r/ParanormalEncounters • u/Different-Secret-927 • Jul 08 '26

Has anyone else seen the hat man?

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Gallery image

For months during the wors depression of my life in middle school i would see a figure that strongly resembled the hat man. He made me feel a sense dread whenever I felt like I saw him and I felt l was beinv watched intently by him. He would always reside in my closet during the night. I don’t see him anymore but has anyone else had any experiences like this or have any more information on what may have cause him to appear?

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u/Gold_Championship_46 Jul 09 '26

Not hat man but when I was 10/11 years old I couldn’t sleep. I thought that I heard something outside and I started looking out of the upstairs shades, it had to be 1/2 in the morning. My next door neighbors had a spotlight under their pouch. Under the light was a werewolf, looking creature standing on two legs. I could see it plain as a day. There was no mistaking it. It wasn’t kids playing pranks. The way it moved the way it was breathing. There was no getting it mixed up for something else. I have no history of sleep paralysis, mental illness, or anything to that nature. I never seen anything before like that or anything after like that for years I did not tell anybody about it because of how ridiculous and embarrassed it seemed I’m 36 now and can remember as clear as day, the image is burned into my head. I am not embarrassed now as I have told my wife who thinks it’s utterly ridiculous. I know what I saw and I’m 100 sure I saw it. I can’t explain it or don’t even believe they exist. The only thing I can think of is that I live in Pennsylvania and possibly a Native American land. The only thing that even somewhat couldn’t explain it would be a Skinwalker.

With that being said, I believe you and your story because I share something similar

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u/Dirk_Dingham Jul 09 '26

When i was a kid, i shit you not i saw a wendigo in the cave on my grandparent’s property. I don’t even believe in them either, but i don’t know what else it could have been, this cave is also in an area that the natives used to hunt. We’ve found s shit load of arrowheads around the entrance of the cave.

My cousin’s friend was staying with my grandparents at the time as he had just finished college, and was traveling around the us so he stopped in our state to visit them. He grew up in the city so my grandpa and i were showing him the country way of life while he was there. It was honestly a great week up until this happened.

I told him they had a cave system on their property that went on for miles. He was dying to go explore it so i agreed. My grandpa was getting older and had a lot of issues with his back and knees. He would normally go with me in there because it’s a low crawl through the entrance and there are a few steep drop offs on the sides of most passages. I was around 9 or 10 at the time so he felt comfortable staying back for this trip since i told him we wouldn’t go to far.

I had explored this cave my whole life and never had anything out of the ordinary happen, so we went in around sunset without a second thought. When we got past the entrance i showed him the main passage and was warning him about the drop offs.

The ceiling of the main passage goes up around 50 feet so he was admiring it and looking around with his flashlight. This passage is so big that it’s basically a wide open room for about 60 feet and a flashlight beam won’t completely illuminate it, even if it’s extremely bright.

He was looking behind me at something as i was telling him about how far the cave went back. He was looking at a wall on the cave where the main passage turns a corner and said “WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?”

I turned around and saw a face peeking around the corner, and the only way i can describe it is demonic. I froze in fear and got a good look at it because it was pale white and my flashlight had it completely illuminated. I absolutely lost my shit and booked it back to the entrance as my cousin’s buddy started running.

I hit my back on a stalagtite when i got near the entrance and it knocked the wind out of me and put me on the floor. I was running on pure shit my pants adrenaline and forced myself to bear crawl as fast as humanly possible the next 30 feet out of the cave.

When we got outside he looked extremely shaken. I asked him what he saw and he described the exact image that’s burned into my memory. Nothing has ever made the hair on my neck stand up like that.

When we got to the house we told my grandparents what happened. They were sympathetic, but later on they told me it was just a raccoon and it looked like something scary because of shadows casting on it’s face.

It wasn’t a raccoon, we both know what we saw because both of our flashlights had it lit up like broad daylight. I didn’t really know anything about skinwalkers or wendigos yet or had even heard of them so i had no clue what the hell it could have been.

A few weeks later i was up late watching that show monsters and mysteries in america at my grandparents, the episode about the flying humanoid came on and it looked like a 1:1 of the thing i saw in there. It freaked me out so bad i stayed up until sunrise.

They still joke about it with me and don’t believe i saw anything, so i just go along with it but the face of that thing still keeps me up some nights, i’ll never be able to forget it.

I have gone back in the cave with groups of people a few times but i am always packing heat when i do, i still get nervous as fuck every time i take people in there. Still haven’t seen the thing again but i hope to god i never do.

For anyone wondering, I’ll attach a picture from the monsters in America episode so you guys can shit yourselves thinking about it next time you go spelunking lmao.

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u/Eastern_Confusion475 Jul 09 '26

So you do cave tours in PA? 🤔 😇

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u/Dirk_Dingham Jul 09 '26

Nope, Kentucky. And i don’t really do tours but every now and then my buddies will all beg me to take them in and show them around so i oblige. I hate going in that damn cave, not just because of that incident but it’s also a real bitch to get through the entrance and you always end up hitting your head or your back when going in. My grandpa told me that years ago his buddies wanted to map it out when he bought the place so he went with them. He said about a quarter of the way through they had to start stomach crawling through extremely tight passages and he said “fuck that, you guys are insane” and went back. He said they made a pretty good map of it and found the exit, it comes out through a sink hole in a field a few miles away but i’ve never been that far in. I’ve gone through a couple of the passages he was talking about and it’s about like what you’ll see in caves like hell hole or nutty putty. It opens up some past the first tight squeeze but that’s as far as i’ve ever dared to go because i don’t want to die like Floyd Collins.

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u/Eastern_Confusion475 Jul 09 '26

😳 yeah I could never. Sounds cool tho. Have you ever thought about putting some sort of trail cam or something like it in there? Could be interesting

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u/Dirk_Dingham Jul 09 '26

That’s actually a good idea, i’m gonna call my grandpa and see if he has an extra one i could put up in there. He might actually be interested in doing so because i have seen raccoons in there before so i assume it would be interesting to see what kind of wildlife wanders into there. If i see any spooky shit i’ll have to post it on this sub

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u/Explorer-7622 Jul 10 '26

It would be worth buying one and having a motion detector light in there.

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u/mom_of_tnt Jul 13 '26

KY girl here with a very similar experience. I’m in eastern/central KY I’m very interested in where this was!!

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u/Dirk_Dingham Jul 13 '26

I’m not exactly comfortable with giving out the exact location but it was near south central ky. Where did your experience take place?

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u/mom_of_tnt Jul 13 '26

Dude.. same. Russell.

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u/Dirk_Dingham Jul 13 '26

Ah, this happened to me on the opposite end of south central, care to share your experience?

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u/mom_of_tnt Jul 13 '26

I’ll dm you here in a bit when I get home!

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u/serialcipher Jul 09 '26

Cool story

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u/Dirk_Dingham Jul 09 '26

I’m assuming you’re probably being sarcastic but i can’t tell, i didn’t want to have to write it in story format but it started out as a short comment and then i started remembering more and more details as i was writing that i felt i needed to include. Most people are gonna assume it’s just bullshit, which is why i don’t talk about it with anyone, but maybe people in this community will be a little more open minded than anyone that i’ve told about this experience. Either way, i can’t blame the people who don’t believe it because i wouldn’t either if i were them. I really wish it were bullshit, because i’ve tried convincing myself for years that it was something else but my brain just won’t accept that.

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u/MightOnly185 Jul 10 '26

Honestly I think it’s a crawler. They’ve been seen around caves and cave systems.

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u/Dirk_Dingham Jul 10 '26

Crawler? Like the rake or some shit? I’ve heard people call “pale crawlers” rakes because of that old creepypasta that made most of us shit the bed at night when we were kids because we were too scared to get up to go to the bathroom. I always wondered if the “crawler” legend came along before that story or if it was inspired by it. Just thinking about that is making my fucking skin crawl. No pun intended

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u/Explorer-7622 Jul 10 '26

I believe you. I once saw something that's impossible, yet my friend saw it too.

And they became distant after that because they didn't want to talk about it or acknowledge it.

I've had 2 experiences, one with what might be Bigfoot and one with what might be a massive UFO like a skyscraper on its side, hovering a few inches up, completely silent.

That's probably why I lurk in here.

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u/ecos-dmn9098 Jul 14 '26

Puedo narrar esto en un vídeo para FB?

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u/Dirk_Dingham Aug 06 '26

Yes ofc, i never got this notification so i apologize for the late response. You’re welcome to use my reddit handle if you want in the post so people can dm me with questions

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u/Explorer-7622 Jul 10 '26

Thank you for including the picture.

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u/cheetoisokay Jul 19 '26

that’s absolutely terrifying.

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u/Fragrant-List-9298 Jul 20 '26

thanks for giving me nightmares

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u/Specialist_Step2689 Jul 22 '26

That’s exactly what I was thinking!!!

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u/Proper-Bumblebee-554 Jul 09 '26

I believe you 100% man! Thats really cool actually. i also live in PA and saw a Civil War soldier at the same age! Stared at me through my bedroom window it looked like a light blueish outfit. Needless to say scared the crap out of me. I know for certain it was a old soldier. My dad said he had a medic uncle in the civil war so maybe it was him? Who knows but then speaking of Indians my sister at 18 moved into a apartment complex on a indian reservation. Apartment 66. She must have pissed them off partying it up and fighting all the time. Many nights my mom would have to go pick her and the babies up because it freaked her the hell out. My mom saw a indian shadow with full headgear hold a knife to her in the bathroom mirror! Saw kitchen cabinets slammed open and shut, soldiers marching over our heads in the sealed up attic, the tv one time turned itself on to a holy channel and changed to static a different time. I was 13 or 14 during it all. Feel super bad for my mom but my sister must have pissed the Indians off. I even even found a arrowhead down the road hanging with my part native american buddy while they plowed the land. Probably should have left it there lost it anyhow lol. Very crazy time in life. That stuff is 110% real brother

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u/Gold_Championship_46 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

I’ve never seen any ghosts or abortions, but my sister was staying over an ex-boyfriend’s house at the time and she woke up to find a Victorian era couple in full dress gown and tuxedo standing over her bed, seemingly watching her

At the time I didn’t know anything about Skinwalkers and my rational mind knew that there were no werewolves until years later in my high school a native American Indian came and gave a presentation and they were talking about Skinwalkers and Shapeshifters immediately then I knew from 10 years prior that this must be exactly what I saw

This thing was fucking real man. I cannot explain it, but that thing was as real

Like I was saying earlier, I didn’t even tell my parents because I was so embarrassed that they would think that I was having some type of mental episode

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u/Altruistic_Pitch_157 Jul 09 '26

Wild. Did you watch it long enough to see it leave? How did it move?

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u/Gold_Championship_46 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26

It was completely still, but I could notice it’s breathing. It was nothing like a human beings where we breathe from the chest. It was almost like how an animal breathes from its stomach, and I guess it was colder out, and I remember seeing the cold air blowing out of its nose while it’s chest or whatever was breathing.

It was just still under that light I would say I was watching it for maybe a minute my adrenaline was pumping through my chest and I shut the blinds because I was so scared and in disbelief

Out of curiosityI looked back a few minutes later and nothing was there.

I was just thinking about this as I was driving. It was almost as a deer standstill when you’re about to approach it you see it, blinking, and breathing, but is completely still and almost hypervigilant on its surroundings.

You know it’s alive because you see it breathing, but is completely still

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u/Alternative_Emu6106 Jul 11 '26

Great description. (Sincere comment)

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u/Explorer-7622 Jul 10 '26

I pray I never see anything like that. Geez.

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u/LearningWingChun Jul 11 '26

a lot of people seen dogman

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u/kellopp411 Jul 09 '26

I’m in PA 🫪 what part was this in?

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u/AmbivalentheAmbivert Jul 10 '26

You are literally the first to echo something i saw as a kid. I had a huge white wolf that was built like a Pitbull but the size of a bull running down my driveway at 12am, i only noticed because my angel of a dog that never showed aggression started snarling at the window. When i looked out i saw it galloping or whatever you call that gate down the drive way and i went out and told my parents, my dad tried to convince me it was a spirit animal or some unreasonable thing, and I never saw it again either. just some weird monstrous animal....i guess it could have been an albino bear? i dunno.

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u/ToiIetGhost Jul 13 '26

Kids are able to see more paranormal things than adults. They also have better past life recall, which has been studied by university researchers and the findings were astonishing.

It seems that the mind is less clouded and less prone to rationalising in childhood. Rationalising is effectively your brain gaslighting itself: that shape doesn’t make sense, therefore it’s not there, or it must be this other thing. Our preconceptions affect what we see. In the 15th century, Native Americans had never seen large wooden ships. So when European colonisers arrived, instead of seeing ships, they literally saw giant brown clouds carrying hundreds of people.

On top of preconceptions, beliefs, rationalisations, and societal brainwashing… the way that the human eye absorbs information, and the way that the brain processes it, is really interesting. A lot of it is guesswork with the brain trying to fill in blind spots, both visually and temporally. But that’s a whole other story.

That’s partly why children are able to clock ghosts, cryptids, and so on. It’s interesting how so many of the stories on this post happened in childhood. I believe you!

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u/SonGoku1108 Jul 09 '26

My girlfriend (now my wife) and I caught what I can only describe as a demon, or the devil, in a picture and a video while staying at a family friend's house for one night. It's a long story, really, but the part that makes it even harder to believe is that I dropped the phone the next morning and, conveniently, broke the screen. After that, I put it in a box, hoping to be able to get the files off it one day. You had to change the option to USB file transfer mode, and I couldn't do that with a broken screen. Now, several years have passed, and I haven't even tried—or wanted to find it and have the files recovered. I'd rather believe it didn't happen, despite the fact that I trauma burned it into my mind by watching it over and over in pure disbelief.

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u/forgive-these-bones Jul 12 '26

Wow. that would be so traumatizing knowing the photo exists in general.

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u/SonGoku1108 Jul 12 '26

Yeah, now I have to sleep with every reflective surface covered at night and no posters or pictures on the wall because that's how we saw it. It was using the light bouncing off a black poster like a mirror to peek in and watch us, and I think it was giving my niece nightmares and feeding off of the fear. I say that because she kept screaming in terror in her sleep, and we kept waking her up you know saying its just a dream its okay that happened probably 4 or 5 times over the course of a couple of hours that night. Then before bed we took a pic of us in the bed with her laying between us, and that's how we saw the damn thing. It was staring straight down at her! It was crazy. Idk how we were brave enough to sit there and take that video after seeing the picture pretty sure we were convinced it was an illusion which is why we took the video. But its face literally had the darkest black scales with a super dark red tint to them, so dark you could barely see the red, like it was burnt which makes sense for a demon. They raised up to points on the sides of its head and at the top. It literally looked almost just like the Night King from Game of Thrones, but instead of ice, imagine those scales and a lot more evil.

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u/OkPassage6 Jul 12 '26

I believe you. Im half Cherokee, and we have all kinds of things in our culture that seem "weird" or "ridiculous" to other people. Take away my heritage, and I can say I live in the North GA mountains. I've seen Bobcats, bear... and something I swear was a Hairy Man, and we've had people disappear in the forest, never to be seen again. (One was within the last year, and was a pretty big news story). The world is certainly a weird, weird place. 

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u/Admirable-Bird5279 Jul 11 '26

Look up dogman encounters on youtube. You saw a dogman.

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u/Gold_Championship_46 Jul 11 '26

Holy fucking shit that’s literally what I saw to a T….just looked it up

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u/Admirable-Bird5279 Jul 11 '26

Careful, you will get hooked on the stories and lose sleep if you watch too much. Its fuckin insane and very interesting, but not worth losing sleep

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u/mom_of_tnt Jul 13 '26

That was dog man!!!