When I lived in a house in Elgin, Illinois near the Trout Park area in a small house my mother already knew our house was "haunted" due to an incident in the kitchen when something went missing, she acknowledged that she knew someone was there and to put the item back when she came back, my father was in the backyard, my brother was napping (he was too young for school)  at that time and I was at school, she went out back waited a couple minutes and went back in and the item had been returned. Now when I got older she told us of the incident and said not to be afraid he liked only to play pranks just acknowledge him and ask him to stop. I took it to heart, my brother....well got scared of everything and screamed in the dark, but always "played" with the "friendly ghost" I always saw little colored lights like spirit lights I guess varying in colors and I played with them (this will be important later). One night something wakened me and I looked up to see a face staring at me at first I got freaked out and hid under my blankets. I then calmed down and realized how cool it was and remembered my moms words about it being harmless of course by the time I looked out from my blankets he was gone or so I thought near the closet was a shrouded or hooded figure laughing at me I told him to go away and pointed at him and the "spirit lights" were all red and went flying from my hand and knocked him through the wall of the closet making him gone from the room. I was shocked and looked at my finger, now something I didn't mention that I never really realized until now since I thought the ghost shape was all I could see, he looked like the darkness and shadows surrounded him and those small dots you see in the dark is all you see in the dark was outlining the shape, no words or sound from him either. Now finding this site I looked back at my memories after reading some of the descriptions of these shadow people...I think that was a shadow person. Oddly there is a second part to this story, later one the "spirit" I realized was protecting our house, many occasions outside my house there were these creepy shadows that tried to always scare me, they would try to make shapes on the light that came in the windows and such. I could always seen them on the edge of the forest near us. It always seemed like they could never come in, I realized that the "friendly ghost" as my brother called him kept the bad things out and I slept well in total darkness, I never needed a nightlight like my brother. The Shadow people did try to scare me with a nightmare once, my brother had many that week and he was always screaming to my parents, but I didn't want to be a bother so when I had one I couldn't go back to sleep due to it kept coming back when I closed my eyes. Well I then felt a comforting presence, I think he didn't want to get smacked again so he never showed himself to me ever again, but I calmed down and learned to lucid dream that night to make Spider-man save the day in the nightmare and it went away. So how odd I felt so safe in that house because I knew deep down he was keeping the other shadow people out.  Also when other houses around us were getting robbed ours was always left alone, well ours and the neighbors, but that's due to her cats attacked the last guy who attempted and I guess word spread to stay out of that one. Our house seemed to spook them. I was informed of this later when we visited our old neighbor we said hi to the people who now had our old home. She said there were stories some cops told her that people they picked up when another robbery spree happened and that the cop laughed that when they picked them up asked why certain houses were left alone. The old neighbors was well accepted and no big deal, but then they told her how the guys they picked up said that our old house gave everyone the creeps every time they approached it. The cop thought it was superstitious  mumbo jumbo, my mom and I just told her we knew a friendly spirit lived there, she agreed since she had things moved on her from time to time also and realized what was going on.