The reviews for Jason Offutt’s Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us have been pouring in. A rather skeptical Jerry Clark, in Fate, does at least admit the title is “cool,” and Peter Rogerson in his review of the book in Magonia sets the stage with these words: “Ten to fifteen years ago nobody had heard of ‘Shadow People,’ now they are the latest fortean phenomenon..” But Nick Refern points out in his review on UFO Mystic that “there are definite parallels between the ominous Shadow People of Jason’s book and some of the stranger, occult/paranormal-driven Men in Black-type reports highlighted by the likes of Keel, Bender and Barker.” An enthusiastic Redfern goes on to say that the book is “a heady, ominous and roller-coaster ride into the twilight world of some of the strangest and most unsettling creatures to ever grace our planet….All in all, this is a great, informative, detailed and highly thought-provoking study of a phenomenon that straddles the realms of the paranormal, the occult and ufology with uncanny ease…” Finally, the review by Micah A. Hanks, on The Gralien Report, compliments Offutt for looking at this phenomenon “with new clarity, and perhaps even gives us the first complete work dedicated solely to the phenomenon… Offutt points out unique aspects of people’s encounters with shadow people…tying together for us unforeseen amounts of loose ends that seem to comprise the ‘high strangeness’ associated with ghostly phenomenon.” A somewhat spooked Hanks sums it up in the end, saying: “the book provides an eerie window into the lives of others like us who, under perhaps the most frightening circumstances imaginable, have managed to accept their fears, and even learn from them.”

They lurk in obscurity. Looming human figures, blacker than darkness. Millions across the globe see them. The unfortunate feel their touch. And some awake in horror to their red, unblinking stare. In Darkness Walks: The Shadow People Among Us, Jason Offutt is able to shine some light on the world of the Shadow People thanks to the dozens of interviews he conducted with eyewitnesses. Offutt views these beings through the lens of science, religion, and metaphysics, and asks: Are they ghosts, demons, hallucinations, or something else entirely? Brad Steiger has this to say about the book in his foreword: “Jason Offutt’s excellent study of the phenomenon presents us with the most thorough and complete work yet written regarding the mysterious beings that we have come to call collectively, the Shadow People…Jason may not have any ultimate answers, but no one has done a better job of defining who or what these shades might be.”