; Phantoms and Monsters: Pulse of the Paranormal

Monday, December 09, 2019

The 'Lost Boys' Incident


I came across a BEK account that was included in Brad Steiger's 2009 book Real Vampires, Night Stalkers and Creatures from the Darkside. It references an early incident of black-eyed kids that Steiger received:

It was probably in the autumn of 2003 that people began to write to me describing their encounters with a strange group of boys, ranging from pre-teen to teenaged, who had coal black eyes and very strange and menacing ways. The first report that I received proved almost to be a prototype of the accounts that would follow.

Carter and his girlfriend Suzanne, were double-dating with their good friends Greg and Karen on a pleasant fall evening in Seattle when they encountered the strange lost boys. Carter remembered that they first saw them as they were leaving a seafood restaurant. “There were four of them,” he said. “They looked like a bunch of teenagers just lounging around the park near the restaurant on a Saturday night. No school the next day. No dates. Nothing to do. Just hanging out.” Carter opened the car door for Suzanne and walked around to the driver’s side. As he was getting behind the wheel, Suzanne asked if he knew the boys in the park. “No,” he said, and wondered why she had asked. “Because one of them is waving and I thought he called your name,” she said. Puzzled, Carter looked toward the park and saw that the group appeared to be coming toward the car. “Don’t know any of them,” he shrugged. Greg suggested that they leave. “They might be a bunch of hoods trying to make trouble,” he said. Suzanne laughed and said that they were just kids and that one of them had called Carter’s name. Greg was insistent that they leave immediately. “Kids like those very often carry guns and rob people,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.” Carter thought that Greg’s assessment of the situation made sense. The teens must have heard Carter’s name when the couples left the restaurant and one of them called his name to gain proximity for a robbery. He had heard that it was a common ploy for criminals, whatever their ages, to attempt to deceive their victims with a sense of familiarity.

“As I backed out of our parking space,” Carter said, “I made eye contact with the boy who appeared to be the leader. I wish that I had not done so. His eyes were like black marbles. When I glanced at the other boys, they, too, seemed to have no ordinary pupils. Just black marbles. I felt a shiver run through me and I burned rubber leaving the lot.” Greg asked if Carter had spotted any guns or other weapons on the kids. “No, weapons,” Carter answered, “but did any of you see their eyes? They were solid black.” Suzanne laughed and said that the kids were all trying to be cool and wearing sunglasses at twilight. “They all want to be hip-hop or rock stars,” she said. Karen agreed. Her kid brother was always wearing “shades,” trying to appear cool. Their mother was always on him, warning him that he would ruin his eyes.

The two couples went to a recently released film that they had all wanted to see. Carter said that the four of them were cheerily engaged in a mock intellectual debate over the quality of the film when he spotted the same four teenaged boys leaning against the wall of a Chinese restaurant across the street. When he directed his friends’ attention to the group, they voiced the same question almost in unison: How did they get here? How did they know what movie they were going to see? The four boys waved at them in an exaggerated gesture of friendliness. They all wore broad smiles. One of them asked them how they enjoyed the film. Greg wanted to know how the kids had been able to tail them. Did anyone notice that they had a car when they first spotted them as they came out of the restaurant? Did anyone notice that they were being followed? Even Suzanne’s cheerfulness had diminished, and she expressed her opinion that they should get out of there...fast. “As I looked at the four teenagers leaning against the wall, I couldn’t help thinking of Kiefer Sutherland and his vampire gang in the old movie The Lost Boys,” Carter said.

“We got into the car as soon as possible, and I drove to one of our favorite watering holes on the edge of the city. I was determined to get as far away from the teenaged terrors as possible. Greg kept lookout in the backseat all the way to the bar to see that we weren’t being followed.” Although Carter said that it may seem beyond all belief, when they left the bar at one in the morning, the four teenagers were lounging on the curb across the street. “To say that we were all unnerved is to make the understatement of the year,” Carter said. “Greg wanted to call the cops. Suzanne wanted to go straight home. Karen accused Greg or me of arranging a hoax to frighten the girls. She insisted that one of us had the most stupid sense of humor in the world and that we had set up the whole thing. One of us had given the teenagers our itinerary for the evening. It was all just a stupid joke. The worst one that anyone had ever thought up since the fall of Rome.”

After 20 minutes of Carter and Greg vowing that the 'Lost Boys' had not been their idea of a joke and that they had no explanation for the bizarre events of the evening, Carter dropped Greg and Karen off at their respective apartments and he and Suzanne headed home. Suzanne knew that the appearance of the boys and their subsequent stalking of the group of friends had been no joke. She was frightened and said very little on the drive back to their apartment. “We had not been home for more than a few minutes,” Carter said, “when someone rang the doorbell. We live on the first floor and the steps lead from the street right up to our door. I looked out the peephole, knowing exactly who I was going to see. It was the Lost Boys, their black eyes reflecting the lights from the street. The one I determined to be their leader was leaning on the door. The other three sprawled on the steps.” Carter grabbed a baseball bat and asked through the door what they wanted. Suzanne clutched his sleeve, insisting that he not open the door. The leader asked Carter to open the door. Carter replied that that wasn’t going to happen and told them to leave before they called the cops. “I need to make a telephone call,” the leader said. “Can I use your phone? I’ll be quick. Just one call? We need to have someone come and pick us up.” No. “We need to use your bathroom. Please let us come in to use your bathroom. We really have to go bad. Please open the door. We won’t make a mess. Just in and out. Okay?” No. “Can you give us something to eat? We haven’t eaten all day. We are starving. Can’t you spare us a little food?” No. “C’mon, we are really hungry. Let us in. Give us just a little snack. Please!” The leader’s voice was becoming louder more insistent. Then the other three joined in, almost chanting their demands that they be allowed to come in and get something to eat. Carter was unaware that Suzanne had called the police shortly after the black-eyed lost boys had begun asking to be allowed inside.

“As the squad came around the block, the boys simply disappeared,” Carter said. “They vanished in the blink of an eye. All we could tell the police officers is that a gang of rowdy teenagers had been pounding on our door, but they ran away when they heard the squad car coming. When the officers asked for descriptions, we gave accurate descriptions = except for the solid black eyes.” Carter grabbed a baseball bat and asked through the door what they wanted. Suzanne clutched his sleeve, insisting that he not open the door.

Since I received Carter’s remarkable account in 2003, men and women have been reporting similar encounters with the Lost Boys with the black eyes all over the world. On a number of occasions, witnesses have also reported encounters with black-eyed adults. At this point, no one knows for certain who these beings are, but I will once again champion their place of origin in some multidimensional corner of the universe. The modus operandi of the entities is basically the same whenever they manifest.

The Black Eyed Children and Leprechaun Press

Strange Intruders and Leprechaun Press

BEK (Black Eyed Kids Phenomenon): The Boy At The Door

Phantoms & Monsters: Unexplained Encounters

Phantoms & Monsters: Mysterious Encounters

Lon's Suggested Reading List - Books & Films / DVDs