"The Mysterious Hat Man" (Part One)

 Hello and welcome to the playhouse!


Tonight's topic is "The Shadow Man" or "The Hat Man"...

This is a growing phenomena that has many people around the net talking! So many people claim to have witnessed this strange being, and there are dozens of sites about it.


Below is some information copied from a site called "The Shadows" as well as many tales of the shadow man. (Sorry for the way the stories are bordered though-I really couldn't help that, since it's copied.) Thanks for understanding! :)

"It's taken some time for me to finally address a clearer picture of what the thing I've coined to be called "The Hat Man" and what he's about. 

Each time I took a step towards even researching this topic, people close to me would start having odd dreams or terribly bad luck come their way.  I was also in the process of writing about more positive experiences like holy encounters with Jesus, so to take a look into something less than positive just didn't seem right for some time.

I don't think it's ever a good idea to deflect from the positive, but in order to see the light better, sometimes one needs to understand why the dark can be so dominating at times.

So, who is the Hat Man? 

Seems this Hat Man is indeed related to the "dark side" as the Shadow People are even with similar agendas, but he can come at precise times in a person's life...or not. 

The Hat Man’s gear consists of what can be described as him wearing a long-black trench coat, three-piece suit, white collared shirt, and a flat rimmed gaucho hat.  Some have even reported seeing a gold watch hanging on his side on a chain.  Some people describe seeing red eyes, others see solid black eyes if they see any eyes at all under the shadow of his hat. 

He's described as being pale, tall, thin and may or may not have a noticeable goatee and thin moustache.  He may grin, tip his hat, or stare undeniably at a person at length or briefly. 

He appears in most any location, but most commonly is reported in people's bedrooms as they sleep at night.  A feeling comes over the person where they wake up to find him watching them nearby. 

Shadow People like to choke, scare, absorb fear and cause it.  This Hat Man can do and will do these same things, but is mostly known for and seen as an observer who appears and quickly leaves.  Sometimes the timing is significant, while other times it can leave you scratching your head about why he came at all.

If there is anything of importance I'd like to say about a person seeing this Hat Man, is that it is a worldwide phenomenon.  Him showing up doesn't necessarily mean you are about to die or someone close to you will. " 


And now for some personal accounts from people around the web...


Copied from "From The Shadows":

Encounters With The Hat Man

George was about 10 years old when a friend’s mother spoke of a vision she’d had. A man with a tall black hat and trench coat approached her in the darkness.

“She referred to him as ‘Death,’” George said. “That was his name for whatever he represented. It wasn’t good.”

The image that story implanted in George’s head manifested itself into his life a few years later.

“I had my own vision of this same man,” George said. “He was pure evil with a very cold deep look in his eyes. I had to rebuke him in the name of Jesus to go away. It was very frightening.”

But it wasn’t until George’s family moved from Alaska to Texas that he discovered he wasn’t the only member of his family who had seen this entity.

“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,” he said. “I was in shock. It was so chilling we were talking about the same old man.”

But George had never told his mother of his encounter and he doesn’t want to have another one.

“I haven’t seen him since that one time in Alaska,” George said. “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.”

George and his mother had seen an entity many have dubbed The Hat Man. This being is generally a shadow-black, slightly out-of-proportion, sometimes two-dimensional entity that often wears a trench coat, cape, or long out-of-date suit, and can appear and vanish without a trace.

This usually-threatening entity has been labeled a ghost, a Shadow Person or a demon – such as this explanation from an anonymous reader of “From The Shadows.”

“The men of darkness – or men of old, or men of perdition – do not reveal themselves. They are revealed by another to warn those that they come to discourage of their presence,” Anonymous wrote. “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.”

Denise lounged on the sofa in her grandmother’s house one day when she was 17 and saw something at the window.

“I didn’t care about that because I did think it was just an impression,” she said. But it wasn’t. “I got up and went to the kitchen to drink water and was coming back, and I had the clear impression of a man in the window with a very long hat and a long coat. It was possible even to see the contour of his face, but it was not a human face, (it was) a horrendous one with a bad smile.”

Then the image vanished quickly enough Denise doubted she had seen it – until she spoke with her grandmother and aunt who were chatting in the next room.

“I told my aunt what I saw, it was black, like a shadow, well-defined contours outside of the window,” she said. “It was like he was trying to hear something, you know?”

Both women looked at Denise, terror painting their faces.

“She asked me to describe it,” Denise said. “Both said to me they saw the very same thing.”

Delta Elise, now in her 50s, was 11 or 12 and living in Austin, Texas, when she met the Hat Man.

“I came home after being out running around in the neighborhood with my friends,” she said. “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.”

As she lie there, looking at the curtains, the curtains moved.

“The top right hand side of the curtains moved aside as if someone was moving it with their hand,” she said. “And then there appeared to me a very tall man in a long black cape or trench coat with what I call a witch’s 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.”

Delta Elise pulled the covers over her eyes and eventually fell asleep, but woke up shaking in fear.

“The house we lived in was definitely haunted but this was the scariest part of living there,” she said. “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.”

Copyright 2009 by Jason Offutt

Anonymous said...

My sister and I saw the hat man several times as children in West Virginia. The description of the curtain moving gave me chills, it is so very reminiscent of my experience.

Anonymous said...

I saw him 2 years ago, out of the corner of my eyes. He moved from one room of our house and went into a room we use as a spare room. We found out later that our cat had leukemia. Sometimes I think these entities are forerunners for disaster and death. 

Anonymous said...

My retired mother and father moved to small town in western Montana, located in the Flathead Valley back in the early 1990's, that her father used to live in before he passed away. My mother and father’s health was not real great at the time, as my father was suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s and my mother had her own health issues (both have since passed away, my father in 1992 and my mother in 1996). One night at around 3am, she awoke in the darkened living room where she had fallen asleep in the couch watching TV, having shut the TV off before falling asleep a few hours earlier. She was startled and frightened when she awoke to see a man dressed in a black suit, wearing a black derby style hat, with no visible face standing next to the couch starring down at her. Paralyzed in terror and disbelief, she gazed back thinking she was dreaming or imagining this figure. She said this went on for a minute or two before the figure eventually vanished. She was still shaken when she told me the story the next day. Very creepy, I hope to never have such an experience. She was a braver women than me, I would have been out of there!

Anonymous said...

I saw this man. I was up late one night, when I heard what sounded like footsteps on the outside deck. I opened the curtains slightly to look, this was hard because I was terrified. What I saw was a tall man in large trench coat and hat standing on the neighbor's roof. He was standing very tall, and his coat was flapping in the wind. He appeared to be staring back at me. I shut my eyes and opened them several time and he was still there. However, I ran and woke my sister to come and witness this man, but although I could clearly see him she could not. 

Anonymous said...

Very good analysis. What I saw 20 years ago was very similiar. The hat was more of a bowler but a bit taller, maybe a classic derby. The brim was bowler like. The room was completely black because I had the sliding glass door thickly blanketed to keep the cold out while I waited on the central heater to be repaired. There were red LED numbers glowing on the clock next to the bed. I went to sleep at 11:30 pm and work up in fear at 12:30 pm, something I never do. Standing/floating at the foot of my bed was a 6'2"+ outline like a caped man in a derby. Broad shoulders and no discernable neck. Arm like apendeges were probably there because the outline seemed to have a bit of seperation showing along the main trunk down where the hands would be, like the arms were tight against the body but the hands were not. But there was no outline of hands, just black stubs. Theighs down would have been to low to show over the end of the bed. It emitted red bands of light in all directions from it's outline. Otherwise it was completely black and featureless like a 2 diminsional surface. I assume it was drawing in the red light from the clock and re-emiting it. It emitted the bands throughout the room, not just the area around the clock which was aimed at the nearby wall. The bands were exactly that, bands or shafts starting at the outline and going out in every direction. Ready to die, I reached over and turned on the lamp and as quick as I did, the horses sleeping in a pasture 30 feet from the sliding glass door which was right behind the shadow reared and whinnied in terror and gallopped across the pasture. I also heard what sounded like a baby wail in persuit of the horses or from the same direction as the horses ran. (That wail was what has me confused as to what I had encountered.) With the light on, there was no sign of the shadow thing. Two days later I questioned my neighbors about if they heard the horses and I had to tell my story, on their insistence. Their jaws hung open and they told me their story. Their 2-3 year old son had been seeing the same thing in his room and had been insisting on sleeping in their room for a month. They had not seen the shadow themselves but went to their priest for help who gave them a vial of water from the baptismal font in their church. They walked through their house sprinkling the water the day I saw the shadow. They had started at one end of their house and sprinkled and prayed walking toward my house. I assume it chased the shadow into my house. I think it exited through the sliding glass door when I switched on the light and scared the heck out of those horses. They never slept in that spot again even though it was thei main nighttime spot. It was a very choice location with deep, soft St Augustine and a old, large pine tree to keep the night dew off of them. I slept with a night light on for the next few years. I don't ever want to see it again. I assume it was evil since it woke me in a fear state. I live in Texas. 

Anonymous said...

I saw the "hat man" about 10 years ago. I was sleeping and woke up paralyzed. I could only move my eyes. He was standing at my bedroom door. He looked totally black and all I could see was the outline of his body. He reminded me of how the actor, Humphrey Bogart, used to dress in his old movies, wearing a trench coat and hat. I fell back to sleep. I had the overpowering need to go back to sleep even though I was terrified. Other scary things also happend in my home over the years. I found out that the 90 year old man who lived there before me committed suicide (or was possibly murdered) in the home. He was the only other owner of the home. My granddaughter refused to sleep in the room where he was found dead because she said she saw short white men -- and I do mean white -- as in the color of snow. My daughter would hear footsteps running across the attic or the roof. She even called the police, who found nothing, of course. The radio would turn on by itself and items would be moved from one location to another overnight while we were all sleeping. I finally sold the home and moved. 

Anonymous said...

Two stories: I personally saw this entity, or whatever you call it, when I was ten. My parents and I were driving near So. Thomaston, ME and it was standing in a field near a dilapidated barn. Big hat, standing still - black figure with a cape. I could "feel" it looking at me. It was broad daylight. No one else saw it. Later in years, a roommate in college also explained to me that when he was around the same age saw a grey Hat Man in his neighborhood near dusk. He and some friends all saw it in between the wooded lots of the houses. They ran and it chased. When he got home he ran up to his bedroom. Once he got the nerve he looked outside. The figure was standing in the street staring straight up at him under a street light. His friends said they saw it go after him as they fled. The roommate felt a menace to it. I didn't really... just acknowledged it but didn't feel any sort of brooding. 

Anonymous said...

As a child, I remember my parents and siblings often telling stories of a house we lived in that they say was "Haunted". Doors slammed, objects moved and fell, voices in rooms and laughter, footsteps etc...However none frightens me as much as my mother's "late night" encounter with a Man in black, big hat, trench coat, very tall, dark presence. He was standing over my baby bassinet, near the foot of her bed,staring at me as I slept.I was only 2mos.old. Though she knew my Dad was working "out of town" not due home for days Mom said Dad's name anyway thinking it must be him, when the dark man looked up she realized he had no face.In fear for our lives now, she grabbed the alarm clock off the nightstand and threw it as hard as she could at him! It went right through him as he vanished in a split second. The clock hit the wall with a crash! It woke my siblings who ran in to see what was the matter. No one slept that night but instead huddled together in the downstairs living room waited for morning. What's weird is that I can still see his silhouette in my mind,even more I shudder to this day feeling his dark presence near me then, an infant. There is no doubt in my mind that" this entity" has truly bad intentions for humans. 

 (And from "The Supernatural World")

"The Dark Man, The Shadow Man or The Hat Man has been part of my mother's and my lives for as far back as I can remember... 

I first sensed him in my mother's bedroom when I was a child. 

Here, I describe the various appearances of 'The Shadow Man' over a number of years and I will attempt to describe his characteristics and behaviors:

Rose Street, Liverpool - This is the 3 bedroom brick house in Sydney's outer western suburbs where I grew up in the late 60s and 70s. From the outside it looked just like another ordinary Neta display home. But once inside, one could sense this 'dark' all pervading atmosphere of dread that seemed to permeate the rooms as presence. It was only after I called my first writing Fear of the Home and when I read a book by William Hope Hodgison that gave a graphic description of a 'terrible house of silence' that I realised how afraid of this place both I (and my younger brothers) had been.

While I deeply loved my childhood house, there was this tangible heavy psychic atmosphere that was felt by visitors. Firstly, the house was built directly over the main underground sewerage pipe for the area that cut straight through the center of the lounge-room. My parents received a discount on the land as a result. In addition this the domestic violence that occurred created an interactive web of negative emotions, fear, powerlessness and despair. All family members suffered from vivid reoccurring nightmares yelling out from their sleep, often with bedclothes found strewn around the room. My nightmares ceased 25 years after leaving the house.

When 'The Shadow Man' first manifested, it was primarily around my mother. My two younger brother's sensed it, but it was only my mother and I who ever experienced him physically. My mother is prone to hynogogic episodes. Some of them had involved a dark creepy male presence who visited her in her bedroom. This occurred after she had switched off the light and often while she was still awake. She would feel 'him' pressing down on the end of her bed as if the mattress was being pushed down by an invisible force, or him pressing on her legs through the bedclothes.

Reilly Street, Liverpool: When I was 18 years old I was staying at my mother's townhouse. I was lying on my back trying to get to sleep, but I couldn't because I always felt unsafe. 

So feeling restless, I had turned over onto my stomach and lay awake. Then I felt something tugging at the bedclothes while slowly working its way up my back and around to the back of my shoulders. 

I froze, terrified and hardly believing what was happening. While time seemed to stand still along with my breathing, the experience may have only been 10 seconds in duration. 

The minute it stopped, I sat up and I seemed to hear a shriek disappear into a space in the center of the room. I jumped up and ran from the room. It had felt like something was 'tucking me into bed'. 

This single event changed the way I thought about ghosts forever. I was fully awake. The tugging of the clothes was physical. It was not a hallucination. I slept in my mother's room for 2 weeks.

Several years later, I was questioning my mother on the creepy presence that she had felt at Rose Street. I also talked about the experience of being tucked in. 

I said, "Do you remember the time that something tried to tuck me into bed at the townhouse?" 

She said, "Oh yeah, the thing that pulls the sheets up around your neck." I said, "What do you mean? Did it happen to you?" She said, "Yeah, several times." She had not told me this before. 

I said, "Like what did it do?" She said, "Oh nothing much. It just tugs the bedclothes up around your neck." I said, ".. Thanks for telling me!" 

It only happened to me the once. Apparently, it had happened to her a number of times."

These are just a few of hundreds of stories like this.

Stay tuned to this blog, for more tales of the mysterious hat man!

And in the meantime...

You may wanna sleep with the lights on! 

Tonight's Trippy Tales..."Letty's Grave" & More!

Hello & welcome to the playhouse!

Tonight's first story just might make you think twice about answering the door the next time you get a late-night knocker!

Instead of a traveling vacuum-cleaner salesman, or Avon calling, it just may be... 

"Death At The Door!"

 By Rose C. @ "your true tales"

"My grandmother told this tale many times as we were growing up and it always scared the daylights out of me. She swears it's true...

It was during the late 1950s in a Mexican town called Guadeloupe Victoria. 

My grandmother lived alone and one of her grown daughters (my aunt) and her husband were staying with her. It was late at night. 

The husband had been shot in the leg and developed gangrene. He was very ill and feverish, and both women were trying to nurse the injured and unconscious man back to health.

Suddenly, they heard a very loud and urgent knocking at the door. 

"BAM! BAM! BAM!"

My grandmother called out, "Quien?" (which means "who" or "who is it?" in Spanish) but no one responded. 

Again, the loud banging rocked the little house, and again, my grandmother called out, "QUIIIIIEEEEN?" a bit louder, and now a little irritated that someone was banging on her door but not answering her. 

My grandmother was tough as nails and was not spooked by the loud banging, but thought it might be a neighbor's kid playing games.

She waited until the banging came again, then opened the door quickly, trying to catch the perpetrator. 

As the door swung open, a large rock fell with a THUD at my grandmother's feet... but there was no one there??

She looked down the dark street and saw a woman in a long black dress and black scarf over her head, rushing away. 

By this time, my aunt was standing at the door as well, and they both called after her in Spanish saying, "Senora, senora, what did you want?" but she just kept going!

As the figure rounded the corner, it turned to face the women...

It was, in fact, a woman's face, but it was HUGE, white, and shaped like a long, flat watermelon. 

My grandmother describes the woman's chin as stretching down past where her breasts would have been, and her eyes were solid black with no white!

They also noticed she was not walking, but gliding!

Both women were scared senseless and they quickly locked the door and began to pray. 

About an hour after the incident, my aunt's sick husband passed away. 

Grandma always said it was death who came to her door that day."

And now to rev things up a bit...

"The Ghost Car"

By Allen of "The X Group"

"I was between 13 and 14 yrs old. when we lived just outside Cannon Falls, Minnesota...

My younger brother Junior, was only a year old and had become very ill. He had a high temperature, and was very miserable. 

It was around 1am in the morning and my mother woke me up. She wanted me to run into town with her, so we could get Jr. some juice, baby aspirin and cough syrup. 

We went to the all night store in downtown Cannon Falls and headed back home.

As soon as we got on to Hwy 19 (approximately 50 yards on to it) there appeared behind us, a pair of very bright headlights...

 My mother had me along because she was basically, a night blind driver. So she was very upset to say the least, about this idiot behind us with their bright lights on!

So instead of dealing with this bozo, mom decided she would just pull over to the shoulder, so the vehicle could just pass us. 

But instead of just going by, it also pulled over and stayed the same distance behind us! 

Well now mom was ticked, and she floored the Suburban.

We were flying down the highway, but the vehicle stayed right with us. It never got any closer or further behind, but trailed us at the same distance ( Approximately 50 yards). 

This kept up even when we came to our dirt road, but mom didn't slow down, because now she was scared! She, nor I, could understand what this person was up to, and to make matters worse, my father was out of town at this time- he drove a long haul truck. 

When we got to our driveway (which was very long-more like a road in front of the house) the car pulled in behind us, as we got to the front of the house.

We both ran inside & locked the door, and then we put our outside yard light on. 

Looking out our picture window, we could see the front of the vehicle only. It appeared to be an older vehicle , you know with the lights on each front fender with an oblong grill, that's all we could see of it. 

Mom decided we should call the police, but as I reached for the phone, mom yelled at me to come back to the window and told me to "Look!"

As we both watched, this vehicle slowly, but very visibly, disappeared until it was totally gone....

We could never figure out who or what the person in the vehicle was!?!? It just made no sense what so ever!

The next morning we went out to look at our driveway. It was your typical country drive way- very muddy, yet, the only tracks visible, were the tire tracks from the suburban!

My mother and I discussed this incident many times, but we could never come to grips with it."

And now for tonight's feature story...

"Letty's Grave"

By Mrs. A. Chaney Bucks @ "Your True Psychic Experiences"

 

"The incident I am about to relate, happened fifteen years ago"...

Several years earlier, when I was traveling in India, my father had died suddenly. As I could not be contacted for almost a week, I missed his funeral.

So, when I eventually came back to live in England, one of the first things I did was to visit his grave. My sister accompanied me to show me where it was located.

 
After we had laid flowers on his grave, my sister remembered that this was the same graveyard in which our aunt Letty was buried. 

Letty had been the black sheep of the family and had been, by all accounts, "a bit of a character". 

She had died when my sister and I were young teenagers, but we had fond (if somewhat vague) memories of her from our childhood.

We decided we would find her grave and "say hello".

The graveyard was huge, and it had changed a great deal since I had last visited it, so I left it to my sister to locate Letty's grave. 

However, after searching through the rows of headstones for over twenty minutes, we still hadn't found Letty, and it was getting quite late. 

We were just about to give up when suddenly, a woman's voice called out "Over here - I'm over here!". 

We both looked up in the direction of the voice, but we could see no one. 

"It's someone playing, just kids" my sister remarked, and walked over to the spot where the voice had seemed to come from. 

I followed her, feeling a little uneasy-but there was nobody to be seen. 

In fact, the whole graveyard appeared to be deserted now!

The hairs on the back of my neck were standing on end, and when I looked at my sister I saw that she had gone white. 

"This is it!" she said, pointing down at the gravestone at our feet. 

With my heart pounding in my chest, I looked at the headstone and read my aunt's name on it...

I can't begin to describe to you how petrified I was - we both were - as we practically ran out of that graveyard, clutching onto each other.

This is a true story. There is no possibility of our having imagined that voice, or what it said, as we both heard the same thing. 

My sister and I have talked about it many times, and tried to find a less ghostly explanation for what happened on that day, but the only conclusion we can ever come to, is that Letty wanted us to find her grave!" 

Thanks for visiting! 

See y'all next time!

 ~Queenie~ ;)

"Footsteps In The Night"

Today's Trippy Tale...

 
 "Footsteps In The Night"

A terrifying tale from the paranormal files @ "your true tales"

"My aunt was a very gifted psychic. She and her younger sister, (my mother) had seen their share of remarkable things as children in a remote and heavily forested region of the Appalachian mountains and knew that there was more to this world than readily meets the eye. 

Still, out of a sort of reverence for two things--the mysterious nature of reality and the sovereign voyage of discovery that each being goes through, my mother, at least, never shared her experiences or opinions about the supernatural with her children until I had developed an interest in the matter and asked her. 

What happened at her elder sister's home when I was about 13, then, came as a complete shock, and remembering it gives me chills to this day...

My aunt lived in a trailer on my grandfather's large farm in Athens County, Ohio. This is a quiet country area with no neighbor for a long, long way. Crickets are all you hear on lovely green summer nights. 

I would often stay up late with my cousin, her son, watching a movie or listening to him play guitar. We had been watching a movie that night until quite late, I recall, before we both retired. 

His room was at one end of the trailer, while my aunt's room was at the other end. My young sister and I were staying with her. 

My sister was sharing the bed with her, while I had an arrangement of pillows to sleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. 

Between the two bedrooms was the living room, kitchen and hallway. If you know the general layout of a trailer, it is basically a long rectangle, much longer than it is wide. 

I had just laid down to sleep on the floor when I heard footsteps near the kitchen along the hallway...

The door to my aunt's bedroom where I lay was open, so I was readily able to see that no lights had been turned on by, who I assumed must have been my cousin, as he made his way along the hallway, perhaps to the kitchen for a late night snack. 

Hey, it was his house, maybe he didn't need the lights to get as far as the kitchen and then perhaps have the benefit of the open fridge light to go by. 

The footsteps halted and then started again...

They had passed the kitchen. 

They seemed a bit slow, but continued toward us...

Then the footsteps stopped quite near the entrance to the bedroom where I lay, just outside its door in the hallway. 

Well, the bathroom entrance was quite near there too, so perhaps that is where my cousin was walking. 

Suddenly a clearly adult, FEMALE voice said my aunt's name in a plaintive and forlorn manner...

"Bettie", the voice slowly and lowly called.

"Did you hear that?!" I asked my aunt.

Maybe it was my little sister, I think she suggested.

I flew from the floor it seemed to the bed where I could clearly see my 7 year old little sister sleeping soundly. The voice was not that of a 7 year old by any means, but it was the only other logical possibility. 

Watching my sister sleeping away and not moving her mouth in the least, the slow, forlorn call was made from the hallway again..."Beh...ttie". 

I had observed first hand at the same time of the second calling out, that it was indeed not my little sister. 

At this point, I am lying between my aunt and my little sister, scared out of my wits when my aunt calmly asks aloud "I wonder who's trying to contact me?".

I was amazed at her completely calm reaction to the whole matter. Her demeanor reassured me enough, that I was able to finally fall asleep.

A month or so later when we again went to visit my aunt, she had an idea of who the voice had belonged to and the nature of their reason for contacting her...

Seven years prior, my aunt's younger sister had been killed in an automobile accident. My Aunt Bettie's son, my cousin, was a great aficionado of cars - the faster the better. 

He was planning to buy a car which, unbeknownst to him, was the same make and model as the one my aunt's younger sister had been killed in. 

It was her, my aunt reasoned, reaching out from beyond to issue a warning to my aunt about her son and the car. 

He did not buy the car as it turned out - I was never clear if my aunt had said something to him before he decided not to buy the car or if he just had not bought it without her having said anything about it.

I had heard the voice of my aunt's younger sister in life, as well - she was also one of my aunts, of course, though she had passed away when I was a very young child.

But... I had certainly never heard her (in life) in such a slow, sad, plaintive tone of voice, so - I could not say that it was or was not her in any definitive manner. 

I would say that it could have been her voice, yes. But I also was never 100% convinced that this had been the nature of the spirit voice's warning - it seemed awfully dramatic and remarkable of a manifestation for such a simple thing - indeed a thing that never happened (he didn't buy the car), but, I think I have to defer to my aunt on this one. 

Perhaps if he had, something dire was foreseen by my aunt's younger sister and she was coming to warn her about it so they could avert it. 

I have heard that the "Tibetan Book of the Dead" says that once in the spirit world, we beings are seven times more psychic than we were in life. Perhaps she had a longer view of what was to come, or could have come and got my aunt's attention in time.

La Rochefoucauld wrote in his Maxims that "True love is like ghosts, many people speak of them, but few have actually ever seen one."

Well, after this experience, I can definitely say that I have HEARD one!"

"Granny Saves Thanksgiving"

 Hello and welcome to the playhouse!

Let me start by saying, I hope everyone has a Terrific Turkey day, surrounded by family & good friends!


And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm posting a story by a gal named Donna Herricks, that is very appropriate!


Some of you may have read it before on my myspace blog, but it's such a heartwarming tale, that I dit'n think you'd mind readin' it again!

 "Granny Saves Thanksgiving"

"Okay...I'm being brave and posting this story...it might get rather long because I do tend to babble…I'll apologize in advance. 
 
In July of 1994, my much loved Granny died very suddenly. I was shocked and hurt and felt terribly guilty that I hadn't somehow known and been able to tell her goodbye. Though she was my best friend and we spent countless hours together, I was somehow afraid that she'd not known how very much I loved her. 

I spent about two months grieving and feeling guilty when I decided to call her…to call her spirit, if I could, and tell her I loved her. I was afraid that my crying and grieving was preventing her from going on to some better place and I certainly didn't want that. So, I sat one evening and called to her. I called in my head and out loud. 

Now, let me say this was difficult for me, as I've had a couple of horrific experiences with "spirits" who pretend to be someone I love and then show themselves to not be that person at all and to be really quite evil. So, I was afraid one of these "pretenders" might show up, but I didn't think my Granny would let it hurt me. So, I kept calling. 

That night, I woke up and saw my Granny standing in my bedroom door. I sat up and held out my arms. I immediately started telling her of my love for her, how I needed her and missed her. I was so caught up in my blathering on and on, that I didn't notice that something wasn't right. ..

The figure wore my Granny's pink nightgown and moved toward me with arms outstretched, approaching the side of my bed. When the figure got close enough for me to examine it in the light reflected from the streetlamp, I saw how withered and dried it's face was, and how it was all stiff…but limp…like it was being supported from behind. I got the sense that it was like...her body, being held up by something else. 

When the fear hit me, I started to cry out, and when I did, the figure opened it's mouth and let out this awful, low moan that was really loud and really deep and like...inside my head. I cried out and the thing disappeared. I knew it had been a pretender. So...I stopped trying to contact my Granny for fear of something else showing up. 

The night before Thanksgiving, I was staying at my parent's home, rather sad at facing this first holiday season without my Granny. Traditionally, my Granny stayed over at my parent's home and woke early with my mother to help put in the turkey. We needed my Granny to do this because my mother is notorious for not hearing the alarm and oversleeping. 

This year, I decided to take my Granny's job and promised to wake my mom at 3:00 AM sharp to stuff the turkey and put it in the oven. As it was after one when I finally laid down on the couch to sleep, I decided to just stay up until 3:00 and try to catch some sleep after the turkey was in. I turned off all of the lights, except the light over the stove and left the TV on. 

At around 2:00 am, a favorite film of mine came on and I was pleased that I could get wrapped up in the film as that might help me stay awake. I was right. I was awake. I looked at the clock around 2:45 and was relieved that my vigil was almost over. It was at that point, that the hall light went on...

At first, I thought my mother had actually managed to drag herself out of bed at the right time. It was then that things slowed down. I could hear the TV, even recall the dialogue being spoken. I saw the cat jump up at my feet, I even nudged it out of the way. However, I became focused on the hall. I saw a shadow move down the hall at this incredibly slow speed. It seemed to take forever. It seemed like everything was slowed down, even the voices on the TV were sort of droning. I became very afraid and suddenly knew that this shadow making it's way down my hall, was definitely NOT my mother!
 
I wanted to jump up and turn on the lights but just couldn't. I was literally paralyzed with fear! Just as the shadow reached the end of the hall and one more step would bring it into my field of vision, I turned my head down on the couch and put the pillow over my head. Everything was very still. It seemed like only moments later that I felt a hand on my shoulder, shaking me as if to wake me up. I suddenly felt really dumb, because I figured that the shadow had indeed been my mom and I'd just made a total jackass out of myself.

I removed the pillow and rolled over, and there stood my Granny. She was wearing her favorite red and white dress. She shook me gently and said, "You have to get up. You have to wake Mommy to put in the turkey, her alarm didn't go off." I heard the words. Out loud. 

The cat jumped on the back of the couch to greet my Granny. I heard in my head that she didn't want our holiday dinner ruined. I jumped to my knees and leaned over the back of the couch to hug her, I was babbling about how I loved her and missed her. She smiled at me so sweetly and nodded, but when I tried to hug her, she backed away and sort of shook her head. She stepped around the edge of the sofa. 

I turned to look at the clock. 3:15. 

I looked back, and she was gone. Just like that. 

I woke my mother, who was exceedingly grateful to me for waking her. Had I not, dinner wouldn't have been ready until way late and the holiday would've been somewhat spoiled. She asked me how I managed to wake her right on time and I said simply, "Granny woke me up." She believed me, having had such experiences herself. 

Though I've had many ghostly encounters, this was by far, my favorite. I was wide awake, I know I was, and my Granny came to me. I'm only sorry I turned to look at the clock- if I hadn't I might have had more time with her. "
 
-Donna Herricks

Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

 May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey be plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have nary a lump!

May your yams be delicious,
And your pies take the prize!

And may your Thanksgiving dinner

Stay off your thighs! ;)