Glimmer Man
No, this blog post is not about the 1966 cop movie, The Glimmer Man. Although, it is equally filled with mystery. These glimmer men are humanoids (or what at least appear to be humanoid from the little we can see) that have a ghostly presence.
What is the glimmer man? The short answer is no one knows (the longer answer is no one can agree). Most descriptions describe it as a tall, bi-pedal, human-like outline. No parts of its body or being are fully visible except for a faint glimmer around its body. There do not seem to be any head on sightings and instead the glimmer men seem to appear at the corners of your vision, from the side, etc.
But what are they? And why are they here?
Some people theorize they may be remnants of an MK-Ultra-like project…whether the government captured or made these glimmer men isn’t wholly certain. But, in a declassified document entitled Invisibility Cloaking: Theory and Experiments, it’s clear the government was interested in experimenting with and creating some sort of invisibility. But, did it result (or discover) the glimmer man? That we do not know (or at least it isn’t declassified). The document simply states, “Invisibility cloaking has recently become a subject of science and technology. This paper describes the important current theoretical and experimental developments and tries to project into the future.”
There’s a whole sub-reddit dedicated to them (r/glimmerman) and in one of the posts there’s a video that sent shivers down my spine. You can view it here, but the top comment by u/Venus-Veneris put it simply and perfectly, “looks like a figure walking between the veil.”
There are dozens of stories like this throughout the web, and, unlike a lot of recent urban legends, I've come across something that feels both haunting and familiar about these accounts. Almost like the shadow people, but somehow more alive (and perhaps more calculated). Maybe the other part of it that feels scary to me personally (someone who has lived in a major city their whole adult lives) is that a lot of the stories seem to be in very rural areas. Out in the country, along rural roads, in places where there are less humans, less prying eyes.
It also appears that glimmer men come out at all times of the day and night. According to Vocal Media, “[An] account comes from a rural mail carrier who spotted a shimmer at the bend of a county road. He described the disturbance as “a human outline, only the air was doing it.” He pulled to the shoulder, heart banging. His GPS recorded no anomaly. He did not complete his loop. The next day, his supervisor told him to mark that section of the route “temporarily impassable” for reasons that were never explained.”
Some people believe these glimmer men aren't born from tech or man (or a combination of the two), but rather are old and ancient. They are the beings that watch and protect the forest and rural areas still left in our world. Some theories even compare them to the infamous UK will-o-wisps in that guidance tries to wanderers out of the forest (or hopelessly lost within). Why do they take the shape of men instead of balls of light? That, I don’t know. Perhaps these North American versions found humans to fear or respect other humans more than a wistful ball of light.
Of course, some folks believe the glimmer men don't exist at all. It's just people pattern-seeking during a heat haze, or the bending of light, or just a feeling of dread that haunts us into seeing things.
Whatever the glimmer men may be, they’re a good story.
Thank you to everythingwillbeok for the blostonishing suggestion!
The header image has nothing to do with the blog topic. Depicts a A glimmer of light, Seskinore Fores by Kenneth Allen. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
