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Shadow Man In The Fedora

 

About 2am this morning I was woken up to my little dog barking in the other room. I yelled out of my bedroom for him to stop barking and come back to bed. He is a snuggler and is usually curled up next to me while sleeping. He came back, jumped up onto the bed, and sat staring towards the bedroom door. He was clearly agitated and seem to be in guardian mode. He suddenly sprang from the bed as if he heard something only he could hear and ran back into the other room where he continued barking.

What I found odd was that I have a doggie door installed and he never went outside. If there was a cat or someone prowling about, he surely would have given chase. A lot of older homes in the Phoenix area have alley ways behind their yards. This had been used as a communal trash collecting area for the city, and from time to time some of the homeless will set up camp there. This still didn't explain why my dog was remaining in the house and not rushing into the yard.

After listening to him bark a bit longer, I decided to get up and investigate. To stay in stealth mode, I didn't turn on any lights. I made my way down to the other end of the house where my dog was barking in front of the sliding glass doors. I started to scan the yard from left to right. At first I didn't see anything but the outline of the bougainvillea growing against the back wall.

Then I saw it...

Standing off to the right side of my yard, close to where my bedroom is, was a tall dark silhouette of a man in a fedora-type hat. My heart started to race and the dog was barking his head off. It was standing completely still and appeared to be looking in my direction. All of the sudden it vanished. It didn't fade into nothing. It was simply there one second and gone the next. I thought, what the hell did I just see? I didn't get a good feeling from whatever this was. It felt foreboding.

Somehow I managed to get back to my room, get under the covers, and after some time, fall back to sleep. My dog followed me in and didn't make a peep the rest of the night. In the morning I looked back outside through the sliding glass doors to see if in a half asleep state I could've mistaken lawn furniture or something else in the yard for the shadow. I had not. Even so, why was my dog going ballistic?

Today I wondered if this could have been linked to a recent tragedy. Over Memorial Day weekend at the end of May, I lost the love of my life to an accidental shooting. My Dad is also terminally ill and I can't help but wonder if seeing this shadow man might be linked to either. Now I didn't write this looking for sympathy. Yes, it sucks but I'm really curious to what this shadow was and why it decided to hang out in my yard last night. If anyone has any idea, please let me know.

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Comments about this paranormal experience

The following comments are submitted by users of this site and are not official positions by yourghoststories.com. Please read our guidelines and the previous posts before posting. The author, DreamBird, has the following expectation about your feedback: I will read the comments and participate in the discussion.

Tweed (33 stories) (2475 posts)
+2
11 months ago (2023-04-15)
Hi DreamBird, I'm reading through your experiences at the moment and this one hits home. Realise this one is connected with your most recent submission to the site but I'm just reading it now.

Years ago I saw a shadow person and all but made a joke about it on YGS. However months later one of my music teachers/mentors passed away. The weird part was there was a moment in the encounter with the shadow person where I 'saw' my teacher's face briefly. I thought I was imagining it. This man was alive at the time of the encounter, but his health was ailing. Although I wasn't afraid during my encounter, I've come to believe these kinds of beings are something of a harbinger of hard times, especially grief, though they're not necessarily evil in nature. It would be great to do a survey of all the people who have submitted shadow being related experiences to the site.

Thank you for having the strength and courage to write about hard times. I hope writing these experiences has been/is healing/calming in some way.

One last thing your shadow guy was outside of your home. Mine was inside the home. I don't know if there's a distinction or meaning there. I didn't have a dog either, maybe that's it lol.

Thanks for sharing and take care.
DreamBird (6 stories) (23 posts)
+2
2 years ago (2022-08-18)
Thank you all for your comments. I believe the explanations for this experience make a lot of sense as I did not have this happen previously before the accident. I'm sure my grief attracted something negative. Thankfully it hasn't been seen since.

My grief is starting to subside and I feel like I'm returning back to "the land of the living,' if that makes sense. It's still hard but I've had some pretty cool things happen as well that when I'm ready I will post about.

Again, thank you!
-DreamBird
The_Lost_Voyage_11 (7 stories) (233 posts)
+5
2 years ago (2022-08-06)
DreamBird, first off I am so sorry for your loss and what you are experiencing with your father, it sounds like a trying time for you for sure.

I am aware of the back alleys you speak of, they exist in Tucson as well, so it provides a good mental image.

I don't believe you have anything to worry about. Your gut feeling about the entity/being you saw was correct, the behavior of your little protector (dog) verifies that. Animals can read energy and intention very clearly even from a non corporeal form.

Often when a person is experiencing negative emotions to an extreme, such as in your case, it can attract other entities/spirits that function at a similar vibration, like attracts like and they feed off it. In many cases they can exacerbate the emotions, make them worse to keep the cycle going. I think this was something passing through that sensed the strong emotions you were experiencing and stopped to check it out. It obviously kept its distance from the house and did not want to be detected by you, thus its sudden disappearance when you spotted it.

You need time and space to process the grief/sadness/loss and other emotions you're going through, it's a lot for a person to go through. My hope is that you're not doing it alone and that you have some sort of support from family and friends? It would be prudent to protect yourself and call upon a spiritual support as well, according to your beliefs, whether its prayers, sage burning (there's a wonderful place in Sedona that sells a sage spray) or a myriad of other ways to keep these types of entities from attaching or prowling around as you definitely don't need them hanging around your space.

This could continue to happen in other ways as you're going through all this, and you have a bunch of tools you can use to ensure you don't keep receiving unwanted guests and visitors. Hopefully this helps and good luck!
Sleeping-with-steve (guest)
+2
2 years ago (2022-08-04)
Hello DreamBird,

My sincere condolences go out to you.

It's a very difficult time that doesn't get easier but hopefully progresses to beautiful memories that will fill your heart with warmth.

I don't know much about the shadow man wearing a hat. You will find YGS members have so much to share. It's a great community, and hopefully you'll get an idea of who it was, why he came, and if it means something, from these forums.

Sorry I can't be of help, but I just want to reach out and say, 'be strong'. It's difficult, but in time the memories will help you heal.

Best wishes,
Darkangel73 (4 stories) (127 posts)
+2
2 years ago (2022-08-03)
Hello. I seen "The Hatman", when I was 15 or 16. I think these entities come around when one is in negative circumstances. I was dealing with a lot of issues at that time. I can't say, I want that experience again.
DreamBird (6 stories) (23 posts)
+3
2 years ago (2022-08-02)
Hi Rajine,
You are absolutely right. I don't think I will ever get over losing him, or the way he was lost, but I'm learning to move forward (and take him with me).

I seem to recall seeing something similar as a child but I don't think it was the same being. It definitely didn't feel right or good seeing this thing. It could be possibly that my grief attracted it. I prayed for protection after that night and nothing so far, has been out of the ordinary (thankfully).

-DreamBird
Rajine (14 stories) (734 posts)
+2
2 years ago (2022-08-02)
Hi DreamBird

It's never easy losing a loved one, no matter how much time goes by that emptyness will always remain, however we learn to move ahead.

Was this the first time you saw something like that? I'm not sure what it was but if you didn't get a good vibe from it then it might not be a loved one, we all have a primal instinct that helps us determine whether something is good or not.
DreamBird (6 stories) (23 posts)
+4
2 years ago (2022-07-31)
RCRuskin, thank you.

The only image that comes to mind is a picture I have of my great-grandfather. I didn't think of this until later. He is pictured wearing a fedora and would be about the same height as the shadow man. A message possibly?

I definitely did not get good vibes from this thing. My mother asked me if it could possibly be my deceased love. I don't think he would show up and scare me or the dog. Surely the dog would have recognized him. My partner was also shorter in stature than the shadow. So I suppose I don't know definitively. Thanks for reading and commenting!
RCRuskin (9 stories) (811 posts)
+4
2 years ago (2022-07-31)
May the Memory of the love of your life be Eternal.

I have just one question regarding the hat apparently being worn. Do any of the people you mentioned own a fedora, or do they have a connection with someone known to?

Thanks.

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