The legend of Black-Eyed Children, or B.E.K., is a modern urban legend of mysterious, ghastly, ghostly evil children who appear late at night with solid black eyes. It apparently first dates from Texas folklore in the mid-1990s. It is the ominous horror scare of the obstructed gaze of deep black eyes from young kids as images of demonic and devilish possession. Although a relatively “new” legend, they have been reported worldwide.
The original Texas legend was told by Brian Bethel, who claimed to have met the black-eyed children when he was out paying his cable bill in 1996 while living in Abilene, Texas. He stated he was sitting in his car outside a strip mall writing his check, and then a group of teenagers, wearing hoodies and possessing black eyes, came standing in his car – they asked him for a ride to their mother’s house to get money for movie tickets. However, the movie was already running, and the teenagers sounded older than the kids. He was scared and sped away when, looking back, the kids disappeared. He wrote about the encounter and published it in the Abilene New Reporter.
Many scholars say this urban legend has evolved from demonic descriptions of possessed children or could be examples of death personified as children. Children have also been an image of dark fae or fairies, shorter-statured humans with dark black eyes. They often have pale skin and appear to people in cars or homes, wanting to be in the vehicle or home.
The eyes are solid jet black, with no pupils, white, or iris, just totally black. The kids are often school-aged, ranging from kindergarteners to high schoolers. Often, their clothes are outdated, and they speak in a monotone voice, more mature than perceived age. They often repeat the same phrase and insist on being let inside the house or the car the appears before. They start innocent and evolve into more aggressive in their actions. Like vampires, they must be invited in to have power over an individual. When denied, they wander off. The accounts of these children allowed in led to the disaster unfolding, ranging from tragedy to destruction, cancer, and curses.
In Irish lore, these creatures are sometimes compared to changelings. Changelings in Irish faerie lore are fairy babies swapped for human children and are often riddled with evil actions or destruction. Water baby legends from Lake Tahoe, California, also share imagery and actions, such as when they cry to lure people to their deaths.
References:
Bethel, Brian 2015 “Brian Bethel recounts his possible paranormal encounter with BEKs”. Abilene Reporter News. December 8, 2015.
One of the most common Fae species known in folklore … “Changelings” are faerie creatures that replace stolen human children. These are sometimes called an “auf” or “oaf.” In fairy lore and myth, there are many tales about fairies stealing a human child and substituting it with a misshapen fairy baby known as a “changeling.” Sometimes, they are replaced not by fairies but by demons, trolls, nereids, or spirits. Sometimes, they replace the child with a piece of wood that appears to be alive under a glamour for a short period of time.
Adults have been reportedly taken and replaced as well, especially in Ireland, Scotland, and Scandinavia. There is also the historic-day event of a man murdering his wife, Bridget Cleary, in Ireland. because they believed she was replaced by a changeling.
Throughout world lore, fairies, for some reason, like to kidnap human adults and children. Some claim the abducted human children are given to demons, faeries, or the devil or imbued into faerie races to strengthen their stock. Sometimes, newlywedded wives and mothers are taken. It is believed that some nursing mothers were kidnapped to provide milk to fairy children.
In the United States, there was an attested case of Miss Kittie Crowe who was believed to have been taken from fairies in 1876. It has been rumored that King Charles I of England (1600-1649) was a changeling as a nursemaid claimed a hooded figure appeared at his bedside and cast a cloak over his cradle with him in it.
The most targeted human victims are usually unbaptized babies, blonde-haired children, those with blue eyes, pretty girls, women touched by the fae, those found walking in a fairy ring, those wandering near fairy mounds at night, and anyone who sleeps under a hawthorn bush. In Catholic folklore, there is a widespread belief that infants are susceptible to demonic possession, which is why baptism is very important.
Changeling Traits
When a parent discovers the baby in their crib is not their own, for whatever reason, certain telltale signs signify it is a fairy surrogate. These changelings could have a deformed appearance, a wizened look, appear thin or weak, sickly or ailing, and not stop crying.
Adult changelings appear to have a voracious appetite, are aging, exhibit unfamiliar behavior and trickery, love dancing and frolicking outside when thinking they are alone not being observed by others, and often comment on their own age.
There is a myth in Ireland that a left-handed child is not human but rather a changeling. A child with a caul (remnant amniotic membrane) across their face was a changeling in Scotland.
Changelings are described as creatures that look like the humans they replace but are often sickly, aged, withered, or just “off.” Sometimes, they possess physical features rare in humans, such as an infant having a beard or long teeth. They come off as being more intelligent or gifted than those usual for their physical age appearance.
Sometimes, if a changeling is raised as a human child and is never detected, they will forget they are fae and continue living a human life. Those that do remember may return to their fae families leaving the human family without warning, while the abducted human may never return.
Around the World
While predominantly ascribed to the legends and lore of Celtic countries, their existence is described worldwide. In European folklore, they are seen as deformed or imbecilic offspring of fairies or elves. The Welsh call this fairy race the “cipenapers” (a contraction of kidnappers). In world folklore, there are many creatures similar to the “changeling.” Many of these are described as creatures left by spirits. They are mentioned in African, Asian, Germanic, and Scandinavian folklore.
In Scandinavia during the Medieval period, trolls were believed to trick humans into raising their offspring. They often targeted unbaptized children since those baptized were protected from trolls. In Scotland, it was said the replacement children gave fairy children a tithe to Hell as discussed in the infamous ballad “Tam Lin.” In Germany, they are called Wechselbalg, Wechselkind, Kielkopf, or Dickkopf. They are said to either be the devil, a female dwarf, a water spirit, or a Roggenmuhme (Rye Mother – a demonic woman living in cornfields and stealing human children). In the Anglo-Scottish border region of Scotland, it was believed that the faeries living in the “elf hills” would spirit away children and adults, taking them back to their world, and a simulation of the victim, usually by an adult male elf left to be suckled by the mother. The elves would treat the human baby well and raise it as one of their own.
In Poland, the Boginka or Mamuna was a Slavic spirit that would exchange babies with changelings that often possessed abnormally large abdomens, small or large heads, humps, thin arms/legs, hair body, and/or long claws. In Spain, it is often a nymph called Xana who would appear to travellers to help them. These little female fairies were born with enchanting beauty and would often deliver babies for humans that they’d swap with fairy babies because Xana could not produce milk. The Igbo people of eastern Nigeria believed that women in the tribe who lost numerous children were being tormented by a malicious spirit known as an ogbanje that reincarnated itself over and over.
Social scientists such as folklorist D.L. Ashliman claim that this myth illustrates the aspect of family survival in pre-industrial Europe. Families then relied on the productive labor of each family member to subsist, and there had to be a solution for those family members who drained the resources. Since changeling’s appetites were known to be voracious, they were seen as a threat to the family. Infanticide was sometimes utilized as the solution to this dilemma.
Some scientists claim that the “changeling” accusation would often be used to explain deformed, developmentally disabled, or neurodivergent children. Various legends have claimed those with symptoms of spinal Bifida, cystic fibrosis, PKU, progeria, Down syndrome, homocystinuria, Williams syndrome, Hurler syndrome, Hunter syndrome, autism spectrum disorder, Prader-Willi syndrome, and cerebral palsy were symptoms of a “changeling.”
As parents had higher expectations of childbirth and when children were born with ailments, they preferred to find a demon to blame for the ailment. Regressive autism has been compared to the marks of a changeling child. Before autism was defined and understood, it was very common for children possessing autistic traits to be labeled as elf-children or changelings because of their strange, inexplicable behavior. The obsession that faeries seem to have with an impulse to count things is now a trait found in autistic cases.
A network of humans today, known as “Otherkin” sometimes identify as being “changelings” (or elves, fairies, faeries, aliens, and were-creatures) often because their life experiences exist with feeling out of place in this world so much that they self-identify as being not human.
In movies, music, books, magazines, art, and literature there has been much focus on “changelings” and its phenomena.
Throughout the world, in folklore, there is a method of detecting changelings, such as eggshells. Arranging empty eggshells around a fireplace or hearth, a changeling can’t help but get up and examine them. They will peer into each other, saying, “This is but a windbag; I am so many hundred years old, and I have never seen the like of this.” Another method is for one to pretend that they are brewing water into the halves of eggshells. The changeling is said to jump up and declare, “I have seen the egg before the hen, I have seen the acorn before the oak, but I have never seen brewing in an eggshell before!” thereby revealing its age such as “I’m 1500 years old in the world and I’ve never seen a brewery of eggshells before!” Other methods are causing it pain or making it laugh. Many child abuse cases in Ireland have excuses that it was done only to reveal the changeling inside. In German and Irish lore, a changeling can be revealed by tricking it to believe its being heated or cooked in a oven. Also whipping, hitting, or abusing the changeling will sometimes force it out.
Füssli- Der Wechselbalg-1780
When a changeling reveals itself, lore states it’ll disappear up a chimney, and the real baby will be found alive and well outside the door or sleeping in its cradle.
Many spells and prayers exist to protect a child from a changeling. One method is leaving pieces of iron beneath the cradle, making rowan wood crosses with red thread, using St. John’s wort, or wrapping a child in its father’s shirt. Keeping an inverted coat or open iron scissors near the bed is also said to deter them. A red ribbon tied around the baby’s wrist or wearing a red hat would prevent an abduction in Poland. Not washing diapers after sunset, not turning one’s head away from a sleeping baby, and keeping a baby out of moonlight would also be protective measures.
In Cornwall, the magical stones known as the “Men an Tol” are believed to be guarded by a faerie who can return stolen children when the changeling baby is based through the stone.
This article is a work in progress. Please return for more lore.
My Little Pony Friendship is Magic – children’s television series featuring shape-shifting pony-like creatures called changelings.
So Weird – Disney Channel episode “Changeling” features a child swapped with a changeling.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – race of shape-shifting aliens called “changelings.”
Supernatural – Season 3, “The Kids Are Alright” features changelings.
The Changeling – 2023 Horror fantasy television series by Kelly Marcel and Melina Matsoukas.
The Daisy Chain – 2008 movie about a little girl believing she was a changeling.
The Hole in the Ground – 2019 movie based on changeling folklore.
The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw is a story about a half human – half folk child exchanged for a human child.
The Watchers (PG-13: 2024): Set in Western Ireland, a human woman with changeling aspects gets trapped in the woods only to join three others also captive in a bunker where they have to entertain changelings at night, using them for a plot to escape their imprisonment beneath the surface and within the forest.
Multnomah County Poor Farm (Now McMenamins Edgefield) Troutdale, OR
photo by Ian Poellet – via Wikipedia. The Multnomah County Poor Farm (built 1911) in Troutdale, Oregon,
Deep in the heart of Troutdale was an early 1900’s farm that housed the homeless, sick, poor, and unfortunate. It was a place for those desperate to come and stay in exchange for work. Legend has it, many died while working the farm, and the place had a continual flow of people. In 1990, the Portland chain McMenamins built a hotel, brewery, and venue atop the property and have had claims of strange happenings ever since. Room 215 is claimed to be the most haunted room on the property. The front desk has a log of strange happenings at the property. www.mcmenamins.com
Bibliography:
Tindrick, Ryan 2014 “11 Scariest Haunted Places in Oregon”. Website referenced 10/10/15 at http://articlecats.com/index.php/11-scariest-haunted-places-in-oregon/
There exists an urban legend or ghost story of a little girl and boy apparitions walking along the road outside of Salem, Oregon. Legend has it the little girl was killed while walking across the road and ever since she’s haunted the roadway with her brother. Some say they see a ball rolling across the street with a girl chasing it, and a little boy waving them to slow down.
Bibliography:
Tindrick, Ryan 2014 “11 Scariest Haunted Places in Oregon”. Website referenced 10/10/15 at http://articlecats.com/index.php/11-scariest-haunted-places-in-oregon/
There is a mysterious legend along with the coastal highway 101 on the Oregon coast – that of an apparition of a man walking along the highway covered in bandages. He is often seen on the side of the road or in one’s rear-view mirror. Some have claimed to see him in their backseat through their rear-view mirror. When they turn to look in person, he’s not there. The reports of this apparition go back to the early 1960s.
Most claim that the best way to see him is to go down the older highway 101 that runs parallel to the main highway through the forest. This is now an abandoned road not in use, and it is said to travel at night, as very few reports seeing him in the daylight. Some call this “The Bandage Man Road”. Most notably where Highway 26 intersects with Coastal 101. He is said to vanish just before reaching the town. His name is “The Bandage Man” because he’s a man with a bandaged face.
Almost a ghastly mummy, he’s wrapped in bandages and apparently haunts the Cannon Beach community, based on urban lore. He’s described as a bloody figure of a man, covered in bandages drenched in blood, and the stench of rotting flesh follows him. He’s been said to jump into vehicles passing on the road out of Cannon Beach, especially into pickup trucks and open-topped vehicles, sedans, station wagons, and sports cars. He’s been claimed to have broken windows and leaving behind bloody bandages in his aftermath.
Some claim he is the unrestful spirit of a lumberjack who was sliced and diced in a sawmill accident nearby. He is said to have killed people along the highway and to have eaten the dogs of neighboring communities.
One of the original tales is about teenage kids “Parking and sparking” along the Bandage Man road. The boy had an old Chevy pickup and they were kissing when they felt the truck bounce with something moving in the back bed. They looked out the window to see a man in a bloody bandaged face with weird eyes. He began banging on the glass and top of the cab. The kid revved his engine, put it in gear, and raced away in terror to Cannon Beach to the safety of their parent’s service station in the greenhouse. He was gone.
The bandaged man has also been reported to be seen along the route from Lincoln City to Seaside. Some tag on that Bandage Man was a criminal shot by the police along the highway – he was transferred from the hospital to the jail, escaped, ran into the woods, and never seen again.
In the area are also tales about flying pots in Seaside, a haunted hotel in Nehalem Bay, and many mysterious apparitions in Astoria giving a great backdrop for films like Goonies, The Ring 2, and The Fog as well as inspirations for Lovecraft film Cthulhu.
Bibliography:
Alexander, Stephen 2014 “Haunted Oregon – Interesting before scary” Portland Tribune. Website http://portlandtribune.com/pt/11-features/229134-92235-haunted-oregon-interesting-before-scary referenced 10/12/15.
Hagestedt, Andre 2006 “Oregon Coast Ghosts, and Other Paranormal Legends” Website http://www.beachconnection.net/news/ghost1006_0174.htm referenced 10/12/15.
Shadowlands 2015 “Haunted Places in Oregon” Website http://www.theshadowlands.net/places/oregon.htm referenced 10/12/15.
Tindrick, Ryan 2014 “11 Scariest Haunted Places in Oregon”. Website referenced 10/10/15 at http://articlecats.com/index.php/11-scariest-haunted-places-in-oregon/
Sluggo 2009 “The Bandage Man of Cannon Beach” website referenced http://sluggosghoststories.blogspot.com/2009/10/bandage-man-of-cannon-beach.html on 10/12/15.
Unexplained Mysteries 2015 “” website http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=81120 referenced on 10/12/15.
My family moved to Roswell, New Mexico in 1973-1974 from New Rochelle, New York. I began school at El Capitan Elementary School then progressed to Sierra Middle School, and on to Goddard High School before moving off in 1986 to Florida to attend college at Florida State University. That whole period of 1973-1986, there was no hype about the rumored UFO crash, alien autopsies, or space visitors. The city was a progressive agriculture town, with a former military Cold War base and silos towards exits outside of each direction of the city. It was known as an “All American City”. There were legends and tales about the UFO crash but that was about it.
One of my dad’s friends, Mr. Bentley spoke about his abduction and proudly showed scars the aliens left on his stomach. He was a crazed inventor that my dad invested with. As a kid, I was obsessed with the belief in Faeries, UFO’s, Ancient Egypt, and magic. I had a blue scrapbook I made of UFO sightings, crashes, and strange phenomena. There was very little in that book about Roswell. “The Incident” wasn’t talked about much. I remember even trying alternative science experiments for the science fair at El Capitan was severely frowned upon. So I moved on and advanced with real science.
It is all based on an event on June 14, 1947, where an un-identified object crash landed outside of Roswell. The rancher who owned the land W.W. “Mac” Brazel and his son Vernon called it “a large area of bright wreckage made up of rubber strips, tinfoil, and rather tough paper, and sticks.” They brought the wreckage into town to the local sheriff George Wilcox. Insiders claimed it was a UFO with alien bodies.
This theory was quickly leaked to the Press and published. Others, including the military, later claimed it was a high altitude weather balloon that fell from the sky. Ex-military representatives however cried otherwise, leading to many conspiracy theories. The Sheriff contacted Colonel “Butch” Blanchard, commander of the Roswell Army Airfield’s 509th Composite Group. The Colonel was stymied and contacted his superior General Roger W. Ramey, commander of the 8th Air Force in Fort Worth, Texas. Intelligence officer Major Jesse Marcel was sent to investigate and collected all of the wreckage, trying to figure out what the materials were, and Marcel made a public statement claiming that it was a Flying Saucer.
The local newspaper sensationalized it letting the public know that “The intelligence office of the 509th Bombardment Group at Roswell Army Air Field announced at noon today, that the field has come into the possession of a Flying Saucer.” It was after-all at the close of World War II and sensationalist about anything was popular news. The U.S. at this time had sent V2 rockets with payloads of corn seeds and fruit flies into outer space, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists had the “Doomsday Clock” ticking, and UFO’s were the rage in popular culture.
The military said it was a Mogul Experimental weather balloon that crashed. The 1948 government report “The Roswell Incident” was published and utilized by the Variety reporter Frank Scully who wrote “Behind the Flying Saucers” – a book that detailed alien encounters from the Pacific Northwest, Aztec – Farmington – and Roswell, New Mexico, and how aliens were now said to be landing their aircraft in people’s backyards. World enthusiasm about the phenomena was global and widespread. Some claimed the Air Force propagated the lies to distract people from monitoring its nuclear weapons development, while others claimed the government was covering up the fact they had spacecraft and aliens in their possession.
Project Mogul was a secretive project, out of Washington DC being operated at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico launching high-altitude balloons in the area – these balloons would reach high altitudes and were 657 feet long from tip to tail, 102 feet taller than the Washington Monument and twice as tall as the Statue of Liberty – they would enter the upper jet stream toward Russia with a long tail equipped with different types of sensing and listening devices trailing behind it. This is the government’s explanation of the wreckage.
There was the radio broadcast “War of the Worlds” that shook America. Hollywood produced many movies and television shows taking advantage of the enthusiasm, such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., and Star Wars. Everyone wanted to “believe” we were not alone. Rumors exploded across the countryside, every U.S. military base that had a cloak of secrecy over it (and even some that didn’t) was suspected of housing crashed space ships and aliens. Enter in “Area 51” – a secret airstrip in Nevada that rumors were created stating the aliens recovered in Roswell were kept there with their ship. The U.S. Government didn’t help dismiss the rumors, as they just placed large “No Trespassing” and “Use of Deadly Force Authorized” outside the areas.
By the 1990s there was a notable industry built up around the belief in aliens, UFOs, and extra-terrestrial existence. With this came books, movies, films, broadcasts, memorabilia, gadgets, toys, posters, and stuffed alien dolls. It was around this time that the International UFO Museum and Research Center decided to make its home in Roswell. I left in 1986 upon graduation, it was soon after they arrived.
Years later the craze infected the city and the old downtown city theater we used to go see Rocky Horror Picture Show was sold and altered into a UFO museum. It was strange to see such a historical landmark as that theater disappear into space. Then I hear UFO festivals brought millions in tourism to the town, every other fading downtown storefront turned into a UFO and alien gift shop, maze, or themed eatery. The city’s lamp posts were topped with alien heads.
Every store eventually had their own alien statue sitting out in front of it or had alien heads somewhere on their signs, glass windows, or billboards. The local McDonalds built their play area to be shaped like a giant spaceship. Even the local Walmart added aliens to their frontage. It was nuts. North of the city off Highway 285, the crash site was identified, and a large sign erected to identify its location.
New Mexico State University conducted an excavation there to investigate what happened and if any evidence still remained. The crash site now is unmarked with the sign removed, some say “no trespassing” signs exist on site, although my June 2018 visit to the site just had an un-marked skeletal frame that once listed the incident location. Oddly the Roswell UFO Crash Site is just 1/4 mile south of one of the Roswell Missile Silos.
The hype definitely brings tourism to Roswell. Residents love and hate this. For a brief moment of time, there was an anti-alien organization camped out in a storefront across the street from the Roswell UFO Museum. They promoted their mission with stickers of alien heads with the “no” symbol crossed over it. They were responsible for much of the vandalism of the crash site sign, as they left the stickers with their damage on location. They no longer exist at least on Main street. If they are still in operation today I have no idea.
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This is a historical but surprisingly well-documented case of a feral child, as he was very much researched at the time to attempt to find the derivation of language. Victor was seen at the end of the 18th century in the woods of Saint Sernin sur Rance, in the south of France and captured but somehow escaped. In January 8, 1800 he was caught again. He was about 12 years old, his body covered in scars and unable to speak a word. Once the news of his capture spread, many came forward wanting to examine him.Little is known about the background of his time as a feral child, but it is believed that he spent 7 years in the wild. A biology professor examined Victors resistance to cold by sending him naked outside in the snow. Victor showed no effect of the cold temperature on him whatsoever.Others tried to teach him to speak and behave normally, but made no progress. He was probably able to talk and hear earlier in his life, but he was never able to do so after returning from the wild. Eventually he was taken to an institution in Paris and died at the age of 40.
John ran away from home in 1988 when he was three years old after seeing his father murder his mother. He fled into the jungle where he lived with monkeys. He was captured in 1991, now about six years old, and placed in an orphanage.When he was cleaned up it was found that his entire body was covered in hair. His diet had consisted mainly of roots, nuts, sweet potatoes and cassava and he had developed a severe case of intestinal worms, found to be over half a metre long. He had calluses on his knees from walking like a monkey.John has learned to speak and human ways. He was found to have a fine singing voice and is famous for singing and touring in the UK with the 20-strong Pearl of Africa childrens choir.
Marie Angelique Memmie Le Blanc (The Wild Girl of Champagne), France, 1731
Apart from her childhood, Memmies story from the 18th century is surprisingly well-documented. For ten years, she walked thousands of miles alone through the forests of France. She ate birds, frogs and fish, leaves, branches and roots. Armed with a club, she fought off wild animals, especially wolves. She was captured, aged 19, black-skinned, hairy and with claws. When Memmie knelt down to drink water she made repeated sideways glances, the result of being in a state of constant alertness. She couldnt speak and communicated only with shrieks and squeaks. She skinned rabbits and birds and ate them raw. For years she did not eat cooked food. Her thumbs were malformed as she used them to dig out roots and swing from tree to tree like a monkey. In 1737, the Queen of Poland, mother to the French queen, and on a journey to France, took Memmie hunting with her, where she still ran fast enough to catch and kill rabbits. Memmies recovery from her decade long experiences in the wild were remarkable. She had a series of rich patrons, learned to read, write and speak French fluently. In 1747 she became a nun for a while, but was hit by a falling window and her patron died soon thereafter. She became ill and destitute but again found a rich patron. In 1755 a Madam Hecquet published her biography. Memmie died financially well-off rich in Paris in 1775, aged 63.
Ivan was abused by his family and ran away when only 4 years old. He lived on the streets begging. He developed a relationship with a pack of wild dogs, and shared the food he begged with the dogs. The dogs grew to trust him and eventually he became something of a pack leader. He lived for two years in this way, but he was finally caught and placed in a childrens home. Ivan benefited from his existing language skills that he maintained through begging. This and the fact that he was feral for only a short time aided his recovery. He now lives a normal life.
