I have been researching the thing that I saw as a child for years now, and am relieved to know that I am not alone.
I live in Indiana,I saw this in my early teens,in the early 1970’s. I lived with my mom. It was probably about 1 or 2 am. My mom was asleep in her room, which was behind french doors which opened up into our living room. My brother, who is older than I am, was in College, but still lived at home. It might have been Christmas break. I was in the living room, watching b movies. I got that feeling that I was being watched. I looked at mom’s bedroom doors, and saw the outline of the Hatman standing there. He seemed to be inside of her room, but standing somehow between the doors and the curtains on the doors. He was about 7 feet tall. He had on a large brimmed hat. This may sound funny, but the hat reminded me of the old Hamburglar from the earlier McDonald’s commercials. I remember after this incident every time I would see one of those commercials, I would get a horrible chill and feeling of absolute dread. The face on this thing was horrible to me. Most accounts I’ve read mention no facial features. I saw a slit for a mouth, a concave nose area, and concave eye areas. Almost like they had been scooped out. He was wearing a long cape. He was watching me. At first I thought that I was seeing things. But I got up to change the tv channel, his head would turn to watch what I was doing. He never made any sort of movements towards me. But the feeling that I got from him was horrible dread. It was very strong. He stayed and observed me for hours! If I got up to go to the kitchen, he would turn his head and watch me, and then watch me come back. I felt a very clinical feeling from him. Like I was a lab rat or something. I was being observed with no emotion, and felt like he could have just as easily stepped on me like an ant as to look at me. This went on for hours, then I simply watched him slowly fade away.
I never saw him again, and have always been afraid to talk about him, in fear that he would come back. As an adult, my brother and I got talking about odd experiences and I found out that he had an encounter with this being as well. It probably happened around the same time as my experience. My brother was going down the hallway from his room in the middle of the night, heading to the bathroom. He ran right into this being, literally running into it. My brother is about 6 ft 5 inches, and this thing towered over him.
— Mel