About the Museum of Hoaxes
The Museum of Hoaxes is dedicated to promoting knowledge about hoaxes. (Click here for opening hours, etc.) On our blog we post about whatever dubious-sounding claims come across our path on a day-by-day basis. In our archives we have hundreds of articles about the most fascinating and notorious deceptions throughout history, from the middle ages to the present.
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Black Eyed Kids (BEK)
Status: First-person accounts
Reports of BEK phenomena are becoming increasingly widespread on the net. Stories about these creepy adolescents with entirely black eyes and a threatening manner have been cropping up in first-person reports ever more frequently since 1998, when journalist Brian Bethel first wrote about his experience with BEKs.
These accounts follow a regular pattern:
Most accounts occur at the individual's home. There is a knock on the door and on the other side, waiting patiently, is a kid of roughly 12 to 17 years of age. Their dress is usually common for the time and they seem rather normal. But then the sudden fear and the sense of wrongness sinks in. And then of course, there are the eyes.
Seemingly, they repeatedly ask to be let in, and often mention that they must be invited. None of the reports I have found deal with what happens if someone is persuaded...
So who (or what) are they? Providing you believe the stories, current theories span everything from ghosts and vampires to aliens or pranksters.