Shadow People / Hat Man

Has anyone else here seen these shadow people? I was visited by the hat man with red eyes and fedora when I was about 4 years old. Pure terror. Anybody else? Yes, the internet is full of stories, I know I'm not alone. I just wondered if anybody else here had seen one, and any useful info you might have.

My own experience wasn't exactly full of clues about the potential characteristics of the Hat Man. I've been perusing massive threads of internet comments and first-hand accounts and a lot of common threads emerge, specific to the fedora-type hat man.

Common trends:
About 8 feet tall.
Appears in bedrooms most of the time.
Red or yellow eyes sometimes, but never an actual face - yet the person can "feel" him smiling or sneering.
Other people with the person may or may not be able to see him.
Sometimes reported to pinch, burn by touch, or choke people, but MOST of the time just stares. Other shadow people may float to and fro as if unaware of the person, but fedora hat man always makes contact. Eyes or not, you will feel him there, and you will also feel him feeling you.
Usually appears to very young, 10 and under, but not strictly. Usually appears to adults when death is near, so some suspect he is a reaper of some sort. My theory is that he marks children and returns later to collect them as they die, perhaps acquiring life energy of some kind? IDK, I don't do ghost stuff. I don't believe in spirits and ghosts really. I think hat man is very real, based on:
Attire! He was first reported in the 1800's and he, along with a few other hat people, are wearing indeed clothing from the 1800's, consistently. Capes, collars, "Abraham Lincoln-style" is often stated.

One person reports a scarred eye on one. Can we damage them? Did he fight with a cohort or some other creature? I don't know. But unless they are "ghosts" and the damage happened BEFORE he was a shadow being, I like to think maybe they can be killed -

IF THEY ARE EVIL! We don't know. Maybe they see us as shadows and feel afraid?!

I always assumed I was off the deep end. To find out now that he appears to people on a regular basis all around the world is quite startling. I had filed the encounter as something to forget, a fluke. But the reports are all so consistent, and all the different types of shadow people have their own styles of encounter. I refuse to pretend that it didn't happen anymore.

Most people see the Top Hat Man by day, with a hooked nose, gray skin, impossibly long fingers and a visible face, and he has legs and walks away often in an open field. Not the Fedora Hat Man, he almost always appears to young children at the foot of their bed. Sleep paralysis is a flimsy explanation, rejected by most sane people who have seen any shadow-thing. Especially when plenty of encounters happen in hallways and other places while the observer is wide awake.

This is not about drugs. Accounts written by people using drugs should be automatically discredited. And any account full of excessive supposition or hippie ghost nonsense also, toss 'em. This is about actual sober, awake, real life encounters.

Why would I make this up? Read about it, you clearly have internet access.

Again, stay skeptical. I wouldn't believe me, either. But every article about hat man has about 300 comments below them, and as you read all the comments you'll notice an incredibly consistent data set.

Also, for the lurkers too ashamed to post, my experience was about 1986, and I know a ton of recent reports are from that time frame. There must have been a sort of visitation wave, if you will.

My mom, sister and nephew that I know also have seen him. This site has several comments confirming such a correlation. Maybe something genetic? Maybe we are all the offspring of a cursed ancestor? Dude, I don't know about ghosts or curses or any of this stuff. I just saw a shadow with red glowing eyes that scared the poop out of me when I was 4 years old.