Penelope: The Sierra Nevada’s Forgotten Specter

Deep within the Sierra Nevada Mountains, tales persist of a haunting figure known as Penelope. Described as a towering, emaciated woman with distorted features and long, unkempt hair, Penelope is said to roam the wilderness, instilling fear in those who encounter her.

Description

Penelope is often depicted as a 7-foot-tall, pale, and skeletal humanoid with elongated limbs and claw-like hands. Witnesses describe her face as twisted and deformed, with long, dirty, light-colored hair. She is typically seen wearing tattered clothing and emitting high-pitched, inhuman screams in the dead of night.

Sightings and Locations

Reports of Penelope span various locations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains:

• Tioga Lake: In 2023, a camper identified as L.R. reported a late-night encounter near Tioga Lake, where they heard blood-curdling screams and saw a tall, pale creature with a deformed face and long hair. 

• Mono Lake: The same witness later relocated to Mono Lake and recounted a similar experience, suggesting Penelope's presence in that area as well.

• Bridgeport (Twin Lakes Resort): In 2014, a couple vacationing at Twin Lakes Resort in Bridgeport reported seeing a crawling, pale humanoid figure early in the morning. The creature's description matched that of Penelope, with the witness emphasizing their familiarity with local wildlife and asserting that this entity was unlike anything they had seen before. 

Origins and Theories

The legend of Penelope includes various origin stories:

• Toxic Transformation: One tale suggests that Penelope was a woman who, after a car accident in the 1960s, sought shelter in a metal drum containing toxic waste. Exposure to the waste transformed her into the monstrous entity described in sightings. 

• Survival and Madness: Another account posits that Penelope became lost during a snowstorm, surviving on berries and insects. Eventually, she found shelter in a toxic waste container, leading to her transformation. 

Have you seen Penelope or experienced anything unusual in the Sierras? I want to hear your story. Email me or reach out through the site. Let’s keep Fresno weird.

Further Reading

• Cryptids of California: Penelope

• Believing the Bizarre: Penelope – The Sierra Nevada Monster

• Phantoms & Monsters: Has 'Penelope' Been Seen Again?

• Weird California: Penelope, Monster of the Sierra Nevada's

An evil gnome like creature terrorizes a farmhouse in Porterville

Looks innocent doesn't he? 

I love strange creature stories and am always lamenting the fact that the Central Valley is lacking in them (unless you want to count the numerous sighting of dogs with mange being reported as Chupacabras). So imagine my surprise (and a bit of shock) when I came across a story of a supposedly evil gnome that was terrorizing a farm house near Porterville.

The first incident occurred when a woman by the name of Tammy moved herself and her three children into a small farmhouse on the Tule River near Porterville. Soon after moving in Tammy started feeling like something was watching them and had an uneasy feeling ever time she walked by the old barn. For some reason most of the animals on the farm seemed to avoid the rickety old building and soon she noticed that the number of her ducks and chickens had started to dwindle, but couldn't figure out why. She was soon going to have an idea why.

One night Tammy and her son were coming back from grocery shopping when, as she parked the car and got out, noticed movement to her right. Thinking nothing of it she picked up a grocery bag and noticed it again, this time accompanied by what she described as a "very freaky, very evil sounding chuckle". Looking in the direction of the noise Tammy noticed about 50 yards from her a small humanoid looking figure. Or as she described it, a gnome.

The figure was about two to three feet in height, wore black baggy pants and a gold colored shirt. The face was partially covered by a long salt and pepper beard and on top of the head was a long, red pointed hat. The nose was large and bulbous and the eyes were rather deep set. As the figure grinned at them, Tammy noticed that the grin was almost from ear to ear and the teeth looked to be an ugly brown color and appeared to be either pointed or jagged.

Horrified, Tammy dropped the groceries and grabbed her son and ran off towards the house with the cackling little man right on her heels. Tammy was able to get inside the house and was in the midst of telling her two daughters what she saw, when she saw movement outside the kitchen window. Upon investigating she saw the top of the figure's red pointed hat moving back and forth underneath the window. Finally after what must have seemed like an eternity, the figure disappeared and Tammy was able to get the groceries from the car. This was the only time she actually saw the figure, but until she moved out she would always hear creepy chuckling coming from the old barn, as if it was taunting her or something.

You would think that this would be an isolated occurrence, but it seems the gnome wasn't satisfied with just terrorizing Tammy and her family.

In March of 2010 a family moved in to the same house on the Tule River. According to the wife, Charlie, it was perfect for what their family needed. Her husband took a particular liking to a pond on the property and decorated it with fairy, gnome, and toadstool yard ornaments and stocked it with Japanese koi fish. Not surprisingly, Charlie and her family also had an eerie feeling about the old barn on the property and tried to stay away from it as much as possible.

One night, at around 3:00 am, Charlie and her husband were woken by what can only be described as a "raspy, gurgling singing". Charlie and her husband looked out their bedroom window and what they saw defied what they considered their reality. Standing by the pond and holding one of the garden gnomes was a creature that came out of a Grimm's fairy tale, as Charlie described it. The creature was two to three feet tall, wearing maroon pants and a baggy yellow shirt with a brown vest over it and a dark waistcoat. It had a large gray beard and was wearing a reddish brown pointed hat. Charlie went on to say the most horrible part of the creature were its eyes and teeth. When it grinned it's teeth appeared to be jagged and pointed and the eyes were small and beady and had a dark mean look to them.

Apparently the creature saw the couple looking at him (it?) and reached into the pond and grabbed a koi and dropped it into its mouth and swallowed it. Furious, Charlie's husband pushed open the window and yelled at the creature to leave the yard or he'd call the police. The gnome grinned and laughed as he gave them the finger and disappeared. The police were called, being notified that an "intruder" was on the property, but when they got there an hour later the only evidence that was found was small footprints, about the size of a child's, around the pond.

This wasn't the only time the gnome would visit the pond. Night after night it would be seen holding a yard ornament and eating a fish. The family eventually wised up and moved the ornaments and put the fish into a tank inside the house. Apparently this didn't go over well with the gnome. Upon the usual time of its appearance of 3:00 am, when the gnome saw that the yard ornaments and fish had been removed it went into a crazed frenzy and began yelling and screaming in some language that nobody could understand. But they understood it was pissed. It began to run around the house screaming in whatever language was native to it. The family felt safe until Charlie realized the dog door in the kitchen was unlocked and feared the creature would try to enter the house through that. She was able to lock and then ran upstairs to close the rest of the windows. The last they heard of the creature was a very loud screeching, cackling sound that was heard underneath one of the living room windows. Charlie's husband went to investigate and saw the top of the creature's hat underneath the window.

Given all that had gone on the family decided to get out of the house and Porterville in general. One has to ask, was this the same creature that Tammy saw a few years prior? I first heard of both Tammy and Charlie's story on MysteriousUniverse.org and it seems the author of the article was able to put the two women in contact with each other. After exchanging info and indeed confirming that both had lived on the same property, they agreed to meet and revisit the property where their terrifying encounters had occurred. Upon arrival, they noticed the barn structure that had given both of them an eerie feeling had been torn down but the property still had that dark feel to it. Before they left they decide to knock on the front door of the house to see if anyone was home. A woman answered but was not happy to see them and told them to leave the premises after being asked about the barn or if she had experienced anything weird.

This story intrigues me to say the least. First you have two witnesses describing a similar looking creature that they saw years apart from one another.  Then you have a creature that is known only in folklore but is usually of a pleasant nature, not the mean asshole that was seen by the two women (for some reason I find it hilarious that he flipped off Charlie and her husband). So what did these two women see? I'm going on a different theory here and I know I'll probably get more grief than I usually do, but I think what Tammy and Charlie saw was one of the fairy folk. Namely a redcap.

Redcaps come from English folklore and were said to be a type of malevolent murderous fairy that mostly inhabited ruined castles found along the border between England and Scotland. They would murder any traveler who was foolish enough to stray into their homes. Redcaps got their names from the practice of dying their hats with the blood of their victims. They were described as having the appearance of an old man with red eyes and large teeth.

So how in the hell did a mean little creature straight out of English folklore get all the way to Central California? Remember the United States used to be a British Colony and the early colonist brought over their beliefs from their home land. What if somehow the things they believed in became real? Tibetan Buddhism has a concept called a Tulpa, or a thought form. Basically the idea behind it is that if something is concentrated on enough it is somehow brought into existence.

What if some of the early settlers that came here still held a belief that redcaps were real? So real that they took form and had a life of their own? And over the many years the now very real redcap wandered the country and somehow wound up in California. How else do you explain what was seen? If it was just one person that saw the creature the idea of a hoax of prank could be brought into consideration. But the fact that two people saw the same thing years apart has me wondering what the hell is on the outskirts of Porterville.

Now obviously this is merely conjecture and nothing more. It can't be real; it's just some creature out of a fairy tale right? Tell that to both Tammy and Charlie. Whatever they saw was real to them and it scared the hell out of them. And I have a feeling it's still there, waiting to terrorize someone else.



Since I found this story on another site I feel I have to link back to the original MysteriousUniverse article. You can find it here.

Also it seems the show Monsters and Mysteries on the Destination America network did a story on the creature. You can find the episdode on YouTube but you have to pay $1.99 to see it. I see the show on all the time and imagine they probably run repeats of this episode.

Strange flying creature seen near Delano

Searching one of my favorite sites for weird and strange tales I ran across a creature sighting near the small town of Delano.

The creature is described as having a bat like body with a head similar to that of a crow and covered completely in feathers. Witnesses estimated it to be about three feet tall and about the size of a large dog (between 40 and 60 pounds). It's been seen mostly near Avenue 8 between Delano and Richgrove for the past seven months or so.

Locals also think that it may be eating stray dogs as many mutilated carcasses have been found in the area with feathers similar to that seen on the creature found next to it.

As to what this creature could be, I don't know. I wish there was a description of the wing span, not the height of the creature, as that could help explain things more. My first thought is it's just nothing more than a vulture, but the description is a bit different. That and I don't think a vulture would leave feathers as it's head and neck are featherless to begin with.

So this had me thinking about a story I wrote about sometime ago of another large flying creature spotted in the Central Valley, this time in Fresno. This sighting was of a large bird like creature with a 12 foot wing span seen flying over Fresno. Could this creature and the one seen in Delano be somehow related?

To be honest I think the creature is just a misidentification of a regular bird (perhaps a hawk) and not some strange dog eating creature roaming the country side. As for the feathers found by the dogs, could be any type of bird. Crows are scavengers and the feathers could be from them.

Or I could be completely wrong and there is some unknown creature flying around the country side in the southern part of the San Joaquin Valley. I'll keep my eyes and ears open for anything else regarding these sightings.

Fresno Bee reported on Bigfoot sighting in 1986

According to an article ran in the Fresno Bee in August of 1986, a five man construction crew was spooked by what they say was Bigfoot while working on a job.

The job entailed building a foot/horse bridge near the Pacific Crest Trail on the south fork of the Kern River in the Inyo National Forrest (roughly about 25 miles south of Mt. Whitney) and given the remote location the men were camping at the site where they worked. One day, as the sun was setting the five men heard a scream so loud and described the intensity of it as something that "sounded like a stadium loudspeaker. The scream came three more times, and one of the workers used a rifle to fire a warning shot in the air.

At that moment, four of the five men saw a humanoid figure several feet away from them. They weren't able to make out any details but say the figure was at least 8 feet tall and as it walked away it look like it was "lumbering and kind of hunched over" but was traveling upright on two legs. Spooked the workers walked two miles to their vehicle and drove to the nearest ranger station to stay the night.

Several rangers think what the men heard was nothing more than a mountain lion and that then spooked a bear to rise up on two feet and that is what the men saw.

The lone member of the crew who did not see the figure, but heard it, disagrees. John Davis, a Mono Indian, said he had worked in the mountains for over four decades at the time of the sighting and claims what he heard sounded nothing like a mountain lion. And even though he never saw the figure, he says that the description sounds nothing like that of a bear.

The story doesn't end here though. It seems the original story got the attention of several bigfoot hunters. An unidentified man accompanied by two Dobermans was seen at the Blackrock ranger station informing the rangers that he was there to search for Bigfoot and wanted to know where the crew was currently at. Apparently this was the only sighting of the man. The only other incident regarding a Bigfoot hunter was when a man by the name of Danny Perez who runs at the time a newsletter called BigfooTimes (did a bit of research and he now has a website here) visited the Fresno Bee office looking for directions to the construction site and then soon left. Whether this is the same person who was seen at the Blackrock station was never stated in the article.

Personally I don't think what the men saw was a bear. Yes bears do stand on their hind legs, but I've never heard of one walking on its hind legs for more than a few feet (if I'm wrong someone please correct me). And as for the scream, I'm not sure on that. I know several Bigfoot hunters claim to have the creature's call recorded on audio. But these calls where more of a hoot, similiar to other primate calls. Whether this is the sound the workers heard is hard to say. But what I really find interesting is that the Fresno Bee ran two articles on Bigfoot, one on the sighting itself and the other on the Bigfoot hunters searching for the site. Whatever these men saw, the local newspaper felt it was a big enough story to report on it.

Below are scans of the newspaper articles I was able to get off Google News. Click on them for a larger view.

More strange creature sightings at Millerton Lake

Millerton Lake during the spring time. Photo courtesy of David Prasad via Flickr.

The focus on Weird Fresno lately has been heavy on the haunted spots throughout the Central Valley, as they seem to be the most prolific. But I love a good creature sighting and when I received an e-mail the other night (while I was at Channel Road no less) about yet another creature sighting that occurred at Millerton Lake, I knew I had to share.

According to the person who e-mailed me, it was 1975 and he and his wife went on a camping trip up at Millerton Lake one weekday. He describes the lake as being very calm and the water was "smooth as glass". As he and his wife were enjoying the view they noticed a wake forming on the surface of the water. Suddenly a large head surfaces and then dives back down into the water quickly followed by the back of the creature (the witness said he didn't see a tail). As it completed it's dive it left a huge wake behind. He goes on to estimate that it was at least 30 feet in length and that the only way he could describe it was it appeared similar to the descriptions of the Loch Ness monster.

The next day as they were leaving the couple came across a gas station and decided to gas up. There he noticed a bulletin board with news clippings with telling about different sightings of the creature he saw the previous day.

Now I know I've reported on giant catfish sightings in the past, but the description of the wake seems similar to this story I wrote about back in March of 2010 where another witness saw a large mass swimming around leaving a big wake behind it. Could this be the same thing that was seen back in '76? And if so, what the hell is beneath the surface of Millerton Lake?

Large bird like creature seen in Fresno skies

Kwakwaka'wakw totem pole depicting

a Thunderbird perched on the top.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.

Last week while attending the monthly Fresno Filmmakers Alliance mixer, a friend of mine approached me and asked me if I knew of any thunderbird sightings in the Fresno area as his wife and young son had recently spotted a large bird like creature with a wing span estimated to be over 12 feet in width.

For those who don't know what a thunderbird is term used in the cryptozoological world to describe large bird like creatures that are associated with the Thunderbird of Native American mythology. Most thunderbirds sightings are of the feathered type, although some sightings have reported the creatures to have lizard like features similar to a pterosaur.

Modern thunderbird sightings go back over 100 years with one of the first stories reportedly occurring in April 1890 in Arizona where two cowboys killed a giant birdlike creature with a huge wingspan. It was described as having smooth skin, featherless wings similar to that of a bat and a face that looked like an alligator. They are said to have taken the carcass back to town where they pinned it on the outside of barn with it's wings outstretched the entire length.

Sightings continued into the 20th Century when in the 1940's several sightings occurred in Illinois where witnesses at first thought they were seeing a plane flying overhead until they saw the "plane" flapping it's wings. A few weeks later in another part of the state a man and his son saw a large bird creature flying at a height estimated to be around 500 feet and the shadow it cast was the size of a small passenger airplane.

One of the more stranger occurrences, and one I wanted to share, happened on July 25, 1977 in Lawndale, Illinois. A group of boys were playing in their back yard when two large birds approached and chased the boys. Two escaped unharmed, but the third boy, 10 year old Marlon Lowe, did not. One of the birds clamped it's talons around his shoulders and lifted the now terrified boy about two feet off the ground and carried him some distance before Low was able to fight off the bird, getting it to release him.

Most viewed this as some sort of tall tale made up by the boys, but given the description of the birds one has to wonder. The description matched that of an Andean condor; a large back bird with a white ringed neck and a wingspan of 10 feet. There's a problem though, the condor's talons are said to not be strong enough to lift that of a heavy object (i.e. a 10 year old boy). So what then did the boys see?

So this leads me back to the Fresno sighting. What exactly did the two see? Was it just a normal bird (say a hawk or crane) mistaken for something else? Someone mentioned a Californian Condor, but that is highly unlikely as the habitat for this species is in Southern California. Could a large bird like creature, one that was the inspiration for the Native American Thunderbird myth, be in the Fresno area skies? If there have been more sightings, hopefully those witnesses will hear of this article and share their stories.

Strange creatures caught on video in Yosemite

If you've read this site for a while now, you probably know one of my favorite stories is the one of the strange creatures that were captured on CCTV in Fresno. Over the two plus years that I've being doing this, it has to be the strangest video I have seen and the one that I just cannot explain. I was a bit disappointed in thinking that it was just a one time occurrence. It looks like I might have been wrong.

Over the weekend I came across a video reported to have been shot someone up in the Yosemite area. Now the video quality is bad (seriously how hard is it to get a camera with decent resolution?) but you see two figures moving from left to right across the screen and their movement is similar to the creatures from the original CCTV video.

According to the person who posted the video, "sierraparahunter", a couple that were friends of his captured this video from a security camera aimed at the driveway. Not knowing what it was, they sent it to him knowing he had an interest in the paranormal. He noticed the similarities to the stick figure video and decided to post it to YouTube.

Personally I'm not sure what to say about this. The video quality already has me thinking this isn't real, plus the movements just look so unnatural that I wonder if they are puppets. But I found a second video where "sierraparahunter" went up to where the video was taken, took some reference photos for heights, and superimposed the video over them to get a scale for the figures. If the video is accurate, then the larger figure is about 36" to 40" and the smaller figure is maybe a bit over 24".

I've contact "sierraparahunter" but have not heard back from them yet. Until then I'm going to be cautious and not say this video is legitimate. There are too things that have me questioning this.

California's own Loch Ness Monster

Lake Tahoe, home of Tahoe Tessie

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

Situated on the California/Nevada border lies Lake Tahoe. At an elevation of 6,225 ft and over 1600 feet deep, it is a major tourist attraction throughout the entire year. What most visitors to the lake don't know is that there are stories of a large serpentine creature estimated to be at least 60 feet in length and "as wide as a barrel". Residents of the area have named the creature Tahoe Tessie (a play off of Nessie from the Loch Ness in Scotland).

Stories of the creature date back to the mid-19th century where members of the Washoe and Paiute tribes claimed that a large creature resided in an underwater tunnel beneath Cave Rock and sightings have continued to this day. Most are from somewhat of a distance where people see a large serpentine body moving in the water. One interesting sighting occured in the winter of 1979 where four witnesses saw a large snake like creature feeding off a school of trout. They estimated it to be between 30 and 60 feet in length and as thick as a telephone pole. It didn't swim like a snake would (side to side), but was diving up and splashing down with it's head into the school of fish. Speechless, they watched the creature for several minutes before it finally disappeared.

Another interesting story is that sometime in the 1970's, famed French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau explored the depths of Lake Tahoe. Whatever he encounted down there must have spooked him as he claimed the world was not ready for what was at the bottom of the lake. Subsequently he refused to release any of his underwater footage or any data he collected. I feel it's worth saying that Lake Tahoe was known to be a dumping ground for bodies by the mob during the 1950's. Given the depth of the lake and the near constant temperature of 39 degrees, it's most likely Cousteau found a large watery graveyard were the bodies were preserved by the near freezing water.

So what lurks just underneath the waters of Laka Tahoe? Theories include a Plesiosaur, Icthyosaur or a Mosasaur, due to fossils of the creatures being found in the surrounding area. But Tessie experts quickly dismissed this as the lake was formed in the last Ice Age, long after the creatures went extinct. Other theories claim that it could be anything from a population of sturgeon to some sort of undiscovered fresh water eel. Whatever it may be, there's something there as witnesses have seen it for over a century now.

Piranha fished out of the San Joaquin River back in 1987

The stretch of the San Joaquin River in Fresno County where a

piranha was caught in 1987.

On July 4, 1987, a lone piranha was caught in the San Joaquin River in the western part of Fresno County. It was fished out of the San Joaquin River north of the city of Kerman along a stretch of river near the intersection of Madera Avenue (Hwy. 145) and Modoc Avenue (this is according to the LA Times, but is incorrect as both Modoc Ave and Hwy. 145 run north/south and therefore are parallel).

The fish was about 15 inches in length and weighed roughly two pounds. A biologist with the Department of Fish and Game confirmed that the fish had been in the river for some time as its growth pattern and scales confirmed it came from the San Joaquin.

More representatives from Fish and Game were dispatched to determine if there were any more of the fish, which is illegal to own in California, as there was a rumor that another fisherman had caught another piranha downstream, but nothing was ever found.

The question remains, even twenty three years later. Where did the piranha come from? Most likely a person somehow obtained the piranha, probably for a fish tank, and when the fish started eating the other fish the owner decided that it would be smart to dump it in the San Joaquin instead of disposing of the fish. Who knows how long the fish was in the river before the fisherman caught it.

Full source: Los Angeles Times

Strange things going on at Lost Lake

Photo courtesy of Richard Johnstone from Flickr

I've recieved several stories regarding some rather interesting things happening at Lost Lake. The Fresno County recreation area, located on Friant Road just north of Fresno on the way to Millerton Lake, has been the site of some rather odd sightings recently.

One witness and their sister in-law were fishing late one evening alone at one of the day beach areas. The witness reported that as they were shining their flashlight on an island across the water, they saw a dark figure moving in the brush. At first they figured it was a coyote or something, but then realized it was too big to be an animal. Just as they were about to turn off their flashlight, the light hit the figure. It appeared to be a young Asian boy, perhaps four feet tall, pale, and only wearing swim trunks. Right as the flashlight was turned off, the person heard a large splash like something heavy was thrown into the water. The witness claims it couldn't have been a fish as whatever it was made a loud splash. They then turned the flashlight back on and searched the area for the little boy, but found nothing. Spooked by this incident, both parties left in a hurry and have never gone back.

The second incident comes from the same two people mentioned before, but this time at a different location in the park. Once again they were fishing late one night, this time off of the broken bridge. Both were talking as their poles were in the water when they looked down towards the water and noticed a large figure in the water swimming to shore. When it reached land, it beached itself and stayed motionless for several minutes. What happened next terrified the two witnesses. Whatever it was, it then stood up on two legs and began to walk around as if it was searching for something. They estimated it was about five feet tall, but couldn't really make out any features as it was so dark. The creature then crouched down on all fours, layed on it's belly and then slithered back into the water and disappeared. Both witnesses were terrified and needless to say, got the hell out of there.

So here we have two seperate types of incidents at the same (generally) location and by the same witnesses. Two possibilities here. One is that whoever told the story is fabricating it, but given the ghost sighting and the stories I've heard about Lost Lake I'm not sure. There's been stories of a young hmong boy hanging himself from one of the trees there as well as several other suicides. Could the ghost they saw have been the same little boy that hung himself?

But what about the strange creature that they saw near the broken bridge? Rumors of a "vortex" of sorts and the land used to be an Indian burial ground have been told for years, but they don't really explain this creature. Granted it was dark that night and maybe they mistook some mundane animal for the thing they saw. But what creature swims onto land, walks around on two feet only then to lower itself back onto all four before sliding back into the water and dissapearing? Plus the fact that whatever they saw was about five feet tall when it stood up. I think Lost Lake needs to be added to the list of places that I need to investigate, so I can hopefully figure out what's going on.

Gargoyle-like creature seen in Puerto Rico

Image courtesy of Tim Parkinson from Flickr.

There was a recent report coming out of Puerto Rico that a strange creature resembling a "gargoyle" has attacked several animals over the weeks and even one person fell victim to it's attacks.

Witnesses descriptions of the creature describe it as a short bipedal winged creature and emits a "sulferic or rotten odor". What's intersting is how similiar the description is to the original Chupacabra sightings in Puerto Rico, the only difference is that this creature has wings. Apparently this creature has been seen for several years in the Guánica area of Puerto Rico, but in Lajas and San Germán as well.

Another difference between this creature and the Chupacabra is it's choice of prey. The Chupacabra was known for going after livestock, but this gargolye creature has apparently decided to add humans to it's choice of meals. A man in the 1990's claims that he was attacked by a larged winged creature in his backyard. There were injuries to the man's back and stomach, as if something with claws attacked him.

Others have seen this creature over the years. One was a police officer who didn't see the creature, but heard the beating of powerful wings and knew it couldn't be a typical bird. Other witnesses aren't so forthcoming. They are afraid of going to the local police telling of what the saw in fear of either being scorned or being labeled as mentally disturbed.

Could this creature just be another sighting of the Chupacabra? Even though this one has been described as having wings, everything else is similiar to the blood sucker (except for the attack on the person as there haven't been any known accounts of a Chupacabra doing this). Whatever the case may be, I can at least say for certain that this is definitely not an animal with mange.

Full source: Inexplicata

Strange reptilian bird found in Mexico

Given that this video is entirely in Spanish and my understanding of the Spanish

language is lacking to say the least, I have no idea what the hell is really going on in this video. All I know is that some strange reptilian-like bird was found in Mexico and it looks mean. Surely this has to be some known species of bird, but I've never seen one with a mouth/beak like that. Can birds get mange like dogs? Maybe it's a flying Chupacabra sighting? Still, it's weird whatever in the hell it is.

Sea monster spotted off the coast of Great Britain

Is this photo evidence of some sort of sea monster

that was seen off the British coast?

There have been reports of some sort of "sea monster" being spotted off the coast of Saltern Cove, Paignton in Great Britain. It was first seen hunting a school of fish about thirty yards off the coast. Witnesses at first thought it was a turtle, but that opinion quickly changed when the creature revealed a long neck with a reptile like head that looked nothing like that of a turtle. Apparently the school of fish were so terrified by the creature that they beached themselves onto the shore.

Some think the sighting could be linked to that of a sperm spotted off nearby Devon recently, but one authority dismissed that claim saying that sperm whales don't come that close to inshore and the reptilian like head is different that that of a whale's. The theory of it being a turtle has also been dismissed as it is said that the tutles in the waters off the British coast only eat jelly fish.

So what was seen off the British coast? A spokesman from the Marine Conservation Society said "It was reported as a turtle as it had large front flippers and small back flippers and what appeared to be a shell but was also said to have a small head on a thin neck about two-feet long which craned above the surface like a Plesiosaur." This statement has me questioning their validty. How would the person know what a Plesiosaur's neck would look like above the surface as it swam? The creature has been extinct for millions of years. And the photos don't help at all (for once can someone take a non blurry photo of a UFO/monster/ghost?).

Personally I think it was a type of whale that was feeding on the school of fish. The fact that they beached themselves doesn't mean they were terrified of some sea creature. It means they were trying to get away from whatever was trying to eat them. People just assumed they were terrified because they thought they saw a sea monster and it would add validity to the claim. Unless clearer photos are shown showing the creature, I'm going to have to say this isn't a sea monster like people are saying.

Full source: Daily Mail

Was the Chupacabra seen in a Bakersfield park?

There have been reports of Chupacabra sightings in Kern County for the last month or so. In July, one witness saw the creature in Hart Park. They pulled their car over and watched it walk around before it stopped to look at them. She was able to take a photograph of the beast which shows the typical hairless creatures that have been all over the news lately.

The Bakersfield CBS affliate, KGET 17, showed the pictures to the head of county parks. His opinion of it was that it was a coyote with mange. I'd have to agree with that statement, the photo looks like the typical canine with mange case that is usually the explanation for these sightings. Though the witness stands by her claim that what she saw as indeed the chupacabra.

Full source: CBS KGET

Chupacabra seen in Oklahoma?

A group of teenagers in Tecumseh, OK say they spotted the mythical Chupacbra behind the local high school. They described it as having long back legs and it's front legs were smaller and looked similar to a kangaroo's. The creature was also hairless and had a long tail. The group was able to snap a photo of the creature with a cellphone camera. Unfortunately the picture was a bit blurry and it's hard to make out any details.

The news story goes on to mention some of the other recent sightings and how that the likely explantion for those was some sort of animal with mange and that is this the case here. Still, this is the first sighting that I have heard of in Oklahoma.

The teens stated they have seen the creature several more times and their goal is to now capture it.

SyFy channel show airs strange video shot in Fresno

A few months ago I was contacted by a production company working on a new show for the SyFy Network. They were working on a show that investigated strange videos and they had come across the post I had done about the strange creatures that someone in Fresno had captured on CCTV. They had wanted my opinion on the video and talked for a good twenty minutes to the producer of the show.

Fast forward to last night and the episode aired. The show is called "Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files" and is the second episode of the show and is entitled 'Unwanted Vistors/ Strange Sightings. Now I won't go into much detail as to what they showed, but some of it was interesting. Especially the part in the woods. I have no idea where they filmed this part at or what it has to do with the original video that was shown though I imagine it was added in there for dramatic purposes. Still I've sent an e-mail to the producers and hopefully they will tell me as I'd like to investigate for myself.

For those who missed the episode last night, they have the it up on their website. Unfortunately there isn't a way to embed the video, but if you click here you can go to their site and watch the episode in full.

Personally I'm happy with the show. It's nice to see Fresno mentioned in a context that doesn't have us (mis)labeled as the drunkest city or something else of that nature. Thanks to the Beehive for pointing this out yesterday that the show was going to air.

More Chupacabra sightings in Texas

It seems once again that Texas is the hot spot for supposed Chupacabra sightings.

An animal control office in Hood County, Texas shot and killed a creature that was hairless and didn't look like anything he had ever seen before. But that wasn't the only creature that was seen. Another creature with similiar characteristics was spotted and killed several miles away.

The animal control officer was quick not to say whether he killed the legendary goat sucker or not. The animal was sent away for DNA tests (most likely at tax payers expense) before he makes a decesion. He did say he knew whatever it was it wasn't normal. Another officer stated that it was nothing like she had ever seen before.

To me that the creature shown in the video is either a coyote or dog suffering from mange, which would explain the lack of hair. As for the emanicapted look, that can be explained by both the mange and the fact the creature was problably starving (which would explain why one was in the barn, most likely it was searching for food).

I found it a bit humorous that the reporter was looking for a "pack of Chupacabras" at the end of the video and the rancher said if he was a Chupacabra, that a certain clump of trees is where he would live. Part of me was hoping something would have jumped out when he investigated the clump of trees, but alas nothing happaned. Hopefully when the DNA tests comeback showing that this was nothing more than an animal with mange people will realize that these aren't Chupacabras. But that has happened before and nothing has changed. Meanwhile the real Chupacabra is in Puerto Rico laughing at all the imposters in Texas and the rest of the Southwest.

Thanks to Brodiemash over at the DumbDrum for sending me the video.

The legend of the Dover Demon

This cryptid that I am going to talk about has nothing to do with Fresno, or even California in general, but is one of my favorite legends. It was seen in Dover, Massachusetts over the course of two days in 1977 and even after three decades it still is one of the strangest things to ever occur in the realm of the paranormal.

The first sighting occured on April 21, 1977 at night by a group of teenagers who were driving through a wooded area when their car's headlights illuminated the creature. The driver, Bill Bartlett, thought at first it was perhaps a cat or dog, but as he got closer he realized it wasn't either of those. Instead he described it as a bizarre, unearthly creature crawling along a stone wall that ran adjacent to the road.

Bartlett continued to observe the creature and described it as having a disproportionately large, watermelon-shaped head with glowing orange eyes. It had long, thin arms and legs with slender fingers, which it used to grasp onto the wall. The creature had no hair and the skin appeared to have a rough texture and was flesh-toned. The creature had no discernable mouth, nose, or ears.

Two hours later and about a mile away from the first sighting the creature was seen again, this time by John Baxter as he was walking home from his girlfriend's house. He saw the creature moving toward him, but when it spotted him it fled into the woods adjacent to the road. Baxter, thinking it was a neighborhood child, pursued the creature through the woods, across a shallow brook, and through a field. Soon though Baxter lost sight of the creature and decided to stop and rest for a minute.

As he was resting, Baxter finally got a clear view of the creature which was leaning against a tree. His description was similiar to what Bartlett described, down to the glowing eyes. During the following media circus, Baxter insisted that he made his report without knowing that Bartlett had seen the same creature a few hours earlier.

This wasn't the last time the creature was seen. The following day a Abby Brabham and Will Traintor saw a similar looking creature on the side of the road from Traintor's car. Brabham described it as a hairless primate with a bulbous head. She also said the creature had bright green eyes, different than what both Bartlett and Baxter described. This description has some skeptics claiming a hoax as the descriptions differ.

All of the eyewittnesses were asked seperately to sketch the creature they had encounter. Amazingly, the results were remarkably similiar. The only difference being the difference in eye color.

The creature as Bill Bartlett describes it.

John Baxter's version of the creature.

No one really knows what the Dover Demon was or what happened to it. Some ufologist think the creature was somesort of alien. Others speculate that it was a being from another dimension. All of these are speculations of course, but famed Loren Coleman (who coined the term Dover Demon) said "this is one of those situations where I'm most definitely secure in saying I don't know what this is" and "It's almost as if the Dover Demon popped in to our reality and popped out."

Skeptics weren't without their own theories. One wrote that the description of the creature's head matched that of a newborn moose. This is unlikely as one of the sightings of the creature specifically stated that the creature had visible fingers, whereas a moose has hooves. Other skeptics mention that all the witnesses were high school teenagers and claim that it was some sort of hoax. In a recent interview Bill Bartlett stuck by his story, thirty years later. He said he didn't know what he saw, but he saw something.

Evidence was never found of the Dover Demon, but the story persists to this day.

Sources:

Wikipedia - Dover Demon

American Monsters - The Dover Demon

Man dials 911 after seeing Bigfoot

Timothy Peeler of Casar, North Carolina reported seeing a "man-beast" that was almost 10 feet tall. Peeler said the creature screeched like a "night bird and grunted in the warm night air. He was convinced that he was seeing a local legend named "Knobby"

The creature got it's name as it was originally seen near Carpenter's Knob in the 1970's. The sightings were proflic back then, but for some reason mysteriously stopped until Peeler saw it.

Full source: Shelby Star

Written by: David Allen

Legend speaks of an ape-like creature who called Upper Cleveland County home in the late 1970s.

Robert Williams, then covering the news for Charlotte media outlets, named him “Knobby,” a towering beast many considered as the resident Bigfoot.

Williams never saw Knobby — “I only wrote what I was told.”

Knobby stories flew overseas, Williams said, drawing interest from New Zealand and beyond. Newspaper articles from 1979 detail more than a dozen Knobby sightings and investigations by the North American Research Association and researchers from a university in Massachusetts. But the rumors and sightings near Carpenter’s Knob — hence the creature’s name — mysteriously stopped decades ago.

Then, Timothy Peeler called 911.

Peeler, of Vanada Drive in Casar, is a self-proclaimed “South Mountain man.” He’s surrounded by woods and a ridge worthy of postcards.

It was June 5 when Peeler supposedly spotted a man-beast, upwards of 10 feet tall, that screeched like “a night bird” and grunted in the warm night air.

The creature sported dark hair, Peeler said, with a grey beard stretching to its navel.

Authorities were dispatched that morning around 3 a.m., according to a report from Cleveland County Communications.

Deputies filed a suspicious person report after investigating the incident.

Williams was surprised to hear of the recent sighting. It had been years, he said, since Knobby’s supposed existence made headlines.

The sasquatch was reportedly sighted in the 70s by numerous people, including highschoolers, a banker and an elderly woman. One man said Knobby might have broken his goat’s neck.

“People came in from everywhere,” Williams said. “People contacting me from around the world.”

Sasquatch watch

What if you spot a Knobby-esque creature fiddling through your trash? Spotters say the walking legend isn’t aggressive, but police say to take caution anyway.

Cleveland County Sheriff’s Capt. Alan Norman said local Bigfoot sightings are few and far between, but “if there is a call, there's standard protocol to be dispatched to the area.”

“Deputies basically check the area for any unusual sightings,” he said. “A suspicious person would be treated in the same category.”

The rash of supposed Chupacabra sightings continue

The rash of supposed Chupacabra sightings continue, this time with a farmer in Texas claiming to have caught the mythological beast after setting a trap when he found several of his livestock dead from some sort of animal attack. The next day he found the strange hairless creature, describing it as a mix between a hairless dog, a rat, and a kangaroo. Now I'm no animal expert, but to me this appears to be just another animal (most likely a dog or some other canine) suffering from mange.

In my opinion the reports of Chupacabras in the States has nothing to do with the original ones seen in Puerto Rico. The ones seen here are nothing more than animals suffering from mange, whereas the creature seen in Puerto Rico stood up on two legs, had a row of spines down it's back, and glowing red eyes. Also most, if not all, sightings of Chupacabras were accompanied by UFO sightings several nights before. Unfortunately those sightings have died off and the legend of the Chupacabra has been regaled to stories of hairless dogs being chased in the desert.