What Kinda Ghost is This Shadow Supposed to Be?

Or is it even a ghost?

The Shadowman Cometh...
Esmeralde NightCafe

What I am referring to is a rather scary paranormal phenomenon, a Shadow Man/Person, sometimes called a Hat Man.  I've begun to look about to see what is known of them, what beliefs exist regarding these figures.  Or rather, resume looking into it.  Do I know who or what they are?  No, but I know this much: you ever see one of these yourself even once and you will NEVER forget it.

I'm going to get a bit personal for a spell if y'all don't mind.  Folks, it really is quite unnerving to be in your own house, minding your own business, and a door suddenly goes flying open right in front of you.  That door was closed, not loose, no breeze, no fart, no physical reason for it to fly open like that WHATsoever, and the cat has been cocked out under your bed for the last four hours, so...

Add that to the list of the usual lights turning on and off by themselves, a TV set changing channels on its own when there was not a thing wrong with it, footsteps, all of the usual and sundry unexplained phenomena you hear of.  Even these are preferable to seeing and/or experiencing something that so little is known about.  When you don't know where to start, especially if even your particular faith or denomination is at a loss as well, that is...

Well, I would much rather contend with the usual unexplained phenomena that is typical of a plain old-fashioned haunting.   I would be more than willing to put up with the occasional sculpture of items in a room put together in a Y-shape.  If you have seen a show from the early 2000s called Dead Like Me, you'll probably remember what I'm talking about.  The gravelings love mimosas, cigarettes and Halloween candy--apparently in that order--and they LOVE to build these crazy towers out of whatever is on hand in the room.  It's usually the Reapers who see these towers, like the one in an office copy room created with random office supplies.

Reapers?

As funny as the ones in Dead Like Me were, that's one theory regarding who or what Shadow People might actually be.  The Grim Reaper.  Some Shadow People are even depicted with something they're holding in one hand that could be the scythe.  Or something like it.  

Another way Shadow People, particularly if they are described as appearing male, are depicted is as a "Hat Man".  Tall dark hat, long dark cape or cloak, tall, dark and... just dark.  That's something else that seems to be fairly consistent.  Their faces cannot be seen.  Sometimes, they seem to have eyes like pinpoints of light, but facial feautres are largely unknown.

While some descriptions might depict a Hat Man as wearing a hat different from a tall, Victorian type hat, a Hat Man might also be described as wearing a duster or long overcoat instead of a cloak or a cape.  Some descriptions I recall learning of called to mind a cowboy or "outlaw" in appearance.  Or taking that shape as a Shadow Person.

Are Shadow People ghosts of people who are stuck in some realm that is different from the usual unfinished business?  Are they demonic?  Or something else?  And why have so many people over so much time across multiple cultures been able to see these beings, but no one is really sure even now what they are?

Lasher the Shadowman
by Esmeralde

As for when I saw what I did, I had A LOT of questions.  When non-fiction has no answers, perhaps fiction does in its own way.  And THAT search for answers is why, on a trip to the grocery store, a novel jumped out at me from the paperback stand.  A novel by Anne Rice called Lasher...