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The Shadow Man & His Damned Hat

LauraRoslin

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Apr 1, 2010
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Hey guys, I probably posted this story on here many years ago (decade or more) but can't be sure. Okay, so a heap of weird shit had gone down in the home our rather large family of eleven individuals resided in. The shadow man with the hat and coat is the one I'll share here. Mainly because in 1999-2000, I decided to see if I could find out anything about this entity and came across an almost identical drawing to what I saw on a semi-regular basis as a little kid. This particular night, the hat endowed shadow appeared outside the bedroom window and was suddenly inside, in our bedroom. My sister and I had beds that ran parallel, with the foot ends facing the window. I spot the shadow man and see he is moving but not actually walking closer towards me. My little sister yells out, "don't let him get you". I quickly roll on my tummy (I was seven, Cate was six IIRC) but as I'm looking at him, I see he has something in his hand. I hide my face and feel three distinct prods on my left shoulder blade. I saw this entity probably a half dozen times in that room but there was a heap of other weird crap that went on there as well. So, any of you lovely lot ever experienced anything like this? A lot of people would just say it was a simple hypnogogic experience, which I would've probably have dismissed it as such once I became familiar with the term but for the fact that my little sister saw him and yelled out.
 
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Hi Laura and welcome back.

There are quite a few sightings of this entity on the web- just wish there where photographs too. Alot of them are probably just natural shadows but I believe your story because Ive witnessed this weirdness myself. My parents first house was an old one with a long dark corridor upstairs. Some nights I`d awake to the sound of footsteps on the landing which always seemed to stop near my bedroom door. This in itself scared me to tears but worse still was the dark form that came into view near the bedrooms closed door. It resembled a man in a hat who appeared to be wearing a cape or long coat. It always stood there facing me until I cried myself to sleep. We moved house later on and left all that weirdness behind. Nowadays, I occasionally pass the house whilst driving and the thought of that thing upstairs still sends shivers down my spine. :eek:
 
I think I've mentioned this on a post before, but it seems appropriate to mention it again, in answer to your question. It was the early 90's and we were living in an apartment. Around 4:30 in the morning I was standing in the kitchen making a lunch to take to work with me. I was the only one awake in the apartment, wife and kids were asleep. I just happened to look up and saw the shadow of a person moving down the wall of the hallway toward the living room. It looked like a normal shadow would appear on the wall if a person had been walking down the hallway, but nobody was there. Just the shadow. I didn't see a hat. No other weird occurrences there in that apartment, then or any other time, that I'm aware of. Just that fleeting shadow. Maybe it was a trick of my imagination. Maybe it was something else. I know I saw it. I can't explain it.
 
I didn't see a shadow man with a hat, but I did see a "static" man with a hat, when I was small. Maybe three or four years old. Looked just like he was made of static from the television. I'd lie in bed at night, unable to sleep because I was nervous of the dark, and I'd see the static man lean around the corner of the open door to look at me. He was strange, but not frightening. I did always wonder why he had a hat.

My spouse reports seeing a man with a hat (A bowler hat, specifically) sitting in the corner of his bedroom every night when he was small. He'd asked his mother about him, and she replied (rather startled) that there was no one there.
 

The first image I saw there looked spookily like my sighting and its near a door too. :eek:

5448206_orig.jpg
 
Considering it is wearing a trench coat and fedora, the entity is probably not older than 150 year old. The first trench coats where designed in the 1850s.
 
I don't see why you interpret that silhouette as a trench coat, Vardoger! You can't tell anything about the neckline, presence or absence of buttons, beltedness, or even if there's sleeves. It could just as well be a cape or cloak with a collar. It reminds me of Zorro.

But when you say Shadow Man with a Hat, I see the pulp character.
 
I don't see why you interpret that silhouette as a trench coat, Vardoger! You can't tell anything about the neckline, presence or absence of buttons, beltedness, or even if there's sleeves. It could just as well be a cape or cloak with a collar. It reminds me of Zorro.

But when you say Shadow Man with a Hat, I see the pulp character.

The article talks about a man in hat and trench coat. The image posted by GeorgeP is from the article.
 
This is intruiging to me, as it's a chance to drag up one of the handful of anecdotes I've meant to post on here but have never got around to.

Long story short: when I was about five years old I was walking through the park next to our house with my mum (probably going to the shops on a Saturday, as we were going the wrong route to get to my primary school). As we were strolling along, myself being slightly ahead of my mother and to her left, I looked across to the right where some flowerbeds lay alongside the gravel path and saw VERY clearly a man walking along keeping pace with us - except it wasn't a man, it was something like a 2D cutout of a man in a hat and overcoat or raincoat with a pipe between his teeth, but animated, moving along normally and made out of a kind of brownish shadow with a suggestion of fuzzy noise like analogue TV static. There was nothing transparent about him.

I immediately asked my mum (she remembered this for years, but not sure if she still does) if she could see 'Mister Nobody' - that's what I nicknamed him on the spot, as it was a saying in my family, as in: "I didn't leave the light on / break this / pinch this from the fridge, honest'..."Oh right, it was MR NOBODY was it???". Of course she couldn't see him and humoured me when I asked her about 'him' subsequently. By the way, he began to slightly overtake us and disappeared after we crossed the next bit of path, so was probably only 'visible' for ten to fifteen seconds or so.

Mum did eventually offer the suggestion (for a laugh and to humour me I expect) that there was a ghost supposedly seen around that area, but I later found out this was allegedly a monk (doubtful as no monastery for miles), possibly holding an apple...not a man somewhere from the 1930s to 1970s wearing slightly old-fashioned but perfectly normal middle-aged man clobber of the time.

Anyway, I did find that the Sandeman man always reminded me of him, purely due to the brimmed hat and shadowiness, but there was nothing in the least bit sinister or frightening about the apparition / hallucination. I'm guessing it was just down to the phantoms that emerge from a young child's brain as it frantically rewires itself in an effort to keep up with trying to make sense of the world.

I walk that path frequently and am occassioanly disappointed not to see my 2D friend once more. I've done a quick photoshop rendition: the location is off by about 40 feet and the gait and body shape aren't quite right. And now I think of it, the brim of 'his' hat was a little wider. Otherwise, the general look is spot on (as remembered).


Mr Nobody FTMB.png
saw'.
 
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That's a worry, as I do actually find Tati a bit sinister....

Monsieur Hulot's Horrorday, and so on :-o
 
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Hi Laura and welcome back.

There are quite a few sightings of this entity on the web- just wish there where photographs too. Alot of them are probably just natural shadows but I believe your story because Ive witnessed this weirdness myself. My parents first house was an old one with a long dark corridor upstairs. Some nights I`d awake to the sound of footsteps on the landing which always seemed to stop near my bedroom door. This in itself scared me to tears but worse still was the dark form that came into view near the bedrooms closed door. It resembled a man in a hat who appeared to be wearing a cape or long coat. It always stood there facing me until I cried myself to sleep. We moved house later on and left all that weirdness behind. Nowadays, I occasionally pass the house whilst driving and the thought of that thing upstairs still sends shivers down my spine. :eek:

Thanks for your post in response to mine. It's eerie how similar some aspects of so many of these anecdotes are. I used to hide under the blankets out of fear. We had so much weird shit go on in that house. It no longer exists but I remember it all too vividly. Another weird thing in this particular bedroom were the red bubbles. I remember the same sister and I regularly seeing like streaming red bubbles that we used to wave around with our hands. Also, another time, seeing a little man reflected in our bedroom dresser mirror looking back at us but we couldn't see him in reality. Just in the mirror. With regard to the red bubbles, I remember saying to my two oldest sisters about them, and one of them said, "oh yeah, grown ups can't see them. Only kids can". I sort-of responded with a shrug of, "yep, okay.., makes sense". But that bloody hatman and his coat or cape and he was huge. His appearance from outside the window and then inside is so mental. I can't actually explain it. It's not like I saw it move. It was just like, "there he is and now, here he is". Just out of interest, GeorgeP, how old are you now and how old were you when you experienced this weird shit?

(edited for spelling error)
 
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The first image I saw there looked spookily like my sighting and its near a door too. :eek:

5448206_orig.jpg
That's the one. I totally freaked when I saw it for the first time on the 'net. I'd only just recently built my first computer after having only a few months on line. I decided to type in, "shadow person" and this and a small, cowled/hooded entity were shown. Even looking at this image freaks me out a bit. BTW, with regard to the small, monk/nun like entity, it appeared in my dreams several times. I'd never see its face. It was just scary but I always put it down to nightmares along with seeing weird faces as I was drifting off to sleep. Nighmarish old men sort of screaming at me. But the hatman was the freakiest and the most memorable. My sisters and I, now in our fifties, have discussed this recently. I've made a real effort to not lead the discussion or their answers. Just a question and answers situation where I'd ask, "do you recall anything about the house at Epsom Rd? The answers have been consistent all the way through our lives. I may try to get one of my sisters to post her recollections here.
 
Well Ive had another experience with what must be the hatmans opposite. I caught sight of someone sat in the chair nearest to the window one evening. Now, I only caught sight of him because he was moving/animated. He was an outline of dull light that was just about visible. I froze in disbelief and then he/it stood up, was very tall and looked well built too. It turned to my left and walked towards the dresser which it passed through. This left me stunned and alittle shocked but that all soon passed as I didn't pick up anything bad from that being - what ever it was. Ive told many people about it and I swear on my life that I wasn't imagining it. I`ll try and produce a mock-up image soon to better demonstrate what I encountered.

Ive searched the net but found very little to match what I saw.
 
That's the one. I totally freaked when I saw it for the first time on the 'net. I'd only just recently built my first computer after having only a few months on line. I decided to type in, "shadow person" and this and a small, cowled/hooded entity were shown. Even looking at this image freaks me out a bit. BTW, with regard to the small, monk/nun like entity, it appeared in my dreams several times. I'd never see its face. It was just scary but I always put it down to nightmares along with seeing weird faces as I was drifting off to sleep. Nighmarish old men sort of screaming at me. But the hatman was the freakiest and the most memorable. My sisters and I, now in our fifties, have discussed this recently. I've made a real effort to not lead the discussion or their answers. Just a question and answers situation where I'd ask, "do you recall anything about the house at Epsom Rd? The answers have been consistent all the way through our lives. I may try to get one of my sisters to post her recollections here.

Who knows, there may be a reason for you seeing that image here again?
 
This is intruiging to me, as it's a chance to drag up one of the handful of anecdotes I've meant to post on here but have never got around to.

Long story short: when I was about five years old I was walking through the park next to our house with my mum (probably going to the shops on a Saturday, as we were going the wrong route to get to my primary school). As we were strolling along, myself being slightly ahead of my mother and to her left, I looked across to the right where some flowerbeds lay alongside the gravel path and saw VERY clearly a man walking along keeping pace with us - except it wasn't a man, it was something like a 2D cutout of a man in a hat and overcoat or raincoat with a pipe between his teeth, but animated, moving along normally and made out of a kind of brownish shadow with a suggestion of fuzzy noise like analogue TV static. There was nothing transparent about him.

I immediately asked my mum (she remembered this for years, but not sure if she still does) if she could see 'Mister Nobody' - that's what I nicknamed him on the spot, as it was a saying in my family, as in: "I didn't leave the light on / break this / pinch this from the fridge, honest'..."Oh right, it was MR NOBODY was it???". Of course she couldn't see him and humoured me when I asked her about 'him' subsequently. By the way, he began to slightly overtake us and disappeared after we crossed the next bit of path, so was probably only 'visible' for ten to fifteen seconds or so.

Mum did eventually offer the suggestion (for a laugh and to humour me I expect) that there was a ghost supposedly seen around that area, but I later found out this was allegedly a monk (doubtful as no monastery for miles), possibly holding an apple...not a man somewhere from the 1930s to 1970s wearing slightly old-fashioned but perfectly normal middle-aged man clobber of the time.

Anyway, I did find that the Sandeman man always reminded me of him, purely due to the brimmed hat and shadowiness, but there was nothing in the least bit sinister or frightening about the apparition / hallucination. I'm guessing it was just down to the phantoms that emerge from a young child's brain as it frantically rewires itself in an effort to keep up with trying to make sense of the world.

I walk that path frequently and am occassioanly disappointed not to see my 2D friend once more. I've done a quick photoshop rendition: the location is off by about 40 feet and the gait and body shape aren't quite right. And now I think of it, the brim of 'his' hat was a little wider. Otherwise, the general look is spot on (as remembered).


View attachment 431saw'.

You may have been peering into another dimension, perhaps that area contains what is termed a window area.
 
WaylonJenningsLadiesLoveOutlaws.jpg Van Cleef.jpg W-leaning silhouette 2.jpg

This brings something else to mind -

When I was small (before school age, probably) I would occasionally see a figure (or figures) around town, with an appearance similar to Jennings and Van Cleef, above. That general sort of look, dressed in black, etc. If not entirely a shadow, he was certainly "shadowy". I'd see him at the park, on the street and (most notably) standing in front of the local motel of dubious repute. These were always fleeting glimpses, though. I could never get a good look at his face. Whenever I'd see him, I'd ask my parents or siblings, "who is that man?" and they'd always say "what man?" "That man in black* over there!" But they were always non-plussed. This is not to say he didn't really exist, just that no one else in the family ever saw him. He gave me a weird feeling though, which is why I kept asking.

Many years later, when the leaning silhouette image above started turning up everywhere, it made me uneasy, and not just because of my objection to western-themed yard art. It reminded me of that man.

Looking at this and the other pictures in this thread, it occurs to me that this is an archetype. Outlaws, spies, gangsters, underworld figures, to guess by their appearance. "Shadows" in the Jungian sense.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)
It's an idea, anyway.

*the obvious answer to this is Johnny Cash, but he rarely wore a hat.:p
 
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