In Seattle around 2004 my wife, daughter, and I were standing in our dining area. Suddenly I saw something — a human shape — out of the corner of my eye. It startled me as we three were alone in the house. I turned quickly and reflexively to look at it. When I did it was gone. I looked back at my wife and daughter. My daughter and I began to talk at the same time — “Did you see that …?” For both my daughter and me the shape was out of the corner of our eyes. For me it was left field of vision. For her it was right. My wife who was oriented looking directly at the thing saw nothing. My daughter and I began to compare notes. She would add a bit and I would confirm. I would add a bit and she would confirm. We developed the following description. It was black, like a silhouette with no depth, two dimensional. There were no features or texture of any sort. It appeared male. It was tall. We guessed maybe 6’6″ or so. The silhouette had a long coat, solid black like everything else. No face or eyes were visible. There was no feeling of something trying to communicate with us or interact with us. It wore a hat of an odd shape, also solid black and textureless. The hat was broad brimmed and the rims of it slanted down just slightly. We saw it for a flash of a second and then it was gone. We never saw it again.
Earlier this year (2009) I decided to Google shadow people. I was startled when I came across an image that was very close to what my daughter and I saw. Not just startled but actually shocked — something that was inexplicable was also being seen by others in various parts of the world. I copied just the picture of hat man into an email and sent it to my daughter. So I would not ask any leading or suggestive questions, I simply asked her if the picture reminded her of anything. She emailed back and said yes! — It looked like what we saw in our house in Seattle. I’ve struggled to consider a scientific explanation. If people only see this shape out of the corner of their eyes, maybe there is some physiological reason for the brain to interpret certain patterns of darkness as a certain shape. Evolutionarily, we are surely bound to misinterpret a shadow as a being rather than interpret a being as a shadow — the former would just be a mistake; the latter could get us killed. So we may be prone for survival reasons to see “things” that are not “there” (though we definitely experience them as being there). But even if that line of reasoning has some validity, I still wonder — why that shape? Why the peculiar hat? Why no features? Why don’t people see Moroccan fezes or coonskin caps? Why does the figure usually seem tall? Why not see bears or Vikings with horned helmets or other threatening figures? Why the commonalities in what people see and report? So … for me and my daughter hat man was a “real” incident. What it is or means, I have no idea. DM
— Guest