I only saw the Hatman once, 30 years ago, but once was enough to make me uneasy for a long time to come, may be for the rest of my life.

When I was six or seven, my little brother and I shared a bedroom; I had the top bunk and he had the bottom bunk. It seems to me I was just becoming aware of ghosts, goblins and ghouls at that time due to seeing a movie at a friend’s place that was not appropriate for the innocence of my age. The night he appeared was a night like any other, nothing stands out except for the experience itself and my dream… I was dreaming that I was being unloaded from a hospital stretcher off an ambulance. I didn’t know what a hospital stretcher looked like or maybe not even what an ambulance was, but I knew that this dream was meant to make me uncomfortable. I also remember that the dream was all in black and white. Suddenly in my dream, I sat up in the hospital stretcher and I soon found out that I simultaneously and involuntarily sat up out of my bed facing immediately ahead. My eyes opened (also involuntarily) and there at the end of my bed was something that to me looked a lot like my grandma; thick, black eyebrows, goading eyes, a few strands of a beard and a sort of shapeless, doughy, white face, dressed in black, with a black hat. I was a witch for Halloween around that time, so I automatically assumed the thing to be female and a witch because of the hat, but it’s only recently that I’ve learned of the Hat Man and I now have no doubt that’s what it was. He would have had to have been very tall to look in at me in my top bunk, which I think reached his chest. He smiled at me and whispered, “Hi Cassie” and began to swirl away to nothing. I was terrified. I climbed down the ladder of my bunk bed, teeth chattering and knees knocking, trying my best not to fall. I looked in at my brother and I saw him asleep, but there was also something in there with him, with the shape of a star for a head. I didn’t want to leave him, but I was too scared to stay, so I ran to my parent’s room. There my mom opened the covers and put me on the edge of the bed. As I lay there with my eyes open, staring out into the darkness, my eyes caught on something. It looked like a small person watching me, but even after all that, I thought it could be a trick of shadows. Then just to confirm that my eyes weren’t playing a trick on me, it leaned forward and shot me a smarmy smile. That was it, I wanted to be between my mom and dad in the bed and as my mom was putting me there, I looked at her face and I could have sworn she had a black eye.

That was the end of what I remember from that night and nothing has quite matched it since. Even at that young age, I inherently knew that I needed to stop sending out fear signals and stop focusing on paranormal things. I began to guard my thoughts and I believe it is for that reason that I’ve never seen it again. I told my mom about it and have shown her other people’s testimony and she feels badly that she never took my account more seriously. She still remembers that night and remembers how frightened I was. To this day, I don’t let my children sleep alone. Until they’re older, we all sleep in the same room. ~ Cassie S.