S1 Ep11: Hatman Assault

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Deliciously popped, perfectly salted. Skinny Pop, popular for a reason. Astonishing Legends Network. The views and opinions expressed by hosts and listeners on the Astonishing Dead Letter office are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Astonishing Legends Productions, the Astonishing Legends Network, or any affiliated entities or guests. When something unexplainable happens to you, it can make you feel isolated or alone. But trust us, you're not. For over a decade, you've been sending your strange stories to Astonishing Legends. And now it's time for our fellow legenders to hear them, too. Join us weekly in the vault beneath Blanket Fortiana, which we call The Astonishing Dead Letter Office. Tonight's episode, Hat Man Assault. Well, the dead letters keep coming in. And here's a good one. It's from Alan. Oh, what's it about? Okay, one second here. Okay, yes, take a guess. It's a Hat Man story. Oh, nice. Nice. That's something my wife has actually seen. She mentioned it on a junk drawer once. We were talking about it the other day, actually, because she went on Rachel Dratch's show, Woo Woo with Rachel Dratch, and she brought it up on that show. And I'm going on that show, too. By the time this episode of Dead Letter Office comes out, I probably will have already been on it, maybe. But yeah, but my wife actually saw Hat Man when she was a little girl, like climbing through the window. I remember that. We talked about that a long time ago. Second floor window, by the way. That's right. Yeah. And where was the building? What house was this? It was a childhood home that she lived in in North Carolina when she was a little girl. Well, knowing Emily, I'm sure it was a very stylish pork pie type hat, something very hipster-ish and cool. Well, this story also has some synchro-mysticism or mystosynchronism or whatever you might say. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, I think it's your turn to read, man. So if you want to fire away, let's go. All righty. Here we go. Hey, guys. I've been listening to you for about two years now, and I'm a huge fan. I ordered a hoodie from you last week and can't wait to rock it. Well, last week I was at my dad's house, and he had some Ghost Hunter show on, and we were watching it, and he asked if I knew anyone that did ghost hunting or if I had tried it myself. I told him no, but I had plenty of strange experiences myself, almost all of them in the house I grew up in. He was shocked, and he had no idea except for the one experience when I truly thought someone was in the house, and he came home to half the local police department cars on the front lawn and them doing a room-to-room search of the entire house. But that's another story. But one story I told him was when I was living in a rental house he had about 15 or so years ago. I was sleeping and woke up paralyzed to a completely black figure with what I could best describe as a fedora hat at the side of the bed pushing me back and forth from the side as if it was someone trying to wake me up like there was an emergency. I eventually woke up completely and saw no one was there and didn't sleep the rest of the night. Also, I was living there alone at the time. Then I can't remember how much time had passed, but it was within a week or two of that, and again I woke up completely paralyzed but to a different figure who was tall and well-built, but his whole body looked like when you get the black and white static on the old TVs, but it was colored and he was punching me. I never slept in that room again. Years later, I learned about sleep paralysis and had a few more instances of it even up until recently and I immediately thought I had my answer until you guys came along. About a year ago, I was going back and listening to past episodes and put on shadow people when you guys started talking about a black figure in a hat that was commonly seen in situations like mine. I got chills all over my body and started freaking out to the point where I shut it off and didn't finish the episode. Fast forward to last Wednesday when I was at my dad's and told him that story which I haven't told since I told my girlfriend about listening to your Shadow People episode and getting freaked out. The next day, Ed and Chris dropped the Hat Man episode of Scared all the time and I don't remember if you guys mentioned Hat Man when you were promoting the show but when I hit play, I was thinking to myself, I wonder, WTF, Hat Man is? So, there was no influence on me telling my dad that story. But when they started talking about it, I stopped dead in my tracks at work and it freaked me the F out. I just couldn't believe it. I can count on one hand how many times I've told that story over the course of roughly 15 years and I didn't know what to think. I now live in that same house with my family and haven't had any other experiences of that nature while being there. And my stepson sleeps in that room now and has never said anything and I never asked him because I don't want to put the idea in his head. But, a few months ago, I made some comment or joked my girlfriend about getting a Ouija board and she instantly said, no way. And I was only half serious and I jokingly said, why not? And she said something along the lines of, and I'm kicking myself for not writing it down, I don't want anything bad coming out of that. We already get visited and that's enough. And I was like, hold the phone, what? She then walked away casually and said, yeah, we get visited here and there. As if she were talking about a friend popping in every once in a while and I ended the conversation there. Part of me is truly curious and I've always wanted to go investigate haunted houses, but I sleep like crap as it is and if I'm going to investigate a haunted house, it sure as hell won't be mine. I know it's not too detailed, but I figured you guys might appreciate the story and if you ever wanted to use it as a small filler, I'd be more than happy to send you the longer version. Keep up the awesome work. I always tell anybody I know that's into the paranormal about your show. Thanks. Wow, I love this story. It's a very cool story. Alan, thanks so much for sending this to us. A lot of things I want to dive into here about this in our discussion about it. The first thing is, I don't feel like I know of Hat Man stories, even all the ones we've covered and the Shadow People where it got physical with the experiencer. Do you, am I not remembering something? Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of crossover. I mean, here's the- I haven't, I don't remember of someone being rocked back and forth in the bed like by a Hat Man. Oh, somebody's rocking someone somewhere all the time. There's so much crossover to these. You know, what's the difference between a regular shadow person wearing a cloak and one that's wearing a hat or different types of hats? We've heard of different types of hats. When did the transition sartorially, fashion-wise, switch from the black-robed monks or the black monks? Because I believe those are probably similar creatures from the Middle Ages onward to the Renaissance and whatnot. And then they decided to change styles with a new hat, which is still old-fashioned to our standards. What would it be now? A trucker cap, a toque, a, you know, a beanie. In all seriousness, though, these beings, I don't know if you could put a specific definition or boundaries on their behavior. But I do take notice when things around them are described in such a fashion that, yes, people could say, you know, those who are trying to debunk this, it's like, okay, this person, you know, has a good sense of style or design and they've added some story elements that are unique. But the one that grabbed my attention was, yes, not only that there was a hat man rocking the bed back and forth, kind of like they were trying to wake them up maybe from a, you know, for an emergency or trying to get their attention because I think a lot of times it is to get your attention or maybe there's a message that they want to relay. That seems to be ghosts in general. There's a message, solve my murder, help me with this, try to find this or get out of my bedroom. You know, there's some message. But here, well, there wasn't any following emergency. There's nothing on fire. There was no reason to wake this person up so you do wonder what they were seeing or what the intention was. But the point that got my attention here remember the old static on TVs? People don't remember this because of course we've all gone to digital TV but over the air TV with an antenna sometimes had the aluminum foil flags on it. When you went to a channel and again, folks, there was only three channels. Imagine that. And then a fourth when Fox came along but three main channels and then you had your UHF, ultra high frequency but three main VHF channels, ABC, CBS, NBC. and when you turn to a channel that had no signal over it, you got this snow. And sometimes ghost hunters will use the sound of that static or snow on a TV, just an old TV setup with no channel on it and try and use that as a medium for spirits to talk through. Again, with the EVP or the old-fashioned analog types of EVPs trying to use that static noise for them to form words with or images on the TV. That's another trick too is sometimes you can see images starting to form in the snow. So there's a connection for me in that type of electronic snow but the fact that it was in color, that was what got me. Yeah. Very interesting. Right. So as he said, you know, within a week or two of that, it looked like that old black and white static but it was in color and this thing was punching him. So then I'm thinking of the old shape of the, you know, Star Trek with the transformer and you had the twinkling colored lights and that kind of static. No, I always bring that up. The companion. Yes. Something, right. The companion or when they're in the transporter and you have that kind of shadow shaped figure but there's a lot of sparklies in it. So again, I appreciate a story that has a little bit of different descriptive elements in it like that that are just kind of unusual but we've heard of everything, Elmo coming out of the TV, puppets and characters and all kinds of strange things but it is a form of ITC or transmedium communication. That is utilized I think by the other side to communicate with us the living, the awake and the sleeping. Yeah, the other thing about this too was the synchromysticism and we got to mention that it's been over a year since Alan had listened to the Astonishing Legend Shadow People episode which he didn't even finish out of fear. A year later he's telling his dad the Hat Man stories for the first time and then the next day after he tells that story scared all the time an Astonishing Legends Network podcast drops their own episode on the Hat Man which was a great ep by the way and I'll tell you what Alan that kind of stuff happens to us all the time. Forrest and I have learned to pay attention when it does. It's actually dictated next episodes of the main Astonishing Legends show in the past when something just seems like it's falling into our laps or trying to get noticed. We used to think it was just coincidences but there's points at which it seems to be I don't know if it just feels like somebody is trying to get you to acknowledge something or send a message. We're paying more attention no doubt you know to these connections and I think that is also part of the message the medium is the message in how we are presenting and what platforms and their interconnectability but sometimes the stories we choose and people of course will say well I don't want to hear another type of this story next year to line up why don't you do something like this or it's an interview like we want to get back to no interviews for an episode or two but they come up and there's a lot of coincidence when that happens and of course we have to grab the interview when we can if you wait around the person it's like well I'm busy now or I don't want to do it or there's some other reason that we have to grab it when we do and feature it when we do because it seems like we were led to it so again there's a lot of coincidences and we've heard a lot of stories from people yeah with this kind of synchromysticism coming up where you turn on something and you just heard about it a couple of days ago so all I can say is pay attention folks maybe there's a message in there that there's a connection to something else and it may not be important like I said the guy the color static man was punching you the second time what was that about somebody is upset about something well you're not paying attention perhaps or is trying to shake you maybe there's a message in there that you need to pay attention to or they're just trying to get your attention or they're just being mean and I'm not being facetious there it's just like they're getting their anger out you're the punching bag literally and perhaps though there is something that you're meant to pay attention to so just keep your eyes open and when you're asleep pay attention to stuff and look for signs and clues because I do believe they're out there the messages are there also by the way if you have a partner in life some kind of companion it might be worth it to sit down with them and say is there anything weird going on that you're waiting for me to say something weird happened to me can we just go ahead and find this out now because I love that when he's like yeah she's like we have visitors it's like how have we not talked about this before so make sure you get all those cards out on the table just you know go out for a nice dinner and be like just have you been seeing anything weird of course that's going to freak them out no I was just curious yeah it just depends on if you want an answer like that you know no I do believe people should know what's going on in their own houses but I also totally understand when people don't want to know because ignorance is bliss and you can sleep better at night as he's saying you know my sleep's already bad so I don't need any more information on what's lurking around the house well all I can say to that is how I reconcile this with myself and whatever might be around me at all times is that that's just the natural world I know it seems unnatural but the unseen world is just as natural and a part of our seen and living and waking world as it is the other side and so we all just try and live in harmony and that's all I can say just make peace with it and be accepting and pay attention Alan also thanks for telling everybody that's into the paranormal about our show we really appreciate it and folks we're looking for more listeners so everybody do that everybody tell folks and they don't have to be into the paranormal we think they'll like it anyway they check us out or check out the dead letter office that's a good way to start wherever you get your podcast so thanks a lot for that yeah hopefully the you tell two people they tell two people and so forth and so on and Alan you seem to you seem to have been born with that one instinct that's spot on never do a paranormal investigation at your own house if you don't want to know what's there the astonishing dead letter office is hosted by Scott Philbrook and Forrest Burgess and is executive produced by Tess Feifel the show is edited and mixed by Sarah Voorhees Wendell at VW Sound the theme is based on the astonishing legends theme by Judson Crane at Founder Music arranged by Alan Carissia who composes all the other music in the show Tommy Beaver design created the logo the announcer is John Bolman that's me stories are lightly edited for length content and readability but otherwise presented as they're sent to us we're always looking for more dead letters so if you have a story of your own you'd like to share email it to deadletteroffice at astonishing legends dot com please include how you would like to be credited first name only first name last initial anonymous a pseudonym let us know due to the number of emails coming in we often cannot respond but we do read them all no part of the show may be reproduced anywhere without permission copyright astonishing legends productions protein bars often feel like you're choosing between taste and nutrition if it 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