My encounter with The Hatman/shadow figure was in my childhood home which is in rural Kansas where I lived with my grandparents. My parents lived two houses down but I was always very fond of my grandparents and since we all were so close, I could “float” back and forth between houses. I’m not positive on my age but I would guess close to age 12. To preface, I have a younger brother who lived with my parents and is about 7 years younger than me and due to our age difference, we did not spend a lot of time together. I also had a small chihuahua dog who did not like small kids, especially my brother.
The night it happened, it was late enough were everyone in the house was asleep, no lights or sounds through the house. My bedroom was on the 2nd story and the window directly across from my bed faced the neighbor’s large outbuilding and very large and bright flood light. The door to my bedroom was open. My dog had slept in my bed with me but had started a really quiet low growl. I can still hear that growl in my mind when thinking about all this. I roll over to see the outline of my younger brother in the doorway. I say something to the effect of “what do you want?” And roll back over. No response but the dog kept her growling. Again, I flip over to look at my brother and no one was there. I turn to lay flat on my back and at the foot of my bed was the shadow of a tall man with a hood. There were no features or anything distinctive but just the shadow of the man. It wasn’t a solid figure, more of a static shadow. The exact moment my eyes locked onto him, my dog went silent and froze. I remember a feeling of hot dread. I could feel it in my stomach, and throat, and started a cold sweat. I’ve never been more terrified as I was at that moment.
Again, my window facing my bed had a bright flood light shining in. The light spread around the figure and not through. It was like time stopped and laid there in silence for at least a minute or two, not moving, barely breathing, just staring at this shadow. Then the figure floated around the foot of my bed, up the side, and right out the door. Once it left the room it was like the air lifted and my and dog both jumped up, ran out that same door, and down the stairs to my grandma. There was no one in the hall, the stairs or elsewhere in the house. Turns out, my brother wasn’t even staying with my grandparents that night, he was down the road with my parents.
This is probably one of my most vivid memories from my childhood.