. His friends were there again spending another night together, chatting and listening to music. Julian was sat on his bed close to the window when he heard something like a stone hitting his window. He paused. Then he heard it again. Julian sat up and pulled apart the blinds, expecting to see another one of his friends asking to be let in. But he didn't. Instead, he Saw standing at the bottom of his garden that same tall, dark figure. Despite its lack of features, Julian could tell it was looking at him.
It knew Julian was there. It wanted his attention. His friends quickly began to gather around the window. When the figure did something unusual, it ran. It ran to its right through the wall that separated the garden and down the driveway before disappearing from View. The group rushed outside and searched the perimeter of the property, but there was no sign of it. Most of the other sightings had been in random places at random times. This felt much more targeted. What's more, it filled in something about this figure. It wasn't just vanishing. It was running away when
spotted, and it could move fast. Could this mean it was just a Person? It didn't make sense with its appearance, but the run made it feel more tangible, like this could be someone playing a prank or even stalking the teenagers. But after this incident in the garden, things began to happen in Julian's house. It started slow, as these things often do. Items would go missing and reappear in different places. The kitchen radio would turn itself on at random times Despite there not being any batteries in it. Julian said at times it would feel like the
atmosphere in the home would change. He would be overcome with the strong sensation that there was something else in the room with him. But it wasn't just the feeling of being watched. Julian made it sound very much like his fight or flight would kick in. Whatever was there felt like it was about to attack him. at any moment. This would be most commonly felt in the living room. And it was the living room that Julian began to notice a strange recurring event. In the corner of the living room by the door that led to the
garden was an antique Victorian cabinet. It had never done it before, but in the last few weeks, it would seemingly open by itself. It had a key that you could use to lock it. But no matter how many times he would lock it, the door would be found open. At night, on occasion, Julian claimed chillingly that he would actually hear the sound of the key turning before it slowly swung open. It went so far that he even attempted to seal it shut, lining the inside with Blu-Tack and the outside with masking tape. But that didn't
seem to work either. Normally, he would find it open in the mornings when he got up, but a few nights when he stayed up late, he began to actually see it happening. And after a few times of witnessing it, he began to realize it was happening at the same time each night, 2:11 a.m. on the dot. Some of Julian's friends were growing concerned when he began to talk about ornaments moving on their own in this home. But still, Julian was not being fully open about what he was experiencing with everyone. Then, as the '90s came
to an end, and Julian entered adulthood, His story took another dark turn, Julian's mother was diagnosed with cancer. Over the years, she became sicker and sicker until by 2002, she was forced to move to a hospice. Julian, now 23, was distraught. His dad's sister, Blanch, lived in New York. But as they got the news that Julian's mother didn't have long left to live, she hopped on a plane and flew over to be with her and Julian. It was February 7th when he was told this would be the final stage of his mother's illness. They would
now just be managing her pain and she likely would not be conscious again. Luckily, Blanch arrived in time. She greeted Julian and then took her bags upstairs. The hospice had a room on the top floor where guests could stay temporarily, but it wasn't long before Blanch was Back downstairs. She looked pale and visibly shaken. The nurses and Julian looked at the elderly woman who initially just said she didn't want to stay in the room. She didn't like it [music] and that she would check herself into a hotel instead. Julian was rather annoyed. He didn't need
this drama on top of everything else. But then Blanch dragged [music] him to one side and said quietly that she couldn't go back into that Room. She got a really weird feeling when she was in there, and she was sure the shadows in the room seemed to be moving. Julian didn't make the connection right away. There was too much going on, too much on his mind. The taxi arrived to take his aunt to her hotel, but she refused to go back upstairs to get her bags. Julian still thought she was just being difficult, so volunteered
to go up and get them for her. At this point, he just wanted some Quiet to process what was going on. Julian rushed up the stairs through the darkened corridor and into the room that Blanch was supposed to be staying in. As soon as he stepped over the threshold, it hit him. Something was off, like he shouldn't be there. A similar feeling to what he had been experiencing in the house. Julian grabbed the bags and quickly Rushed out of the room back down the wooden steps. As he took the first few steps, he was suddenly
hit with the sensation that there was someone behind him. Julian turned to look. The top of the stairs into the corridor were dark, lit only by a few dim emergency lights, but he couldn't see anyone there. Still, he wanted to get away from here as quickly as possible. So, he broke into a light run as he headed down the Stairs. As soon as he started moving faster, the feeling transformed from not just feeling like someone was there, but that he was being chased. His heart was racing. The hairs on the back of his neck were
standing on end. His body was responding to a danger that seemingly wasn't there. or so he thought. As he reached the bottom of the stairs and was halfway down the hall, he turned back again. There he saw it. Walking Down the stairs slowly, one step at a time, the shadow. Julian came crashing through the doors that led to the reception area where his aunt and the nurses were waiting. He didn't explain. He just got his aunt into the taxi. and let her leave. Julian sat with his mother until around 1:00 a.m. that night, just listening
to her labored, wheezy breathing. The events in the upstairs room mixed with the inevitable of what was about to happen To his last remaining parent was all getting too much for him. He decided he needed a break. So, he drove to the nearby supermarket and sat in his car for a bit reading a magazine. He returned around 2:15 a.m. and rang the buzzer to be let back into the hospital, but no one answered. Julian was shivering on this cold Yorkshire night and kept ringing, but still no one came. Eventually, he was let in. And as
soon as he saw the nurse, He understood why they had taken so long to answer the door. His mother had passed away while he was gone. Just minutes before he had arrived, the official time of death was recorded as 2:11 a.m. We have to wonder if at that moment back in Julian's house, if the cabinet door was creaking open once again, Julian was forced to go back to his family home, now completely alone for The first time ever. Instantly, he said it felt oppressive, [music] even darker somehow than before. He was used to these sensations,
but before they would happen at random intervals. This was now a permanent fixture of the atmosphere of the house. It was like whatever was in the home now had full control. His senses felt overloaded, constantly feeling like he was about to Be attacked, despite the fact that up until now, the entity hadn't physically harmed him in any way. It would be easy to dismiss this if you look at it on its own merits as simply a manifestation of grief and depression. And certainly, a lot of people close to Julian felt this was the case at
the time. In fact, they were growing increasingly worried about his mental health. But Julian talking today in his interviews On Uncanny as a now music teacher in his mid-40s says that he doesn't believe that was the case. He said by this point he had lost his dad, both his grandparents, and a few close friends. He was used to the feelings of grief, almost numb to it. This wasn't grief. This was something else. The shadowman's sightings had to be something. Other people had seen it. But the events taking place in Julian's home Were much more personal.
Any time he tried to talk to people about it, he would get the familiar look of compassion, the face of a friend worried that he was losing his mind. Many of them had brushed the shadowman sightings of their teens off as mistaken memories of just something they all used to scare each other with. But it wouldn't be long until people started to believe that something was still really happening to Julian. The night before his mother's funeral, Julian had one of his female friends come to stay. She wanted to keep an eye on him that night
as there had been murmurss about his state of mind. She was also really close with Julian's mother. Julian was sleeping upstairs in his room while his friend had taken the sofa down in the living room. In the middle of the night, she came in and woke him up. She didn't really explain why, But she just said that she couldn't sleep downstairs on her own. Julian gestured for her to get into bed with him. Then the sound started. At first, he thought she was snoring. She must have been exhausted. She had fallen asleep almost instantly. But
then she nudged him inside and asked, "What's that sound?" It was like breathing. Whezzy breathing. And it seemed to be originating from the gap on the pillows Between their heads. Julian's blood ran cold when he realized the sound was familiar to him. It was the same way his mother had been breathing the night she died. This was when everything began to spiral. For the next few months, Julian was tormented practically daily by whatever was in their home. He saw the shadow man for the first time in a while shortly after the funeral. He was sitting
alone in his kitchen when he suddenly heard a sound coming from the stairs. He turned to his left and he caught a glimpse of it. Walking up the stairs, loud, heavy footsteps as it moved, as though it wanted him to be aware it was there. Julian was so scared he felt like it couldn't move. As far as I'm aware, this was the first time he had actually seen the shadow in his home. Even if he had felt its presence before, Julian, still sitting in his seat, listened carefully. From above, he could hear it shuffling down
the upstairs hall until it reached his mother's bedroom. Then it entered, the footsteps creating a clear path in his mind, of its journey around the bed to where her wardrobe was. Then it paused. A few moments of silence before the footsteps started up again, but this Time they just seemed to be pacing back and forth in his mom's room until eventually it just went silent. From that point on, Julian was too scared to go upstairs to his bedroom. He began sleeping on the sofa, but he couldn't do it at night. At night, he would stay
up vigilant. At night, he would stay up and see the cabinet creek open at 2:11 a.m. At night, he would be too scared to rest. But as the sun rose, he would pull the duvet over himself on the sofa and try his hardest to get some sleep. But even during the day, he was now scared to go upstairs. Despite most of the activity taking place in the living room, he said every time he went to the bottom of the stairs, it was like he could feel it was there standing at the top of the stairs,
looking down at him, as though it were Daring him to come up. Even though he couldn't see it, he knew it was there. Every now and then he would hear the floorboards creaking upstairs as though it were trying to remind him it was still there. A few nights later, Julian was laying on the sofa. He was feeling warm, so he threw his duvet off the sofa onto the armchair next to him. The second the duvet hit the chair, the sound began. That same wheezy, throaty breath, the Breathing that reminded him so much of his mother's
final breaths. It was so loud, so real. He panicked and ran out of the house, climbing into the back seat of his car. He had no idea what he was doing, where he could go, but he sat there trying to compose himself when suddenly it appeared right in front of him. sitting on the back seat with him. The shadow figure just appeared from nowhere in the blink of an eye. It exhaled one Long wheezy breath right into Julian's face. A breath that he felt on his skin, and then as quickly as it had appeared, it
was gone. This breathing would become a common occurrence in the house from this point onwards with Julian estimating that he heard it hundreds of times. One night it got so bad that Julian left the house in the middle of the night [music] and got back in his car. But this time he started to drive. For some Reason he just started driving in the direction of Scarra. He didn't know anyone there. It just felt like a place far enough away from the house. a place that he could think. After a couple of hours, Julian finally calmed
down, turned the car around, and got back to his house around 5:00 a.m. When he got there, he was surprised to find two police officers standing outside [music] his house, demanding to know where he had been and what was Going on. As I've already said, Julian's friends were growing increasingly worried about him, [music] and one had tried to call him that night, but obviously got no answer. They went round to the house to find all the lights on, but with no one answering the door, they decided to call the police. The police had entered for
a door that Julian hadn't locked and of course found nothing wrong, but waited around in the hope of talking to Julian to make sure Everything was okay. Julian asked them why they hadn't waited inside. To which the police sergeant that was there, responded that they felt like something was wrong with his house. They didn't like being in there. The fact that made Julian not afraid, but thankful. It was another sign this wasn't all in his head. Other people were feeling it, too. Julian's close friend Martin was very skeptical about all this. Despite being One of
the people to see the shadow man in the graveyard, he thought at the time there was a logical explanation for all of this. And to this day, he still has that viewpoint. Although he couldn't tell you what that explanation could be, but he was very worried about his friend. He thought Julian was having a breakdown and he offered to come and stay with him. One night, Julian was telling Martin about what was going on, how objects kept moving in the house, But was very hesitant to reveal the exact details of what had happened, especially about
the shadow man and the breathing. Julian was agitated and visibly anxious, but Martin hoped having him there would calm him down. The two men fell asleep in the armchairs in the living room that night. Seemingly Martin's presence had relaxed Julia enough to actually fall asleep. But it would be Martin who was the one jolted awake. He said he was awoken by some sort of breathing, but not just a sound. He felt it on his face, as though someone just let out a big sigh right in front of him. Martin's eyes quickly flicked open and he
jolted backwards in the seat, but there was no one there. Julian was still asleep in the armchair on the other side of the room. While he might argue that he is still skeptical about the whole thing, the incident Scared Martin enough that he woke Julian up and suggested they go and stay at his house instead. Julian hit his true breaking point just a few nights later. Again, he was laying on the sofa late one night when the now familiar sound of the cabinet door creaking open was heard. Then seconds later, the breathing began. Julian didn't
look around. He just laid on his back and kept staring up at the ceiling. He couldn't face it. Not again. He was broken. He made a plan in his head. He would jump out, run out of the house to the phone box, and call 999. He didn't know what he expected the police to do. He just needed someone to help him. But as he finally plucked up the courage to move, he said it was like something struck him. Whatever it was had hit him so hard that it knocked the wind out of him. He had
long had a constant fear that the Entity would attack him. And seemingly it finally had a demonstration of its power. Then he heard a loud noise screeching across the room. Julian jumped up off the floor onto the sofa, glanced around the room. The armchair that had been there next to the back door had been pulled across the [music] room and placed in front of the TV. But there was something else. Something on the chair now. It was the family photo albums. They had all been placed on the edge of the chair, stacked on top of
each other, but it wasn't possible. His mom kept those in her room. They were in her wardrobe. He hadn't touched them since she had passed. That was when he glanced up to the clock. 11 minutes past two. It wasn't as though Julian hadn't tried to reach out for help from anyone, though. Julian wasn't religious, but he did know a priest. In fact, it was the Priest who had overseen his mother's funeral. Just 2 weeks after she had died, Julian had got in touch with the priest asking for help. But as so many others seem to
believe, the priest thought Julian was just suffering the weight of grief. He tried to give the young man guidance, but he wasn't taking the claims of a haunted house all that seriously. But Julian ended up contacting the priest over and over. And while he might not be A believer, in his mind, this was a priest's job. Who else could deal with something like this? Eventually, the priest did come to the house. He asked Julian to wait in the garden and the priest walked around the house blessing each room. By this point, Julian's friends had been
trying to look after him each night, taking it in turns to come round in the evening, lock up the house before Julian would then come and stay with one of Them. This time it was Martin's turn. The pair checked the house over, shut all the [music] windows up, and left around 10:30 p.m. to stay at Martins's. They returned the following morning around 9:00 a.m. As soon as they did, they knew something was wrong. There was something smeared across all the walls of the downstairs rooms, up towards the stairs, and then [music] up them, too. At
first, it looked like a series of brown squiggly Horizontal lines. It was only when they got closer they began to think that it looked an awful lot, like blood. It was wet, dripping down the walls, but starting to congeal in places. Martin said in a later interview, "It almost looked like someone had cut themselves [music] and was dragging the cut across all the walls." Not long after this, Julian was sitting on the stairs one afternoon. He was ruined. He felt helpless with his Face buried in his hands as he debated what to do [music] when
a letter came through his letter box. A letter he still has to this day. It seemed his story had become subject of gossip in the local area. He looked out of the window and saw an older woman with long white hair and thick sunglasses walking away. Julian read the note and it said, "Hello, Julian. Mary only needs to come round for half an hour to discover who or what is causing the problems and why And then pass them on to the spirit world. Please contact either one of us. Don't let this get worse when it's
so simple [music] to put right from Mary and Helen." Just a few short days later, they came to [music] the house. Mary apparently walked straight in through the front door without saying a word to Julian. She immediately made a beline to the living room. Her attention purely focused on the corner of the room where the cabinet sat on one side of the doors And the armchair on the other. Finally, Mary spoke. She said to Julian, "That's where he is. He's really tall. He stands in the corner all day watching you. He's watching you right now.
But then Mary's head shot to the left. She told Julian he was running, that he had run upstairs, that it knew why she was there. She also told Julian that it had been in the family for a long time, A detail that Julian wouldn't truly understand. until years later. Much like the priest, she asked Julian to wait in the garden, and whatever Mary did while she was in the house seemed to have some effect. Julian said when he reentered the house, it felt lighter for the first time in a long time, but it didn't last.
While the activity wasn't the same as it had been, things were still happening in The home. Julian was still not alone. He finally decided that he had no choice. In October of 2002, just 8 months after his mother had died, Julian sold the house and moved [music] away from Croftton, keen to put all of this behind him. And for over 20 years, that's exactly what he did. Julian had become aware of the show uncanny at some point and did decide to submit his case to them, but he said he Never expected to hear back from
the show. That he mostly just did it as a form of closure for himself, a chance to finally write down everything he went through, a story he had never told all the details of to anyone before. But the show did get in touch and presented Julian's case to the public. As part of that episode, presenter Danny Robbins was able to get in contact with the new owners of the home and set up a meeting with them for Julian. The new owner didn't wish to be identified. But in their conversation with Julian, they confirmed that they
too had experienced [music] things in the house that they couldn't explain. But seemingly it had manifested itself in a very different way. Whereas Julian's experiences had been dark and troubling. This family's experiences had felt more like an odd curiosity. They say it's a happy home that is full of light and joy. Seemingly the darkness is Gone. But it hadn't followed Julian either. Julian hadn't experienced anything strange since leaving the house. So, what happened to it? Did Mary's ritual work? Was there more than one presence in the home? In the follow-up episode, Danny Robbins talks about
a number of emails he had received. One was from Julian's childhood friend [music] claiming he had seen it at the school. But the other two Responses he featured were very interesting. One was a seemingly much more recent report of someone walking past the graveyard in Croftton and seeing a tall shadowy figure standing there. Then there were the claims of a woman named Lauren who also grew up in Croftton. She was younger than Julian but was around 13 years old when he was having the bulk of his experiences. She said that she had started seeing Something
around this time in her back garden. a sort of figure of a man, but it was always just brief glimpses before it would vanish. But one night when she was laying in bed, she heard the sound of shuffling footsteps on the gravel path outside. She peaked through her curtains and there she saw it. 7t tall, entirely jet black, no features. Yet somehow she was filled with that same feeling that it knew she Was there and it was watching her. Then it was just gone, but it came back. Another night she was asleep when she was
awoken by a sound in her room. She opened her eyes and saw it instantly standing at the bottom of her bed. This wasn't a one-off occurrence either. It reappeared in her room on multiple nights for weeks before suddenly at some point just disappearing. She estimated that this happened Sometime around the year 2001 or 2002. Had the shadowman decided to leave her alone in favor of Julian or had its disappearance matched up with the timing of the ritual? Unfortunately, that is something we don't know for sure. What is interesting though is that the address of Julian's
house has obviously been left out of the show. Lauren claims to have never met Julian or his family and was unaware of their experiences until She saw the show. But Robins reveals to her they have both lived on the same street at that time. There is one final revelation in this story that is strangely not included in the main show retelling of the uncanny story. After finally opening up fully to his friends and family about his experiences, [music] Julian began speaking to one of his dad's relatives about what had happened. And they revealed something odd
about his father. Apparently, in his younger years, he would often have several drinks in the evening and begin playing around with a Ouija board, a popular pastime for those into the strange and the unexplained, of course. But this relative said that it became more serious over time, that he grew increasingly interested in the occult and would mess around with rituals that he would read about. Apparently, one night Julian's father Had burst into the local Catholic church, terrified, rambling that he had done something and that he needed help. But this relative didn't seem to have the
full story on what exactly he was referring to. This showed an entirely new side of Julian's father to him. He had no idea he had even a passing interest in stuff like this. It clearly wasn't something he carried on with after his youth, but This detail made Julian second guess some things. That night, his father had woken them all screaming, saying something had appeared to him. The night leading up to his death, where he would hear him pacing around the house. The comments Mary had made about the entity being in the family for a long
time. Julian became convinced that the shadow man had latched on to his father for some reason. That despite her not talking About it, that maybe it had latched onto his mother after his father's death. And then when she died, its full attention was now on him. Maybe all those other people who claimed to spot it were lucky. people it decided to take an interest in, but for one reason or another didn't latch on to. Maybe if you see a dark, shadowy figure in the corner of your eye, it's best not to look back. Maybe there
are certain things we shouldn't pay Attention to. There are a few news reports on this story and writeups online, but as far as I can tell, they don't offer any additional information beyond what is featured in the show and the various follow-ups. Generally, I don't like to cover something like this in those cases. [music] I find that televised retellings of paranormal cases are often not a great representation of the individual Stories due to the edits made. This isn't necessarily a malicious or deliberately deceiving tool, but at the end of the day, they are not supposed
to be serious paranormal investigations. They are supposed to be entertainment. So, edits are made that make the story flow better or make the story more well-rounded. I think that is less likely the case here, but it's always a concern I have when using paranormal shows as a source due to the segmented Nature of the interview clips. So, why did I effectively want to recap this episode of Uncanny here on the tape library? Well, number one, I just thought it was a really creepy story, but as soon as I heard it, my mind went back to
another case I had featured on the show. Despite the fact that shadow men are a recurring theme in many paranormal cases, my mind jumped back to one specific case. And I really didn't know Why initially. In late 2023, I received an email from someone called [music] Steven. This didn't take place in Yorkshire. Instead, for this instance, [music] we need to travel about 150 miles south to the Hartfordshire countryside. When he was young, Steven moved into a bungalow there with his parents and said that they almost instantly started to witness paranormal activity. Strangely, in his Recounting
to me, he really didn't focus on this side of the events too much, but he did mention his record player would start playing when he was out of the room. that he and others in the area reported strange lights in the sky on more than one occasion and that he was convinced. He heard a young girl talking in his room when no one was there. This all began in 1993. But the main bulk of his story happened In October of 2006, just a few years after Julian last saw the shadowman. Steven's parents were away that
weekend. He was [music] left to take care of the home and the family dog, a golden retriever named Bailey. On a Saturday afternoon, he took the dog for a walk through a series of fields towards a small patch of woodland. This thin stretch of woodland only took a few moments to walk through. But he said something about that area Always made him uneasy, that it felt wrong, even in the day. On this day, that feeling was amplified. As he approached the trees, he was hit by the overwhelming feeling that he wasn't alone, but he could
see no one else around. The feeling had made him uneasy enough that he decided to turn back. As he reached the end of the field, however, he noticed that Bailey kept looking backwards and was now growling. Steven stopped and turned to look at the woodland one final time. That's when he saw it. There, standing in the field. Just a little further down was a man. Instantly, Steven knew something was wrong. The man was tall. Too tall. He looked wrong. He seemed to be dressed all in black. And while Steven does not make any mention of
the man's features, he said it appeared that it was staring at him. What Happened next was [music] terrifying. After a brief moment of the pair staring at one another, the man began to run in the direction of Steven and Bailey. Steven grabbed his dog's lead tight and ran as fast as he could. The tall man seemed to be moving with incredible speed and was quickly gaining. Steven burst out of the field and across the road without even looking to see if any cars were coming, which luckily they weren't. But as he entered The other field,
Steven looked back to see if the man was still giving chase. But strangely, he wasn't. Somehow the man had moved across the field in the other direction and he could now just about make him out standing between two trees. The man stretched his arms out to the side in a pose that Steven likened to a crucifix. It felt mocking. Steven ran all the way home and quickly Locked the doors. He never saw it again. When I posted this story, numerous people left [music] comments or got in touch to say they had seen similar things in
different parts of the UK. Many of these accounts took place in the early 2000s, just a tall dark man watching them. In many cases, these incidents happened in the middle of the day. Now, when I went back to read Steven's story again, I was initially a little Disappointed. In my memory, this had been described as a full-on shadowman, but Steven's description of him makes him sound like he was wearing black Victorian style clothing. He even mentions a top hat, which brings to mind another infamously reported Shadowman entity, the Hatman. However, the Hatman is a character
that has become so ingrained in internet culture, it becomes hard to know where actual reports of sightings of the Hatman end and the creepy pastas begin. But still, there was something about it that really reminded me of Julian's case. Although the shadowman in Julian's case is described [music] as just being solid black, both Julian and some others did believe it was wearing clothes the first time they saw it. The eeriness of seeing it in the middle of the day echoed a lot of his friends sightings. The way it seemed to watch, the way it Seemed
to almost tease and mock them. The extra reported paranormal activity. Although in this case that happens before the shadowman sighting rather than after. But it was none of those details that were eating away at my brain. It was the run. Julian sees the shadow man run in his garden that one night. The medium who comes to help claims she sees it run up the stairs. On the surface, it feels Like such a minor detail, but in all the cases I have covered for the tape library so far, the claim of seeing an entity running is
really unusual. I'd be curious if any of you out there can think of any other stories where a sort of ghostly apparition is said to run. If so, please do let me know in the comments. I know I mentioned before that shadow men are a really common recurring element in many paranormal cases, but they tend to be Spotted in a home and they disappear at random, often only being spotted in the periphery of someone's vision. So many times they appear in people's bedrooms at night, and it's easy to use sleep paralysis as the explanation. But
in both of these cases, this shadowman is standing out in the open as though it wants to be seen. As though it can go anywhere it chooses, appear to anyone it chooses. Could this have been the same thing that Julian and his friends and neighbors had seen? Was it out there looking for someone new to latch on to? So, what really happened? We can talk about the power of grief, how depression can totally alter our perception of the world, but it's really hard to look at Julian's case and say with clear certainty, that is all
this was. Yes, it could possibly explain some of the downward spiral he went on after his mother passed, but it certainly doesn't Explain the experiences of all his friends, nor the other witnesses that came out later. Normally, I try my best to lay out multiple possible explanations for the skeptical side of each case, but in this one, the only one I keep coming back to is that this is simply a hoax, a way to get on TV and get some attention. that he got a group of friends together and simply came up with this whole
story, Even encouraging others to get in contact with the show after the initial broadcast to feed his story. This certainly could be the case. But if it were, it seems it was only to get the attention of Uncanny rather than for any further gain. Julian hasn't suddenly started doing the media circuits. As far as I know, there is no book about the Croftton shadowman in the works. I'm not sure I can fully accept this, though. Julian comes off genuinely quite shaken By this whole thing. He also seems fairly introverted. At least one of his friends
argues that this wasn't paranormal, and there is an explanation, but he just can't seem to figure out what it is. They all seem to reveal details through their various interviews that the others aren't fully [music] aware of. If this is a hoax, they have done a great job of putting on the act. Plus, if this is a Hoax, he has dragged the names of his deceased parents and pulled in the new owners of the house into this web of lies, which feels pretty wrong if this was just intended to be a bit of fun. But
honestly, even though I'm unsure if this is the case, it is the only skeptical theory that truly makes sense to me. The only other possibility I can consider is that Julian told his story about the shadow man to his friends when they were young, and they basically all Scared each other into believing it was real, a sort of shared delusion. And when Julian's life began to unravel, he started to fall back into this fantasy of the shadow man, blaming it for all that was wrong in his life. But I still think there are plenty of
holes with this idea, including the other witnesses and the new owners. So, if they really did see something, What was it? Well, there's a few threads to tug at here. The new owner says they have experienced activity, but that it wasn't like what Julian faced, which begs the question, does the paranormal act almost like a mirror? Julian was going through a very dark time, so it presented in a dark way to him. But this new family are happy and Joyful, so don't face the same kind of thing. Or were there multiple pieces of phenomena going
on in the house? Was the shadowman entity chased away by the ritual, leaving behind a spirit that was also haunting the house? If so, who is that spirit? What about the occult practices that Julian's dad was involved with in his youth? It sounds much like a young man messing around and having fun. But if the story with the church was true, then maybe it Turns serious. Maybe he was able to summon something. And that something was this shadow being. I generally think that Julian's fleeting memories of his dad's behavior leading up to his death are
one of the most chilling aspects of this case. I wish we could get more information on what was going on with him at this time before he tragically passed away. But of course, the defining element of all the activity that took place here is that shadow man. Across History and across cultures, people have reported encounters with dark human-shaped figures that appear briefly and silently without clear features. In European folklore, these encounters were often explained as the night hag, a shadowy presence who would appear when someone was sleeping. In parts of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, similar
figures were interpreted as defomens or spirits [music] caught between Worlds. Much like the Hatman, these entities are now long thought to be purely examples of sleep paralysis which can cause hallucinations. But it is a little troubling that these supposed hallucinations seem to repeat across different cultures, often coming in the form of an old woman or a tall, shadowy person. Comparable figures appear beyond Europe under different cultural frameworks. In Islamic tradition, some jin are described not as monstrous beings, but as dark humanlike silhouettes glimpsed fleetingly at the edge of perception. In Japan, shadow spirits such as
the Kaji Ona were believed to cling to walls or doorways visible only in low light. Among Inuit and other Arctic cultures, encounters with tall dark figures were sometimes interpreted as spirits of the land, something we have covered in my recent episode on the Arctic Circle. In The United States, one of the most striking folkloric parallels is found in the Dark Watchers of California. These figures have been reported for over a century in the Santa Lucia Mountains and surrounding coastal ranges. Witnesses, including [music] settlers, ranchers, and hikers, describe tall, shadowy like humanoid forms, often seen at
dusk or at dawn, standing silently on ridges or hilltops. Their Earliest known written references appears in the early 20th century, including mentions in the works of John Steinbeck, who refer to them as part of California's regional folklore. Although some dismiss this as the unusual optical illusion of a brocken spectre, which can create large shadowy images in the right conditions. The shadow men come up time and time again across folklore and tales of the paranormal. And maybe it's just how we are hardwired. Our brains have evolved to be aware of threats, to be on the lookout
for moving shadows that could signal danger. We've all been freaked out when waking up in the night. We become convinced that someone is sat in the room with us, only for it to turn out to be a pile of clothes. The brain jumps to the idea of a threat first, then we rationalize it later. But if Julian's story is Accurate, if the story his friends tell is accurate, if Steven's story is accurate, then surely these can't be simple hallucinations or mistakes, can they? They appear in such vivid detail to so many different people in such
different situations. I think this one got to me a little due to personal experience as well. Because while I see myself as a skeptic, I do have one strong memory from my childhood of seeing something like this. Something I have always passed off as a fragmented memory of a dream. But it makes me wonder, what if it wasn't a dream? Maybe more of us have seen these beings than we might know. all too ashamed to talk about it or convinced we were mistaken. Maybe this is a story that is much bigger than Julian. And maybe
it's a story We haven't finished telling just yet. That's all for this entry into the tape library. As I said, this wasn't the story I planned to kick the year off, but I got so obsessed with it, I felt I had to talk about it. If it is available where you are in the world, I really do strongly recommend checking out the uncanny episode on this case. Hearing the accounts from Julian and his friends will likely add an extra dimension to all of this. So, I'd be curious to hear If you guys change your opinions
on this case after seeing their interviews. Thank you all for the 2026 [music] topic suggestions. There were so many interesting ones already, and I think this is going to be a really great year on the tape library. So, if you aren't already, [music] make sure you subscribe to ensure you don't miss out on any future episodes. The plan is I'll be back next week [music] with our first episode of the year of my Second show, Night Drive Paranormal, where I narrate your personal paranormal experiences. Then, we'll be back here in 2 weeks for another entry
into the tape library. and I think the next one will be a lot of fun. Until next time, my friends, Pleasant Dreams. This episode was made possible by the kind donations of members on YouTube and Patreon. Our tape library archivist Yeno Aurora Lee Borox Johnson the bisexual Moon cult now and Zen Pat McShay [music] Laria Yoen away MJW Kevin Jackson emulated Phoenix Jamie Long Lisa Marie Sheridan Shan Harding Gaffy with G ML Rosary Sudrain Plum Blossom Gina Britain Emily Carlin Sarah Boyd Thomas Broite Steven Lutman Crystal E West Virginia vegetable man Dawn Swan Tina S
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