Wednesday, October 03, 2007

The Hat Man

The tumor was large, about the size of a chicken egg. In the spring of 1971, a surgeon removed the cancerous mass from 11-year-old Rob Langevoort’s brain and Rob spent a month undergoing radiation therapy.

So, when Rob started seeing things that didn’t belong in his home, he didn’t know if they were real or imaginary. His first encounter was summer 1971.

Rob slept in on a Saturday. His mom was shopping and his dad was out repairing rental property so he had their home in Framingham, Mass., to himself.

“I proceeded down the hall to the kitchen to make myself something to eat for breakfast (and) I fell flat on my face,” Rob said. “It felt as though I was pushed.”

Rob tried to push himself up but couldn’t move – he felt someone standing on his back.

“All of a sudden things gave way and my arms had straightened out and I was staring down the hall to the living room just in time to witness what appeared to be a silhouette of a man in a trench coat wearing a fedora move from the living room to the dining room,” he said.

Rob would later call this entity the Hat Man, but despite the attack, Rob followed it.

“What I did next I find hard to believe,” he said. “I ran into the adjoining kitchen, grabbed the biggest knife I could find and ran into the dinning room.”

The Hat Man wasn’t there. The sliding glass door that led from the dining room to the back porch was still closed, the drapes covering it hung still. He ran through the house and found himself alone, clenching a knife. All the doors and windows were locked.

“I searched that house good,” he said. “Nothing. I went back to the dining room and checked the sliding glass door again. It was locked.”

But he hadn’t heard the front door open, so the back porch was the only way out. He unlocked the sliding glass door and stepped onto the porch, thinking the Hat Man had somehow locked the sliding door behind him and leapt off the porch. But 10 feet below the porch railing was rock – and that was the only way down.

“My father had the builders purposely not install a stairway up to the porch to prevent any intrusions,” Rob said. The Hat Man was gone, and he didn’t jump off the porch.

Was the Hat Man real, or just a side effect of the brain tumor? Rob wondered.

“What exactly did I see or did I see it?” he asked. “And how am I gonna tell Mom?”

Rob’s mother listened to his story, and filed it away as a product of radiation or an overactive 11-year-old mind … until she saw the handiwork of the Hat Man herself.

Seven days later, “my mother prepared breakfast in the dining room, opened the drapes and got the shock of her life,” Rob said. “The sliding glass door was shattered.”

The entire six-foot glass door had been broken into small pieces. Not by a projectile from outside the house, but from something inside – only the interior of the double-pane glass was shattered. Rob was sure the Hat Man had been hiding inside the door.

But that was just the beginning. Although Rob hasn’t seen the Hat Man since he was 11, he’s seen similar shadow beings all his life, although nothing has pushed him or broken glass in decades.

Now an Internet programmer with two children, shadow people remain a part of his life.

“I still see them after 30-plus years and more often now since I have moved in with my elderly father,” Rob said. “It’s not disturbing to me other than they won’t stay still long enough for me to take a good look at them. They appear as semi-transparent charcoal gray foggy silhouettes that I catch in the corner of my eye.”

When Rob tries to look at them straight on, they zip away.

“I see them mostly in doorways and hallways,” Rob said. “I saw one once dash around a sofa. This tells me they can see objects – probably including me. I don’t get excited, (they’re) pretty commonplace with me after all these years.

“How often do I see these shadow people?” Rob said. “All the time.”

Copyright 2007 by Jason Offutt

Got a scary story? Ever played with a Ouija board, heard voices, seen a ghost, UFO or a creature you couldn’t identify? Let Jason know about it: Jason Offutt c/o The Examiner, 410 S. Liberty, Independence, Mo. 64050, or jasonoffutt@hotmail.com. Include your name, address and telephone number. Your story might make an upcoming installment of “From the Shadows.”

Jason’s book of ghost stories, “Haunted Missouri: A Ghostly Guide to Missouri’s Most Spirited Spots,” is here. Order online at: tsup.truman.edu, www.amazon.com, or visit Jason’s Web site at www.jasonoffutt.com.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is so strange to me. my mom and my grandma have always told me about this spirit that was following them wherever they moved to,in the beginning,they would both hear heavy breathing beneath my moms bed when she was little, gradually they began to see him, a tall man in a long coat with no face and black holes for eyes wearing some sort of hat i cant remember what kind though.luckily ive never experienced that but it still gives me chills!

Anonymous said...

Oh, wow! A few of my friends and I have seen a man in a hat too - more of a top hat - but he had a long black coat. He also had long hair and sometimes wore sunglasses. When he wasn't wearing sunglasses there would be a shadow over his eyes - we never saw his eyes. He was all over the place in SE Oklahoma, around Wilburton/McAlester (not sure if you know where this is but thought you might since you're from Missouri). We also had a multitude of shadow people in that area - I have an ex friend who is followed by them in fact.

Anonymous said...

for the past hour i have been googleing up hat man and shadow people to try to find answers about what they are and why so many people such as myself have seen them. reading this and many other simiar sites has lead me to believe that this "occurence" should be be looked into. theres not much out there except peoples storys of seeing them and some theories that do not make even a little sense. But this is the first page ive found that matches what i have seen recently, since no other sight has said anything about seeing them often or them breaking anything. But what makes no sense to me is that this thing is called the hat man or a shadow person, and that no one has seen its eyes, my friend and i have a very diffrent name for it, we call him red eyes. We both have seen the same hat man or shadow person as everyone elce on it has red eyes and when u look at him, he dosnt dissapear. we have both seen him in daylight and at night as well as he has broken alot of stuff and physically hurt people. If anyone has any info that might be helpful please contact me at seigeofdarkness@yahoo.com, thanx!

Anonymous said...

I saw this creature in my room when I was 12 or 13. It told me a story and in fact, changed my life. I have since seen Him on several occasions and I guess...you could say I choose to serve him. He told me my job was to tell his story. Since I have agreed, he has protected me in every way, shape and form possible. I could tell you some of the things He's done for me, but you probably wouldn't believe me. The fear people seem to feel from Him/Them (I'm not sure if other beings use the the same method of projection.)is a aspect of how they appear to us. TiBiM (for that is how he named himself to me) just seemed to me to emit a vast and palatable sadness that infused his surroundings. The first time I saw him was the most terrifying experience in my life. But....it was thrilling too...he's a teacher though...Last Guardian of Evermore (or so he told me(long before I listened to the Led Zep song)). You know...I used to be a hard core Christian. I was one of the youngest Lay Eucharistic Ministers in the state of California when I was 12. He put me on a different path...a better path. WORRY. Serve the Clan and nothing else.

Lovemydogs said...

My name is Delta. When I was 11 or 12 in Austin, Texas, I came home after being out running around in the neighborhood with my friends, common for us kids back then to go back and forth to each other's houses until the darkness set in.
I am now in my 50's.
I went to bed very tired and since I was the oldest girl, I got the bigger side of the bedroom with my own bed which faced the window with the curtains.
I was lying there looking at the curtains and I saw the top right hand side of the curtains move aside as if someone was moving it with their hand and then there appeared to me, a very tall man in a long black cape or trench coat with what I call a witches hat with the top cut off just standing there. Even though his appearance was dark and I couldn't really see any eyes, I knew it was staring right at me.
I was so scared I pulled the covers over my eyes and must have fallen asleep that way and I woke up still shaking from this.
The house we lived in was definately haunted but this was the scariest part of living there.
I always see shadow people. It never stops and I always feel a presence in my back seat.
I also always feel something touching me or calling my name.
Inow live in Wilburton, Oklahoma.

Dr. Fong said...

Very interesting. I recently have come to believe that their is some link between this hat man and grey alien abduction.

Anonymous said...

was 17 years old, arrived at my grandmother house, and tried to take a rest sitting on sofa of the lounge.In the kitchen was my Grandmother and my aunt, chatting, at the table. Then, i had the impression to see something at the lounge's window, but i did´n care about that, cause i did think it was just an impression.
I got up and went to the kitchen, to drink water, was coming back, then i had the clear impression to see a man in the window, at his side, with a very long hat and a long coat, it was possible even to see the contour of his face! that was not an human face, but a horrendous one with a bad smile. But it was so fast, i did think i had not really saw that, could not be real. I hesitate, but told my aunt what i saw, it was black like a shadow, well defined contours outside of the window. It was like he was trying to hear something, you know
To my surprise, both looked at me, seriously, and seeming scared
and she asked me to describe it..
Then i did, and both said me they saw the very same thing!
After that, i remembered and decided to check about it, using the internet, then i found the hatman subject.

But here is the important part: I already do know what HatMan is:

The neighbour was a sorcerer, of an African Cult.
In my search on the subject, i found there is an entity called blackcoat, caracterized with a long coat e a long hat. It is said that it was an human that lived a long ago, and that was a sorcerer that has passed to the spiritual realm, but now I will explain why I don't believe this version and have mine:
In my religion, sometimes we meet some people that did get involved with this African cult, and generally these people are possessed by evil spirits, what in my religion, we call demons.

At the name of Jesus, these entities is always subdued and expelled, and those people set free. In all times, it is a must that this person reject this kind of practice and accept Jesus as savior.

Because that and others, I do know the HatMan the DEVIL.
Yet, we humans, do have a choice in this life, and God do not interfere with it. It is your choice, to be with the light or to be with the shadow.
Jesus had teach: "Satan comes to kill, to thief and to destroy. I came for that you have life, and life abundantly"
Satan's objective is to throw you in the hell. God wants to take you to heaven.
That is why he try to show himself as hatman, as an angel, or even an ufo. to tak you out of the truth.
The bible says too, that Satan can transform himself, in whatever form he wants, even an angel of light.
Your choice must be done in this life

Anonymous said...

When I was about 10 my friends mother had told us of a vision with a man with a tall black hat who wore a trench coat she referred to him as "Death" that was his name for whatever he represented it wasn't a good one. Then I had my own vision of this same man a few years later he was pure evil with a very cold deep stare look in his eyes. I had to rebuke him in the name of Jesus to go away.It was very frightening, Then we moved from Alaska to Texas shortly after and years later my mom started to tell me of a vision that had woken her up in the middle of the night of a man standing at the foot of her bed. I was in shock so I started to describe the man before she went any further with her story and it was so chilling we were talking about the same old man! The thing is I never told her about the vision I had at 13 I just didn't think so many people would have an encounter with this spirit. I just told her I felt something evil was in my presence and she told me to say the words I rebuke you in the name of the Lord when I went to sleep if I felt that way again. I haven't seen him since but just that one time in Alaska. I wonder what does it mean? Who is this man many people see? Whoever he is he is pure evil and nothing good, maybe he's a worker for Satan to test us?

Anonymous said...

The men of darkness (or men of old or men of perdition) that you speak of do not reveal themselves- they are revealed by another to warn those that they come to discourage of their presence. They have no fear of men. They only fear the One that has the power to send them to the abyss before the time. They flee at the mention of the Name that is above all names.

tbwaffles said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
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Anonymous said...

Интересно написано....но многое остается непонятнымb

Bee said...

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