The Cloakers also known as Cloak Man of Clifton Heights was a strange humanoid entity reported several times near Philadelphia in 1916.
On Saturday night November 23 shortly before 11 o'clock, Joseph Austin, of Berkley avenue, was accompanying a young woman to her home. While walking on Walnut street, near Fairview avenue, a tall person, wearing a long black cloak and a hood, stepped in front of Austin and the young woman. He pushed his long hands into the young man's face and muttered something inaudible.
Appearance[]
The creature was always described as an androgynous figure dressed in a long dark cloak that obscured most of its body. It was either described as a man or a woman, depending on the witness.
Austin's hair raised his hat, while the young lady was badly frightened by the sudden appearance of the cloaked person, who did not harm the couple, but turned swiftly and fled. Austin, after accompanying the young woman to her home, returned to Baltimore avenue, where he informed Chief McGowan. The news spread quickly and in less than ten minutes several hundred men started a hunt for the cloak man, but he was not found. Several young men did locate a cloaked person in a small orchard on Walnut street and Fairview avenue but the mysterious one dashed out of the place and soon disappeared.