American Horror Story: The Cecil Hotel

Stories of black-eyed children have been around for some time. Supposedly, these are ghosts of children who appear to be solid-looking and dressed a little old-fashioned. But the give-away features are their eyes. They are black. No irises, no whites.

Reports of BEKs are worldwide, and unsurprisingly, the internet has helped fuel interest in sightings. Are they true? We may never know for sure, but here are three encounters that might pique your curiosity.

Brian Bethel’s Story

Brian Bethel is a senior staff reporter at Abeline News in Texas. He says he’s not given to flights of fancy, and he certainly didn’t make this story up to accelerate his career. In fact, he thinks the opposite happened; his story has undermined his credibility. Anyway, it goes like this…

One evening in 1995, Brian popped down to his local branch of Camalott to pay his ISP bill. He intended to leave a check in their night slot. While he was sitting in his car writing the check in the light spilling from the foyer of the nearby Westwood Theater, there was a firm knock on the window. Two children stood there — boys between nine and twelve years old.

Brian opened the window a little, and the nearest child asked if they could get a ride back to their mom’s. They’d come to see a movie, Mortal Combat, but had left their money home.

Brian said he felt a wave of inexplicable fear wash over him. In his interview, he said that his visceral reaction made little sense, even in the moment.

Why would a grown man feel fear at the sight of two little kids? It was as though his rational mind was quietly observing his body enter a stress reaction. He described his increasing fear, “I felt like I was being hunted; as if I were a ‘prey animal’.”

He’d noticed the movie had already started, so there wouldn’t be much of it left to watch if he drove them anywhere and back.

The child kept giving Brian reassurances. It wouldn’t take long; they were just kids who wanted to watch a movie; they didn’t have a gun… At this last declaration, Brian was completely unnerved. He looked away from the boy towards the door lock. When he looked back, the atmosphere had changed, and he was staring into a pair of coal-black eyes. He apologized to the kids, telling them he couldn’t give them a ride. He wound up the window and put the car into reverse.

As he did so, he noticed a look of confusion on the second boy’s face, the one who hadn’t uttered a word. The first boy hammered on the window, yelling, “We can’t come in unless you tell us it’s OK. Let us in!”

Brian drove out of the lot as fast as he could. He glanced in the rear-view mirror, but there was no one there.

Black-eyed Children in Utah

In a remarkably similar account to Brian Bethel’s, an anonymous source describes an encounter on a remote road in Utah.

He’d stopped to rest during a long drive when two children, a boy and a girl, seemed to materialize out of the dark. They were wearing strange clothing, and both had old-fashioned bowl haircuts. He immediately thought they were lost and lowered the window to ask if they were OK and in need of help.

As he approached the car, the leading child replied, “Yes, please.” Then the man noticed the child’s eyes. Dead black. The child requested he let them into the car and give them a ride into town. But the man felt the most awful fear envelop him.

He felt sheer terror and paralysis. His mind screamed at him to get the car window up and drive away, but his body refused to obey. The children appeared amused as he struggled to get his hand to move toward the window mechanism.

The boy suddenly smiled and revealed teeth that appeared to be metallic. It broke the spell, and the man managed to get his hand to the window. His terror increased as the kid grabbed at his sleeve. The shock made the man shove the kid back from the car as hard as he could, and a look of surprise crossed the child’s face.

In the next moment, the man started the car, and the boy somehow, in a split second, moved to the front of the vehicle. The man didn’t hesitate — he drove straight at the child. The kid thumped the car angrily, but the man carried on. The kid was hurled out of the way, and when the driver checked his rear-view mirror, the child was standing up and brushing himself down. He kept driving.

Black-Eyed Kids in England

Cannock Chase holds the designation of an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’ (AONB) in the county of Staffordshire, in the West Midlands. It certainly has a dark past, as the murders of three young schoolgirls occurred there in the 1960s.

Paranormal investigator Lee Brickley tells of an account given by a mother picnicking in the area with her daughter. The pair heard a child calling for help, so naturally, they ran towards the cries. They couldn’t find anyone. They stopped to get their breath, and, for some reason, the mother felt compelled to turn around. A little girl was standing on the path behind her with both hands over her eyes. She looked about ten years old.

The woman asked her if she was all right and was she the one screaming for help? The girl slowly lowered her hands to her sides. Her eyes were completely black.

The woman stepped away quickly and grabbed her daughter. When she looked back, the little girl had disappeared.

BEKS: Urban Legend or Actual Ghosts?

Black-eyed kids are described as children between the ages of five and 15. As well as having completely black eyes, they usually wear unusual or old-fashioned clothing. Often Victorian dress. They have a quiet, unremarkable demeanor.

The visits seem to follow a pattern. They ask to be let into the house to use the phone or that they need help. They say that they can’t come in unless invited. People who encounter them report feeling terrified and often experience a compelling physical sensation of not being in control of their actions. Some say they begin to open their own front door against their will.

Skeptics say that the black-eyed children legend started with a Creepypasta story, but others say that tales of BEKs have been around a lot longer than that.

What do you think? Have you ever encountered a black-eyed child? Do you know someone who has experienced anything similar to the stories above?