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From the High Desert book cover

From the High Desert

A Cultural History of Art Bell

Thumbnail for May 31, 2001: Shadow People - Morgan Spence

May 31, 2001: Shadow People - Morgan Spence

May 31, 2001
2h 54m
0:00 / 0:00
Art Bell reads a detailed letter from a military technology worker who began seeing shadow beings after prolonged exposure to laser scanning displays and DVD players. The man describes a small, robed figure that appeared in his office, locked eyes with him for twenty seconds, then sprinted along the wall and vanished at impossible speed. Art proposes that modern digital technology operating at high frame rates may be shifting human visual perception into frequency ranges where these entities become visible.

Dr. Morgan Spence, who has researched shadow beings for 11 years, joins to share her findings. She recounts seeing shadow figures as a three-year-old child and connects the phenomenon to electromagnetic energy, hormonal factors, and expanding dimensional awareness. Spence argues these entities are likely not demons in the biblical sense, though she allows that some sightings could involve residual soul energy from the deceased. She compares the experience to viewing dim stars only through peripheral vision, suggesting the beings exist at frequencies humans normally cannot detect.

Callers share firsthand encounters, including a muscular, featureless humanoid observed in a fully lit bedroom. Art notes that reports skew toward younger people and those surrounded by electronic devices. The emerging consensus points toward a frequency-based explanation, with these beings having always shared our space but only now becoming perceptible as human sensory thresholds shift through technological exposure.

Key Moments

  1. Engineer's laser-induced shadow person sighting: Bell reads a long anonymous letter from a defense engineer who, after hours of testing a military laser-scanning display and watching DVDs, saw a four-foot child-shaped figure in dark smoke huddled in the office corner that turned to look at him for 20 seconds, then sped off and vanished.

  2. Bell's 'frequency beings' theory of shadow people: Drawing on listener Gary's frame-rate analogy and the engineer's letter, Bell sketches a theory that shadow beings have always been around, vibrating beyond our normal frame-rate of perception, and that DVDs, lasers, camcorders and other modern visual tech are speeding up our visual processing enough to begin seeing them.

  3. Spence's age-three shadow encounter and TV link: Spence opens her interview by recalling that at age three she told her father she saw shadow shapes that lingered when the television turned off - children's so-called imaginary friends she now interprets as part of the same phenomenon she has researched for 11 years.

  4. 11 dimensions, psychic vampires, fear as fuel: Spence agrees with Bell that shadow beings may inhabit one of the eleven dimensions modern physics posits, that they are attracted to strong emotion, and that they function like 'psychic vampires' that feed specifically on fear - which is itself a measurable energetic vibration.

  5. What happens when the veil drops: Bell asks what would happen if the apparent acceleration in shadow-people sightings continued until the veil between worlds dropped. Spence predicts a gradual unveiling driven by rising electromagnetic fields, and ultimately a societal upheaval she compares to the Church's historical conflict with astronomers.