Wow, I can’t believe there’s a website for this. I stumbled across this, well I shouldn’t say stumbled, there have been some events, as of late,that have pushed me to do a google search on the hat man, although I didn’t know he was so well known that he would have a nickname but tall thin shadow man with a hat got me here none the less.
Like most I kept this to myself for the most part, but tell the story often to close friends that know I’m sane. I run a restaurant grossing roughly a million a year, I’m not a weirdo, or think I have a power or anything. I happen to be talking with a friend about sleep paralysis, which I experienced once and found that I had a friend that had experienced it often. Now before I get away from myself, my run in with the hat man happened weeks before my sleep paralysis episode but I felt they may have been related. The thing that struck me was as I told the story of my shadow person experience, my friend turned white and looked ill. he then finished my description and said “he was wearing a hat”. the hair stood up on my neck, actually my while head. he went in to tell me he saw him twice himself in a house in alpena, mi. we talked about it for a while and then i drove myself home. on the way hime i turned on coast to coast on am radio. I just found out recently that i could get the show here. about 3 callers in a lady describes a run in with the same guy. I’m one who doesn’t believe in coincidences and my head was spinning. why now 15 years after the fact? Now that I decided to look him up, although worried what i would find out, I feel I’m not alone, I also feel your site may benefit from my story. so here it goes.
I’m 34 now, I was about 22 at the time it happened. I was a bit of a partier in my teens and early 20’s and was between jobs. I moved in with a girl I knew from high school. it was a small 1 bedroom house with a basement. I slept in the hallway by the kitchen in a sleeping bag and she had the bedroom (luxurious I know). I woke up one night to the girl screaming bloody murder, i rush in and she’s sitting up in bed shaking. she goes on to tell me she has night terrors, has had them since she was a little girl. she says she wakes up sometimes and their still going on, and there’s a man standing over her. I then decided she was nuttier than a squirrel turd. a week later it happens again. this time the guys there long enough that she calls the cops, and tells them theres someone in her room. this resulted in me sitting in a squad car for about 15 min til they were certain i wasn’t holding her hostage or something. she ended up dating some guy and moved out about a month later.
I moved into her room and a friend moved in and occupied the basement. strange things started happening. a whole shelf full of items falling off the shelf, an iron falling off the fridge, and during a conversation of odd occurances that had been happening, a glass globe light on a chain fell out of the ceiling and smashed on the tv forcing us to scream like little girls haha. I wrote all these events off as the local mine doing blasting or some normal phenomenon. This was rogers city, MI home of the largest limestone quarry in the world. one night, my buddy was gone with his gf out of town and i was just falling asleep. I heard someone in the basement. everyone knows the sounds of their houses and someone was in mine. I thought maybe i interrupted a robbery when i came home and they were sneaking out. I heard them ascend the stairs, and then turn the corner and walk through the living room and then the hallway in front of my bedroom door. I kick open the door ready to fight an intruder in my underwear and right where someone should be standing theres nothing.
I was left feeling a little unnerved and knew I wouldn’t be getting to sleep anytime soon. I walked out into the kitchen and grabbed some bread and peanut butter and started making a sandwich like any fat kid would do. I’m spreading the peanut butter, and behind me and to my left is a tall, maybe 6’4″ very skinny man in a longer coat like a duster. I couldn’t make out any facial features, but saw that his cheeks were very gaunt, he had on a wide brimmed hat and he was staring at me. I had an overwhelming feeling that this man was a menacing presence. I spun around as soon as I saw him. My heart jumped up into my throat, all my hair stood up, and I even teared up a bit. I was absolutely terrified. as soon as I swung around he was gone. I grabbed some clothes and shot out the door. I walked about 2 miles through town and woke my mom up by banging on her window and told her i was sleeping there. I went back in the daylight and grabbed my belongings and never went back. The house had no historical significance, and I thought maybe this was the same guy the girl had seen for years. I have yet to see her again, but now am curious as to what her discription will be. a couple weeks later I woke at my parents house and was paralyzed. I couldn’t scream or move, only my eyes could move. I felt like something was holding me down and had the feeling someone or something was there and it was terrifying. It lasted a few minutes, and I gained my facilities again. I also thought I was the only one to experience this til I met someone that had experienced sleep paralysis, or old hags syndrome.
I never thought they were directly related, but they occured weeks apart, and now I’m reading about others with similar experiences. I am also wondering about poltergeist activity, as I’ve read they attach themselves to young girls and thought maybe my story, having several similarities to a poltergeist haunting may bridge a gap that should be considered. I feel I may invoke the hat man by giving him this much attention. I certainly hope not. I have a family now and don’t want any of them to exerience that fear. This has stuck with me for years. Thank you for letting me know I’m not alone. as an aside, is there any historical sightings of this hat man? Maybe something like the painting “the nightmare” which shows the old hag syndrome? I’m curious of it’s origins.
–Shawn Moran