From the time I was 4 years old up until age 14 (the years 1961 through 1972) I had countless experiences with what your readers call “the hat man”. The shadow that appeared in my bedroom, basement and sometimes outdoors, always wore a brimmed hat and a long trench-coat. I likened the image to actor, Humphrey Bogart, because the man’s wide brimmed hat from various angles reminded me of the type of men’s hat popular during the 1940’s. The shadow figure also would sometimes gesture towards me as if to say “Hello”. The intensity and frequency of the encounters were highest from 1961 through 1964, then 1970 through 1972, while living in Waterford, Connecticut. I’m not sure if the time period, my age, or geography has any correlation to events.
Aside from the shadow figure, other ghost-like manifestations occurred in the house such as loud noises emanating from inside the bedroom walls, cold spots, inexplicable odors, and the occasional moving or rearranging of objects. I also saw visible white vapor ectoplasm. To clarify, I did not see the hat-man figure in dreams or during a waking dream as some of your readers testified, but during the times I was fully awake. The silhouette of the man wearing a hat would usually happen at bedtime. I would even get out of bed and walk up to the shadow to study him, sometimes touching the shadow on the wall and talking to him aloud, although he never responded.
One night in 1963, when I was six years old I had just climbed into bed when suddenly my bed started shaking as if someone was underneath violently kicking the underside of my mattress. Moments later I saw a man’s arm covered in a black coat sleeve reach up from the foot of the bed and with a walking cane started to whack my feet with the cane. I quickly recoiled and jumped out of bed, running into the living room screaming and showed my mother and father the red welts on my feet and ankles from the caning. They both came into the bedroom and turned on the light to look under the bed, but of course no one was there.
— michael b.