had to post in separate parts. part 1:
I am most certain that I have encountered the ‘Hat Man’ about ten years ago in Pennsylvania. I stumbled upon the sketch of the ‘hat man’ on wikipedia tonight, somewhat randomly. It had been ten years since I saw this figure, but I was most incredibly shocked when I saw the picture on wikipedia because it was exactly what I had seen almost ten years ago. I had no way to match my experience to something tangible like a photo, so seeing someone’s interpretation of what I saw, and seeing how spot on it is, is very creepy.
This took place in my teenage years, I believe I was 17 years old when I saw this. I worked at a fast food restaurant at the time this took place, and my close friend and I were closing the restaurant on this particular night. This friend and I often carpooled because we lived close to each other and the pizza hut we worked out was about a 25 minute drive. I think it was pretty late at night, about 1 in them morning perhaps. My friend was driving and I in the passenger seat.
This particular part (bucks county) of Pennsylvania was heavily forested, and our route road past lots of farms. As we departed from the small town where the pizza hut was, we started down the darker roads. I can’t remember the exact name of the road where this all took place, though I am sure I could back track if I were there now. We were traveling probably about 35 mph down a dark road when we noticed that something appeared to be in the opposite lane coming towards us slowly. From a distance, it looked like perhaps the outline of a car without its headlights on. We both noticed it, made mention of it and slowed down. As the thing neared, it appeared to me to be a man riding perhaps on a horse carriage. There was a figure that was high in the air as if at the helm of a horse carriage, at least that was how I was justifying the height of the figure at this time. My friend and I both got pretty freaked out at this point not really understanding what we were seeing. I am having a difficult time now remembering if I saw a light on the things head like a miners hat or not. The figure was high in the air, probably about 4-5 feet higher than we were in my friends van. It had the same hat that has been described, a wide brimmed pilgrim hat looking sort of thing. I could see the hat sort of swaying unusually in the air, left and right in a strange manner, one that also led me to believe he was on a horse carriage. Like the road was bumpy and he was feeling the momentum of the bumps.
part 2:
At this point we had slowed to about 5 mph and we about to be right next to what I still thought was this guy on a horse carriage at 1 in the morning on a pitch black road. My friend and I were a rowdy couple of kids, and at this age tended to enjoy to stir people up. I remember at the time we were even a bit angered at the danger this guy had put himself in by riding down the street on a carriage in the middle of the night. I asked my friend, as we often did at the time being punk kids, to yell at the man. He agreed and as we got next to the dark figure, we stopped the car.
I can’t remember the exact words my friend used, but he said something to the extent of ‘why don’t you get the @#$@ of the road a-#@
part 3:
We both agreed that it was not ‘human’ and appeared to be some sort of supernatural thing. We both saw this high floating creature, the gun, the dogs or animals, or whatever. we were struck by the silence on the road. We sat next to this thing for 15 seconds yelling at it, and neither it, not the ANIMALS, made a peep. We agreed it moved in a way that was not human. It looked to be dressed like a pilgrim or someone from a few hundred years ago in America, near the birth of the county. There was not really a face or definition to the thing. It was well, very much like a shadow in the air. I recall my friend being so worked up he was close to tears.
At this point, i was in much awe of the event, and wanting to make further sense of what had just happened. I asked my friend to turn around and return to the road where we saw this thing so we could really figure out what that was. It was just not normal, and I felt we could find some explanation if we returned. It took maybe a minute or two of convincing; my friend was much opposed to the idea of returning at first. Finally, I did convince him to turn around. From the time of seeing this thing to returning to the spot where we saw this, it was probably 2-3 minutes. We got to the spot to find nothing. Remember, this was going the opposite direction as we were, so we continued to drive to the end of the road…back to the small city. Oddly, we could not find this thing on the road again. It was as if it disappeared. The spot we saw this thing was probably a good 5 minute car ride to get to a house or a different road. Not being able to find the thing, or discern where it went, we turned around again and headed home.
The event stuck with my for the last ten years, because it was so strange. The reason I never wrote it off as imaginary or hallucinatory was because my friend and I both saw this, and had the same visual experience from the event. I hadn’t thought about it much or talked about it since probably the week after it happened until now when I saw the sketch of the hat man on wikipedia and I could saw with certainty that other people had seen and sketched the exact same thing my friend and I had saw that night.
— Anonymous