Flipboard Culture Desk<p>The legend of the black-eyed children emerged in 1996 in Abilene, Texas, when journalist Brian Bethel wrote a newspaper column about an unsettling encounter. Since then, people around the world claim to have had similar experiences with school-aged kids with weird eyes, monotone voices and demands to be let in to houses and cars. Atlas Obscura's Emma Cieslik writes about this urban legend, the people who believe it, and how it connects back to traditional tales from different cultures.</p><p><a href="https://flip.it/aV1q4Z" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">flip.it/aV1q4Z</span><span class="invisible"></span></a></p><p><a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Culture" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Culture</span></a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/History" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>History</span></a> <span class="h-card" translate="no"><a href="https://a.gup.pe/u/histodon" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>histodon</span></a></span> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/UrbanLegends" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>UrbanLegends</span></a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Halloween" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Halloween</span></a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/BlackEyedChildren" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>BlackEyedChildren</span></a> <a href="https://flipboard.social/tags/Texas" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Texas</span></a></p>