Black-Eyed Children

For this week's episode, we're going back over to the USA for a creepy urban legend, the Black-Eyed Children. How do these monsters reflect the societal change of childhood from the 1800's? How can you make sure these scary kids don't get into your car? Find out this week!

Transcript

INTRO:

Hello and welcome to Myth Monsters, my name is Erin and I’ll be your host for these little snack bite size podcasts on folklore and mythical monsters from around the world. 

These podcasts focus on the actual cryptids, folklore and mythic monsters from global mythology, rather than focusing on full stories of heroes and their big adventures.

I’ll also be dropping in some references that they have to recent culture and where you can see these represented in modern day content so you can learn more, and get as obsessed as I am about these absolute legends of the mythological world.

This week we’re back over in the USA and looking into an urban legend this episode, with the scary looking black-eyed children from US folklore. 

DESCRIPTION:

Black-Eyed Children or Black-Eyed Kids, also known as B.E.K are described as looking like normal children around 8-12 years old with either older, Victorian traditional clothing or a hoodie with their hoods raised over their heads to obscure their faces. Behind the hoods are a pair of staring, soulless black eyes, with no whites and weird robotic voices. 

They are said to knock on doors of houses, and windows of cars to ask strangers to let them in. Once they are let in, they would apparently kill the person in the enclosed space - but if they aren’t allowed in, they would haunt you for the rest of your days. Also if you shut the door or window on them, they will disappear on re-sight, or continuously bang on the glass til they get let in, or they get bored. 

You can kind of see that these monsters are very much similar to vampires in the sense that they would need to be invited in, and we’ve got a story confirming that later on. Also, they’ve been associated with ghosts too, with their immediate disappearance when they’re not let in. 

How do these monsters come about? According to a comic that discusses their origin, it’s that they are normal children, only changed by the killing of someone or all of their families. Now I did say this was an American monster, however, this has also been seen in the UK too throughout the 20th and 21st century.

ORIGIN:

Now for etymology, there isn’t anything in particular for this one as you can probably tell - they’re just called Black-Eyed Children because they are children and have black eyes, funnily enough. 

However, the history behind this urban legend is what’s really interesting here, and that’s all based on the interpretation of children and of the historical sightings of these monsters. 

They were first seen in 1996 in Texas, by a reporter called Brian Bethel - he apparently had two children approach his car in a cinema parking lot, who asked for a ride to their mum’s house for money for a ticket to the film. When the children spoke, Brian apparently felt very anxious as they came across as super robotic, and so he refused. The kids then responded with ‘we can’t get in unless you let us’, then revealed their black eyes under their hoods. He was frightened, so attempted to drive off, but the children banged on the car windows, as he pulled away quickly, the children seemingly disappeared into the night. 

He posted this to a ghost newsletter that he ran at the time, and then it was posted by one of his subscribers. The post doesn’t exist anymore unfortunately - I did try to find it, but he still openly talks about his experiences on podcasts and videos. On the other side of the pond, Lee Brickley, a paranormal expert over here in the UK is the leading expert on Black-Eyed Children in England. 

He has reported numerous Black-Eyed children sightings in a forest called Cannock Chase in Sheffield, where back in 1982 his late aunt heard a child crying in the woods - following the sound, the woman found a child dressed in a Victorian nightdress with her face covered by her hands. As the woman got closer, the child revealed her black eyes and screamed. In 2014, Brickley’s wife then had a similar experience in the town nearest the forest, with a young girl crying and then revealing her black eyes and disappearing. 

From these sightings though, came a whole creepypasta phenomenon, with more sightings in both the UK and the States, even making it onto the front of UK newspapers, although they were the really bad ones to be completely fair. 

Interestingly though, there is no history behind the areas in the US where these monsters have been sighted, but in the UK, the area is actually a bit spooky. Cannock Chase became a ghostly hotspot in 1965, when Raymond Morris killed three little girls, named Julia Taylor, Margaret Reynolds and Diana Tift, all aged between 5 and 9 from 1965 and 1967. Since then, the area has been linked to hauntings, and sightings of ghost girls have been reported throughout the area.

This lands us nicely with any real life comparisons, there are quite a few explanations as to why these exist and what could possibly explain their creepy origins.

Naturally, as people we’re genetically programmed to look after children as they are the most vulnerable in our society. However, the idea of children has changed throughout the last 300 years - from the industrial revolution where children were thought of as a commodity something that could be bought, traded and used in warehouses and factories. It changed after the war, especially in Europe - where children were massively displaced and taken from their childhoods and families, to the idea that childhood was innocent and sacred, to be treasured. 

Then we follow this up with the 70’s, which introduced the evil children, using such big movies like the Exorcist, Omen and the Shining to go against this idea of innocence, and put into the world, the idea of scary possessed kids with faces like little angels, completely disarming the audience. Also, to go alongside this, no whites in the eyes is historically a sign of a lack of reliability and distrust, and black eyes usually symbolise demon possession, lack of control and demon involvement. 

Apparently too, humans are naturally equally scared of different looking eyes, as they’re deemed ‘windows to the soul’ and become unreadable when they are fully black or disfigured. So we’re sort of pre-set to be scared of black eyed children, or anything with black eyes, I suppose. I personally think the same thing counts for sharks - most people are terrified of sharks - and they do have these black, lifeless eyes, which definitely helps their fear factor. 

Lastly, can we actually explain the possibility of a child, or anyone with black eyes? Not really, no - however, there is a horrendous explanation with an old medical term called physiognomy, where you judge people based on their facial structures, which usually links to race and gender - and was openly cast out of the medical community in the late 19th century for literally being a scientific way to be racist. 

In regards to kids killing their families though, it can be explained with the Oedipus Complex, the idea that children are drawn to killing their parents. And Peter Pan Syndrome, which is where children kill to keep their youth, basically to try and stay a child, and reject adulthood.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE: 

Onto modern media, for art, I’d recommend looking at the BEK comic, which has some incredible art on Black-Eyed Children - and a really good story around BEK too. Otherwise, check out some independent art as always!

In movies, we have one specifically; The Black-Eyed Children: Let Me In. Then for spooky kids outside of Black-Eyed Children, I would suggest Coraline, Toy Story, Paranorman, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Wizards, The Black Cauldron, Orphan, The Exorcist, The Good Son, Case 39, Halloween, Ivan the Terrible, Hellraiser, Psycho & The Omen.

For TV, we have; The Haunting of Sunshine Girl, The Hunt for Black-Eyed Kids & Monsters and Mysteries in America for specific Black Eyed Kids stuff. Then we have; Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Criminal Minds, Fringe, Gotham, Highlander, Supernatural, Strangers from Hell & Psychopath Diary.

In video games, we don’t have any on BEK themselves, but here’s some other spooky kid games such as; Clock Tower, Skyrim, Shin Megami Tensei, Sevens Code, Undertale, Darkstalkers, Dead in Vinland, Far Cry 5, Drakengard 3, Lucius & Resident Evil. 

My book recommendation this week is to have a read of The Black Eyed Child of Cannock Chase by Lee Brickley himself, have a look at this one if you’re interested in the information straight from the horse's mouth so to say. Or you’ve got Urban Legends: Strange Tales and Unsolved Mysteries from Around the World by James Proud for a whole other bunch of urban legends!

DO I THINK THEY EXISTED? 

Now it’s time for, do I think they existed?

I’m going to say, maybe? Because there are definitely creepy children around, and although it can be a serious case of misidentification and possibly some really cool contact lenses - it’s more than likely it’s just some creepy kids. 

I used to know a child when I was younger who just spoke in singular syllables and stared a lot alongside decapitating all their dolls, and if they’re still around today - I imagine they’re some kind of psychopath at least. 

But it totally makes sense that people might think these monsters exist, and honestly, the idea is very creepy. I watched Orphan when I was way too young and the idea of someone’s eyes going black is pretty creepy. 

But what do you think? Do BEK roam the States? Let me know on Twitter!

OUTRO: 

I love touching on urban legends you know, it's something that’s a little bit more intense and harder to research, more interesting to find stuff out about. They’re also definitely more the creepy type, which our usual monsters don’t usually get to the same level of this creepiness. So it’s kind of interesting to cover!

But next week, we’re going back over to our traditional monsters and we’re heading over to the Philippines for a super cool monster based in the trees, the Kapre. Don’t steal their mangos next Thursday.

For now, thank you so much for listening, it’s been an absolute pleasure. If you enjoyed this podcast, please give it a rating on the service you’re listening on - I’ve got the twitter for any questions, or suggestions on what monsters to cover next and I’d love to hear from you. The social media handles for Tiktok, Youtube and Instagram are mythmonsterspodcast, and twitter is mythmonsterspod. But all of our content can be found at mythmonsters.co.uk - you can also find us on Goodpods and Patreon if you want to help me fund the podcast too.

Come join the fun and share this with your pals, they might love me as much as you do.

But for now, stay spooky and I’ll see you later babes.