Those Who've Seen the Hatman/Shadow People

[coffeecupcat]

I was in the second grade and I use to look our my window and I could see down the street a man with a tophat, suit, cane, and long coat. I use to see him watch me. After months went by I snuck ply the house. He beckond me to come to him as innocent as I was I did. I've seen his face the pearly white Sharpe teeth the red eyes the mincing grin. I would talk to him and he would hold my hand and walk me home. Every where I moved he followed and would watch me. When I was 15 I suffered a traumatic experience to which I would see him in my house and he would stay in my room. I also began seeing blue men. These blue men made me scared/I would scream cry, anxiety would kick in and I freaked my mom out.

I'm 27 now and I still see the man in the top hat. I know he's no good but I feel he had watched over me for some reason.

[pherithos]

one possible explanation i can think of is that it could be a changeling (the kind that take many forms and are referred to as demons in the bible). and that your heritage may have some kind of lineage to the changeling. otherwise i see no reason for him/her/it to be there since they usually don't often care for the matters of humans. but like i said its just a guess

[littlemonster92]

I'm certain I've seen a shadow person.

Last Halloween i'd been at a party but came home about 3am because I was working the next day so hadn't drunk a lot. After getting out of the taxi at home it was silent and no one on my street was around so i made my way up my drive. My drive is really long and steep and it leads to nowhere but my garage and back garden which is guarded by a tall wall and a locked gate.

I let myself in my front door which leads to a porch, and was then messing around trying to unlock the second door into my house. As I couldn't get in because someone had left their keys in the other side, I turned around to get my phone out of my bag to ring my dad. When I did I saw a shadowy person run up drive. At first I thought it was my friend running after me after getting out of the taxi but no one appeared at my door. I then started to panic and bang frantically at my door. When my dad answered I made him so check outside but no one was there.... weird

[JB29]

I'm usually the skeptic having slept in a reported haunted house as a kid during the summer and not experiencing anything. I never heard of "shadow people" before my own experience. It was late at night and I walked outside to take a leak (I'm a guy). As I was standing relieving myself with on eye on the door to make sure nobody else came outside, I noticed to my right along the side of a garage a really dark solid shadow (almost like a cardboard cutout painted solid black) with what appeared to be a large Abraham Lincoln style top hat. It wasn't completely in my periperal vision, but maybe at a 60 degree angle so I'm confident of what I saw even though I didn't completely turn my head and face it until I was done and had zipped up. It was there for a full 10 seconds or so. I glanced down for a millisecond to zip up and turn my head to check out this weird shadow I'm casting and to my surprise it was GONE. All the time I assumed it was my own shadow somehow distorted (I was wearing a baseball cap) because of my position and that the angle of the light. Problem is when I fully turned around and looked (still standing in the same spot) there was NO shadow being cast whatosever. Years later I finally heard about the shadow people phenomenon and had a confirming chill sent down my spine when I heard them described as wearing top hats.

Edited April 24, 2013 by JB29

[StephCollins20]

I've seen shadow people twice in my life. The first time, I was around seven, and my granddad, whom I was very close to, had just died. I was around a friends house and I saw a shadow person, wearing a top hat, outside of their bedroom window (which was on the first floor) I ran outside, with my friends following, and I saw it again in my garden (I lived just three doors down from my friend) It seemed to be shying away from me, as though it had been watching and my sudden movement had frightened it. Whilst I looked at it, I felt very calm and almost reassured. The second time, I was fifteen years old and suffering from a severe bout of my (then undiagnosed) bipolar disorder. It was the night I had decided to take my life, and I was walking downstairs to do so, when I saw a shadow in the doorway to the spare room of my house. I looked at it for a good two minutes and had the feeling it was looking straight back at me. Again, I felt very reassured and relaxed. When I was taken to the hospital that night, the doctors told my parents if I had been just a couple of minutes quicker in taking the painkillers, I would likely have died. I truly believe that whatever or whoever this shadow person was, they saved my life. I haven't seen anything since, though I have felt a presence (usually male) that appears to watch me every now and again.

[caleysto]

When i was about 5 or 6 I got really sick, had high fever was laying on the couch trying to get my fever down and i don't know if i hallucinated it during the high fever or what but at one time i remember seeing many shadow figures in the room facing one of our doors to another room. I told my mom about it after it happen but she told me not to tell anyone else. Now I'm working in a nursing home and a year back i had a weird experience where on the same night two residents i had kept telling us a man in all black with a black hat was coming to get them, and in there room. Both residents we're in separate rooms.

[The Exodia]

it freaks me out totally when im alone at home reading this. im quite scared of imagining his eyes. *scared*

[TheGrayMan]

This story is a little different then most in both it's intensity and content. I'm going to post this here because I unfortunately can't find anywhere that seems more professional and helpful, no offense to this site and it's members but this feels like having a serious medical condition that no doctor will treat. I've only told this story to a few friends in my life; probably more then I should have but I need answers. Something happened to me once when I was a child... and ever since that night, I have seen things, sensed things, felt things. I feel like whatever happened that night opened a doorway to something, something I cant bring myself to close no matter how much it scares me.

When I was about 7 years old, I was sleeping alone in my room. I was fast asleep having good dreams, and it was late at night. I began to toss and turn and realized something was strange, I woke up slightly and laid in my bed for a minute. The covers were over my head as I usually slept so I was yet unaware of the contents of my room, as I gathered my senses I realized the normally dim porch light outside my window seemed much brighter then normal and was casting a lot of shadows on my bed somehow, I could see them in contrast against the light through my covers, it seemed as though they were moving strangely. It was then that I noticed it was very... very cold... faaar colder then I had ever experienced before. I raised my knees and looked down and was surprised that I could see my breathe even under my quilt. Not only that, but I could hear wind, like there was a strong breeze in my room. By this point I was fairly alert from my confusion yet still waking up. I figured the only possibility was that my window was opened somehow, yet my window was always closed and I distinctly remembered my parents closing it and the curtains. I sensed something else though... something just... "wrong" was nearby me...

The next few moments have haunted and given me nightmares for nearly every day of my life since, and permanently rooted an indescribable dread in my soul.

I lifted the covers and looked. My gaze immediately went over to my clock, which (I swear) read 3-something AM, I had never awakened in the middle of the night before and had never been awake that late either. I went to look towards the window and found myself hesitating for some reason, I kept trying to bring myself to look but I didn't want to move, I could only stay focused on that clock. I suddenly began to shiver and shake, like part of me was trying with all it's might to keep me from looking. The cold was unbearable, and I felt something staring at me. I could hear the strange distorted breeze get louder, but I couldn't feel it blowing.

I looked, and it felt like time stopped.

My body suddenly became so still that I couldn't even breathe.

There he was... I still can see him when I close my eyes.

My window was indeed open, so were the curtains, all the way. He was there, he was huge. 6-7 feet tall at the least, a shoulder span of up to 3 feet. He was solid darkness, not a shadow but a void. He was looking right at me, and into me. He was so large that he had to crane his head under my roof. It was like... every inch of him was alive and crawling with something in the darkness, I often think that it was the darkness it's self that was alive. The porch light behind him was blazing white light, but it was mostly engulfed and blocked by his form, giving him better definition. The shadows rolled off of him like living smoke, his hair was of the same shadow but twisting and writhing in the invisible breeze like snakes. I was in such shock that I couldn't tell if he was wearing a hat, but I could tell that he was wearing some kind of cloak, duster, or trench coat. Looking at him was like having an open bridge between you and fear and hatred it's self. All the loathing and dread poring into me felt like it was going to drive me insane.

I stared paralyzed for while and realized there were other things moving in my room. I tried as hard as I could and finally broke my gaze. There were shadows moving on the walls, frantically and quickly, I realized, they were people all around me, dozens of shadow people. They were in-and-on the walls, crawling, running, dancing. I realized then the breeze wasn't coming from my window, it wasn't a breeze at all, it was whispering.

Dozens, maybe hundreds of whispers. They were talking to each other, I heard my name mentioned many times, and some of them tried whispering to me but they were drowned out in the chorus of the shrill voices that sounded almost like wind. I looked to my door to run, it was only a few feet away, I could make it. But the floor, the floor was solid black, and all over it was a swirling moat of cold darkness. I threw myself back under the covers in a panic, freaking out in fear that I may very well die. I could here the breeze getting louder and louder, I could sense the thing at the window reaching out... I think it came inside the room, it was getting closer. I could hear it. They were all coming for me.

And then I ran. In one fluid motion I threw off the covers and dove for the door. My foot touched the blackness on the ground right as my fingertips touched the doorknob, the darkness on the floor felt deeper then should have been possible, as though I might fall through it. I felt everything reaching out to grab me, they felt like ice cold oil.

And then I woke up, in a hallway about 25 feet from my room. My body felt like I had gone swimming in ice water. I had several strange scratches and marks. My door was wide open, so was my window, and my bed exactly as I left it when I fled for my life. There was tons of stuff knocked of my shelves and everything was scattered about the room. My room still had an unnatural cold in it that wasn't present anywhere else. My parents denied opening my window.

To this day, I have seen shadow people ever since. I have seen, heard or sensed them hundreds of times. I have many strange experiences, some rather intense and terrifying, but none like this first one. It felt personal... as if that dark man was saying... "you..."

I know bull it all is, and other people who tell me stories like this sound just as schizo to me. But that event like many other unexplainable ones have happened.

Has anyone else ever had such an intense phenomena? Does anyone know of any professionals I could contact about this? (other then a shrink plz?).

[coldethyl]

A sleep disorder clinic.

[Brian Topp]

Maybe we should discuss Fremantle power house having shadow people then.

[coldethyl]

Maybe we should discuss Fremantle power house having shadow people then.

Wahaha! But we're so professional.

[SpiritWriter]

This does not deserve 61 pages

Yes it does

[SpiritWriter]

I would just like to say yeay for all the people who have seen the shadow people. Sorry if you were ever afraid, but at least we know something exists that cannot be properly explained and that MANY others have experienced similar things. Does that mean there is something unique about us. Id say so.

There is a Mighty God who can deliver us from fear, who brings us comfort, who protects us and speaks to us regarding godly wisdom. Bless God.

[XingWi]

I would voice my honest opinion on "Hatman" and "Shadowman" and those who post stories about them but I fear it would get me banned from this website.

I will voice my honest opinion, anyway. I have a feeling that at least one of the posters that have posted before you on that page is a sockpuppet. The writing style reminds me of someone I know on this website. But I could be wrong, I cannot be sure until he posts more.

That being said, just because a few people make up stories about their paranormal experiences for whatever reason they do it or because a few of them require psychiatric treatment, it is not fair of the skeptics to asume that all those who post stories about shadows are lying or require medical attention. Such an assumption will have many inductive fallacies inside it.

I have said this before to the skeptics here, and I will say it again. The burden of proof lies on the believers and not on the skeptics, but until any verifiable evidence is given by the believers, a skeptic will have to just sit on the fence and not make any judgements (Isn't that what being a skeptic is all about?). But they are however entitled to their own beliefs about shadows. So basically that is all we have here. One belief against another.

While reaching some sort of conclusion about individual stories is possible by scrutinizing them, it is wrong to generalize such conclusion.

Edited June 9, 2013 by XingWi

[markprice]

82 pages and no Seven around to keep it going. That is a bit of a phenomena in itself. Heidi Hollis got the credit for starting the Hatman term, but I just read a story published in 1925 called Black Hat Sorcery; fiction based on ancient Tibet complete with the shadows moving out of the walls etc. From that I have to guess the phenomena of Hatman is thousands of years old, long before western invention.

[No Censorship]

82 pages and no Seven around to keep it going. That is a bit of a phenomena in itself. Heidi Hollis got the credit for starting the Hatman term, but I just read a story published in 1925 called Black Hat Sorcery; fiction based on ancient Tibet complete with the shadows moving out of the walls etc. From that I have to guess the phenomena of Hatman is thousands of years old, long before western invention.

That may be true. It could stem from influences and references found in pop culture too. Look at gangster movies, as well as secret agent caricatures. I think that there were ancient variations, but the well known version likely is a modern phenomenon.

[XingWi]

That may be true. It could stem from influences and references found in pop culture too. Look at gangster movies, as well as secret agent caricatures. I think that there were ancient variations, but the well known version likely is a modern phenomenon.

The cloaked figure is mentioned in a 1500 year old middle eastern book that refers to an oral tradition dating back to before 1272 BC. That means approx. 3300 years back. The sightings near death have also been mentioned in ancient books. This about documented texts, otherwise, the phenomenon must be as old as the human race itself. The hat is of course a modern version. I don't think it is an archetype though.

[No Censorship]

The cloaked figure is mentioned in a 1500 year old middle eastern book that refers to an oral tradition dating back to before 1272 BC. That means approx. 3300 years back. The sightings near death have also been mentioned in ancient books. This about documented texts, otherwise, the phenomenon must be as old as the human race itself. The hat is of course a modern version. I don't think it is an archetype though.

I was referring to characters who look a bit like my avatar. They're modern variations on an ancient theme. That's assuming that they're the same entities as the cloaked ones. Maybe the shadow beings change with the times like what allegedly happens with angels/demons and fairies morphing into extraterrestrials.

[XingWi]

I was referring to characters who look a bit like my avatar. They're modern variations on an ancient theme. That's assuming that they're the same entities as the cloaked ones. Maybe the shadow beings change with the times like what allegedly happens with angels/demons and fairies morphing into extraterrestrials.

Yes I got everything you said. I replied agreeing with you. I mentioned the archetype part against the Jungians. I'm not sure if the same entities change with time. Mark has this "evil is one" theory, but I don't agree with him about this particular concept.

[No Censorship]

Yes I got everything you said. I replied agreeing with you. I mentioned the archetype part against the Jungians. I'm not sure if the same entities change with time. Mark has this "evil is one" theory, but I don't agree with him about this particular concept.

I'm on the Jungian fence on this one. It's likely that the old hag is in Jung's bag in that "she" comes from the very real common phenomenon of night terrors and sleep paralysis, and this might have evolved into an archetype since it's a shared experience. Like you, I don't think that all of these phenomena are evil branches of the same wicked tree. I think that they're part of a paranormal menagerie, something akin to normal zoology with all of the varied species found in that field.

[XingWi]

I'm on the Jungian fence on this one. It's likely that the old hag is in Jung's bag in that "she" comes from the very real common phenomenon of night terrors and sleep paralysis, and this might have evolved into an archetype since it's a shared experience.

If there is a seperate conciousness interacting with yours and you skin that conciousness with the archetype in your mind, I don't have any problem calling the entire thing an archetype as long as I'm allowed to ascribe conciousness to it. But Jungians would disagree.

The archetypes and Jungians part is not referring to you Mark. Hope you are doing well and have got rid of your prescription.

Edited June 11, 2013 by XingWi

[Tata Rompe Pecho]

The cloaked figure is mentioned in a 1500 year old middle eastern book that refers to an oral tradition dating back to before 1272 BC. That means approx. 3300 years back. The sightings near death have also been mentioned in ancient books. This about documented texts, otherwise, the phenomenon must be as old as the human race itself. The hat is of course a modern version. I don't think it is an archetype though.

The Bantu People date back approx. 4000 years(because of verbal tradition), and have many variations of these shadow figures.. Some even have hats or masks on. But the mordern Hatman seems to really take to these flamboyant cowboy looking hats or fedoras... No mention of that..

The shadow people were what was believed to be ghosts or "dark energies", not of good intention.. The Hatman.. When he showed his face, was considered to be good, no face was considered just another shadow person, just happened to have a hat too..

[XingWi]

The Bantu People date back approx. 4000 years(because of verbal tradition), and have many variations of these shadow figures.. Some even have hats or masks on.

What were these many variations? Can you describe them in deatil?

Edited June 11, 2013 by XingWi

[Tata Rompe Pecho]

What were these many variations? Can you describe them in deatil?

Well, there were thousands of them.. The only shared thing they all had was that they were shadow people.. The thing is, they weren't transparent or void or anything like that.. It was like seeing a solid black mass just taking up space in the shape of a body, some had capes, hats, weapons, abnormal limbs.. etc etc etc..

[paranormal kid64]

have u seen ghost be cause i have on many occasaion i have also seen shadow people the only thing i could think of in commen is stress or some how being linked with the paranormal because my friend has alot of stress but never sees them or any thing paranormal i am very in trested in this subject

because at the house i used to live in i saw them frequently it was also a very old house other than that i have no idea

sorry for the rant