The Hat Man Collection

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[00:00:33] Welcome to Tell Me A Ghost Story. The late night call-in podcast where we delve into the world of the supernatural and explore the eerie and unexplained. I'm your host, Michelle Newman. This podcast features true stories from our callers that will send shivers down your spine and leave you questioning the existence of the afterlife.

[00:01:00] So grab a cozy blanket, turn down the lights. You may have seen on the internet, quarterback Aaron Rodgers of the Pittsburgh Steelers has had an experience seeing the Hat Man while on the psychedelic drug Ayahuasca in Peru. Unfortunately, this report was a joke. Snopes Investigated traced the story back to a satirical website called the Wisconsin News Today and a viral Reddit post from 2023.

[00:01:29] But that is how the Hat Man works. The story spreads and he feels a little more real each time. So tonight we're talking about the most famous shadow person in the paranormal world. The Hat Man. Five callers who saw him. And in between, the whole story or what we know of it. Where he came from.

[00:01:57] How a radio show in 2001 helped turn him into a legend. Why skeptics blame sleep paralysis. Why the internet might be making him more real. And what he could be if the skeptics are wrong. Hi Michelle, my name is Lisa. I'm an Aboriginal woman of the Gomorrah Nation and I'm based on Quandamooka country or in the Brisbane area of Queensland in Australia. Love the podcast.

[00:02:25] And I'd like to share a story with you. I was four years old and I remember waking up during the middle of the night feeling someone standing behind me in or near my bedroom. And I rolled over to see who it was and I could see a tall man standing in the doorway of my bedroom. And all I remember is that he was tall, very skinny, was wearing a hat.

[00:02:56] I couldn't see any detail of his face or his clothes. But I stared at him and he stared back at me. And I remember thinking to myself, what am I going to do to get to mum and dad? I would have to sneak around him or go through him. So I just rolled back over facing the wall, putting my back towards him. And whispered to myself, please go away. Please go away. Please go away. And just fell back to sleep.

[00:03:26] I never saw him again as an older child or adult. But that incident plays on my mind all the time. So much so that I've now created my own scary story podcast that will feature First Nations stories of paranormal and true horror. Because I know that we've got a lot of stories amongst our people here in Australia.

[00:03:50] And he is, the tall man that was at my door, is actually the artwork for my podcast. So hopefully it's a journey to learn more about this tall man and maybe why he was there. And to connect with other Aboriginal or Indigenous people in Australia and around the world with their stories of paranormal and true horror.

[00:04:23] Thank you, Lisa. Lisa calls him the tall man. Here's the thing. The hat man is only the newest name for something that's been around for centuries. A looming shadowy figure that appears between sleep and waking. In the Arabic tradition, it's al-Jathun, a nightmare with a heavy weight on the chest, trouble breathing, and a sense that you can't speak or move. In medieval Europe, it was the incubus and the succubus demons pictured perched on the chest of sleepers who couldn't move with hallucinations,

[00:04:53] trouble breathing, and a deep dread. And in English, it was the mare, from the Anglo-Saxon word to crush. The crusher who comes at night. Different centuries, different costumes, same visitor. Hi, this is Marissa. I'm from Dallas, Texas. When I was young, I was probably about five years old. I hated sleeping in the dark. Like, I really hated it.

[00:05:22] I would sneak into my parents' room at times and try to just be near someone because the dark was just not my, not a very happy place for me. So one night when I was sleeping in my room, I noticed that the shadows in my room were moving. And it was, it was dark, like, at a point where you could see the shadows form things.

[00:05:51] And I was terrified because I was like five years old. Because of the dark, it was just very visible in my room. I could see the furniture and my door, which would be left open. So that way my parents could come in on my room when they needed to. Well, in the doorway, which leads into the hallway, I could see that the shadows started taking form of a person. Once it fully formed a person, it looked like a man.

[00:06:21] And the man was wearing what I, at my time, of my child imagination was trying to describe it as, is like a top hat. And so he had no features, just a black silhouette with a top hat on his head. Very tall, very tall man. I remember him having to bend down to walk into my room.

[00:06:42] I don't know how long he stayed there just watching me from the door of doorway of my room to where I was sitting by a window or sleeping by a window. So it seemed like it was for hours, but I really couldn't tell. I wanted to scream for my parents to come and help me, but I couldn't make a sound.

[00:07:05] So I just kind of pulled the blankets over my head and prayed that he just walked away or just leave me alone. And as soon as he was out of my sight, I could hear him walking into my room and getting closer and closer to my bed. I don't know how he did it without like, no, just, he just walked to me.

[00:07:33] And I felt a hand push itself onto the sheet near me and was terrified. And then it just stopped. I don't know what happened after that. And it never happened again. That was the only night that it happened. But then we moved and in a new home, it was bigger, new area. I was 10 years old.

[00:08:03] So this was five years after that incident that my family moved into the new home and I was lying in bed and I could feel a shift in the air. Like there was a presence poking me to wake up. So when I opened my eyes, I saw that my bedroom door was wide open and my nightlight, which because of the first incident I started sleeping with a nightlight was out.

[00:08:27] So my first thought was that my brother had came in to play a prank on me after I fell asleep. And he must have came in and turned them off because we had a fight because he knew I was, I hated the dark. I couldn't sleep with my door open anymore. And I was terrified of what was walking in the hallway. And I could see the shapes forming in the dark, in the hallway again.

[00:08:53] I watched it in the dark as they became multiple people. Now, instead of just one or few, there was multiple people in the hallway looking into my room, dark shapes and figures, but they never crossed the threshold. They always stayed there and just watched me like they were watching a show. And they were feeding off my fears and enjoying themselves being entertained with my fear of them.

[00:09:21] And they just as quickly as they had appeared, they disappeared. And that's when he came back, the man in the top hat. And he started moving into my room again. But this time he didn't stay in a corner. And he came to my bed and leaned over me, staring at me with his blank face, no features. And it was very visceral fear coursing through me.

[00:09:51] I was terrified. And I think he remembered me from five years ago because he, how would he find me? How did this happen? And so I stared at him for however long. And I go back underneath my covers, praying, praying over and over again that he would leave, hoping he did. But I couldn't shake the fear that he would not leave.

[00:10:18] And then he leaned closer and touched the blankets on my leg. No noise, just pressure. And then it was gone. And I later found out later that he was a hat man. And it's been 20 years. It was my last encounter with him. But I pray that would be my only last encounter. I do not want him to come find me again. Thank you, Marissa. Marissa says she found out later what he was called.

[00:10:49] So where did the name come from? The hat man is considered a type of shadow person and the modern version showed up early in the 2000s. In April 2001, Art Bell spent a coast to coast AM broadcast talking at length with a guest about shadow people. And they asked listeners to send in drawings of what they'd seen.

[00:11:09] The accounts described living shadows, humanoid figures with no features, who appear in the corner of the room or the edge of your vision and stay still, simply watching or moving through the space as if they don't know you're there. Those stories flooded paranormal message boards and forms. Then a trend emerged. The hat man. Described as malevolent. Bringing an intense fear of dread.

[00:11:36] And strangely, unlike other shadow people, he seemed to be interested in the people who saw him. Hi, Michelle. It's Erica from San Diego again calling back with another paranormal experience. So this actually happened when I lived in San Diego. I no longer knew at my mother's house.

[00:12:06] She still is there to stay. And so do the rest of the people in this story. And this probably happened, I'd say, seven years ago now. Give or take.

[00:12:27] There were times when I was living with my mom, my sister and my two nephews, where I'd come home and my big black lab Rottweiler would have already taken over my bed. So I loved my big girl so much. I would opt to sleep on the couch a lot of time. And I found it quite comfortable, to be honest. Never had a problem sleeping on it.

[00:12:55] But there was this one experience that I'll never forget, which makes me not ever want to sleep on a couch at my family's home again. So I was sleeping one night and laying on my back. And the layout of the house is semi-important. We have the living room in the very front of the house at the entrance of the home.

[00:13:23] And that led to the kitchen on the left side and then a hallway that led to the bedroom. Well, I was sleeping on the couch. And in the middle of the night, I just woke up. Not irregular of me to wake up in the middle of the night. So something woke me up, though. Typically, I need to use the restroom. That wasn't the case this time.

[00:13:50] As soon as I opened my eyes to wake up, I saw someone standing at the very entrance of the hallway. A tall, dark figure with what looked like a pointy hat. The only way I can describe this hat is it looked like a Dick Tracy hat. I'm aging myself right now.

[00:14:17] It was a very pointed hat with a brim that went all the way around. I hate to say it, but I think he would have. Anyway, I woke up from my sleep. Saw this big, tall, dark entity with a hat on.

[00:14:45] It took dark down the hall at a fast pace. And my body went into that fight or flight mode that everyone talks about. So I left up off the couch and chased this figure down the hall. But when I got to the entrance of the hallway, it was gone. I went to each bedroom.

[00:15:11] My mom, my sisters and nephews, and my own. Turned on the lights. Didn't care if I woke up my family member. Tried not to, but I just wanted to check and make sure there was nobody in our home for a hot second that maybe there was an intruder. And I was surprised with my own reaction.

[00:15:35] Because after looking in each room and not saying anything or any sign of someone being in our home, not even my dog barking, she didn't leave. She would have been the first one to alert me that there was someone in the house. I was in shock. I realized that wasn't an intruder that I saw. But I definitely, I put two and two together after that.

[00:16:01] And came to terms with the fact that I did in fact have an experience with hat. So that's my story. Thank you. I'll call back again soon with another story from grandma's properties for you. Have a good one. Thank you, Erica. Let's start with the explanation that most researchers favor.

[00:16:31] A lot of sightings happen in the middle of the night. When someone's falling asleep or waking up. During REM sleep, your muscles are naturally paralyzed to keep you from acting out your dreams. Sleep paralysis is when you're conscious, but still paralyzed. With intense fear and vivid hallucinations. Researchers call a sense of this threatening presence the intruder. But Erica was up and moving. She chased him.

[00:16:58] Not all sightings of the hat man happen during sleep. Hey Michelle, it's Brittany. So I was around nine when I had my first encounter with Supernatural. My sisters and I decided that we were going to embark on a mission to build the ultimate fort. So we decided to pull together all the dining room table chairs, the blankets, the pillows, anything that we could possibly find in order to create this ultimate adventure. And we decided this is the most epic thing we've ever done. We're going to sleep in the fort tonight.

[00:17:25] So we started kind of putting in our sleeping bags and what we could into the fort and found that only two of us were going to fit. So I've decided that I was going to fashion a bed out of the couch cushions just outside the walls of this fort. We kind of fell asleep pretty quickly after building this wonderful thing. And around about one o'clock in the morning, I kind of woke up to a bit of an eerie feeling. I felt like I was almost being watched.

[00:17:54] I was a bit groggy and kind of disoriented, but I scanned the room a bit and kind of froze in terror, finding somebody standing just near the front door. A man. And... Sorry. Um... I could feel his gaze on me. I... I could see him pretty clearly. He was this shadow with these deep, dark edges. And he was just kind of eerie standing there.

[00:18:23] And it just gave me this, like, gnarly, unsettling feeling. I felt kind of frozen. And at first I wondered, like, is that my dad? Like, um, it could have been my dad, but then I looked at his figure and he was too tall, you know? He was taller, he was translucent, and I could see through him. And his present kind of sent shivers down my spine. And he was grinning. Like, he was smiling at me.

[00:18:50] I couldn't see his face fully, but I could definitely tell that he was smiling at me. His arms were crossed around his chest, and one of his legs was kicked up against the wall. He was leaning. And it was, it gave me very much so, like, a cowboy feel, you know? He really felt like a cowboy. But without, like, a cowboy hat or anything silly like that. But he just, like, had that, like, presence of, like, I've been here. And for a moment there I felt like he's gonna charge for me, right?

[00:19:20] Like, he's gonna come for me. And he didn't. And he just stood against the wall, just relaxed. And it kind of paralyzed me with fear. I watched and kind of remained motionless as I observed him for a moment. And then a panic kind of surged through me, and I sought refuge under the covers and just began wailing from my parents.

[00:19:48] My cries kind of caught their attention, and I felt them barreling down the stairs with my dad swinging a bat at the time looking for who was here. And as I kind of frantically recounted what was happening, a man in the home, he began to kind of, in a surgical manner, go through every single nook and cranny of the home in search for this person.

[00:20:12] With no one there, we kind of, like, recounted everything that had happened, and no one was found. No doors unlocked, no curtains amiss. It was just silent. Thank you, Brittany. He was wearing a cowboy hat, which brings up another theory.

[00:20:39] The internet has made it easy to find other people who've seen the same thing, who've had the same experience, and online communities where people share their stories. As people read hat man accounts on TikTok, Reddit, 4chan, they're more likely to have the same experience. It's made real by telling its story. That's not just a theory.

[00:21:06] Research calls the experience a neurological and cultural construction, meaning your brain builds the figure from what is known. So is a cowboy a hat man? Maybe. Maybe the more we tell the story, the more the figures get folded into it. Erica compared his hat to Dick Tracy's. Our brains borrow. And here's a theory of mine, in the spirit of the Mandela Effect. Do you remember Stranger Danger PSAs?

[00:21:35] A man in a hat and a coat, drilled into our heads as kids. Maybe the brain digs that image up, as a warning when we're at our most defenseless. Hi, my name is Brandy from Marysville, Ohio. I will try to make this quick, because it's a good one. But we have a little town here called Yellow Springs. It's kind of a little hippie town.

[00:22:03] You find your crystals, all the fun stuff. It's amazing. So my friend Emily and I went to Yellow Springs for a girls weekend. Did some shopping. I found this amazing crystal. It was a smoky cork. Real dark. Had to have it. It was only 15 bucks. It was mine. So we go to dinner that night. During dinner, and I have to remind you, it was the middle of February.

[00:22:32] We had snow on the ground, whatever. Out at dinner, power goes out. I hope you shine, we'll make the best of it. Somebody gets up and plays the guitar. Had a great time. Walked back to our room. And was like, I have a full battery on my phone, let's have a dance party. Had a dance party, and then all of a sudden, the space started feeling really heavy. So I just said to myself, okay, something's off.

[00:23:03] I would like the power to come back on. It did within like a minute. And then start admiring our crystal. And I looked at my smoky cork. And I said to Emily, do you see that? Do you see that image in my crystal? And she goes, it looks like a guy wearing a hat. And that's exactly what I had seen. And I didn't want to tell her because I wanted to make sure that I was not losing my mind and seeing the same face. And I said to myself, okay.

[00:23:31] So we go on about our girl time. Get up the next Sunday. We wanted to continue shopping. So drove the car into town. We were going to leave right from there. And we go to the dance cake store we were going to walk into. Turned to go in.

[00:23:54] And I looked up and a man in a long trench coat and a hat walked out. He was carrying this black cup of coffee. And I looked at my friend Emily and I said, that's him. That was the man in my crystal last night. And of course, Emily being my very best friend and sister in the whole wide world, but is a little more outgoing than I am.

[00:24:24] Walked up to him and says, you were in our crystal last night. And he looked at her funny and I would think a lot of people would probably look at us like we were crazy and walk away. He did not. But let me also add that people don't wear trench coats and hats on yellow springs. Like it is such a different atmosphere. It doesn't even feel like you're in Ohio.

[00:24:53] I was like Emily, you know, whatever. I was like, I'm going to go to the corner. She starts talking to him, strikes up a conversation. And I'm like, I'm going in the store. Let's go. So she comes in. He follows us in and continues to have a conversation with her. She asked him, where are you from? And he goes, oh, I'm from everywhere or all around. It was one of the two. This was back in 2019.

[00:25:22] So it was a while back. And then they proceeded to talk. I have his name, but I don't want to say it because I don't want to give him power. It is the man in the hat. I fully believe he went to leave. They goodbye. She hugs him, which was a mistake. I did not want to hug him, but he insisted on hugging me. And after that, had nightmares for months.

[00:25:48] I spoke to a friend, said to bury my crystal for six months with sage. I did that and I've been fine since. Thank you. Thank you, Brandy. And then there's the possibility no one can rule out. What if he's real?

[00:26:13] Some paranormal investigators propose the interdimensional hypothesis that other dimensions overlap with ours and entities can occasionally cross over or be glimpsed between them, like the mothman or Bigfoot. The hatman might be an extra dimensional being existing outside the limits of our world. He wouldn't be bound by our physical laws and his intentions would be unknowable.

[00:26:40] When Brandy asks where he's from, he says everywhere. And I'm not saying that's an answer. I'm saying that's what I'd expect from someone with no address. So that's the hatman. Aaron Rodgers never said he saw him. And the story traveled anyway. Maybe he's an old visitor in a new hat. Maybe he's a hallucination that the internet keeps feeding. I can't tell you which.

[00:27:06] And I still can't stop asking why he visits us in our most vulnerable moments. But if you see him, give me a call. That's all we have this week, folks. Do you have a ghost story? Call 701-484-2666.

[00:27:31] That's 701-484-2666. Or go to tellmeaghoststory.com and leave your story there. Thank you to all the callers who left messages this week. I'm your host, Michelle Newman, signing off. See you next week. Bye. Bye.