This incident occurred in December of 2017 when I was 13 years old (I am currently 19). My friends and I had planned a sleepover to celebrate our friend E’s birthday at her house. During the sleepover, I shared a bed with my friend A, while E shared a bed with another girl named S.

As we were winding down in the dark room, with the door slightly cracked letting in some light, we positioned our beds facing the door. This allowed the light from the cracked door to serve as a makeshift nightlight for us, as we were not accustomed to complete darkness. We giggled and chatted, caught up in the typical drama of seventh grade, before settling in for sleep. We were under the covers with our heads sticking out, engaging in the pre-sleep conversations that often happen during sleepovers.

I can’t recall what I was doing at that moment when I suddenly saw a flash. It was similar to the effect of someone taking a flash photograph in the dark, momentarily blinding me. In that flash, I perceived a figure bent over our bed, approximately 7+ feet tall, wearing a hat. While most people describe the figure wearing a different hat, to me it appeared to be a bowler hat. The horror I felt was indescribable, I wasn’t able to physically move or scream to wake anyone up. I tried to remain calm, but I couldn’t understand who this was or how they got into the house where my friends and I were helplessly sleeping.

The sighting happened so quickly that it was difficult to discern the exact details of the figure other than the fact that it was a large black mass wearing some form of a hat. Despite witnessing this, I chose not to mention what I had seen, as I didn’t want to frighten my friends or give the impression that I was playing a prank on them. The atmosphere gradually calmed down, and we eventually went to sleep.

It was a few months later, while sitting together at the lunch table, that I decided to bring up my experience of seeing a ghost at E’s sleepover. However, before I could elaborate, my friend A interrupted me and confessed that she had also seen a ghost during that night. Intrigued, I quickly sketched out the figure and asked her to describe what she had witnessed. Much to my surprise, her description matched mine; she had seen a tall man wearing a hat.

While I couldn’t explain how both of us had seen the same thing, I had no reason to doubt A’s sincerity. It’s possible that she was playing a joke on me, but I firmly believe that I genuinely witnessed this figure on three separate occasions. Out of those occurrences, the one during E’s sleepover remains the most vivid in my memory.