On an episode of Paranormal State the team runs in a woman and her daughter who have been attacked by a “winged creature with sharp teeth”. A local shaman warns PRS that there is a shape-shifting spirit on the loose.

This episode aired recently. The only shape shifter we have heard of is from an episode of Supernatural. And that dude was nasty, but then again it was fiction.

Or maybe this episode will go on the road of educating us to more things in the paranormal world. So we have to ask ourselves, what is a shape shifter?

In the book The “Supernatural” Book of Monsters, Spirits, Demons, and Ghouls by Alex Irvine shape sifters are described:

The skinwalker is the type we’re most familiar with. It doesn’t change into a wolf or a monster or anything else nonhuman. What it does is kill people and assume their shapes. When it does this it has to shed it’s current skin. Skinwalkers die just like people, but the problem is, you never know for sure what you’re capping off the right person. That kind of uncertainty wears on you after a while.

Again, Supernatural is fiction. The Paranormal State shape shifter is more likely to be like what Wicca.com’s description of what they think a shape shifter is:

First of all, no matter what you do you are not going to physically turn into an animal, so just drop that idea right now. Shapeshifting is a reality though. It is done through visualization so that you may carry the power and abilities of an animal with you when you need it. Drawing the courage of a lion in the face of adversity is an example where you can draw on the power of an animal spirit in such a way.

To learn to shapeshift you should be in a place where you can meditate, but where there is enough room to move around. You should be dressed comfortably (or undressed comfortably, if that is your preference) so that you may move freely. Relax, close your eyes, call and greet the animal spirit you wish to shapeshift to. Let yourself become that animal in posture, stance, movement and sound. How does this animal see, hear, taste, touch, smell? What is it experiencing? Move as it would move.

Wikipedia describes three types of shape shifters which sound much more sinister:

There are many different styles of shapeshifting to be seen. One is the literal bodily alteration where the body physically changes. Depending on what the subject is changing into, the different parts of the body will shift, stretch, compress, and expand. This type of shapeshifting is often against the subject’s will and can be a slow and painful process; articles of clothing are usually lost or destroyed, as in the case of the werewolf or the transformation of Eustace into a dragon in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.

A second style is what can be called the ‘fold over’. In this transformation, the subject new flesh forms overtop of their original. In a sense, it is almost as if they are wearing a body over another, and their old form is underneath. In Margaret Weis’s Mistress of Dragons, an evil dragon called Marista steals human hearts and uses them to acquire a human form which she changes into in this way. This form of shapeshifting is most commonly painless but can be traumatic if the change was unintentional, as in the case of Link in the video game The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, where the hero is transformed into a wolf. Clothing is rarely lost in this process. In retransformation, the form will fold back and the subject will ‘crawl’ back out.

The third is the fastest and most convenient type of shapeshifting. In this style the subject in a sense has two separate bodies that they can freely switch between. Such being can be found in the Harry Potter series, in which they are known as Animagi. This change is always intentional and won’t harm clothing, or any other article on the body. Injuries sustained on either of the bodies usually don’t carry onto each other (Animagi in Harry Potter being an exception), although death of one of the forms usually results in the death of both forms and the individual in question. During the shapeshift, there sometimes is a moment when the subject seems to disappear.