At about 1:45am on Monday (January 20th), my parents and I were up late watching the show "Monsters and Mysteries in America" and in one segment, a man was talking about his encounters with a shadow entity he nicknamed "the cowboy" because of the hat it wore. Hearing that description and seeing the dramatization of what it looked like made the hairs on my neck and arms stand on end. It was EXACTLY what I saw as a child. I almost immediately went to the computer and searched for info on this entity and was surprised to see that it was a widely reported phenomena from all around the world known most commonly as "The Hatman". As a paranormal researcher for the last 8 years or so, I feel a bit stupid having never heard of this phenomena before (especially considering I've seen a few "shadow people" in the past and have researched them quite a bit), but better late than never I suppose.
At about 3am with all my new found information on this entity and the realization that what I saw as a young child very well could have been the Hatman (my encounter was very consistent with other reports), I went to bed upstairs (I'm now in the room next door to the room I was in when I saw it 14 years earlier). I was actually genuinely scared (which is kind of a rarity for me) after reading all the reports of this entity and how menacing it can appear to be, but my girlfriend was staying over and had been sleeping for a few hours while I was downstairs, so I wasn't completely alone. After laying there for around ten minutes scanning the darkness for shadowy figures and buzzing with a strange combination of fear and excitement, I finally woke my girlfriend up to tell her about what I had seen as a child and what I had just found out about from watching that show. At first she seemed slightly skeptical about the phenomena, suggesting that since many people have the same dreams (falling, flying, etc), maybe people are having the same vision of a man with a hat when they're in between sleeping and awake. Her skepticism started to fade as I told her about some eyewitness reports I read where multiple people have seen this entity (including one story of a mother who saw it in her son's room watching him sleep after he had been claiming to see it in his room).
We talked for about an hour and a half (by this time it was around 4:30am) and we finally decided to try to sleep. I was still a bit on edge, but we joked around a little bit and she was saying little things here and there to lighten the mood. Now as for her credibility, she's the most honest person I know (as well as the most objective person I know), and I can trust her with anything. She's also had many paranormal experiences, and it's not something she would lie about or mess around with. Anyways, we were laying there quieting down after laughing a bit, and she kind of looked around the dark room and said in almost a mocking (towards the entity) yet lighthearted fashion "No Cowboy man here!" and laid back down. We were both facing the same direction (she was in front of me) and she was reaching back to rub the side of my leg. Not 30 seconds after she made that comment, I felt her start to squeeze my leg very tightly and I heard her breathing speed up, then I heard her say something I will never forget. In the most terrified tone of voice I've ever heard in my life, she whispered to me "Chris, I see it." I was immediately almost frozen in fear and couldn't bring myself to look up over her shoulder (this is strange for me; I'm always the first one to pursue something to catch a glimpse of it). After a few seconds she looked away from it to look at me and when she looked back, it was gone. The next minute or so afterwards was both of us nearly in hysterics and her in tears swearing she wasn't lying to me about what she saw. She was looking at a small red light on my stereo on that side of the room when she noticed two more faint, smaller red spots higher up (about six feet off the ground) and to the right. She thought to herself how odd it was and what it could have been, when she started to look around the red spots and realized she was looking at a very distinct figure in a hat, and the red spots were eyes.
Now pardon my french, but I know a bullshitter when I see one. And what I saw when she told me this was a person who was very genuinely terrified of something they witnessed. We stayed awake until dawn, then eventually fell asleep. Needless to say, we're still pretty freaked out over the whole thing and I've been doing a lot of research and reading a lot of eyewitness reports on this entity. Many seem to think it is non human and/or demonic in nature, while others believe it is completely neutral in it's demeanor. But when it comes down to it, no one really knows anything for sure about it other than the behaviors people have witnessed (which seem to be quite neutral - it almost always just stands and stares for a while before vanishing).
This is a topic I will be looking into quite extensively, and would love any eyewitnesses who read this post to click the "Report a Sighting" tab on this site or message my facebook page here and tell me your story. Please be as descriptive and thorough as possible (you may remain anonymous if you wish).
Have you seen the Hatman?
