9 Terrifying Encounters with Black-Eyed Children

A mysterious knock at your door in the dead of night. An innocent-sounding request from an unfamiliar child. If the following eerie tales are any indication, encounters with the mysterious black-eyed children can begin relatively harmlessly—but end in horror.

Since the early 90s, the so-called ‘black-eyed children’ have become a staple of paranormal legend. Some believe the children first entered public consciousness after reporter Brian Bethel wrote about two unsettling interactions he had in 1998 with children who had entirely black eyes. Nearly twenty years later, mysterious black-eyed kids have been featured in many a creepypasta.

But what, or who, are the black-eyed children? Typically, these children range in age from early adolescence to late teens, and appeal to adults’ sympathy, often appearing on the side of a road or on a front doorstep asking for help. Some believe the children are extraterrestrials or vampires. Others believe them to be demons. Regardless, if you see a youngster with jet-black eyes, proceed with caution…

Below are six of the most sinister stories out there of encounters with black-eyed children. Read on, so you can be prepared should they ever call on you in the dead of night.

In January 2016, a woman in Vermont made the tragic mistake of letting two black-eyed children into her home. A blizzard was raging outside when she heard a faint knocking on her front door. A boy and a girl stood there, shivering, begging to use her phone. Unnerved by their presence, the woman nevertheless let them in and went to retrieve her phone. After the children walked into the light of the family room, the woman realized their eyes were completely black. As she stared at them in horror, her husband’s nose began to bleed at the same time that the power suddenly went out. After what felt like an eternity, the children spoke in unison, saying their parents had arrived. The woman watched as the two quietly left her house and entered a nondescript black car with a man in a suit. Not long after the strange encounter, the woman’s husband was diagnosed with severe skin cancer. The woman began to suffer from regular nosebleeds and an onslaught of other medical issues. She’s convinced her failing health, along with her husband’s, is the result of the black-eyed children she unwittingly let into their home.

In 2010, a man, known as Noetic encountered two-black eyed teenagers outside his place of work. It was an ordinary July night in Ohio, and Noetic was in the middle of a night shift. Craving a cigarette, Noetic stepped outside the building and noticed two teenaged boys across the street. As he smoked, he realized that the boys were staring at him. Weary, Noetic returned to the safety of his cubicle and tried to refocus on his work—only to see, through the security cameras, that the boys had appeared in front of his building, motioning for him to come outside. Fed up, Noetic went to the door, contemplating whether or not he should call the police. As if they had read his mind, the boys insisted that such an action was unnecessary: all they needed was to use a phone. Noetic refused. He watched in horror as one of the boys continued to stare up at the security camera, while the other ventured to the back of the building, watching the cameras as though they could see what Noetic was doing. With frayed nerves, Noetic contacted the police, watching the teenagers on the video feed the entire time. When the officer arrived on the scene, he could not locate the teenagers anywhere, despite the fact that Noetic never tore his eyes away from the video feed.

On March 17, 2008, a 12-year-old boy had a bone-chilling experience in an outlet parking lot. While waiting, in his mother’s truck, for his mother to finish getting a haircut, he saw a boy walking across the parking lot. Thinking it was a friend from school, the boy banged on the window until the other boy turned. Realizing it was not his friend, the boy in the truck watched in confusion as the strange kid walked up and stared through the window. The boy caught one glance at the other boy’s solid black eyes and knew he was staring into the face of evil. “You must let me in,” the black-eyed boy demanded. Panicked, the boy in the car crouched under the glove compartment. After several minutes, the black-eyed boy finally disappeared. When the boy’s mother returned to the truck, she informed her son that the black-eyed child had come into the salon, demanding the keys to her vehicle. Thankfully, the boy’s mother did not give in.

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One night a man was dozing in the spare bed in his infant daughter’s room when he heard a strange bump outside his house. Initially the man thought nothing of it, believing it to be the family cat. But the thumps continued. The man checked the porch but the cat was nowhere to be found. He then walked into the kitchen and found two figures loitering outside his front door. They knocked on the door. Both were boys, around 10 or 11, and gave off a pungent, moldy odor. “May we use your telegraph?” one of the boys said, looking up at the man. To his horror, the man realized both boys had eyes that were completely black. Ignoring the odd remark about a “telegraph,” the man told the boy he didn’t have service in his house, and shut the door. As the man slowly made his way back to his daughter’s room, the two boys thumped on the walls. The man clutched his daughter to his chest as the boys incessantly knocked against the window. Their eerie eyes and awful persistence made the man too scared to fall asleep. He remained crouched on the floor of the room for several hours, fighting to ignore the knocks that occurred every couple of minutes. The moment his wife’s alarm clock went off, however, the knocking ceased, and the black-eyed children were nowhere to be seen.

One October day, a man was walking up to his front door when he realized that his neighbor hadn’t set out his typical array of Halloween decorations. He spotted his neighbor, and asked him about it. The neighbor informed him that a terrifying experience the year prior deterred him from participating in Halloween that year. It was around midnight, the neighbor recounted, when he heard a knock on his door. Thinking it was a band of late night trick or treaters, the man grabbed a bowl of candy and shuffled to the door. He swung the door open and was about to greet the two male teens when his body became rigid with fear. Both boys had pitch black eyes, void of any white around their irises. One of the boys asked to come in and use the phone. Luckily, as he was overwhelmed with dread, the man refused.

Related: A Child Without a Soul

One evening, a recluse living in British Columbia decided to see a scary flick at the local movie theater. Already on edge because of the film, he leapt from his chair when he heard a knock on his door later that night. With each step he took towards the door, the man felt a sense of dread flood down his spine. Nevertheless, something compelled him to open the door. Standing on the front porch was a beautiful teenaged girl. The man guessed she was around six feet tall, and she had beautiful blonde hair. “May I enter the premises?” the girl asked, looking up at the man with solid black eyes. Horrified by what he saw, the man screamed and slammed the door in her face. He marched to his bedroom, pulled out a gun, and sat in a chair in the corner until morning. Hours later, the man went to retrieve his mail. The black-eyed teen was nowhere to be found, but the word “soon” was etched into his front door.

suburban-street-snow-black-eyed-children — Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

On November 19th, 1992, a man was watching Evil Dead while his wife and children were sound asleep in their rooms upstairs. It was 1:30 am when he decided to head to bed after the movie was over. Suddenly, there was loud pounding on his front door and what stood behind the door would change his life forever. There stood a boy and girl—8 and 11 respectively—who never looked up and were standing barefoot in the Michigan winter. Despite his anger, the man allowed the children to enter and allow them to phone their parents but when he went to lend them the phone, they were gone. In the dead silence, he heard the first scream coming from one of the upstairs bedrooms. When the man reached his wife's room he was met by the devastating sight of his wife in a pool of blood and terrifying sounds of bones snapping and flesh ripping and saw the bare feet of the children he had just let in his home. Before he could act, the bare feet children moved swiftly to his kids' room and locked the door. Despite the man's best efforts he could not help his children and stood helpless behind the door. When the act was done, the door slowly creaked open and there stood the barefoot children, covered in blood; they stood defiantly with awful grins and eyes completely black like the devil himself.

In early November 2012, a woman was up late watching a movie with her cat when it suddenly leaped off of her lap. The woman was left stunned as she followed her cat into the laundry room but the cat refused to leave from its spot between the machines. Suddenly, the woman heard knocks on her door and figured that it was late trick-or-treaters. When she opened the door the woman was met by two children, a boy and a girl. However, there was something strange about the children, who just stood there, looking into her house...not weren't wearing costumes or holding any buckets. The boy suddenly asked the woman if her cat had left which arose concern in the woman. Then the girl whispered to the woman, "we need to get inside," the boy was staring at her and grinning. Feeling fearful—she noticed that their eyes were completely black—the woman shut the door and called the police. The police only found footprints that led into the forest behind the woman's home. It wasn't until months later that the woman found a makeshift bed in her gardening shed.

On Thanksgiving 2015 in suburban America, a woman was enjoying the holiday on her own in her house when she heard a knock. It was around 7:30 pm when she heard a knock on the door, believing it to be her neighbors she opened the door without looking. However, there stood two boys outside of her door with an eerie stance; they avoided any eye contact but kept insisting to enter the house. The woman became hesitant which is when the older of the two boys became persistent—it is here that they finally looked up and the woman noticed that they had completely black eyes. She shut the door on them but they continued to knock the door. Eventually she fell asleep during the early morning with all the lights on and the TV playing but when awoke she found all the lights turned off and the TV filled with black and white static. There had been someone—or something—in her house.