In my earliest internet days (2002ish), I used to spend *hours* scouring the net for every last spooky page. Ghosts, vampires, aliens, every odd paranormal encounter that someone committed to the net. I devoured it all. Real stories, fake stories, it didn't matter. Even the possibility of the strange existing within our world was enough for me. Anything that set my mind to wonder was a blessing. I am writing to pay it forward. The stories in this section are real and (mostly) my own. Some are stories that have been shared with me from family and friends. I’ve been meaning to write them all down for a while, so here they are.

If I’m being honest, I didn’t initially believe the Hat Man phenomenon was anything more than internet copypasta, like slenderman, or any similar story that was circulating back in 2011. Having my own personal experience completely blew away my misconceptions and forced me to confront some biases.

The encounter happened back in 2011 when I was living in upstate New York. At the time I shared a little studio apartment with my boyfriend. The entire apartment complex was newly built and only allowed students. We were on the ground floor, but I had a friend living above us in the same approximate area on the third floor.

We never experienced anything abnormal while living there, apart from this one incident.

I was taking a shower at about 11pm after finishing up schoolwork, dinner, and generally tidying up. It was entirely a typical night. My boyfriend was working at his desk in the living room, which was only about 10 steps away from me in the shower due to the tiny size of our apartment.

Being cheap college kids, we never invested in a proper shower curtain. We purchased a cheap clear vinyl that let you see out into the bathroom. If anyone came in to use the toilet while you were in there, you would basically be putting on a show.

So I was in the shower lathering up my hair, thinking about nothing in particular, when suddenly a giant black figure rushed into the doorway of the bathroom. It looked like the shape of a large man, and I instantly worried I was about to be attacked in the shower. Isn’t that everybody’s worst fear after seeing Psycho?

The figure was so tall, its head was nearly touching the top of the doorframe. For half a second I rationalized it must’ve been someone who broke into the apartment. It disoriented me. That explanation made no sense because I didn’t hear my boyfriend yell or any fighting in the next room. My body reacted before my rational mind could decide how to act, and I screamed involuntarily. The figure darted through the room, and passed into the wall where the toilet sat. At that point I realized it wasn’t a physical intruder.

It’s hard to convey how dark this figure was. It was a deep black, like the absence of light. It was uncanny and I’ve never seen anything so purely black. I wasn’t able to make out any facial features, just the black outline of a tall man wearing a long coat and a rimmed hat.

A rimmed hat! It sounds so laughable until you have the experience and realize all those people talking about Hat Man on the internet weren’t lying. I know some people have described it as feeling evil or malicious, but it’s hard for me to say if I would’ve felt the same level of fear if I had known definitively that it wasn’t a person breaking into the apartment.

It was harder to fall asleep after that, but nothing else paranormal happened in our apartment. Emphasis on our apartment. My friend who lived upstairs came over one night to catch up and have some snacks. He asked me if I had noticed anything weird at night. When I asked him why, he said that sometimes at night he thought he saw someone standing in the corner of his room. He said it was hard to make out in the dark because the figure was so black. He wasn’t sure if it was just a dark corner, or something else standing there.

Since he opened the conversation I told him about my experience in the shower. I’m not sure if it was the same hat man, or if he saw something else. It’s interesting that he had something strange happening in his apartment on the third floor right above us though.

In case you’re wondering how my boyfriend reacted to the whole situation, he basically wrote it all off. He didn’t “believe in ghosts” or anything paranormal at all. It was an interesting stance for him to take considering he admitted seeing a person walk through walls when he was younger (an experience that he shared with his younger brother, who also gave me the same account).

Back when I was a teenager, probably sometime in 2006, I had a friend over from school. We spent a lot of our time that day exploring the woods behind my house since I lived in the country. The woods went on for acres and acres, but the large parcel was still boxed in by roads, so it was impossible to get lost. After enough wandering we got tired and went back to my room.

We were watching tv – some kind of Discovery Channel special about blue whales, when all of a sudden this ball of light came out of my bedroom floor. It was about the size of a soccer ball and made up blueish silver light. The center of the orb was swirling and moving. It looked as if it had smoke inside of it somehow.

I asked my friend if she could see what I’m seeing, and she said yes. She asked me what it was. Neither of us were particularly alarmed or afraid. It was just something bizarre. We sat there just staring at it for about 10 seconds before it gradually faded out.

When people talk about orbs, it’s usually in reference to something they caught while attempting ghost photography. I have only heard one account of someone seeing similar balls of light.

I don’t plan to relay too many stories that belong to other people, but this one is too strange for me to omit from this collection.

For a short period of time I lived with my ex boyfriend’s family. He had a younger brother and we’d pass some time playing games together after work or school. Since it’s a favorite topic of mine, I asked Ben if he had ever seen any ghosts. He seemed annoyed and almost reluctant to admit to me that he had.

Apparently when he was younger he was plagued by balls of light at night. He said he didn’t remember a lot about them, just that he would wake up screaming at night with balls of light hovering over him in bed. He said it happened to him when he was little, and that’s probably why he couldn’t remember anything else about them.

When I asked his mom about it, just to see if she remembered seeing the orbs, or maybe anything else strange in the house, the story got weirder.

Apparently the balls showed up so often that it was causing him to have nightmares almost every single night. They really aren’t a religious family, but they did ask the local priest to come and bless the house. He came around and sprinkled holy water, but it did nothing to make the orbs stop appearing.

As a joke they called a psychic who lived out of state after seeing an ad. The psychic spent an hour detailing all the used furniture they had thrifted recently, described their home, and also described a number of deceased people who were hanging around in their house. She advised them that most of them were nice, but there was an old man who was causing them trouble. She said that he liked to hang out in the closet where they kept the dirty clothes basket.

The conversation was so specific at points that my ex’s family got creeped out. They didn’t really believe in psychics and the whole thing was supposed to be just for a laugh. The psychic told them if they wanted to get rid of the orbs that they needed to sprinkle mustard seeds in the corners of all the rooms. Despite thinking it was odd, and feeling silly, my ex’s family followed her directions and the orbs stopped appearing for Ben altogether.

When they told me the story they were laughing and still couldn’t believe it happened, or that the advice from the psychic seemed to fix his issue with the orbs. It’s important to mention that they never told Ben about calling the psychic, or sprinkling the mustard seeds.