The man in the stovepipe hat

Saturday, July 15th, 2006

I have been inspired by correspondence over my encounter in the early 1990s with the phenomenon known as the ‘black stick man’ to write today about a much earlier experience. If the story of the black stick man freaked you out and gave you bad dreams, don’t read this entry because it relates the true story of an apparition even scarier and definitely malevolent towards those who encounter it. This is the story of how myself and many others met the man in the stovepipe hat. He’s dangerous and if you ever see him, run.

In the autumn of 1988 I began studying for my [A-level exams in English, Theatre Studies and General Studies. I finished my studies in 1990 and part of the summer that year was spent visiting a friend who I'd made in the year below me. She had successfully auditioned for the Manchester Youth Theatre and for six weeks was based on a UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) campus, closed to its usual students but open in the summer for many young actors to use as a base while preparing to tour the show they were working on. It was on that campus I met – or didn't meet, but saw – the man in the stovepipe hat.

This apparition was far scarier than the black stick man I saw several years later. I also saw it on more than one occasion. The first time was during the day – I used to spend occasional weekends crashing over in my friend’s room – and he was walking on a large area of waste ground near the campus. I say ‘waste ground’ but it was in fact more akin to a vast undeveloped area of trees and dry, knotty clumps of grass. People walked their dogs there all the time. I remember seeing a very thin man, quite substantial but dressed like someone out of a production of Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. He was all in black with white shirt cuffs visible and a white collar. He had a stovepipe hat on and a mean, bitter, vindictive expression on his face. His eyes glowed red, like hot coals. He had a huge black dog with him – I’m not up on dog species but I think it was a kind of bull mastiff – and the animal was equally malevolent. He kept it on a long lead and it wore a thick, leather collar. He was walking towards me and a couple of people I was with, and we ran off. We didn’t want him near us, that was instinctive and we were rattled by the encounter for some time afterwards.

This is a multi-page entry: page 1 page 2 page 3 page 4

categories: strange