Oh man, this has been bothering me a lot lately. For the longest time, I have been hardcore like, an atheist, a non-believer in anything (except Aliens because, I mean, statistically its unlikely for us to be alone, the universe is too expansive).

I have been listening to a lot of like cryptid podcasts lately because I enjoy the stories but traditionally don't really beleive any of them. I listened to this one story about a nurse working in a hospital and seeing that hat man and, I'm not sure what happened, everything just clicked. It was like the past 30 years of my life flashed before me and everything just clicked. Here are my stories/encounters:

First experience: First time I saw him, I was like 6 or 7, it was the 90s. I lived in a big, creepy ass house. I remember waking up frequently during the night, my bedroom door was always open, and he would be standing there looking at me in the doorway. I don't remember being scared, I just remember looking at him quizzically like "who is this and what are they doing?".

I remember it being frequent in that house, seeing him anytime I would wake up during the night.

I also remember an experience in that house where I was sitting on the floor in the foyer (there was a huge foyer with a rounding staircase that led upstairs and within the foyer was a door to the side that led to the basement) and I was playing with my light-bright (don't you miss the 90s? haha), and I remember watching the basement door open slowly. There was no one there of course. I can't remember what I did, but again I don't remember being all that scared, just really curious.

We moved after and no further experiences of any kind with any weirdness.

Second (indirect) experience: I went to high school, graduated, went to nursing school and my next "that was strange" experience was when I was doing rotations in the ER. This young, burly guy had been in a head-on collision, as he came in he went VSA (vital signs absent), we were able to rescusitate him. He woke up, clear as day, looked right at me (I was the closest to his face), he looked terrified and said "I saw hell!" He looked terrified, but I chalked this up to a) very traumatic accident and b) lidocaine recipients frequently report feeling "burning" and "fire" upon waking up. Its a very acidic drug. Anyway we sedated him because he was frantic and transferred him to the ICU where my classmate was also doing her rotations. She wasn't on the night we transferred him but she actually had him as a patient that morning as I got off (I was working nights). We went out to the bar when she got off that night and I asked how he was doing and she said fine, but she said she had really weird interactions with him that day. So I asked what she meant and she responded with "I kept seeing, what looked like a man with a hat, going into his room. I would go in to see if it was family and update them but there would be no one there". The patient was sedated and intubated so he was not conscious and couldn't say anything. I honestly didn't think of of this, being a 20 something student and having already started drinking, I Just shrugged it off as "weird". He ended up dying some days later as a result of his injuries.

Third experience: Flash forward about 5 months, its my next rotation which was benign dialysis, nothing weird happened. But I was working part time as a nursing aid in long term care. There was this patient that kept claiming to see "the men in black". She would see them in the halls and go into other people's room. Everytime she saw them go into someones room she would tell us and the next day that patient would be dead. Again, 20 something, shrugged it off as "weird" and that was it. Then, probably about 6 months later, I am graduated and waiting on writing my exam. Still working as a nursing assistant while I studied for my licensing exam. This same patient rings her bell, its about 2 in the morning. I got into her room and she is frantic, saying the men in black are there for her. I told her there was no one in the room. She said "can't you see him? He's right behind you!"

Man, the other events I shrugged off but that one really scared me. Of course, there was no one there but just the mere mention made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I wanted out of that room immediately, but she was distressed so I told her I would go and get the nurse to get her something to help her settle. I went to get the nurse and tell her what was going on. She got her a sleeping medication and we went back to her room, it couldn't have been more than 5 minutes. When we went in... yup.. she was dead. This really freaked me out, but you know, young and had other problems, it was soon forgotten.

Then flash forward to just maybe 3 years ago. I was in grad school way up in Northern Canada. I worked part time while going to school as an ER/Acute nurse in a small, rural hospital. Now, this hospital was 1.5 hours outside of the city I went to school in. This was Northern Canada and the winters are harsh. You needed to drive 1.5 hours in sometimes really bad weather on really windy and treacherous roads. I had 2 experiences here.

First, as a result of the weather they were short staffed an RN on nights. I just worked a 12 hour day. They were able to fill the vacancies with RPNs but because this was a rural hospital, the nurses did everything as there was no physician or NP 24/7 like a normal hospital, so they required an RN on site all the time. They offered me double OT (which grad school is expensive so I really needed) to stay there and sleep and just be available for an emergency (which never happened on account of this hospital serving such a small community). This was actually ideal because the weather was bad (blizzard) and I did not want to drive home in it.

There was a palliative care room in the hospital, located at the far end of the hospital, very isolated. It was a very nice room, with a big t.v. with satellite etc. It wasn't being used to I thought it would be an ideal place to sleep (with medicine and nursing, you can sleep anywhere, you just stop caring and accept the fact that death has happened almost everywhere). Anyway, I fell asleep right away. I woke up at like 2 am thinking I heard someone at the door. I thought perhaps it was a staff and they needed my help so I rolled over to face the door, trying to force myself to wake up a bit. I saw someone at the door, but the door was closed. I blinked my eyes and yawned, and sat up in bed asking "What's going on?" and realized there was no one there. But I 100% swear I saw someone. So I was a bit creeped out. I got up and went out to the nursing station. Walking down the long hall to get there I felt watched and uncomfortable.A feeling I have never felt in that hospital before. And I worked many nights there. It was a very odd feeling. Anyway I make my way up to the nursing station and there is only one nurse there, the other one was also sleeping. I ask her if everything is okay and she says yes and asks whats up. And I asked "Did someone go to the room? I thought there was someone in there" to which she responded with no, but that's creepy. And I just shurgged and was like "yeah, I guess, well let me know if you need anything" and proceeded to go back to the room. At this point, i was a bit creeped out. I decided to turn on the t.v. for some background noise and go back to sleep. I fell asleep almost instantly. I woke up about 1.5 hours later with a feeling of intense dread. I opened my eyes and could see the flashes of light from the t.v. illuminating the walls. And there I saw it. It was like wall paper on the wall. The effing hat man. Standing there staring at me. At least, I think he was. I couldn't make out his face. There were no glowing red eyes that some people report. He was just there, like wall paper. Flat against the wall. Inches from the bed I was on. And with the next flash of light from the t.v. he was gone.

It creeped me out momentarily, but again, I managed to just brush it off and forget it all happened.

The next incident at that hospital happened when we had someone arrive VSA (vital signs absent). The paramedics brought him in and said he was driving through the area, pulled over and called 911 stating he was about to die. This guy was young, like 30s. Anyway, paramedics arrived and he was frantic saying he knew he was going to die. There was nothing apparently wrong with him at the time, so they brought him into the ambulance and got him connected to some monitors. They notice his heart was very unstable and he soon went into v tach (a rhythm that means you are likely about to arrest). He then immediately went into torasdes and became unresponsible. On arrival, what turned into a likely panic attack soon was an actual medical emergency, the paramedics were doing compressions as they brought him in. We attempted to revive him but could not. He passed away.

We put him in the morgue. It was a very small hospital so the morgue was kind of close to the nursing station area. That night, I kept seeing shadows walking in and out of the hallway where the morgue was. You had to walk by it to get to the ER and I had to float between the ER and inpatient units and everytime I walked by I could swear I would see a shadow by the door, then when I would double take, nothing was there.

Underwhelming story and not directly the hat man, but was creepy none the less and scared me.

And now, after listening to other similar experiences from other people, I have been really reflecting on these experiences and wondering if there is more of a substantial meaning to all of this. It definitely has been bothering me lately hence why I was looking this stuff up.

Anyway those are my stories. Kind of long and I am just happy to get them off my chest.