The Lone Pine Mountain Devil

Anyone who knows me knows I love local cryptid stories (the Fresno Nightcrawlers being the best example) and love how each state seems to have it's own folklore surrounding a cryptid of some sorts. Some can argue that Bigfoot is California's "official" cryptid and I'm not here to disagree with that completely, but want to introduce a lesser known cryptid native to California, and one not too far from Central California.

I'd like to present to you the Lone Pine Mountain Devil.

The Lone Pine Mountain Devil is said to be a winged creature that is a distant cousin of the Jersey Devil. Early accounts from priests who were traveling in the area describe small "winged demons sent from the depths of hell"

Lone Pine itself is a small town about 100 miles due east of Fresno with the population of roughly 2000 or so people. But here's the kicker, it's a four hour drive. Why you ask? Because the quickest way to drive there is to head south to Bakersfield then head east to Tehachapi and then back up to Lone Pine itself. Scenic route indeed.

 For whatever reason the creature seems to inhabit this area and witnesses have described it as a large furry creature with several wings. It has razor like talons and numerous venomous fangs. The cryptid is said to attack it's prey by first hitting the chest and then the head of it's target. Most predators eat the meat of its prey whereas the Mountain Devils are said to prefer only the soft cartilage of the face and sometimes torso and completely ignore the rest of the carcass and leave it to scavengers.

Could this be an actual creature or nothing more than another folk tale? It's description lacks classification as my first thought was perhaps some sort of reptile but the fur and multiple wings rule that out. Could it be the descendant of some sort of undiscovered dinosaur? Or is there a small pack of some unknown creature roaming the southern Sierra Nevadas preying on those that wander to close it where it lives?

All I know is I think a road trip is in order. I'm curious what the town's folk have to say about this local legend.

Is Fresno County's town of Friant a paranormal hotspot?

Millerton Lake which is near Friant, CA. Is this location a paranormal hot spot?
Photo courtesy of Rennett Stowe from Flickr.

I know it's been A WHILE since I have written anything. Given the past year and a half it's been hard to really go anywhere but hopefully that will be changing soon. Still I was itching to write something as it's been over two years and since then I had focused more on social media and let this site lay fallow, something I want to fix. So I decided to check out the National UFO Reporting Center for any local sightings but with a different focus, not on the newness of the sightings, but the location.

I found a few that occurred over in Friant by Millerton lake. Now you are probably asking yourself why I picked Friant, and here is why. I've been reading a lot the past year on different theories about UFOs, ghosts, cryptids, etc. and came across the idea of a place that is considered "thin". This is an old (think pre-Christian) Irish concept of where the veil between worlds is thin. Now you are probably asking yourself "Ok but why Friant and UFOs?" Well I am glad you asked that. There is a theory out there with some paranormal researchers that UFOs, cryptids, ghosts, etc. are all from the same place so to speak. Ever hear of Skinwalker Ranch? That place has everything and is considered to be a thin place. And I think Friant is also one of those. And here's why.

Remember the story I wrote about Lost Lake and the ghosts that haunt the place plus the weird creature that was supposedly seen in the water? Right near Friant. Remember the story of the phantom police officer on Friant Road? Yep, that's another. Oh remember that poor woman who was found amnesiac wandering near Millerton thinking she was a mermaid? Also Friant. And let's not forget the numerous sightings of large fish or some other strange creature swimming in the waters of Millerton Lake.

So we have all these weird things around this one location? But no UFO sightings right? Well that's where the before mentioned National UFO Reporting Center comes into play. I was able to find two sightings reported sightings around the Friant area. Now I know these are only two sightings within the last twenty years of so, but imagine all the UFOs that weren't reported either because people didn't know how or weren't aware of a way to report these sightings.

That said below are the two reported sightings. Both were of strange lights seen in the skies. I have included the text from the original reports as well as the link to them.


Reported: 8/1/2018 6:19:06 PM 18:19
Location: Friant, CA
Shape: Light



Summer of 2017, Friant, California… On the Madera side of Millerton, there is a dead end in which families can set up BBQ's and a dock for people with boats. It was approximately 9:40 when my boyfriend and i noticed people hanging out on the dock enjoying the stars.

We decided to walk down to the dock and do the same. When we got to the dock we sat down for a few moments to wait for the other people to leave so we could sit at the very end. Eventually they left and we sat on the end. Just looking into the sky discussing our relationship problems no more than two minutes into the conversation we notice a light flying smoothly threw the sky, not fast like a jet and not slow like a airplane.. It just glided vertically through the sky and before we knew it, it zoomed up into the sky horizontally and just disappeared. As it zoomed up to disappear it didnt just move at a crazy speed its almost if it just faded up into the sky. We could depict what it was, we were ! so shocked we couldn't bring our minds the the thought of us actually sighting a ufo. Crazy part is, you'd think we'd be so stoked and tell our family, but its as if the whole moment slipped our mind cause we never brought up… i'm a strong believer so how could something like this just slip my mind til this year of 2018? How did i not instantly react and pull out my phone? It's like being stuck in the moment made us forget what was really happening…

Link.


Reported: 9/25/2012 11:40:00 AM 11:40
Location: Friant, CA
Shape: Light
Duration:5 minutes
Flying colors in the middle of nowhere.

I was driving down the road which was empty at the time and looked up at the sky because I saw pretty colors which were red, green and blue

At first I thought it was a reflection of something but quickly noticed it wasn't. I pulled over so I could get a clean clear picture because it was so close and my phone froze, which has never happened before.

By the time my phone unfroze it was gone.

And I don't do drugs or drink and I wasn't sleepy, it was not my imagination playing tricks on me.

Link.

Back to the thin theory and why I think Friant is one of these places. It's rare to have the trinity of paranormal in the same area (Bridgewater Triangle in Southeast Massachusetts is another). I know I have been saying this but I definitely need to explore this area some more, specifically Lost Lake. But I wouldn't be surprised if the town of Friant has some stories. And lets not forget that the original town of Millerton lies at the bottom of the lake ever since the dam was built. Now no one died due to the flooding but I wonder what lies at the bottom of the lake? That said the area is definitely a place I need to revisit soon and hopefully it won't take me another two years to write about it.

Ten years later, revisiting the first story on Weird Fresno

Ten years ago today I started something new. At that time Facebook wasn't the juggernaut it is today and Twitter was just taking off. Myspace still reined the interwebs and it seemed everyone and their mother had a blog, and Fresno was no exception. Inspired by the numerous blogs that were popping up I decided to create one about one of my biggest passions. The paranormal.

I didn't really know how to write then (some say I still don't) nor did I know how to research and my main source of any legend was the internet. Still I had something no one else did and little did I know how big it would get. So in honor of ten years of crazy weird things I wanted to revisit my first story. The Watts Valley Wolf Ape.

Before I get into the main sighting, and were the creature got it's name, a brief history of the legend of the creature is in order.

There are legends of the creature coming over the Bearing Straight when the first Native Americans migrated to this land and even coexisted with them and cave drawings that were found depicted a strange creature with long grey hair with an ape like face and human-like hands and feet. It also seemed to be always sick looking, coughing and foaming at the mouth for some reason. Legend calls it the Devil Ape or Devil Fang but with the last recorded sighting it started being called the Watts Valley Wolf Ape, named after where it was seen.

The first known sighting in the twentieth century was by the legendary photographer Ansel Adams. He was visiting Yosemite and while camping a pack of the creatures came upon his tent. Alone and terrified he stayed until they finally went away. 

Another, more terrifying story involves a lone creature entering a single room school house in the southern part of the valley (rumored to be near Hanford) and began harassing the students and teacher. To protect themselves the students piled up their desks and climbed to the safety of the rafters. The teacher was able to lock themselves safely in a nearby closet. Apparently the creature had smelled the children's lunches and tore through the desks to get them. When it finally had it's fill, it left. 

One of my favorite stories tells the tale of a local preacher that shot one of the creatures some time in the 1950's claiming it to be a "pet of Satan". He hung it up on the church walls. For several weeks it hung until the smell became too much. The preacher was able to sell it to a traveling circus. Here's the creepy part. With the money he made he went up to San Francisco dreaming of starting his own church up there. Sadly his dreams were not meant to be and he was murdered soon after arriving. His body was so badly disfigured that it took months to identify him. People whispered he was cursed for killing the creature.

Not much more was seen of the creature. A long haired creature was seen at Bass Lake in the 1990's. This could have been a bigfoot sighting (which is no less incredible) but the creature was said to walk on all fours, which was one of it's main characteristics. 



So I have to say that I heard this story on the radio (RIP KRZR 103.7) and was unable to find out who the witness was. I was able to write down most of the story and reconstruct it. I fixed the structure of the story so it reads better but it still is the same.


The most recent and detailed story was recanted on a local Fresno radio station. There were two witnesses, a man and his uncle, who were hunting for garnets near Watts Valley Cemetery when a strange looking creature came out of the bushes. The creature was described as six foot long, grey mangy hair and dog like with a face like a baboon and with eyes that were flat on its face like a human’s. It opened its mouth but only a moan escaped and then made a strange sound like a cough. Both witnesses began to run from the creature as it began to chase after them. For some reason the man threw his lunch at the creature but this only stopped it momentarily. It continued to chase them over the hills and the two witnesses jumped over fence after fence and ran through pastures trying to escape the creature. Cows fled as it chased the two men. Finally they found themselves in the Watts Valley Cemetery and hid behind several tombstones, hoping to lose the beast. Unfortunately it caught their scent and started to come towards them when, in a moment of genius, the uncle threw some cinnamon flavored chewing gum near the beast hoping the scent would distract it. It worked and the beast was momentarily occupied. Soon after that a caretaker for the small cemetery arrived and offered to give the two men a ride back to their car several miles away. All three watched the strange creature for a few more minutes in the safety of the caretaker’s truck before it went away.



The question remains, even after ten years, is what was this? Crazed dog, bigfoot, werewolf, or some freak genetic experiment run amok have all been theorized. I wish I knew. If the story is true then whatever they saw was terrifying. But I have to ask this: why haven't there been any more sightings since? If the history of the creature has even a kernel of truth to it you think there would have been more sighting since. I've never been to Watts Valley, though I do know the area. Part of me wants to take a trip up there one weekend and visit. I just have to make sure I bring some cinnamon gum to protect myself.


So that was my first story, pretty much how I originally told it. Just fixed up the grammar and structure a bit to let it read better. I can't believe I've been doing this for ten years now. I've wrote about everything from crazy things at Lost Lake, giant catfish at Millerton, UFO sightings all over Fresno, to ghosts haunting some of Fresno's most historic locations. Not sure what the next ten years will be but I can't wait to see what it will be. Thank you to everyone who has read one of my stories over the years. It truly means a lot.