Otherworld - Episode 3: The Man in the Hat Part 1

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Lucas had terrifying lucid nightmares of a dark entity while sleeping in his brother’s old room. Years later, he found out that his brother had experienced the same thing his whole life. Things only get stranger from there.  This is part one of a two-part story. Stay tuned for the 2nd episode later this week. Please subscribe and help spread the word about Otherworld by telling your friends and leaving us a good review! Remember that the more people that know about Otherworld, the more stories you’ll get to hear. To see photos related to this episode, click here Subscribe to Otherworld on Patreon for exclusive content and bonus interviews Check out our Merch Follow us on: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter  If you have experienced something paranormal or unexplained, email us your full story at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host Jack Wagner. Today's episode is about a topic that I'm very picky about. That topic is sleep and dreams. And I'm picky about this for a few reasons. The first reason. Although dreams can be very, very weird, they can be super scary. If you've ever had somebody asked to tell you about the dream they had last night, you'll know how completely boring it is to hear about somebody else's dream.

Awful. It's one of the most boring things in the world. And I think the reason why is that they're feeling-based, and it's not your dream. You weren't there. You didn't experience it. They just make for terrible stories, so that's the first reason. Second reason. Dreaming and sleeping can be a lot of things.

It could do a lot of crazy stuff to the human body. It can make you feel like you just experience something paranormal, but almost always that's not the case. especially when you're not getting enough sleep. Really, really weird things can happen to the human body and the human brain. And I know that firsthand because I experienced some of the weirdest ones myself. I've always had problems with insomnia. And when I was in my early 20s, it was really bad. I ended up getting diagnosed with something called hypnipompic hallucinations.

And basically, it's when you wake up, start going about your day, your body and your brain is awake, but the part of your brain that makes you dream is not quite turned off. So you end up having extremely vivid hallucinations. It's incredibly real. You're waking up, you're going about your day, and you're having very vivid hallucinations. In my case, I would see my house on fire. I would see smoke coming up from the doors. I would see flames rising up, and I would immediately start fighting this fire in real life.

life. Eventually, the visions would slowly disappear from my vision, almost like a movie, who would just start fading out, and I would be left there on the ground, holding my comfort or like an idiot stamping out flames that were never actually there. And this is absolutely terrifying, absolutely terrifying. Number one, the fire that I thought I saw was scary, but also even scarier is afterwards that feeling you're left with. just knowing how out of control you are of your body and what your brain can do to you when it's not working in your favor,

when it turns against you. That's really scary. Because of my personal experience, as I go through submissions for this show, a lot of times I'll be reading a story and notice that it sounds a lot like what I experienced. Or even other sleep-related disorders. There's a lot of stuff that can happen to a person,

person around the time that they're sleeping that is probably not paranormal. Either that or people are easily able to write it off as not being paranormal. So I'm pretty picky about this stuff, but when I got the email that started this episode, I realized I was dealing with something that was very different than anything I'd ever heard before. The story comes from a guy named Lucas, who initially reached out to tell me that him and his brother had experienced shared dreams. And they all started when Lucas.

had to sleep in his brother's bed for the very first time. Not only that, he had some other experiences that he said he wasn't even sure if they were related, but as I interviewed him about this, I started to think they are most likely very related, and I think you'll probably agree. So this is an unusual story. As usual, it's going to be best explained by Lucas himself,

and will eventually be joined by his brother Austin. There were a lot of layers to this one. It ended up being a lot more complicated than I thought. And for that reason, this is going to be a two-part episode. You're listening to Otherworld. This episode is called The Man in the Hat, Part One. All right, so hi, I'm Lucas. And back in 2016 to 2018, I had a bit of an unusual experience.

And it involved some dreams that I had at my family home. and this was in a suburb of Vancouver in British Columbia. I was 17 at the time of the first incident. I was preparing to go to university. I joined the Army Reserve when I was in grade 12, and so I was doing some training there and getting ready to go to basic training. But everything else was just the classic high school.

Everything was just parties and tests and just trying to get ready for university. My brother had just moved away. He went to university. And he was in grade 12 at the time, so he had just taken off a year before me. And I had a girlfriend at the time as a high school girlfriend, and she would stay over at our house pretty fairly often. And when she would stay over, my parents had a rule where if she was staying,

we couldn't stay in the same bedroom, not until, you know, if we moved out of the house, they don't care about while we're there. It's a no-go. and so normally I would stay in a spare bedroom, just a mattress on the floor. It's next to my bedroom. And this time, though, for whatever reason, I had to stay in my brother's old bedroom. And so it was my first time ever actually sleeping in there. And, you know, we were watching TV, whatever, getting late, and it's time to go to bed.

So I went up to the bed and I went in, everything seems good, and I lay down. And the second that I go to sleep, like normally I fall asleep really fast. It's like usually as soon as the head hits the pillow, I'm asleep. But it felt even shorter than that. It was like, I blinked. And as soon as I, it was just like, yeah, a long blink. And I opened my eyes. And I was laying in bed.

Everything seemed like pretty normal. And when I was laying there, I, for something pulled me up out of the bed. And it felt like, I don't know my hands, but it just felt like something was grabbing me. And it pulled me up and it brought me to the window of the bedroom. And so his bedroom window looks out on a cul-de-sac and then down a street. And so it was dark out. There's all the street lights. And I felt, yeah, it pulled me up and carry me to the window.

And it was starting to get just a bad feeling. And normally, like when I was younger, I was able to occasionally lose a dream. a technique where I would either try to jump or try to like do like a little like long jump. And if something felt weird about the jump, if I was able to get in the air and if I felt like I, you know, had a little too much air time or if I just kept flying up, then I could decide that it was a loose dream. But I couldn't this time. And I couldn't because I was being held at this window and my feet were just barely

hanging off the ground. And so I was. basically being in my dream, I was being like forced to stare out this window overlooking the street. And at the very end of the street, like past the cul-de-sac, I just saw a black figure standing there. And it was incredibly ominous. And I couldn't look away from him. I was like trying to just look away. But I felt this like, it felt gentle when it pulled me up to the window.

Everything felt kind of nice and normal. But as soon as I just saw that, the figure at the end and I tried to look away. It wouldn't let me and it felt like the grip that was holding me there got a lot tighter. And as I was looking at him, I could see him looking at me and it was, it was like his body was like electric, but like it was all black and it was just vibrating. And his fingers were touch, they were just feet long. They were almost touching the ground and he just stood there just staring. Like, it was, it was, it was locked in, right staring at the window.

And once, once I, like, had, like, fully made eye contact with him at this distance, he just went to a full sprint, head down, running right at the house. And as he was running, I could just feel like the, my eyes were starting to get, like, tunnel vision. Everything was vibrating. It had, like, a boom, boom, boom sound. And it was, all the lights behind, it was just everything, all the street lights, It was just getting darker and darker as he got closer.

And when he got to about the end of the cul-de-sac, I felt this hand grip on my shoulders and head. It just released me. And I was able to step away, and I just first thought, jump back in bed. And when I got back into the bed, it felt like kind of like the same as falling asleep. I just closed my eyes for a quick second,

just like just a bit longer than a blink. And I opened him, And it was morning. And I'm completely fine. Everything's good. I'm laying in the same spot. And I went to bed. Nothing had changed.

I've had my fair share of bad dreams in the past. Like, definitely not always a happy sleeper. But everything about it just felt odd. The way I entered the dream, the fact that it wasn't just random nonsense, like dreams normally are for me. It just felt like just in between a dream. Like, it felt like in between a dream in real life where I know for a fact. it wasn't real life, but I also didn't feel like a normal dream. And everything, everything was just too similar.

It felt too, felt too much like the real thing. And I definitely have never had a dream like that before. I've had bad dreams and nothing ever, nothing with the same kind of fear and the same energy and the same feeling of dread. But we went on and yeah, the next day everything is totally fine. And we end up, she ends up staying over again, the same girlfriend at the time she stayed over.

and I had to sleep in that bedroom again for the second time. And I went to the bedroom and I laid down and it was the exact same thing. The second I laid in bed and I closed my eyes. It was almost instantaneous like a blink and I opened them up and I instantly knew like what was going on. I was thinking, oh no, like here we go again. And I felt the same grip and it was a lot more aggressive this time. And it picked me up and dragged me to the window. It wasn't so much of like a gentle character.

and like forced me to the window and held the back of my head to look out it. And the same exact figure was standing right at the end of the cul-de-sac. So the same place he had ended off the last time where I had been let free and jump back into bed, he was standing there staring at me and everything around him was dark. It was like it was just blackness all around him. And instantly same thing, my eyes are going. Tunnel vision. I got the ringing in my ears. I'm just kind of my heart's racing. I don't know what to do.

And I see him get into another full sprint straight at the house. And he breaks down the door and runs into the door and he starts going for the stairs. But then the same thing happened where like it, I felt the grip release. I got like, you know, the hearing I remember it's, I remember the hearing still being like messed up, but like at least my eyes I could see again. And I was able to run and shut the bedroom door and jump back into the bedroom door and jump back into the bed and then same thing as soon as I as soon as I lay down and blinked it was just a long blink and I opened it up and it was morning the entirety of the dream was only about

two minutes but that was the entire night and I know I know dreams aren't always accurate but it was way too quick of an eye shut to then instantly being dropped into this very exact bedroom and everything just worse and then having the morning come. It was just a quick two-minute dream cycle, but it was a full, full eight, nine-hour whatever sleep. And I've never experienced something like that where it had that, that, just the, the speed of it. It was, I don't know.

I wish I had more of an explanation. I don't know. I thought there was a zero percent chance I was going to sleep in that room another night. I don't have any ideas of, you know, really what it is. I don't know much about this, but I just thought that, like, it would be, it would be bad, and it was to sleep in there again. And that was, well, I thought that was the end of all that. But then we had to fast forward a few months, and we were going on a road trip.

It was me, my brother, my girlfriend at the time, and his current girlfriend. And we were driving. It was a long road trip. But we were trying to pass some time with some scary stories and dreams and stuff and and nightmares. And I had brought up just having some bad dreams at his bed. And he had meant, and then after I had mentioned like, oh, I had some of my most recent worst dreams laying in in your bed.

And he had told me that when, right before he went to university, he had a dream in that where he was laying there and he went to bed, fell asleep, and it felt like just a blink of an eye, and he woke up in his own bedroom, and something lifted him up and carried him to the window. And he was standing and staring out the window, and he realized after a little bit that he couldn't look away and that there was something holding him in place,

and he couldn't move, and he got a really bad feeling about whatever he was supposed to be looking at, looking down the street. But after just a few, you know, a minute, a few, I don't know, however many seconds that was, it released him and he was able to just walk back into bed. And same thing for him, he closes his eyes, he wakes up and it's morning.

And he told me that while we were driving. And instantly I had like, I felt like my eyes were like welling up a bit. I was like, holy shit. Like, I, I, I'm, I just couldn't believe it. Like, he had basically experienced the exact same thing as me just in the first sequence.

We didn't know that this had happened, and as soon as I told him my dreams had, had what had happened to me, he instantly, too, was like freaking out and eyes welling up a little bit too. Just, I think that, I just think that there was something bad there. Something bad was there that night and something, Something that felt like it was coming. I'm glad that I didn't sleep there one more night.

I don't know. I don't even know if I believe in all this stuff. I don't know what would have happened. So, yeah. So obviously I want to talk to his brother, Austin, about his version of this. But it sounded to me like Lucas was the main person who experienced this.

And his brother Austin experienced, you know, a small version of it, but for the most part, it was Lucas. after speaking to Austin, I realized that wasn't the case. I think that Austin's experiences were a little more serious than Lucas thought. And I also realized that Austin didn't quite know the full extent of what happened to Lucas, because there's more things that happened to Lucas, and I don't think he ever told his brother about it. So this is for me when the story started to take a turn.

And I think you'll understand why. Okay, we have to take a quick break, but we will be right back. Let's get back into it. This is Lucas's brother, Austin. My name's Austin. I'm Lucas's brother. So that was a very intense moment where Lucas started talking about the dreams that he had in my bedroom. We were on a road trip up to our parents' cabin.

and he was driving and I was in the backseat and he mentioned these really scary dreams he was having and how it took him to the window and he saw this figure and it related so closely to my dreams that we both just kind of broke down and I think we're both in tears at that point because it was just so intense for both of us. He was talking about this figure that he saw and that it was black and no distinguishable shape to it. And I had these dreams throughout my life where this figure would basically come closer and closer to me. And it started off just like as a feeling. It would just be a sense that I got in these dreams in various parts of my house. So at the start, it was just a very bad feeling and it would be in parts of my home, but then it slowly got more intense and slowly

the dreams got closer to my room. So by the end, it was right at my door where it was getting really intense and I knew by the next dream I had that I would eventually be in contact with this entity, this thing. And what do you mean when you say it gets closer is at your door? Are you like sensing the presence of something? Yeah, so I'd have these intense streams where, like, I couldn't, I could scream, but no one would hear. There'd be no sound. And it would just feel like, like, a gunshot went off beside your head, and you just get that ringing in your ears. So I get this ringing in my ears and this sense that I couldn't, like, couldn't say anything, couldn't scream, nobody could hear, nobody could help me.

and each time I had this dream, it would be a part in my house that would get like closer to my room. So you were falling asleep around your house? This would be in the dream, yeah. So you would be, you would have a dream that you were in a different place in your house? Yeah, yeah, that's how it was.

And you would be, would you be sleeping in your room at that time? Yeah, yeah, I'd be in the room. And the dreams would be in different parts of the house. Got it. So I kind of have like the time, lines here too if that helps. Yeah. Yeah. So this sort of started when I was around nine years old. So it started off in the living room in the downstairs area of our house. It's a two-level home. And so that was around nine years old. I had the first one where I had the big sense of dread

and felt like a gunshot went off my ears. So I just had this very intense ringing. I have nut allergies. and I had a really bad reaction one time. And the sense of doom that I got when I was having the reaction was like the same feeling I had in these dreams. It's like a symptom of anphylaxis to have a sense of doom, they call it. And it was the exact same feeling. How did you describe the feeling?

You just think everything around you is just going to hell. Like the apocalypse is coming, like basically that you're going to die. It's a terrifying feeling. And sometimes I, the only time, How may I get that feeling now? It's just like when I think I might have an allergic reaction. It's like, I think it's, that sort of sense comes, but around 12 or so, it moved to the staircase. So there's like a little flat part of the staircase. And I was sitting there and had this exact same feeling. And then the one after that happened around 14 years old. And that was in the upstairs area outside of my room.

and this time it was even more intense. Like I could feel something getting closer to me. So that was just outside of my room and I knew the next time something would be coming. Did something come? Yeah. So on the last stream I had, I was around 15 or 16 years old, like old enough that I shouldn't be having like weird nightmares and it affecting me this much. And I like to think I'm a pretty like level-headed guy. I don't really believe in, you know, many things too weird like that.

But I had this dream where I was laying in my bed sleeping. And in the dream, I woke up in my bed and had this figure grab around my neck and pull me up to the window and show me just the orange glow of a street lamp down onto the cul-de-sac. Holy shit. And so I just let it, yeah, I just let it take me. and there's no stopping at this point. In the past dreams, I tried to fight it off, but in this one, I knew that there was nothing I could do to stop it from coming to me.

So I just let it take me and see what it would do. And, yeah, it took me right to the street lamp. What happened after the street lamp? So that's where my dreams ended, was looking outside of the window onto the cul-de-sac. And that's where Lucas ended up having. having these dreams when he was in my room where this figure would show him to the window and he'd see this dark black figure that I had in my dreams where it started rushing towards him.

Can you describe what the figure looked like to you? It had no discernible shape. It was just black and almost kind of like jagged like lightning bolts almost, but it didn't have like it wasn't sharp or anything like that to me. It wasn't feel sharp, but it definitely had like, just like a vibrating shadow almost. Huh. And when did you have your last dream? So I had that last dream around 16 years old. So I was like getting near the end of high school. But just recently after I heard that I would be doing this, I had sleep paralysis for the first time, which was super scary. It almost felt like a warning that, you know, maybe I shouldn't be talking about this or something like that.

Yeah. I mean, that could be caused by stress. I think usually that's caused by stress, but I don't think like these dreams were sleep paralysis, you know. That, I don't really like. Those ones felt very different than this one, but it still, yeah, gave me a shock there. It's similar, but did you ever tell anybody about this? No, I didn't tell anybody. I mean, there's no real reason to tell anybody.

Like, I dealt with it for most of my life and it wasn't anything that was like too out of the ordinary. And it was just kind of freaky. So it was like if I got too much into it, I felt like, you know, it might be weird to people to have that happen and like talk about it. So I never really talked about it until my brother mentioned that he was having some really strange dreams when he was sleeping in my room. when he started telling me about it, he said it was kind of like an undescribable kind of just black figure, but it had limbs. It had like arms and legs to it. It was the shape of a human, but was all black and almost like vibrating. And so I can't think of many, you know, times where you'd see that normally. So it's pretty specific I felt like and it was it was pretty intense. What do you make of all this

now? Like, how did you move on? I don't know if I really moved on. I guess since it hasn't happened, I haven't given it much thought since then. It definitely was a weird experience, but there's, yeah, there's not much else that's happened since. So I felt like we've been pretty safe since then, but I'm definitely thinking at some point in my life, there might be another one that happens. Has your brother told you about the stuff that happened to him after the dream? No, not really. I knew that he had one or two dreams, but I didn't hear much about after that. Oh boy. What do you tell you? I'm curious now.

So after that instant, or so I talked to my brother about that and after that there was, it was, it was calm. We both, you know, had our freak out and realized that we had shared something. thing and it was definitely the first experience I have with anything that could be considered supernatural, paranormal, whatever it may be. But we had no more contact or experienced with anything weird after that. Everything was just normal. And then we fast forward a couple years. And I was at work. I had gone to travel to Quebec and I was doing a exercise or domestic operation. It was with the Canadian Armed Forces with one of the French regiments over there. And it was a really busy time, but I think a point to stress here is definitely that I was getting

enough sleep for this next part because a lot of people think that it has something to do with sleep deprivation, but that was not the case in this time. I had been staying out in this camp in basically like this secluded area with a bunch of bunch of other people. And we were doing training and doing some security stuff for just these like little events going on. And I had had the opportunity to go and shower after sleeping in a tent for a few weeks at the time. And I went over to the shower area and it was basically a tent attached to a trailer that had showers and there was pallets all over the floor that were like just to keep your feet out of the dirt and I was just finished showering and I was coming out of the shower

the whole tent was empty there was still some guys in the shower and some guys outside of the tent but in that actual tent I was alone and I was bent over just lacing up my boots and and getting ready to to go back outside and I heard someone come in behind me and And I just, I obviously assumed that this is somebody, somebody I may know or just some, some random guy who I work with. And I, I was just like, say hello. And like my broken French, I'm not good of French. And I didn't hear a response back. And I partly assumed that was just because I speak French so horribly that he thought, you know,

I'm saying something else. And I turn around. And it was, it was. not this whole area is completely secluded we're in the middle of nowhere not nowhere but we're

completely barricaded off from from civilians in this place and I look behind it and it's not somebody wearing a uniform it is a guy about

I don't know a huge guy wearing a hat a long coat like a like a big brimmed hat like a top hat whatever it would be and he just bent over and walked right out the tent and I I only got to look at him for like

probably like probably a second or a second or maybe a bit less but it was it was definitely enough time to see the full figure of him and I I was I couldn't see his face exactly but I could see his outfit I could see his hat and I could see how far he had to to bend over to get out of the tent. Like, I'm, I'm six feet tall. I only have to bend my head and my shoulders a little bit to get out of this, this style of tent. And he had to basically lean completely over, like, at his waist to get out.

And I stared at him for a second, but I didn't know what to do. I was just thinking, this is one of the wildest things I've ever seen. And so I just thought, fuck, I'll, how do you just, bad. energy all around. It was all I could think is I have to deal with this later. I don't know what I'm going to do about this now. I'm in the forest. Like there's there's nothing I can do and so I finished lacing up my boots and the whole the whole the whole tent just felt so dark to me at that point. And then I walked out of the tent and I saw I saw my friends standing around a smoke pit and I walked up to them like very casually like did you guys happen to see somebody who maybe

wearing, you know, a large trench coat and top hat walking out of there. And they were fairly enough, like, kind of laughing and, like, thinking I might have lost it a little bit. And I, I, I just played it off and pretended like nothing happened. And I thought, yeah, I'll deal with this on another day. The smoke pit was directly in front of the entrance of the tent just about, like, 20 feet away. And so without a doubt, they would have, they would have seen a guy not in a military uniform coming out of this shower tent, not to mention that he's a giant. And they just, yeah, they just gave it a chuckle and thought, I was either kidding where I was, I was insane and I just, I let it go at that. But it just left me with a pit in my stomach.

It was, looking at him, it was just, it was a, it gave my, it gave my, it gave my heart to having a little jump, but it also just kind of, kind of a similar, similar feeling to seeing the, the figure of my dreams where it just kind of made my eyes tunnel a little bit. The hearing went a little bit softer and I didn't know what to do. But I went back outside and we just went back to work all showered and I just had to forget about that one for a little while. And I thought that would be the last time that I saw him. I thought it was a one-off thing.

But he did, he did show up one more time. So I thought that that was it for that one. I was, at the time, I had actually, I thought it was kind of cool that I had something that I can't explain and that other people around there couldn't explain. It was a very, it was an experience where I thought it was, it was interesting that there was no other factors to explain why that there was somebody there. This was like a very secure area for our training and I have no reason why someone would be there.

So I thought that it was, it was kind of interesting to have an experience like that. And I thought I will never have that I ever again. and then we go forward then up until it might have been it might have been early 2019 or 2018 but i was staying at the house of my current girlfriend and she lived in east vancouver and so i have a dog there too i still have these he's downstairs but he was uh quite reactive at the time it's a bit better now but i would have to walk him at night um or really early in the morning or both but he would uh he would you would just get really riled up by things moving so it'd be cats dogs squirrels and shiny cars driving too fast and to keep him calm i'd take him out later in the

evening and just try to keep him distracted the whole time um and while we were walking one night it's it's like it's a safe neighborhood too so i just i've got a hat down you know pulled pretty low and i got headphones on i'm listening to music and i'm coming towards our house again. And as I'm walking up, I get to see, like I'm walking towards the side of the house on one of the cross streets. And at the front of the house,

just across the street from the front of the house, there was a man standing there staring up at our balcony that overlooked the street. And he was wearing a trench coat, a big black-brimmed hat, And he was a very tall man. I didn't, I didn't, I just, as soon as I saw him, I just, I started, like, stumbling. Like, I couldn't really walk right.

I was, I was trying to just get back into the house thinking, oh my God, like, this is, this is it again. This time, it didn't, it didn't carry what I would, you know, describe as, like, the same energy. It didn't have the same feeling of, of dread to go along with him. but I did, this time I got to get a really good look at him from across the street. And as soon as I was like, had stumbled that first time thinking like, oh my God, there he is. He looked right at me. And I was just thinking, like, well, I got to get in the house. And so I started power walking, trying to look as normal as possible.

I know I don't look normal. I'm walking like a weirdo and I'm trying to get there as fast as I can. And he's just eyes locked staring at me as I crossed the street. and I'm going up to the side of the house, which is where our entrance is. And as I'm going there, he's just still staring at me. I didn't know what to do, and I wanted to look as casual and as normal as possible,

despite that not really being possible. And I just, with my hat, I did like the classic tip of the hat down, a little heading on in a tip of the hat. And he just gave me a look, and he took his whole hat off and did, like, the full hat salute, like where he does, like the, like, tipped it fully off his head. and then turned around and just walked away. And I was ran inside, immediately running up to look out the window.

And he's not there. I'm sure he could just walk around a corner, but he wasn't there. And I was immediately then weirded it out because despite this time where I had way more time, like a full 30 seconds to be looking at him. And I got to see exactly what he was wearing. his black pants, his trench coat over top, or I don't know if you can describe as a trench coat, but just a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat. But I thought what really, and it still weirds me out now, is I can't imagine his face. I was staring at his face, like I was making eye contact with it, but as soon as I was inside,

I could not picture his face at all. I don't know if I was, I was just too nervous. I was running away from this guy, but I just, I couldn't imagine his face, and I still can't now. And he was definitely not dressed appropriately for the area. I'm sorry, I'm trying to, I'm trying to make people believe that, too. I don't know. It's just, it was a big part of it too. It was just like, it was an empty street.

Like the whole street was dead. It's a smaller suburb. And to have somebody just standing outside, staring at across the street at our balcony window, the long coat and the big brimmed hat, it stood out to me as just, it felt all off. And the way, especially too, that when I had stumbled a little bit over the curb and

I looked at him and he was locked on staring at me, I felt like it felt like, kind of felt like he knew me or he was waiting for me. I don't know. But it was, yeah. Thankfully since then, I haven't seen him at all. I like to think that in my head that maybe, maybe. tipping the hat was the right thing to do and he was just going to leave me alone after that. But I mean, like, yeah, if that was the same thing as what I saw in Quebec, like if he followed

me across the country, like that's, it was an experience. And I haven't had anything else since and I'm thankful for that. I maybe one day in my life again, I will want something cool to happen again. but for now I'm definitely okay without ever seeing them again. All right, so at this point, I already loved the story, and I thought it was over, but then something came up. They made me realize maybe that wasn't the case.

It happened when I was interviewing Austin, actually. After the interview, we just started talking, sort of just chit-chatting about the whole thing, because I interviewed him last, and he said something. offhand during that time when we were just chit-chatting, that I'm glad I heard because it sort of opened up the whole new can of worms for this story.

And luckily I was recording that, and I'll let you just listen to it right here. I guess he was looking up communities around Top Hatman at one point. Wait. Oh, there is a community about this, why everyone around the world is having the same nightmare. But for Lucas, he saw it mostly in real life, which is like

dude this is crazy that might be another rabbit hole right there dude wait oh man this really like changes the story the Hatman project oh there's like a

a group there yeah this is weird why is everybody seeing this that's freaky I don't know I'm going to have to look it up now I didn't put much thought to it before just based off the name, but, you know, maybe that's something I got to look into.

Wow. I'm baffled. All right, well, this just changed the course of story. This is crazy that all these people see this person. Yeah, I'm going to have to look into that, too. I'm out of curiosity. Write down my number and, like, tell Lucas to text me, if you don't mind. Sounds good. If he's awake.

Yeah, he's definitely away. We're on Pacific time, too. Oh, okay, cool. I think he might just be out with a buddy right now picking up a truck or something, but. I'd be curious to hear, like, what actually he, like, another description of the guy he saw. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Like, if it looked like the hat man or was it like something else, you know?

Sure. Do you want, do you want me to just text him now? Yeah, sure. Okay, awesome. All right, so this obviously changed things for me. And what I was looking at in the clip, you could hear me getting kind of excited, is this website that I found. It's called thehatmanproject.com. And I've heard mentions of this before, and I've read a little bit about it, but for some reason I didn't quite make the connection when I was hearing this story.

And to be quite honest with you, I'm still not sure if this has anything to do with what these guys saw. But this website is definitely really interesting. It's run by a guy named Tim Brown and he claims to have seen this thing the whole website is submissions from all over the world of people who have all seen pretty much the same thing. They all see this shadowy figure in a hat.

It's not exactly the same, but it's similar enough. And Lucas never mentioned to me that he thought maybe this is what he saw. That was the first time I heard about it. So I decided that I need to talk to this guy or some kind of expert on this subject

to try to at least learn a little more about what exactly is going on here because this story is strange enough but the fact that thousands of people all over the world are possibly seeing the same thing it's definitely worth looking into so that's what's going to be on part two of this episode

hopefully I will be talking to this guy Tim or one of the people who claim to be an expert on this subject and perhaps we'll find out more. That being said, that brings us to the end of this episode. This has been part one of The Man in the Hat. Part two will be coming out very soon later this week.

Thank you so much for listening. My name's Jack Wagner, and this has been Otherworld. Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself, Jack Wagner. The theme song is by Cobra Man. Our music and soundtrack is by Chrome Sparks, Trayor, and North Americans. production help and editing by Theo Schaefer. Our artwork is by Coltysak Studios. Once again, this is an independent show,

so please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends. Also, if you or somebody you know has experienced something paranormal, supernatural, or unexplained, you could send us the story at Stories at OtherworldPod.com.