Fresno nightcrawler
A pair of white, legs-only figures seen walking across a Fresno home security video in 2007, now an internet legend.
Meaning
A grainy video from Fresno, California, set off the legend in 2007 (PBS, Monstrum). Discovery dates the footage to 5 November 2007 and describes what it shows: "a pair of disproportionately long, thin legs in loose white trousers" walking across the screen (Discovery UK). The man who recorded it, known only as Jose, had set up a camera to find out why his dogs barked at night. What circulates is a video he made of his CCTV monitor; the original recording has been lost (PBS, Monstrum).
Origin and history
Jose took the footage from his front lawn in south Fresno to the Spanish-language network Univision, which called in Victor Camacho, a paranormal investigator and host of the radio show Los Desvelados (The Fresno Bee; Skeptoid). Camacho told the Bee that Jose, who has since died, was so frightened he stayed home for a couple of weeks. Camacho presented the case at the Mutual UFO Network's 2008 symposium (Skeptoid).
In 2010 the television show Fact or Faked: Paranormal Files gave the figures the name nightcrawlers, tried to recreate the video with puppets and a child in a white sheet, and called it "unexplainable" (The Fresno Bee; Skeptoid).
Was the video a hoax?
No one has shown how the 2007 video was made, and it remains unexplained. In 2012 the YouTuber Captain Disillusion showed how easy one is to fake, by carrying a watermelon and digitally erasing his upper body (PBS, Monstrum). Other explanations offered include puppets, computer effects and a deer on its hind legs (Discovery UK).
A second clip of two figures, one taller than the other, appeared in 2011. Skeptoid and Discovery UK place it in Yosemite National Park; a Fresno Bee caption puts it in Yosemite Lakes Park at Coarsegold.
A mascot more than a monster
Brian Dunning of Skeptoid finds almost no one who believes the nightcrawler is a real animal, yet it has a large following, among them LGBTQ fans who have taken up cryptids as community icons. The Fresno Bee counts plush toys, stickers, songs and a perfume among the merchandise.
Read next
- Next in Cryptids and folklore creaturesKrakenA sea monster of Norwegian lore so large it was taken for an island, described by Bishop Erich Pontoppidan in the 1750s as round, flat and full of arms.
- The same shape in Mythical creatures of Greece and EuropeBasilisk and cockatriceThe “little king” of serpents, which ancient and medieval writers said could kill with its breath or its look, and the cockatrice, its medieval double, a two-legged dragon with a cock’s head.
See also
Sea serpent, Loch Ness Monster, Champ (Lake Champlain monster), Bigfoot (Sasquatch), Yeti (Abominable Snowman), Mongolian death worm.
Sources
- Monstrum: The Fresno Night Crawlers (PBS), Monstrum, season 7, episode 1, PBS Digital Studios, 13 February 2025, PBS
- Unveiling the Mystery of the Fresno Nightcrawler (Discovery UK), Discovery UK, Discovery UK
- Fresno Nightcrawler: haunted pants, supernatural alien, ghost? (The Fresno Bee), The Fresno Bee, updated 19 October 2018, The Fresno Bee
- What is Fresno CA Nightcrawler? Cryptid sightings, appearance (The Fresno Bee), Fernanda Galan, The Fresno Bee, updated 15 October 2024, The Fresno Bee
- Why the Fresno Nightcrawler Is So Popular (Skeptoid), Brian Dunning, Skeptoid podcast, episode 826, 5 April 2022, Skeptoid Media
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from curves and waves.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 3, 2026. How we research
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