Hey, it’s Michelle Newman, and it’s Halloween week. You may have heard that Aaron Rodgers saw the Hat Man on an ayahuasca trip in Peru. In January 2023, a viral Reddit post claimed the quarterback met a Hat Man holding a dead rabbit. It was a joke that traced back to a satirical website, and Snopes had to look into it. But that’s how it works with the Hat Man. The story spreads, and he feels a little more real each time.
Lisa from Brisbane, Australia, calls him the Tall Man. She was four years old when a very tall, thin figure in a hat appeared in her bedroom doorway, with no face. She whispered, " Please go away."
The Hat Man is only the newest name for a very old visitor. In English, it was the mare, the crusher who comes in the night. In Arabic it’s al-jathoom, a nightmare with a heavy weight on the chest. In April 2001, Art Bell spent a Coast to Coast AM broadcast talking with a guest about shadow people and asked listeners to send in drawings.
Marissa from Dallas was five when the shadows in her room took the shape of a tall man in a top hat with no features. He had to bend down to walk in, and she couldn’t make a sound. Five years later, in a new house, he came back. This time he leaned over her bed and touched her leg through the blanket.
Erica from San Diego woke on her mother’s couch to a tall, dark figure in a low, pointed hat standing at the end of the hallway. It darted down the hall, and she chased it. When she got there, it was gone. Her dog never barked. Researchers call the sense of a threatening presence during sleep paralysis the intruder, but not all Hat Man sightings happen during sleep.
Britney tells of a cowboy outside her childhood blanket fort. Was it the Hat Man in a different hat?
Brandy from Marysville, Ohio saw a man in a hat inside a smoky quartz crystal on a girls’ weekend in Yellow Springs. The next morning, a man in a long trench coat and a hat walked out of an antique store. She said, that’s him. He told her he was from everywhere, and he insisted on hugging her. She had nightmares for months, and she won’t say his name.
Some paranormal investigators propose the interdimensional hypothesis that other dimensions overlap with ours and entities can cross between them.
00:41 Intro: the Aaron Rodgers Hat Man hoax
01:49 Lisa from Brisbane and the Tall Man
04:43 Marissa from Dallas and the Hat Man who came back
11:12 Erica from San Diego and the figure in the hallway
16:37 Britney and the cowboy outside the blanket fort
21:27 Brandy from Ohio and the man in the crystal
25:43 What is the Hat Man?
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Theme music: Sexy Sax by Cool Cascade
Production: Newman Media