California! A big large state with the highest population out of the other US States and the biggest economic powerhouse in the US to boot, a state known for Silicon Valley, a place in San Francisco where numerous companies in technology, innovation, social media and the internet are set up. California is also known for Hollywood and its big worldwide acclaimed film, celebrity and movie industry.
California is also known for a number of its cities including San Francisco and Los Angeles. The state’s capital city is Sacramento. California has a long coast along the Pacific Ocean and the state is well-known for its attractive beaches. The state is also bordered with Oregon, Nevada, Arizona and the country of Mexico. California’s varied geography includes mountains, fir forests, with Redwoods being a well-known tree of the state, there is also desert as well. But from time to time the state can suffer from terrible droughts and wildfires and there is also the danger posed from Earthquakes – including the so called “Big One” that is meant to happen anytime, at least according to all the news articles out there anyway.
So as can be seen California has lots to offer and it also has a long history and you know what that means… paranormal stuff! So, let’s get into it. Of course, we once again have to bring up the big hairy celebrity that is Bigfoot or as it is known in the US, the Sasquatch, which is once again also known to be hanging about in California’s forests and isolated areas. One of my first ever posts that focused on Bigfoot talked about the Patterson-Gimlin film, the most famous and iconic footage ever captured of the Sasquatch and is still highly debated until this day, the footage of this apparent encounter was taken in Northern California, alongside Bluff Creek, a tributary of the Klamath River and north-west of Orleans in 1967. The apparent Sasquatch walking in the footage has been dubbed “Patty” and is thought to be female.
There was also the apparent “Sasquatch vocalizations” caught on a recording at a lodge in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the 1970s known as the Sierra Sounds, captured by Ron Morehead and Al Berry, the creepy recordings can be heard on Youtube. Again, it is highly debated with people for and against it. Some say it was simply just humans making the sounds as a hoax while others, such as the linguist Scott Nelson, has said that the sounds were too complex to be made by normal animals and that further analysis and studying was needed but that he believes that it is a complex language that is spoken and understood by these unknown creatures.
But let’s move away from the big celebrity and hogger of the cryptid world that is Bigfoot or the Sasquatch and go on to some more localised cryptids. First up is a water cryptid called Tahoe Tessie. This one is a bit more localised than bigfoot although the lake does still go across two states, which is of course California but also Nevada, called Lake Tahoe. The freshwater Lake straddles the border between California and Nevada, West of Carson City, the lake is the largest Alpine Lake in North America and the second deepest lake in the US behind Crater Lake in Oregon.
Descriptions of Tessie vary from being described as a 60-feet long serpent-like creature to simply being described as a giant fish. Legends of a creature or monster in the lake have gone on for centuries with legends also coming from the Washoe and Paiute Native American’s. The giant creature is said to have its underwater lair beneath an area called Cave Rock, a large formation of rock along the southeastern shore of Lake Tahoe and is apparently sacred to the Washoe Indians with rumours they threw their dead into the lake at Cave Rock and there are many rumours of hauntings and ghosts in the area attributed to this, in-fact the lake itself is said to be somewhat haunted by ghosts, including a lady dressed in fine 1800s clothing floating just below the surface of the water.
Sightings of Tahoe Tessie are on a fairly regular basis including unusual breaks in the water seemingly created by something very large and dark humps sticking out of the water as if from some big creature that then submerged back under the water. Such sightings have included two off-duty police officers in the 1950s who reported seeing a large, black hump rise from the water and keep speed with a boat over 60mph. In the 1990s a Kayak Instructor reported seeing a two-person kayak flip over and sink, but when he got to the area in a speed boat to see, there was nothing there and none of his students reported sinking their kayaks and everyone was accounted for, could it have been Tahoe Tessie?
Next up is an interesting one, that of the Fresno Nightcrawler, also called the Fresno Alien, a very strange creature that was caught on a camera on at least two separate occasions, with the first in Fresno, California, in 2010 a creature appearing to be all pale white and walking with two long legs but having no arms and very short upper body with a head, the creature looks like a strange semi-circle shaped being as a whole, and was walking along the front-yard of a man called Jose who recorded it on CCTV, claiming his dog started barking at the same time the creature was on CCTV, prompting him to look at the footage. The footage was also featured on the Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files program who were unable to debunk it.
In 2011 the creatures were caught on security camera again but this time in California’s Yosemite National Park and instead of just one there was two of them, one of which was similar in size to the first but also a 2nd much smaller one, as if it were a child. Their feet were also visible in this footage as well, the creatures were still semi-circle shaped and pale white.
A number of experts claim that the videos are merely a hoax and easily faked, such as by using sheets and illusions in the dark or by the usage of bad quality footage. Nonetheless the Nightcrawlers have a sort of cult following now, similar to how slenderman did when it first appeared, although slenderman is widely known to be fake, originating from a creation on an online image board and from there made into “creepypasta’s”, entertainment videos on youtube, made-up history and games and now even a movie, I’ll perhaps do a blogpost on it one day. The Nightcrawlers on the other hand are a little more debatable and there have been some other reported sightings since.
Next up is a strange phenomenon that seems to happen in the Santa Lucia Mountains, the mountain chain is in coastal central California running from Carmel’s southeast to the Cuyama River, spanning 140 miles. For centuries the Chumash Indians spoke of them and called them “The Old Ones”, massively tall dark silhouettes of anywhere from 7-15ft, often wearing wide-brimmed hats, cloaks and sometimes apparently holding long sticks or staves that would stand on the peaks of the mountain’s… simply just observing the mystified witness or witnesses.
Early European explorers have also reported seeing them and Mexican’s that lived in the area called them “Los Vigilantes Oscuros” even until this day the reports of encounters with them still happen. Describing them any further is impossible as whenever one attempts to get close to these strange hulking figures they simply just vanish away into thin air. It is said that they have a better chance of appearing to people who are dressed in more old-fashioned garb. They are apparently also most commonly seen during the twilight hours.
One sighting in the mid-1960s was reported by a former high school principal who was hiking in the mountains. He claimed to suddenly see a dark figure wearing a hat and cape who was standing on a rock in the distance and surveying the area. But the figure vanished into thin air when the man called out to it.
Finally, it is time to move on to a haunting in California and I thought of no better place than that of Alcatraz! The former notorious prison that is no-longer in use but still serves as a tourist attraction. Alcatraz island is located in San Francisco Bay and has been used for a lighthouse, military fort and prison and also of which it is best known for, a federal penitentiary from 1934 which was shut down on March 21st (my birthday) 1963. The penitentiary was designed for troublesome and dangerous inmates who were too much trouble for other federal prisons, meaning that Alcatraz had many notorious criminals behind its walls during its operation.
Such prisoners included mobsters and gangsters such as Al Capone (who was seemingly driven mad by a spirit he believes was stalking him, said to be one of his victims), George “Machine Gun” Kelly, Bumpy Johnson, Mickey Cohen, Arthur R. “Doc” Barker and Alvin “Creepy” Karpis (the prison’s longest serving inmate), others included terrorists such as Rafael Cancel Miranda and murderers and psychopaths such as Robert Stroud known as the “Birdman of Alcatraz” due to his nursing and interest in birds at a former prison leading him to write books on birds and even make an in-prison business for a temporary time.
The prison has claimed that during its operation no prisoners ever successfully escaped due to its stringent and strict measures such as armed guards, watch towers and also the fact that the prison was on an island surrounded by the sea. There had though been several attempts leading to deaths of both prisoners and prison officers, one of the most famous attempted escapes lead to the Battle of Alcatraz lasting from May 2nd to 4th in 1946 leading to the deaths of 3 prisoners and 2 prison officers and later 2 further prisoners being executed for the part they played.
Many other escape attempts either led to being shot dead or drowning in the sea. Although a number of those who have escaped were marked as “missing and presumed drowned” but some believe that in this small number may have been at least a couple of successful escapes, but without any proof it is impossible to say. The furthest an escaped prisoner is recorded to have got was to the shore, this happening in 1962 with the convict called John Paul Scott, but he passed out on the shore due to hypothermic shock and was subsequently recaptured.
Due to its dark history such as the people it held, the conditions and suffering of prisoners, suicides and other deaths has led to Alcatraz being dubbed as one of America’s most haunted places. But even before there was a prison on the island, early Native American’s had already told stories of evil spirits on the island and events from the American Civil War and the military prison that was once there before the federal one are also suspected sources of hauntings for Alcatraz. Prisoners and prison guards had also reported paranormal phenomena during the prison’s operation. Tourists and tour guides to the former prison continue to claim odd goings-on at the island and its buildings and a number of paranormal investigators have been to it, documenting evidence including programs such as Ghost Adventures.
The phenomena reported has included cell doors slamming by themselves, disembodied whispering in the cells, phantom figures and manifestations in the halls and corridors, cold spots, ghostly lights, moaning, crying, screaming and wailing sounds and also residual sounds such as that of music and sewing machines. There were even reports by prisoners at the time of dark entities, such as those with glowing red eyes, often seen in solitary confinement, one such death in Alcatraz is reported as mysterious, reportedly involving the red-eyed entity, happening in D-block (believed to be one of the most haunted areas) the inmate apparently saw glowing red eyes in the dark and was screaming for hours, and was later found dead with in the morning, left with a purple face, bulging eyes and unidentified strangle marks around his throat.
So, there you have it, a few paranormal cryptids and a notorious haunt from California. Next up we will be checking out the state of Nevada – where I am pretty sure we will have a visit from aliens!
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