The Fresno Nightcrawlers and The Enfield Horror Re-Visit

[00:00:00] Hi there, and welcome to Out There: A Cryptid Podcast. I'm Josh, and today we have another mini episode. And this one is going to be a staple episode. We're revisiting two very famous alien-like cryptids. One of them might be the most adorable cryptid out there, while the other might just be the most unfortunate looking one. This is the Fresno Nightcrawlers and The Enfield Horror. Let's dive in.

[00:00:28] We'll get into the Fresno Nightcrawler and The Enfield Horror right after this.

[00:01:31] Streaming on Disney+. Read PG-13.

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[00:02:34] Now both of these cryptids are ones we've covered before here on Out There. But today, we're bringing them back together for a little revisit. Their stories might not be the longest, but both of these strange creatures have made a pretty big impact on the world of cryptozoology. So, I figured it was time to take another look at them both. So let's start with the more interesting looking cryptid of the pair.

[00:03:03] The last time we covered the Enfield Horror, Trevor did an amazing job introducing us to this really strange cryptid. So I definitely wanted to come back to it. The story itself isn't super long, but there are a lot of little details that make this case really interesting. Especially when you look at how many people claimed to have seen this thing, and how quickly the story spread.

[00:03:30] So, let's go back to April 25th, 1973, in the small town of Enfield, Illinois. That night, 10-year-old Greg Garrett was outside in his backyard while his parents were inside watching TV. Some accounts say Greg was out catching fireflies when something suddenly appeared in the darkness. Whatever it was, it scared the hell out of him.

[00:03:57] Greg came running back into the house crying hysterically, telling his parents that he had just been attacked by some kind of monster. Greg described the creature as being around 4 or 5 feet tall, with gray, slimy-looking skin, three legs, tiny arms with claws, and huge red or pinkish eyes.

[00:04:23] He said the creature came toward him, and actually stepped on his feet, tearing his tennis shoes before he managed to get away and run back inside. Greg's parents were obviously alarmed by what their son was telling them, and according to later accounts, the damaged shoes were basically the only physical evidence connected to the encounter.

[00:04:46] The problem is, there don't appear to be any surviving photos or official documentation of those shoes, so we can't really say that they were confirmed evidence. At the time, though, the story was taken very seriously, enough that the police were contacted.

[00:05:08] Officers came out to investigate the property, and one account says they searched the area but found no trace of the creature, or anything that could clearly explain what Greg claimed had happened. And this is where the story gets really interesting. Because about a half an hour later, another family was going to have a much more serious encounter.

[00:05:37] Henry McDaniel and his family had just returned home from a night out. When they got inside, Henry noticed that his children were still awake, and clearly terrified. They told him that something had been trying to get into the house. First, through the front door, and then through a window air conditioning unit. Henry wasn't immediately convinced, and figured they were probably just scared by some animal outside.

[00:06:06] That was, until he heard scratching coming from the front door. Henry went over to investigate, and when he opened the door, he claimed he saw something standing outside. And this wasn't just some vague shape in the darkness. Henry initially thought whatever he was looking at might be a bear. So he grabbed a flashlight and his .22 pistol and went outside.

[00:06:35] That's when he realized this was definitely not a bear. Henry described it as being around four and a half feet tall, with a short body, two little arms, three legs, grayish skin, and two pink eyes that were so large he compared them to flashlight lenses. Henry fired four shots at the creature.

[00:07:02] And according to his account, one of the bullets actually hit it. But instead of dropping or running away, the creature hissed at him like a wild cat. Henry fired a few more times, and that's when the creature turned around and took off toward the railroad tracks near his house. Henry said it covered about 50 feet in just three bounds before disappearing into the brush.

[00:07:29] Henry's wife called the authorities, and when police arrived, they found scratches on the siding of the house, damage to the screen door, and also some very unusual tracks in the soft ground around the property. The tracks were reportedly dog-like in shape, but had six toe pads, and they appeared to come from a three-legged creature.

[00:07:53] Now, obviously, that doesn't prove that a three-legged monster had just been standing outside the McDaniel house. But it was something investigators could actually look at, and it gave the story a little more to work with than just Henry's description. And what's really interesting is that the police apparently didn't think Henry was some drunk guy making up a crazy story.

[00:08:19] Accounts of the investigation say officers considered him to be rational and sober. Again, that doesn't mean he actually saw a monster, but it does tell us that the people investigating the case apparently believed Henry genuinely thought he had encountered something strange. And there were reportedly a lot of people around to witness just how quickly the story was spreading.

[00:08:46] After the encounter, somewhere around 50 to 75 residents were said to have gathered around the McDaniel property. So, within a matter of hours, this had gone from one family seeing something strange outside their house, to a small crowd of people standing around talking about some kind of three-legged creature running around Enfield. And Henry wasn't finished seeing this thing.

[00:09:16] On May 6th, just over a week later, he was woken up late at night by a neighbor's dog. He got up, grabbed his pistol again, and went outside. This time, he claimed to see the creature from a distance as it moved along the railroad tracks. And what's interesting is that, this time, the creature wasn't attacking anyone. It wasn't even running. Henry said it was just walking down the tracks.

[00:09:46] Not really in a hurry at all. Before eventually disappearing into the darkness. By this point, the story had started getting around, and the Enfield horror was getting a lot more attention. The media picked up the story, and eventually people started coming into the area looking for the creature themselves. At one point, five young men from out of town reportedly came to Enfield carrying shotguns and rifles,

[00:10:15] supposedly to look for the creature and photograph it. They later claimed they had encountered something that looked like the creature Henry had described, and that they had fired at it. But the bullets apparently had no effect, and the creature took off through the brush, at a speed they said was much faster than a person could run. But there's actually a kind of funny little twist to that story.

[00:10:45] The local sheriff later said that the whole monster hunting expedition had been exaggerated. According to him, the men were basically just out drinking and raising hell, and the monster only came up when they were questioned. They were eventually charged with hunting violations, so whether they actually encountered the Enfield horror is another question entirely. But by this point, people were absolutely coming into town looking for it.

[00:11:15] Then we get another interesting report from Rick Rainbow. He was the news director of a radio station in Kokomo, Indiana. Rainbow and three other people reportedly traveled to the area and claimed they saw a gray, hunched-over creature near an abandoned house, not far from where the earlier sightings had happened. Their encounter wasn't nearly as close as Henry's,

[00:11:44] but they claimed they were actually able to record the creature's scream. That recording has become part of the Enfield legend, although I haven't been able to find a reliable copy of the original audio today, so I don't want to sit here and tell you that we definitely have a recording of the Enfield horror, but it's important to note for its history. But the story did eventually catch the attention of Lorraine Coleman,

[00:12:12] as we know, one of the most well-known names in cryptozoology. Coleman traveled to Enfield, interviewed witnesses, looked at the reported damage at the McDaniel home, and investigated the area where the creature had supposedly been seen. Coleman later said that while he was there, he heard some strange, banshee-like sounds himself. And even after investigating the case,

[00:12:39] Coleman didn't really have an answer for what this thing could have been. In fact, when comparing the Enfield horror to another famous cryptid, the Dover Demon, Coleman described the Enfield creature as being more like a combination of a phantom kangaroo, a devil monkey, and a swamp ape, which is honestly one crazy combination of animals. There have been a few different theories over the years

[00:13:09] about what people were actually seeing. Some have suggested it could have been an unknown animal, or simply a misidentified animal. Others have connected the case to UFO activity that has reportedly been happening in the area around the same time. And because the creature looked so bizarre, and seemed to have some pretty unusual abilities, there have also been people who have interpreted it

[00:13:37] as something supernatural, or even just extraterrestrial. There's also an older Illinois case that sometimes gets brought up when talking about the Enfield horror. Around 1941 and 1942, there were reports of a strange creature in the Mount Vernon area, roughly 40 miles from Enfield. The so-called Mount Vernon monster

[00:14:04] was described as being more like a baboon, and was supposedly capable of making incredibly long jumps. The two cases are pretty different, but the fact that another strange creature was being reported in the same general part of Illinois decades earlier has led some people to wonder if there could be some kind of connection there. And that's pretty much where the Enfield horror story ends.

[00:14:33] The sightings eventually faded out, and there haven't been any major reports of the creature in decades. We don't have a body, we don't have a clear photo, and we don't have anything that can definitively tell us what people were actually seeing in 1973. But, unfortunately, I do have some bad news. There's a pretty big problem with the first story in this case. Years later,

[00:15:02] when researchers from Western Illinois University interviewed Greg, he reportedly admitted that he had made up the whole thing. He said it was basically a prank meant to tease his neighbor, Henry McDaniel, and have some fun with an out-of-town newspaper. So, if Greg really did make up the whole thing, then the very first reported sighting of the Enfield horror was a hoax.

[00:15:32] Obviously, Greg admitting that he made up his encounter doesn't exactly help the case, but it also doesn't completely explain everything that happened afterward. You still have Henry McDaniel and his family, the reported tracks and damage, the later witnesses, the strange screams that was supposedly recorded, and all of the people who actually came to Enfield looking for this thing.

[00:15:59] So, whether the entire story grew out of one kid's prank, or whether something genuinely strange was happening in Enfield, we probably will never know. This could have been many things, like an unknown animal, perhaps a barn owl, or some mangy fox, a case of mistaken identity, a series of hoaxes,

[00:16:25] or something we still don't have an explanation for. Either way, the Enfield horror definitely left its mark on cryptozoology. The story might be short, but there is a lot packed into those few weeks in 1973. And honestly, that's what makes this one such a fun one to revisit. More on the Fresno Nightcrawler and the Enfield horror, right after this.

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[00:18:24] These might be one of the strangest-looking cryptids we've ever covered on this show. And honestly, they're probably one of the most adorable, too. They're basically these strange little humanoid figures that look like a pair of white pants. If those pants decided to get up and walk away. But as ridiculous as they look, there is something pretty creepy about watching them quietly move through the darkness.

[00:18:52] And unlike a lot of cryptids, we actually have multiple pieces of video footage that appear to show the same strange creatures. Our first story takes us to Fresno, California in 2007. A man, known only as Jose, had actually installed an older security camera system around his house because of previous bicycle thefts. He wasn't sitting around trying to catch ghosts or UFOs. He just wanted to know

[00:19:22] if someone was messing with his property. The system recorded directly onto VHS, and the monitor was positioned near Jose's bed. One night, he was at home when his dogs suddenly started barking outside. He said this was unusual because his dogs didn't normally behave like that. And more importantly, they sounded scared. So, Jose went outside to see what was going on. But he couldn't find anything.

[00:19:53] Eventually, he went back inside and checked his security footage. And that's when he saw something he couldn't explain. The footage is only around 20 seconds long, but it's enough to make you sit there and go, what am I looking at? A strange white figure slowly walks across Jose's front lawn. It has incredibly long, thin legs and almost no upper body at all,

[00:20:22] basically looking like a pair of legs with a tiny body attached. Then, after the first one crosses the yard, a second figure follows behind it. The second one appears to move a little differently and has a wider stride, but it still has that same bizarre, almost impossible-looking shape. There's also something hanging or flowing around the legs, almost like fabric,

[00:20:51] which makes the whole thing look even weirder. And there's another strange detail here. Jose's property was surrounded by a metal fence. And according to him, the gate was closed that night, so he didn't know how these things had gotten into the yard in the first place. They don't seem to climb over anything or come through the gate. They just walk across the camera's view and disappear. Jose was

[00:21:20] obviously freaked out by what he saw, so he eventually took the footage to a local Univision news station to see if they could help him figure out what the hell he had caught on his camera. The footage was eventually passed along to local UFO investigator Victor Kamako, who began looking into this case. Unfortunately, the footage we have today isn't the original security camera

[00:21:49] recording. The original was apparently on an old VHS tape, and the news station recorded the footage over the screen, meaning we're basically looking at a recording of a recording. That adds quite a bit of distortion and makes it much harder to determine whether anything was manipulated. Once the footage started circulating, people came up with all kinds of explanations. Some thought it was CGI, while others

[00:22:19] thought it could have been pants or fabric being pulled across the yard by a wire. And of course, there were people who thought Jose had actually captured something that nobody could explain. Eventually, the footage caught the attention of the sci-fi show Fact or Faked Paranormal Files, which decided to investigate this case. The team traveled to Fresno and actually met with Jose, who told them what he had seen that night,

[00:22:48] then even performed a voice analysis to see if there were any signs that he was lying. And the results came back indicating that he was being truthful. Now, that obviously doesn't prove that the footage itself was authentic, and voice stress analysis isn't exactly a magic lie detector. But the team came away believing that if this was a hoax, Jose wasn't in on it. So, they decided to try and

[00:23:18] recreate the footage themselves, using some of the most common explanations. First, they had a child walk across the lawn dressed in white, but the footage clearly looked like a child. You could see the body and the normal movement of a person walking, and it didn't resemble what was seen in Jose's footage. They then tried building a puppet, pulling it across the lawn on a wire. They even put a sheet over it to try to recreate the strange flowing appearance around

[00:23:48] the creature's legs. But the puppet bounced and wobbled too much. It didn't move like the figures in the original video. Finally, they tried carrying the puppet across the lawn while keeping the person carrying it out of frame. Again, they couldn't quite recreate the strange movement. So, they weren't able to prove that Jose's footage was real, but they also couldn't recreate it using the explanations they tested.

[00:24:19] And this is actually where the creature got their name. The figures weren't originally called the Fresno Nightcrawlers. During the fact or faked investigation, the show gave them the name Nightcrawlers. And the name stuck. Somehow, these weird little walking pants went from being something caught on this guy's security camera to becoming an actual modern cryptid. And then their investigation got even

[00:24:48] stranger. While the team was setting up cameras and equipment around the area, some of their equipment started acting up. One investigator went through multiple batteries in a very short period of time. A metal detector suddenly lost its charge, and one of their cameras stopped working before suddenly coming back on. Then, another camera apparently fell over even though nobody was around it. The team turned to a thermal imager and

[00:25:18] reportedly saw two strange heat signatures moving near the camera that had fallen. They had appeared for a moment and then disappeared. When the investigators went over to check the area, they found a path through the tall grass where something appeared to have recently moved through it. They never found whatever had made the path, and they certainly didn't find a night crawler. But after the investigation, the team ultimately labeled the case

[00:25:48] unexplainable. Now, there is a pretty good reason to be skeptical of the original footage. A few years later, a YouTuber known as Captain Disillusion made his own version of the Fresno Nightcrawler video. He basically walked while carrying a watermelon in front of his body, filmed himself, and then digitally removed his upper body. The result looked surprisingly similar to the original footage. footage, so we know it

[00:26:17] is possible to create something that looks like a nightcrawler without needing some crazy Hollywood special effects setup. But that doesn't mean that's what happened in Fresno. It does, however, give us a pretty believable explanation for at least one way the footage could have been created if it was created at all. But here's where things get interesting. because the Fresno footage isn't the only video of these things.

[00:26:47] Another piece of footage, reportedly recorded around 2011 in Yosemite Lakes Park, shows two strange figures walking across an open area, and they look remarkably similar to the creatures from Jose's video. This footage is actually a little clearer than the original, which honestly doesn't make it any less weird. You can actually see the two figures moving across the area or

[00:27:17] the road, and they have that same strange leg-heavy appearance. Again, they're just walking. There's no attack, no interaction with anyone, and they're not chasing anything. They're simply moving across the landscape in this incredibly strange, almost unnatural way. And honestly, I think that's part of what makes the footage creepy. If you saw some giant monster running toward a camera,

[00:27:48] you'd immediately understand what you're looking at, and that it's dangerous. But these things don't do that. They just quietly walk through the darkness like they're completely unaware that anyone is watching them. There have been plenty of theories about what we're actually seeing. people maybe they're some kind of unknown animal. Maybe they're people wearing strange costumes, maybe they're puppets, or some kind of practical effect. I mean,

[00:28:18] maybe the footage all was digitally manipulated. And because this is the cryptid world we're talking about, there are also people who believe they're extraterrestrial beings, or something that doesn't really belong in our world at all. We don't have a definitive answer for the footage, which is probably why the Fresno Nightcrawlers have stuck around as modern cryptids. There is also another strange report that has sometimes been

[00:28:47] connected to the Fresno Nightcrawlers. In December of 2014, an unidentified 60-year-old former marine and his wife were reportedly driving near Highland, California, when they saw something run across the road in front of their truck. The creature was described as thin and strange looking, and disappeared into the woods almost as quickly as it had appeared. This thing became known as the Caramel Area Creature,

[00:29:16] and because of its bizarre appearance, some people eventually connected it to the Nightcrawler's sightings. Personally, I wouldn't say we can definitively call it a Fresno Nightcrawler. The description is different enough that it could easily have been something completely unrelated, but it's another example of someone seeing something bizarre that they couldn't immediately identify in that area. Now,

[00:29:46] we do get into a more strange part of the Fresno Nightcrawler legend, if you can imagine that. There are pictures that have circulated online of wooden carvings that supposedly look almost exactly like these creatures. Along with the pictures came a story that Native American tribes in the area had known about these strange little forest beings for generations, and they even considered them some kind of

[00:30:15] supernatural or fairy-like creature. It sounds like exactly the kind of folklore connection you'd want to find with a cryptid like this, but, unfortunately, there's no solid evidence that this is actually Native American folklore. The carvings appear to have entered the internet after the Nightcrawler sightings became popular, and there doesn't seem to be a reliable historical source connecting them to an

[00:30:45] older tradition. So, as cool as that story is, I wouldn't count it as evidence that the Nightcrawlers have been around for hundreds of years. And guess what? That's pretty much where we are with the Fresno Nightcrawlers. We have the original Fresno security footage, another piece of footage showing what appears to be the very similar or same creatures, a handful of eyewitness reports, and plenty of theories about

[00:31:14] what people could actually be seeing. Maybe they're some kind of unknown creature, I don't know how they could be, maybe they're people in costumes or they're puppets, maybe the footage is all a hoax, or maybe they're something completely different, something we still don't know. But, I will say, compared to most of the creatures we talk about on this show, the Fresno Nightcrawlers seem pretty harmless.

[00:31:45] They really don't attack people, and they don't even seem interested in humans, and they don't appear to be looking for trouble at all. They just walk. And honestly, that's why I love the Fresno Nightcrawlers. They're creepy, they're weird, they're completely unexplained, and they look absolutely ridiculous all at the same time. I mean, look at these things, they're basically haunted pants. But somehow,

[00:32:14] when you see them quietly walking across the empty yard in the middle of the night, they're a hell of a lot creepier than you'd expect. And whether they're an actual unknown creature or that elaborate hoax, they are one of the strangest modern cryptid legends we've ever covered, and probably will ever cover. The Fresno Nightcrawlers definitely left their mark. There's one piece that's

[00:32:44] probably the most interesting thing about both of these cryptids though. Their actual stories are surprisingly small. The Enfield Horror was really only those handful of sightings over those weeks, and the Fresno Nightcrawlers basically started with those strange videos, and that's it. But somehow, their legacy became so much bigger than their stories. Today, both of these creatures are some of the

[00:33:13] most recognizable and famous modern cryptids out there. They've been featured in documentaries, television shows, books, artwork, and they are all over the internet. The Fresno Nightcrawlers actually have their own Build-A-Bear, and they basically have become a little cryptid celebrity at this point, while the Enfield Horror remains one of those weird and unsettling cases that people still talk about

[00:33:42] decades later. And I think that's what makes cryptids so much fun. Sometimes, you don't need hundreds of sightings or a huge pile of evidence to create a legend. Sometimes, all it takes is one really strange story, a couple of people who genuinely believe they saw something, sprinkle in some footage, and a mystery that nobody can quite explain. And these two creatures have definitely

[00:34:11] left a huge mark, much larger than you'd expect from their stories that are pretty tiny, just like them. So, what do you think? Are the Fresno Nightcrawlers and the Enfield Horror really out there?

[00:35:06] Avatar Fire and Ash is now streaming on Disney+. Rated PG-13.

[00:35:36] FX's American Horror Story returns for an unrivaled 13th installment with the iconic horrors you love to fear and an all-star cast reprising fan favorite roles. Light your candles, draw your pentagrams, and prepare for a supreme surprise. FX's American Horror Story 13th installment now streaming on Hulu.