The spine-tingling paranormal story of Crofton's 'Shadow Man'

Danny Robins, who investigates real-life stories of seemingly paranormal encounters, was joined by Julian, a music teacher and session musician, for what was described as one of the scariest and most unsettling cases he’s ever investigated.

The terrifying story begins just after Julian’s family moved into a new house in Crofton in the early 1990s.

Aged just seven, his father died in a freak accident after falling and hitting his head, something he said his mother never recovered from.

That night, he and his mother stayed at his grandparents’ house.

"I remember being awake,” he said.

"And looking over at the window I saw a very, very tall man wearing black. I'd guess close to 7ft tall – with no face. No features.”

Julian said his screams woke his mother, who also saw the figure and began to scream.

Asked if it could have been a dream – Julian was adamant it wasn't due to events that followed, including being out with friends as a teenager in the village when the figure again showed itself near the village graveyard, which was also seen by his friends.

In the programme, Julian says it changed him as a person and how still today, it’s in his mind and how he is cautious of speaking about it because he’s ‘scared of it coming back’.

Half sceptic, half believer Danny Robins attempted to make sense of it by investigating the cultural history of shadowy figures, starting with Inuit folk history.

Danny looked into the cultural history of shadow figures, from Inuit folk history to modern internet phenomena, and asks Ciarán O'Keeffe a English psychologist and sceptic and Evelyn Hollow, a paranormal psychologist, to help him unpack Julian’s unsettling account.

You can see the full programme, now showing on iplayer here.