Men With Hats

“There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy…” “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare

“Men With Hats” may not be the same entities as “The Hat Man” (the latter name trademarked name by Heidi Hollis).

In the paranormal world, there are all kinds of entities. There are entities that are thought to be deceased human spirits, either active manifestations attached to a place, person or object. Some are thought to be “residual” shadows of people or animals that are not intelligent energy that can interact with the living, but are caught in a time loop to repeat the actions of what they were familiar with in life. Other entities are the emotional energies that are existing on a different plane of reality than that of the living and, if they can summon enough energy, can manifest into light anomalies such as orbs, mists, as well as partial or full apparitions. Some fit a repetitive motif like Dark-Eyed Children and Ladies in White. If given a pathway to do so, they can manipulate electronic devices to break through the veil that separates the two realms. The effect on the living can be comforting, but more usually they generate negative emotions such as anger, fear and depression that effect the living in detrimental ways. Physical and mental health issues can develop by the presence of these entities, oftentimes by design and intent of the spirits.

Other creatures of the paranormal world are cryptids. Cryptids are animalistic creatures that have not been proven to exist in modern science literature. Skeptics believe they are simply known or yet to be discovered animal species mistaken for something unearthly. Others are certain in their convictions that they are all hoaxes, created with Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) or Photoshop, often for the purpose fraud, or as an “art project,” and to see how many people they can fool with their creative ingenuity. Most people know about the various iterations of the legend of Big Foot (Sasquatch, the Yeti, .), the Loch Ness Monster, and the Chupacabra. Other fantastical cryptids are rakes, wendigos, Slender Man, Moth Man, djinns, gnomes, elves, fairies, and locale specific creatures like the Jersey Devil of southern New Jersey, the Melon Heads of Fairfield County, Connecticut, the Montauk Monster of Montauk, New York, the Mongolian Death Worm and various Native American shapeshifters of legend. Today, I learned of another cryptid known as “The Siren Man” on the Chills YouTube channel which seemed ludicrously untenable and certain to be a hoax. However, I looked at the evidence and was amazed to find that this could actually be a negative paranormal entity. There were hoaxes on several of the segments Chills presents, but others had shocking evidence of being from a different realm.

The third category are the extraterrestrials and trans/interdimensional entities. These creatures and manifestations are UFOs, sky orbs, sky worms, dark-eyed aliens, gray aliens, reptilian aliens, walk-in aliens, and others. They often generate stories of human abductions and animal mutilations. There are some of these UFOs that are hidden beneath the waters of ponds, lakes and the ocean. Some might have the ability to travel through time portals, and might be evolved from today’s humans as many of the features found in evidence shows modified human features. They have been seen in remote locations and, more often now, in residential and urban areas around the world.

The fourth category are the faith-based entities known as angels and demons. Seeing saints and the Madonna, weeping Jesus statues, light streams from the sky, angelic lights and visits by beings of light all manifesting with a feeling of love and benevolence. Some say Jesus has made personal appearances in the living reality and in vivid dreams. Sometimes they are heard as disembodied voices, offering words of peace, love and hope. Demons are the dark side of the same coin, associated with Hell and Satan. They are energy vampires and seek to claim human souls for their dark purposes. Some paranormal investigators believe there is an association between demonic possessions and violent, criminal actions like organized crime’s cruel enforcements, pedophilia, animal abuse and serial killers. Many of the spirits of the living remain caught in the dark realm of the afterlife, unable to crossover, are still festering with the rage and evil of their demonic associations. Some of these entities attack unwitting, innocent victims while others are summoned by satanists through rituals hoping to use their power for their own purposes. While some of the spirits unable to move on say they are “cold” and in a “dark” place, some of the voices of spirits associated with cruelty report that they are “burning” and “on fire.” Demonic entities will often masquerade as innocent spirits of loved ones or children. They will attack the living while they sleep with sleep paralysis episodes where the focus of their attack is smothered and choked or harassed sexually by entities known as the incubus (male entities) or the succubus (female entities).

Finally, the focus of this blog are the Shadow People. The two most often described manifesting in our reality as full body apparitions that lurk and move through our spaces as darker-than-dark masses that may have white faces, red eyes, and wear hoods or wide-brimmed hats. A Shadow Person is often seen in a hood and cloak. They peek around corners. They run behind the living while they are creating social media dance videos. Often, they move faster than a living person would be able to as their form passes through a frame or doorway. The “Hat Man” has a slightly different Motus Operandi in that he seems to prefer to stand at the end of the living person’s bed or in their dark places, like basements, hallways and closets and stare with palpable hate. In some cases, these entities will get right up into the living person’s face to breathe and seethe and their touch makes the living person’s flesh turn cold as ice. Many mediums and psychics are certain they are demonic. Others have found evidence that they are trans dimensional travelers that were never human.

This blog explores an offshoot of the “Hat Man” entity. Author Heidi Hollis has trademarked the term, but after glossing over her books on the subject, I’ve found that she is not referring to exactly the same entities that are the focus of my explorations. I will call them “Men With Hats” as they are rarely seen as single, stand-alone entities. They don’t manifest as the big, black boogie men that stare down the living with negative emotions and evil intent. Occasionally, I can see them on media as static forms manifesting as part of the background or in mirrors and, more recently, as shimmering, shifting apparitions that watch their environment and definitely look like they are up to no good! Often, especially in paranormally active locations including those scenes involving spirits, cryptids, demonics, and extraterrestrials, they are layered one over the other as if they are multi-dimensionally present manifesting in the two dimensional space of photographic images. They are large in the sky around around UFOs, sky orbs and angelic manifestations (taking a close look, they are not angels, at all, but men with hats), they are also apparent around the tiniest of orbs and, like Russian nesting dolls, the closer one tries to bring out the detail of a man with a hat, even more hidden Men With Hats manifest until they reach the limits of digital rendering and show up only as fuzzy pixels although the hat, face and shoulders are still distinguishable.

So, why do most paranormal investigators and evidence gatherers miss these wee beasties? Or massive, behemoth beasties? One factor I’ve discovered is that many human brains aren’t wired to see them. No matter how often and hard I try to outline and point out where these entities are present, no matter how obvious they appear to me, scoffers will remark that they “can’t see anything!” They will try to debunk the evidence as “too fuzzy” and the product of an “overactive imagination” and “wishing paranormality to be there.” Some even claiming they are mediums and seasoned, professional paranormal investigators will be the worst detractors and Negative Nancies (NNs). Other folks I’ve met in paranormal social media groups have no problem seeing what I see and are amazed at how insidious the Men With Hats are. I’ve come to believe that the folks who do see the Men With Hats are either born with the ability as possibly sensitives (empaths), mediums or psychics while others have been vulnerable to their energies through sickness, loss or trauma in their lives that have adjusted their brain’s ability to see paranormal evidence as clear as day in photographic evidence. I know, after doing hundreds, if not thousands of photographic analyses, I’m beginning to be able to discern their presence by subtle shifts in the pixelation and tone of an image even before I put them through the software exposure enhancements. I’ve seen their manifestations lurking in the shadows even while watching paranormal shows on the Travel Channel and YouTube when the investigators are oblivious to their presence. I don’t know why they haven’t used the same techniques as I have to see them manifest.

I used to get defensive and argumentative with the former while being supportive and informative with the latter. The skeptics, debunkers and Negative Nancies can be tiring as they often ask me to help them see by outlining the Men With Hats, but end up scoffing and being irritatingly dismissive.

So, how did I come across these entities when I began watching YouTube videos of alleged paranormal activity?

I don’t remember when I did my first photographic analysis. I know I was trying to debunk a spirit presence and, with my experience of working in film photography with hundreds of darkroom hours under my belt, I decided to apply the exposure filters on the most common and unsophisticated photo editing program that comes pre-loaded onto the iPhone. I took a screenshot of a suspected hoaxed video with the intention of looking for evidence of CGI and Photoshopped additions. Lo and behold… male entities wearing wide-brimmed hats appeared beside and around the paranormal entity and activity. After doing hundreds of these photographic analyses, I’ve found them in almost all reported evidence of paranormality. Hoaxes were in the minority.

I will discuss phenomenon of pareidolia in another blog post. I was very familiar with this bit of neurology long before I became interested in the paranormal and, I can tell you, what I’ve found is NOT pareidolia. I don’t make a determination based on just one fuzzy manifestation in a photograph, but on the presence of a definite figure that isn’t part of chaotic pixels. That does occasionally happen with grainy photographs in low light, or when an orb or object is captured far off in the distance in less than desirable lighting. However, on most of my analyses, the context of the evidence (presence of other paranormal phenomena) and the entities appearing in blank spaces when I apply the exposure filters, especially contrast, more than suggests they are present and not a something created by my brain to make sense of randomness.

I will often refer to them as creepers. Creepers is a blanket term for paranormal entities, but I use it interchangeably with Men With Hat or Hat Men.

Images are coming! All of my images are stored on my iPhone and my external hard drive and not yet accessible directly on this device. I’m getting used to using my new MacBook and DaVinci Resolve video editing software, Photoshop Elements, and the idiosynchracies of the WordPress blog platform. I never thought I’d become as fascinated analyzing paranormal evidence, so I never set up a filing system for my photos. I need to address that lack of foresight!

As I write this blog post, I’ve been interested in paranormality for only one year, since 2019! My obsession began out of the blue as I dislike horror and suspense fiction (I’m ironically writing a paranormally-themed novel). My martial arts sensei and good friend had just passed away from pancreatic cancer and left me with a horrible grief and happened shortly after the loss of my soul-bonded feline fur baby who had been born into my hands twenty years earlier. Photo analyses has become a hobby only over the past six months. I have been a freethinker, a Michael Shermer and Richard Dawkins reading skeptic with my feet firmly locked in scientific method and “The Magic of Reality” (book by Richard Dawkins). One focus of my Master’s Degree was on memetic theory as proposed by Dawkins and I’ve read Karen Blackmore on the subject of Memetics extensively, as well. Blackmore studied Parapsychology as her Ph.D. focus but said, after all of her scientific research, it was all bunk. So, I have one foot in scientific reality and the other in the reality that paranormal phenomena is not bunk and can (and has) been verified beyond my own shadow of a doubt.