I found this interesting little story recently on the web. Watch what they say at the end… –Duncan

From about Avila Beach, through San Luis Obispo, and all the way up to Monterey, runs the Santa Lucia Mountains. Lurking within these mountains are the strange and mystifying Dark Watchers. The Dark Watchers, as they have come to be known, are apparently giant human like phantoms that are only seen at twilight, standing silhouetted against the night sky along the ridges and peaks of the mountain range. When spotted, the beings are usually seen staring off into the open air of the mountains seemingly at nothing in particular before vanishing into thin air occasionally right before the spectators eyes.

Who or what the Watchers are, no one knows. Where they came from or why they are there, again lost in speculation. And what they are looking for or watching is beyond anyone’s current comprehension.

The Chumash Indians first spoke of them in legends and their cave painters drew them in their colorful wall drawings. Later legendary author John Steinbeck described them in his short story, “Flight”:

“Pepe looked up to the top of the next dry withered ridge. He saw a dark form against the sky, a man’s figure standing on top of a rock, and he glanced away quickly not to appear curious. When a moment later he looked up again, the figure was gone.”

1970’s Stamp of Robinson JeffersAlso in 1937, the poet Robinson Jeffers mentioned them in his poem “Such Counsels You Gave to Me” as “forms that look human . . but certainly are not human”. If Jeffers or Steinbeck ever actually saw one of the Watchers is unknown, but the local legend has been around since long before they wrote about it.

In the mid sixties, a Monterery Peninsula local who was the past principal of a local high school saw them while hiking in the mountains. He had enough time to study the dark figure, to see its clothing and notice how the figure was strangely studying the mountains. When the principal called out to his fellow hikers, the figure disappeared.

Other, more recent sightings have included a dark hat and cape in the description of the mountain residing phantoms.

The young man lived in a rental house a few doors from the home where H.W.* grew up in southern Brazil. A few years later, the young man moved out, a husband and wife moved in.

Although these people didn’t, and don’t, know one another, they had something in common – they knew something dark often walked the halls of that house.

“The male was a young lawyer starting out, while the female was an architect/homemaker,” H.W. said. “They both knocked on my mother’s door a bit distraught.”

There were years between the knocks – one in the mid-1990s, the other in early 2000, but the people behind the knocks told the same story.

“They described how a dark shadow wearing a fedora hat would frequently walk by them and disappear through the walls,” H.W. said. “Both residents described the black Shadow figure as being in the shape of an old man.”

This Shadow figure, a paranormal entity called the Hat Man, is usually an ominous figure. People often report feeling the entity is somehow feeding from their fear. However, H.W. doesn’t think this Hat Man was threatening.

“As far as I know, the Hat Man wasn’t a menace to them,” H.W. said. “He would just walk by and go right through the walls, in a silent manner, without ever acknowledging their presence.”

The witnesses came to H.W.’s mother’s door, he feels, because she was the oldest person living on the street. As such, she knew the person who built the house. The man, who died in the late 1950s, often wore a fedora, although that style was common in Brazil at the time.

“It was customary for Brazilians to wear those hats up to mid-’60s, as their style was highly influenced by Hollywood,” H.W. said. “My late father used to wear those hats as any young professional.”

These shadowy, fedora-wearing figures have been reported worldwide, from North America to Europe, South Africa and Australia. Although Hollywood’s images are far-reaching, the presence of this entity on multiple continents has H.W. curious.

“It’s an intriguing story indeed, especially since other sightings of the same type (are) happening all over the world,” H.W. said. “I wouldn’t be sharing this story if it wasn’t because of the fedora hat detail, which immediately called my attention. Why the hat?”

Although H.W.’s mother is now deceased, his family still owns their home and when he visits, he walks past the old house where the Hat Man wanders the halls. The building is now a day care center.

“It’s full of little kids who spend most of the day in there,” H.W. said. “I sometimes feel the urge to ask the teachers or caretakers, without specifics, if they ever see anything unusual in that place. But I feel reluctant, considering the nature of their business and potential legal implications for unproven rumors.”

The last report H.W. heard from that house was from the couple in 2000, but remembers all the witnesses to be sincere.

“My family believed both witnesses for describing the same exactly scenario years apart from each other, also because both had stable backgrounds,” H.W. said. “What are the odds that two different tenants would describe, many years apart, the same peculiar event, without ever knowing each other?”

*Name withheld by request.

George was about 10 years old when a friend’s mother spoke of a vision she’d had. A man with a tall black hat and trench coat approached her in the darkness.

“She referred to him as ‘Death,’” George said. “That was his name for whatever he represented. It wasn’t good.”

The image that story implanted in George’s head manifested itself into his life a few years later.

“I had my own vision of this same man,” George said. “He was pure evil with a very cold deep look in his eyes. I had to rebuke him in the name of Jesus to go away. It was very frightening.”

But it wasn’t until George’s family moved from Alaska to Texas that he discovered he wasn’t the only member of his family who had seen this entity.

“Years later, my mom started to tell me of a vision that had woken her up in the middle of the night of a man standing at the foot of her bed,” he said. “I was in shock. It was so chilling we were talking about the same old man.”

But George had never told his mother of his encounter and he doesn’t want to have another one.

“I haven’t seen him since that one time in Alaska,” George said. “I wonder, what does it mean? Who is this man many people see? Whoever he is he is pure evil and nothing good. Maybe he’s a worker for Satan to test us.”

George and his mother had seen an entity many have dubbed The Hat Man. This being is generally a shadow-black, slightly out-of-proportion, sometimes two-dimensional entity that often wears a trench coat, cape, or long out-of-date suit, and can appear and vanish without a trace.

This usually-threatening entity has been labeled a ghost, a Shadow Person or a demon – such as this explanation from an anonymous reader of “From The Shadows.”

“The men of darkness – or men of old, or men of perdition – do not reveal themselves. They are revealed by another to warn those that they come to discourage of their presence,” Anonymous wrote. “They have no fear of men. They only fear the One that has the power to send them to the abyss before the time. They flee at the mention of the Name that is above all names.”

Denise lounged on the sofa in her grandmother’s house one day when she was 17 and saw something at the window.

“I didn’t care about that because I did think it was just an impression,” she said. But it wasn’t. “I got up and went to the kitchen to drink water and was coming back, and I had the clear impression of a man in the window with a very long hat and a long coat. It was possible even to see the contour of his face, but it was not a human face, (it was) a horrendous one with a bad smile.”

Then the image vanished quickly enough Denise doubted she had seen it – until she spoke with her grandmother and aunt who were chatting in the next room.

“I told my aunt what I saw, it was black, like a shadow, well-defined contours outside of the window,” she said. “It was like he was trying to hear something, you know?”

Both women looked at Denise, terror painting their faces.

“She asked me to describe it,” Denise said. “Both said to me they saw the very same thing.”

Delta Elise, now in her 50s, was 11 or 12 and living in Austin, Texas, when she met the Hat Man.

“I came home after being out running around in the neighborhood with my friends,” she said. “I went to bed very tired and since I was the oldest girl, I got the bigger side of the bedroom with my own bed which faced the window with the curtains.”

As she lie there, looking at the curtains, the curtains moved.

“The top right hand side of the curtains moved aside as if someone was moving it with their hand,” she said. “And then there appeared to me a very tall man in a long black cape or trench coat with what I call a witch’s hat with the top cut off just standing there. Even though his appearance was dark and I couldn’t really see any eyes, I knew it was staring right at me.”

Delta Elise pulled the covers over her eyes and eventually fell asleep, but woke up shaking in fear.

“The house we lived in was definitely haunted but this was the scariest part of living there,” she said. “I always see Shadow People. It never stops and I always feel a presence in my back seat. I also always feel something touching me or calling my name.”