The Fresno Nightcrawlers

Ain’t no party like a ghost pants party

Picture it. You’ve saved and scrimped and sacrificed for years. Somehow while living in this late-stage capitalist hellscape, you’ve finally settled into your dream cabin on a few acres far away from the fuckery of humanity.

Ah, yes…sweet, sweet introverted bliss.

Alas, your incredible chill is about to come to a halt when a notification pings on your phone.

*person seen backyard camera*

Erm, excuse me? Am I gonna have to fight a bitch? But, upon pressing play, you are left flabbergasted. …wtaf is that? Are those…ghosts? Long-legged…ghosts?

The Sightings

The Nightcrawlers were first seen in 2007 in Fresno, California, making them one of the first cryptid myths to emerge from the internet age. One morning a man known only as ~José~ (the Madonna of cryptid eye witnesses) woke up to a triggered security camera notification. To his disbelief, the video showed several long-legged ghostly creatures flouncing about in his front yard. As you can guess, this wigged him out, y’all. He was very much not stoked about it. After gathering his faculties, José reached out to a paranormal investigator named Victor Camacho. After what was reported as careful analysis of the scene, video, and witness credibility, the footage was then shared freely on Univision. Camacho, speaking to the Fresno Bee, said of José and the incident: “He didn’t even want to go out of the house. He stayed home for a couple weeks … It wasn’t possible that someone tried to make this video just to fool you or the TV station.”

In 2011, another California sighting of these sentient MC Hammer pants was reported. A Yosemite park ranger’s trail camera captured two figures pretty ding dang similar to those spotted in Fresno by the skittish José just years before. The Yosemite footage was much clearer than the original sighting convincing some that these were ancient and undiscovered creatures.

Only two other sightings have been supposedly caught on camera—one in Poland and the other in Billings, Montana in 2020.

Possible Explanations

The most common theory about these bipedal paranormal creeps is that they are extraterrestrials. There is absolutely nothing backing up this theory except for the fact that, well, they look weird. Feels a little rude if you ask me. Others insist they are cryptids, AKA undiscovered mammals, despite having no physical evidence whatsoever to reference (though this could be said for most cryptids if we’re being real here). 🤷🏻‍♀️

Other more grounded Nightcrawler theories include: a heron or crane (*yawn*), a misidentified deer, or…you guessed it…a hoax. Be it digital manipulation or dramatized puppetry, there is some truth to this explanation. One popular GIF of the Fresno Nightcrawler was actually created by YouTuber Captain Disillusion. To create the video, he walked down an alleyway while holding a melon and then edited the form in post production to mirror a Nightcrawler—thus, proving how easily videos of cryptids like these can be faked.

Conclusion

For better or for worse, as our physical realities have become intertwined more deeply with our digital lives, it was only a matter of time that our cultural legends and folklore would morph as well. Be it these seemingly harmless Nightcrawlers or more insidious characters like the Slenderman, imagining our hive mind manifesting thought forms via Reddit threads and YouTube videos is a pretty fascinating evolution that I fear I don’t have nearly enough functioning brain tissue to fully unravel at the moment. I do hope that in this evolution we remain tethered to our humanity and treat these creatures (whether corporal or imagined) not as something to be feared, but passed down as parables for celebrating curiosity, natural biodiversity, and general open mindedness.

Sources

https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article293048864.html

https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Fresno_Nightcrawler

https://hangar1publishing.com/blogs/cryptids/nightcrawlers-yosemite

For a video essay version of this post as I draw the above colored pencil piece, check out my YouTube! Like the video, subscribe to my channel, watch the whole way through—all of these steps get me a little closer to achieving monetization.