The Top Hat Man

I am not a religious person in any way, so it makes it hard for me to believe in ghosts. In spite of this, things have happened to me while I was growing up that I cannot explain.

My first experience occurred when I was 11 or 12 at my grandparents home in MooseJaw Sask.

My grandfather and I were the only only ones home at the time. He was reading and I was doing a word search in the kitchen. I don't know how long we were sitting there but I remember hearing the phone off the hook in the hallway. Sure enough when I got up to look it was and I replaced the receiver and went back to my word search. About ten minutes later I could hear the phone again. I was very wierded-out by this. First of all I was sure we were the only ones home and second, although I could not see the phone on the wall I could see clear down the hall and I surely would have noticed someone in it. I can remember getting up and my grandpa telling me not to bother, that it happened all the time. I asked him what he meant and he told me the story of the ghost in their house.

He told me that every so often the faucet would turn on by itself, or the phone would go off the hook continuously, or things would be moved or the tv or radio would turn on by themselves. All sorts of strange things would happen for no reason at all and everyone in the family (8 kids including my mom) had experienced these things.

About two years after this I was at my home near Lloydminster Sask. I was home alone and cutting my lawn. During one of my rounds around the backyard, out of the corner of my eye I saw a man. It was quick but I swear I saw a man in a black suit and top hat standing behind my dog Max (who was watching me) and staring at me. I looked over at him and saw it fade behind my dog. I never told anyone this at the time. I don't know why I didn't, I guess I was scared or ashamed of what people might think or say.

About two months after this it was nearing the end of my summer vacation and I was again home alone. I was walking down the hallway towards my room. At the end of the hallway was a mirror that reflected the living room at the other end of the hall. As I neared my room at the end of the hallway I saw him in the mirror. Standing in the living room and staring right back at me was the man in the top hat, same black suit and all. It felt like I stared at him for a few seconds but it was probably not more than a quick glance. When I turned towards the living room he was gone. The weird thing was that I wasn't scared. The man both times wasn't threatening at all in fact he seemed to be smiling kindly.

My mother was my biggest confidant in those days and this time I decided that I would tell her what I saw. I also told her about the first time I saw him standing behind Max. My mom started laughing when I told her about the top hat man. I thought she was laughing at me until she told me a story about her childhood. It turns out that when she was a little girl, her sister and her shared a room upstairs in my grandparents house. She said that about once a week or so a shadow would go by their wall. It was the shadow of the profile of a man she said, walking by with a big comical smile and wearing a top hat. She said that my grandpa had tried to tell them that it was just the shadow of someone walking by on the street, but it couldn't have been. The street lamps were about twenty feet high and would cast a shadow down, not up two stories and end-up as an undistorted shadow on the wall.

My mother and I still talk about these things every once in a while. She thinks that the top hat man somehow followed her to her new home. I don't know what to think. Like I said I'm not religious at all and I don't really believe in ghosts, but I know what I saw and I do believe that I saw the top hat man. These events happened between 1996 and 1999.