Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 167. Something’s Lurking In The Woods: Terrifying Tales of Crawlers

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Why have so many people described seeing the same scary entity in the backwoods of Appalachia? Something that looks human, but not quite? Today, we’re talking about the terrifying entity people have been seeing in the woods for generations.  “Crawlers”Our Small Business Spotlight this week is Coco and Duckie! Shop their store here: https://cocoandduckie.com/ Subscribe on⁠ Patreon⁠ to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society and enjoy ad-free listening, monthly bonus content, merch discounts and more. Members of our High Council on Patreon also have access to our weekly after-show, Footnotes, where I share my case file with our producer, Matt. You can also enjoy many of these same perks, including ad-free listening and bonus content when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts . Follow on⁠ Tik Tok⁠ and⁠ Instagram⁠ for a daily dose of horror. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On July 31st of 2021 at around 11 p.m., a 911 call came into a dispatcher in Pender County, North Carolina that would go on to Baffle Police. In it, a man said he was driving down a two-lane backcountry road when he saw something he didn't think was human. Pender County 911, what's the address of your emergency? I'm driving on 210. I just crossed the Black River, and I thought I saw a guy standing on the side of the road. Bleeding. Okay. Where are you at, sir? I'm on 2.10.

I just crossed the Black River. I'm heading toward 3-E. I just passed Patriots wine. Okay, so you're over near Morse Creek? Yes. And did you, you saw a man standing on the side of the road? What was that, sir? That's not human!

Sir, are you okay, sir? There's something in the bed of my truck? Okay, what's in the road? No, it's not in the road. It's in my truck. There's something in the bed of your truck? Yes, ma'am. I just turned on my bedlight for my truck, and there's something in my bed.

Okay, sir, will you say something? What do you mean? I just tossed it off to the bed of my truck and get over my room. Okay, what was it? Now, eventually an officer went down to get a full report from the caller. Here's another officer with the Pender County police, Alan Cutler, explaining what happened. According to the CAD notes and the deputy reports, this thing jumped into the back of his pickup truck and began to actually beat on the top of the cab of his truck.

You could actually hear something beating on the top of the truck. The caller stated that it was beating and scratching on the top of the cab of his truck. truck. He actually stated that he was able to engage his bedlight and was able to somewhat identify this object that was in the back of his truck. At some point, he was able to slam on his brakes and the force of inertia actually threw this thing out over his hood and onto the highway, where this thing stood up in the roadway, made its way to the woodline and disappeared in the woods. Alan said in an interview with Carolina Case Files that it's impossible. to hear this call without becoming unnerved.

But what seemed to unnerve everyone who heard about this call the most is the way the caller described the thing he saw. In a later anonymous interview, also with Carolina Case Files, the caller explained that at first, it looked like there was a man standing on the side of the road with blood pouring out of his head. But when it jumped on his car, the man could see it was actually a humanoid creature

with a pale white face, hollow sunken eyes, and no-nose. To this day, no one has really been able to explain what that man saw on that backcountry road, but there are a few people who claim to know what it was. See, that description sent shivers down a lot of spines, because it sounded like something a lot of people had seen before in the woods around Appalachia and beyond, though when they told others of this creature sighting, no one had believed them. And now there was a legitimate police report filed.

To them, it felt like proof that they weren't losing their minds. It was a creature known as a crawler, they said. A humanoid being who has been cited for centuries around the country and mostly lives in the woods stalking humans. But what is the history of crawlers? And who exactly has seen them? Well, today I want to share with you a few other stories from people who have claimed to have encounters with these craters.

creatures. Welcome back to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. As always, I'm your host, Kaila Moore. We have a really freaky episode for you guys today. Even Jinks got scared while I was recording this one. But before we get back into it, just a reminder, we are in the thick of listener appreciation month. We have free shipping for you guys on all of our merch in the heart starts pounding store. That's at heartsarts pounding.com. And I've been resharing your Instagram posts where you guys have been showing me where you listen to Heart Starts Pounding. Definitely keep those coming. Take a picture of wherever you listen to Heart Starts Pounding and use the hashtag,

Where I Listen, HSP. I've already sent out a couple of free goodies to some of the posters, and I'm going to be sending out more, so definitely keep those coming. And shout out to Amber, who listens inside of her haunted house. I loved seeing that. Also, I've been shouting out listener-owned small businesses, and this week I wanted to shout out Coco and Ducky. An adorable little lifestyle boutique in Belleville, Texas sent us by

Madeline. Through their online store, I ordered this beautiful peacock mug with a gold handle and a butterfly throw blanket. They look so beautiful inside the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters where I've been keeping them. I've been decorating the place with things from your small businesses and I would not have it any other way. Check them out. I'm going to put the link to the store in my description along with what I bought. Okay, let's get back into it because I want to tell you about some more people who have seen this strange creature in the backwoods. Our first story comes from someone who would hunt in the high Uinta mountains of Utah with their grandfather. It was posted in the Crawlers Siding subreddit six years ago. They write, excuse this long

post, but I'm trying to give lots of detail and specifics on this experience. Let me first clarify that this was four years ago when I was 15 on a mule deer hunt in the far northeastern part of Utah, which contained some of the most remote and beautiful places in the state. I've been frequently out in this area in Summit County that cuts in and out of Lower Wyoming since before I can remember, including lots of hiking, backpacking, camping, hunting, and being involved in some of my grandfather's work. I am skeptical of things not proven by methods of science, but I don't deny all of those things. I find that it's impossible for science to know all of what's out there in our vast world. My grandfather is a recently retired biologist and a former conservation officer for the state. He's done

everything from habitat management programs to quite literally wrangling moose to be transplanted and darting black bears. He has seen mountain lions, bears, birds of all kinds, small mammals, plants and natural phenomena for a majority of his life. Other than this experience, he's never encountered an animal that he could not at least partially identify. It was late September, and we were in a small camp by a lake in the high you into mountains, hunting mule deer with muzzle, loaders. The camp was a small collection of men and women my grandfather had worked with over the years, and these were people I grew up with. One of the women, a new wife to one of the guys, had shot a buck deer, injuring but not killing it immediately, and they had lost track of it. Devastated

by the thought of wasting the animal, she returned to camp in the afternoon pretty upset, and also concerned that the deer had run into an even more secluded area of the mountains, which was hard to reach from the trail that she had shot it from. We volunteered to go in the late afternoon to search for the deer following a scant blood trail. Before we left, she mentioned that she had heard, but she assumed were coyotes, and that made her even more concerned

that if the deer died, they would ruin the meat before she could harvest it. We took off in the early evening, expecting to be back within an hour or two of searching and having our guns with us in case we found the animal still alive or came across another buck. It was steep in places,

making the hike slower and more tedious than we had hoped. We followed the blood trail for maybe 20 minutes, and then it got really hard to track. The sun was getting close to setting at this point, and we knew going out would be just as long as getting in. We had just about decided to stop when we found a spot near a fallen tree that looked like it had been recently bedded down. There were spatters of fairly fresh blood trailing away from it, so we continued to follow the trail. When the sun had just about set and the light had faded from the trees, we removed the firing caps from our guns to make them now completely safe as it was now illegal and irresponsible to hunt in the absence of light.

My grandfather pulled out his large maglight flashlight from his pack, and I put in my headlamp to begin the hike back using our GPS to find the trail ahead. About 10 minutes on the way back, we started to hear more movement among the trees. It was normal for animals to start moving now that the sun had gone down, as animals would likely be starting to head towards clearings for water or to graze in the safety of lower light. Small and distant sounds of crunching leaves, patterings of hooved animals, or small bits of movements in the trees from squirrels or birds were common and expected. We did not expect the deafening, disturbing sound that we heard next, which vaguely and initially reminded me of a coyote howl. but it seemed unidentifiable, frightening, and way too human-like. It started with what sounded like a person screaming,

but then it got louder and more intense, with a screech to it. So unlike any coyote or animal we had ever heard, then was chittering that came in between the shrieks and the movement in the trees that became almost calculated, and they were threatening. We stopped dead in our tracks, frozen as my grandfather started using the light to look around. I was far more freaked out than he was at this point. He just seemed perplexed, curious, and a little baffled at what could make that sound

because it sounded so human. We continued on after it mostly stopped, and it seemed like the other natural and distant sounds had almost gone silent. I listened intently to the sounds of my boots crunching with the dry aspen leaves underfoot, trying to tell myself that it was just some weird coyote. Maybe 20 minutes from the main trail that would lead us back to the truck, we heard the chittering sound again and sounds of thumping against dead trees. Looking around with our lights, that's when we saw it. This episode is brought to you by Alma. A year from today, who do you want to be? More patient, maybe less reactive. I always think about these things around the new year, and I know I want to work on managing my anxiety personally. Well, you deserve to feel like

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starts. That's helloalma.com slash H-E-A-R-T-S-T-A-R-T-R-S. That's H-E-L-L-O-A-L-M-A-L-M-A-L-M-A-L-M-A-L-M-A-L-M-A-L-RT-E. It is not hard to destroy a college. Last season, the podcast, Campus Files brought you stories of fraternity drug rings, stolen body parts, campus cults, and more. And now Campus Files is back for another season. There's a guy screaming into his phone. He's like, I just saw Charlie Kirk assassinated right in front of me. Every week is a new episode and a new story.

It was so chaotic. It's almost like a university on a siege. Listen to and follow campus files. Available now wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is brought to you by Kachava. If you've listened to more than one or two episodes of Heart Sats Pouting, you've probably heard me talk about Kachava at this point. And in case you've missed it, Kachava is a whole body meal shake.

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I actually don't just make the shakes if they send me product. I legitimately love drinking these. These shakes save me so much time. They keep my nutrition balanced, which is a major wellness goal of mine this year. Just two scoops provide 25 grams of protein, six grams of fiber, greens, adaptogens, and so much more. And I can make it different

every single time I drink one. Vanilla with almond milk and frozen fruit, chocolate with peanut butter, add a little cold brew. You can mix the strawberry and the matcha flavors together. It doesn't have to be boring to be well. So stick with your wellness goals. Go to kachava.com and use code HSP for 15% off. That's Kachava, kachava.k-h-a-com, code HSP. Maybe 12 to 15 feet in front of us was a large human-looking thing. It was almost hunched down with long, slender arms, and it was standing in front of an aspen. The aspen, of course, was pale white,

with the knots being dark brown, and whatever this thing was had skin almost as pale. I caught a very brief glimpse of its face. It was round, and the eyes were sunken, and I could not tell you eye color, other than a flash of reflection on the eye from my light, and that its face seemed sunken and emaciated. It was bony, like an animal that hadn't eaten in a long time

or that was seriously ill. I didn't see any fur or hair. I never felt like it looked right at me, though. For a mere couple of seconds, I caught a glimpse of it. But that was it. I looked down at the ground, holding my eyes shut, tight, trying to imagine being safe and secure in the truck, and my grandfather took a few stumbling steps backward after me.

I heard the thing go off to our side, moving quickly and with purpose through the trees. It went to the side and then it dropped down behind us. I would assume, according to the sound it made. Wherever it went, I just hoped it was in the opposite direction. I have never before and never since seen my grandfather so confused, baffled, horrified, curious, and in awe. I was crying at this point, ugly crying, and I asked him, what was that over and over and over again, I asked.

And he had no answer for me. He pulled his gun off of his shoulder, made it live, and then he carried it in front of his body and his arm. He pulled out another headlight and put it on himself. We started walking again towards the trail, and he began talking to himself, listing things to prove to himself what it wasn't, saying things like,

couldn't have been a deer or an elk or a moose, it had arms, it was hunched, it stood upright, or a bear? A very sick bear? It could have been a bear. Was it the light? We heard the sound, the screeching human howl distantly once more before reaching the trail, which was dirt and gravel, but fairly flat and no deadfall. We practically jogged back to the truck. I locked the doors immediately and sobbed and my grandfather turned on music as loud as possible to try to distract me on the way back to camp. I was a mess when we arrived back and he went to talk with the others by the fire. He explained something to his friend, but I don't know exactly what he said.

The next day, though, everyone was extra sweet to me, trying to comfort me and saying that it was probably a sick animal, and it just looked really scary in the dark. The deer the hunter shot was found the next day in the light, scavenged quite harshly by what I assume was coyotes. To this day, I have no idea what that creature was, nor what that sound was. The scientist in me and at my grandfather hopes

and speculates that it was just a deformed and sick animal and scant light, I still have no clue what that thing was, and I hope I never experienced it again. The worst thought I had in all of this was, I've been in a search party for a couple of missing people in that same general area and region, and it terrifies me to think that something like that could have happened to people that have gone missing.

The area I'm in and the surrounding area have a ton of caves, too, and I've always wondered if that had something to do with this. Now, the poster leaves us with this final question. Anybody have any ideas? Am I in the right place? Sorry again for the long story, but it helps me remember details if I tell the whole thing. Now, someone in the comments immediately says that it sounds like what this poster saw was a crawler. And they also say, quote, the thought that they could be responsible for the number of missing people is terrifying.

But then this commenter also brought something up that I thought was really interesting and I wanted to share with you all. They said, quote, what the poster said about taking the bodies of missing people into the caves. Well, have you seen the maps of areas where people have gone missing and the area of the country where there is an unbelievably large, frighteningly widespread cave network? The two maps overlay each other almost identically. What if something is inhabiting these caves and is responsible for these incidents? I will attempt to find the maps and post them here so that you too can be scared out of your socks and have as many sleepless nights as I've had thinking about this possibility. This commenter then goes on to share that map, and if you're listening on audio only,

I'm going to share it on our socials that's at heart starts pounding. And in this map, you can see an overlay of clusters of missing people in America and the cave networks that run throughout this country. And at first glance, these maps really do seem to line up. But this got me thinking, is there really something like this out there? And who has seen it? And basically, what is the deal with it? So in classic cards, I spent all night researching these creatures.

And now I'm not so sure what's going on. So I want to rewind a little bit. And I want to start out by giving you a little more context on some of these sightings and the different types of crawlers that are said to exist. The way that the crawler is described in the first two stories is pretty standard for most crawler sightings. From a distance, they can look human, like in the first story that we heard, which is why sometimes people will approach them. But once you note their behavior, it's evident that something is wrong. First off, they crawl. That's their defining characteristic.

They can crawl at extreme speeds, completely silently or nearly silent. They're also only ever seen at night, and they're believed to be nocturnal. But because these creatures have been seen all around the country, there seems to be different categories of them, even though they all share similar characteristics. So there's hail crawlers. This is the most commonly reported type. They're described as thin, humanoid creatures with translucent skin.

They have long, gangly limbs with claws and large black eyes. Some reports note that they have white pupils that will glow in the dark. They stand out around 6 to 8 feet tall when they're upright, and they typically move on all fours but are capable of just moving on two. Reports describe them as incredibly fast, stealthy, and intelligent, sometimes with a wet sheen covering their bodies. Now there's also Fleshgates. Tales of Fleshgates were first shared on Furchand, which kind of adds an element of internet urban legend to them. Fleshgates possess a key distinguishing feature, though. They can shape-shift, and they also have mimicry abilities

that allow them to take on the appearance and the voice of people. Unlike pale crawlers, Fleshgates are associated with a strong coppery or some describe it as blood odor. Next, we have Appalachian Crawlers. This is a regional variant concentrated in West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, and the surrounding states. Appalachian crawlers appear in the state.

the heavily forested mountain regions. This is also potentially what that man who made the first 911 call saw. And then, last but not least, there is, from the depths of my nightmares, cave crawlers. This is potentially related to the cave disappearance idea. There's a theory that there is a subterranean species of crawler. They have pale skin, which is supposed to be an adaptation to underground environments. It's basically what you see in the movie The Descent, if you've ever seen. it. Reports of these crawlers cluster near caves and abandoned mines. Mount Shasta encounters

mentioned creatures pulling people towards these caves. And then there's also folklore in Missouri that references, quote, human-like creatures living in absolute darkness. Now, if you know anything about the caves of Appalachia, you know that there is centuries of lore of creatures that live in those caves. I actually did an entire episode on creepy Appalachian caves and coal mine lore for subscribers, it's on our Patreon and Apple podcast. I'm going to link the episode in the description if you want to hear more. A lot of this lore talks about a specific

creature called Tommy Knockers. These are little dwarf-like creatures that live in the local caves and coal mines and they actually knock on the walls right before there's a big collapse. And this comes from hundreds, if not thousands of coal miners that have said they heard these knocks

right before disaster struck. I mean, maybe what they were hearing was the structure of the tunnels cracking before they crumbled, maybe there's nothing weird or scary about caves. Though, as someone who did go spulunking one time, I refuse to believe that. If you're listening and you're a regular caver, I am begging you to prove to me that caves are super normal because others argue that Tommy Knockers are just the tip of the iceberg of what lives in our cave system here in America, and that cave dwellers are responsible

for a lot more disappearances than we'll ever know. know but crawlers aren't just seen in caves and they're also not just seen in the united states though i know a lot of what we've talked about today is local to the u.s and our next story that i want to share with you takes us a little bit further north into canada now i've mentioned this before to me at least canada is one of the strangest and scariest places we've covered windegos that live deep in the boreal forest the highway of tears where indigenous people have disappeared and drove since the 1970s. And so it does make sense to me that this next story happened up there.

It was posted on the subreddit high strangeness four years ago. And it reads, I need to clarify that while religious, I'm not particularly superstitious. I've never experienced or truly believed in anything paranormal or unexplainable. This story is the one and only experience I have that has made me even consider the possibility of otherworldly forces. And if I hadn't experienced this personally, I would assume with a great deal of certainty that it's a complete lie. So for some context of the area I was in, my great-uncle owns a lot of land in northern Saskatchewan, Canada. Some of this was pasture that he used for cattle, but half of one of his largest properties is fenced off and the cows can't go in there. In this sectioned off

lactose-free zone, the entire place is densely packed with foliage. A lot of the brush is too thick to get through without a machete. The ground itself is blotted with some small, steep hills towards the entrance of the property. There is one main dirt road that goes from a Texas gate at the entrance all the way back to the farthest side of the property, coming off the road in the hilly area where we have a camp. The camp consists of a camperized ATCO trailer in front of the entrance, which is gated with barbed wire. My mom also has a pull behind trailer that sits perpendicular to the ATCO, as well as a 14-foot pull behind trailer that a family member gave to me so that I could have privacy at camp. Now, we have always had lots of wildlife, like big cats and bears that

could harm people. So since I was young, I learned to recognize the sounds and the sights around me. While I'm cautious, I'm rarely afraid of anything out there, especially given that I'm usually armed when I'm not with multiple people. The summer before last, we had a remarkably calm experience there. There were hardly any critters that we had to deal with, and it seemed like the bears and pests were leaving us alone. There were no droppings, many small game trails had grown in, and the camp that usually took two days to set up was exactly how we left it the previous trip. It was really peaceful. Now, since it was summer, I filled the days with woodworking, fishing trips, and the occasional hike looking for berries and setting traps for rabbits and other small game

that could be prepared quickly over the fire with my family. Mostly, though, I came up unlucky. Regardless of the lack of disturbances, we always were careful at night to make sure to have a bright light and kept a lookout for anything. After the first week at camp, we began hearing noises around very late at night.

I didn't think much of it, but they would drive the dog up the wall to the point where we just had to keep her inside. I would check it out, but I never saw anything. It almost felt like whatever it was was robing and checking out our camp nightly, but was always staying far enough away and hidden enough that we could never see it with our spotlights. Then one night, just like any other, I left my mom's camper a couple of hours after the daylight had disappeared with a lantern-style LED light, and as a rarity, I didn't have anything to defend myself.

No gun, no bear spray, not even a knife. So I was a little bit more cautious and observant than usual, given that I felt more vulnerable. As I walked from the exit of my mom's camper, I looked around for a minute, scanning the tree line, and then began the loop around to my door. I was about 20 feet away from it, when I saw a naked, extremely pale,

almost gray, lanky, humanoid figure, standing still and directly facing me. As it caught my gaze, I felt my heart drop and immediately went cold. I probably only stared for three seconds at most, but it felt like several minutes as my brain processed what I was seeing. It stood somewhere between six and a half and seven and a half feet tall with low slumped shoulders, and it had a frail, thin body with disproportionately long limbs. I couldn't see the legs fully, but what I could see looked like sinew and skin stretched over the leanest and thinnest body I had ever seen.

I know I might be sounding dramatic, but I couldn't describe the primal fear and shock that came over me. It was like a combination of the feeling you get being threatened at gunpoint and hearing something stalk you in the woods, but it was ramped up to the point where I could barely think. I couldn't make out many details of the face, but it was almost like Voldemort and Slender Man had a love child. I ran like my life depended on it, the last few feet to my door. And once I was inside, I grabbed my shotgun, stuffed several. Shells in my pockets loaded the gun and aimed it at the door. I sat in silence with the hammer cocked back waiting for the doorknob to turn or the frosted

glass to break. I sat and waited for hours into the early morning, expecting to see or hear something, but I never did, not even any foliage or anything moving outside. Eventually around 4 a.m., I lowered my guard, cropped the shotgun next to my bed, and hesitantly went to sleep. When I woke up, I hardly believed in what I had seen the night before. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it, but I do have some ideas from what I witnessed. Given the fact that I believed it was stalking us and staking out our camp for several nights, along with positioning itself between me and my mother's camper, directly in front of the path that I took every night.

It leads me to believe that this thing had some level of intelligence. Comparable to how a person lays a trap or set something up in an area where they know there's activity. I mentioned I looked around after exiting my mother's camper and never heard anything, which tells me that it either was waiting there watching me, or it was so incredibly quiet that I never even heard it. It also left as quietly as it appeared, which leaves three options. Either it went out of its way to use the same road entering the camp that a person would for convenience, it silently crept out through the game trails,

or it didn't leave until after I had lowered my guard and my adrenaline died down. I'm honestly not sure which option is the most likely or the most off-putting. I'm not really sure what I saw, but I know it wasn't human. The photos and drawings of these crawlers remind me a great deal of it, so I thought I would share. Maybe one of you could enlighten me as to what it could have been doing or its intent or provide an explanation to its behavior. I know it's not worth much online, but hand to God,

swear this isn't a piece of fanciful writing and I would be happy to share any other details if anyone wants any more info or further clarification. Now, I was reading through some of the comments that people had written under this post and one of them really jumped out at me. Because someone pointed out that they had heard of this type of creature before in this specific area because this is something that they've actually seen a video of. Turns out, a few years prior, A woman in Quebec pulled over to the side of the road, a small two-lane backroad in the Canadian wilderness, not unlike the road that the first 911 call took place on. She had seen a moose grazing and she wanted to take a video of it, which, side note,

if you ever see a moose in the wilderness, definitely stay away. They are legitimately murderous psychos and they will take you and your whole family out. But anyways, she captured this cute little video of the moose and then she just went on her way. It wasn't until later when she was showing that video to a friend that she noticed there was something else in the frame. You can see it in the video, which again I'm going to be sharing on our socials, but to the left of the moose, a figure emerges from the woods. It's pale, it's thin, it's human, but not exactly, and it appears to be moving on all fours. She posted the video to the internet and it immediately went viral, leading many to wonder, could this have been? what the poster of this Reddit post had seen as well.

Okay, and finally for this episode, I want to share with you what is probably the most famous crawler sighting. Because there is one place in America that claims they have their own type of crawler, but one that looks very different than the others. It's the Fresno night crawler, located in central California, in and around Fresno. And according to those who have seen it, It looks like, and I can't believe I'm saying this, a pair of pants.

The first sighting was on November 5, 2007, when a man in Fresno named Jose woke to the sound of his dog's barking. Not fully awake, he looked at his home security camera that was pointed at his yard and saw a specter walking across the frame. Whatever this thing was, it looked exactly like a white, ghostly pair of pants. The clip of this, which is now just a recording of the recording. went absolutely viral, and people started coming forward with their own stories of seeing this strange, ghostly pair of pants

in their Fresno neighborhoods. And then, in 2011, another clip of this thing went viral. This time it was outside of Fresno closer to Yosemite National Park, and this time there were two spectres in the frame, one bigger and one smaller, almost like a mother and baby crawler,

slowly walking. Fresno was really quick to embrace its cryptid, putting the Fresno Nightcrawler on t-shirts and bumper stickers pretty much right away. It was kind of a big joke to the tourism committee of the area, but the people who lived there kept coming forward with more stories, like this one that I want to read for you. This one was posted in the cryptid subreddit three years ago by user specialist Tip 8341, and it reads,

I 22 Mail just recently got the opportunity to hike Halfdome in Yosemite, But near the end of my hike, I had a rather strange encounter. I was coming down the trail around 6 p.m. It was still light out right after you crossed the Vernal Falls Bridge and had a clear view of the massive granite cliffs below Washburn Point. When all of a sudden, I noticed an out-of-place object nestled in an alcove roughly halfway up the thousand-foot-tall cliffside. It was a bright white color, wider than any of the naturally occurring pattern,

on the rock, and it was shaped like two big, billowy pant legs. Think like MC Hammer Pants. They were connected at the top with some sort of odd white shape where the legs came together. The object didn't appear to be made of any sort of fabric, however, as it didn't move or ripple in the high winds like you would expect a piece of fabric to. It's also worth noting that this was in September, so no snow anywhere on the mountainside. It was quite far away, but even so I would estimate its height at around seven or eight feet tall. I stopped my descent to stare at it for a second when another hiker passed me and stopped to strike up a conversation. I asked her if she saw that thing up on the cliffside and immediately she points up at the white object and goes,

yeah, that thing that looks like a kid in a white bath towel, I was wondering if you were looking at the same thing when you stopped. Mind you, this mountain that we were looking at is huge, like big enough to fill your entire field of view from where we were standing huge. And out of all of that, she knew even before I had said anything exactly what I was looking at, the weird white pant thing up on the cliff. She described it as a child in a towel. I expect because the gap between the white pant legs made it look like a white object wrapped around a darker object. I asked her if she had ever heard of the Fresno nightcrawler, which she hadn't.

And as I explained to her what they looked like, she kept staring at the thing on the cliffside and declared, that's exactly what I'm looking at. I kept stopping to look back at it from different angles as we descended further down the trail, and each time the perspective shifted in such a way to confirm that it was some sort of solid object, not just markings on the granite.

I have to believe that it's some sort of strange foreign object that was planted up there or optical illusion created by a particularly stark white piece of granite cliff, but it was very eerie how neatly it appeared to match the nightcrawler security cam slash trail cam footage. Now, is there really something hiding out in the North American backwoods, living in national parks, forests, and some of the underground caves?

Some people have mentioned that the Fresno Nightcrawler videos could be some sort of video manipulation. Maybe it's a real person walking around and their top half just got distorted somehow, which made them look just like a pair of poltergeisty pants. But what do you think? You can leave a comment wherever you listen. I absolutely love hearing from you all.

That's all I have for you today though. I'm gonna be back here next week with more scary stories for you guys. This time I have a very fun collaboration that I cannot wait to share with you. But that's all for next week. Join me back here in the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters then. And until then, stay curious. Ooh. Hearts Arts Outing is written and produced by me, Kayla Moore.

Hearts Arts Arts Pounding is also produced by Matt Brown. Our associate producer is Juno Hobbs. Sound design and mixed by Red Rum Creative. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grace and Jernigan and the team at WME. Have a heart pounding story or a case request. Check out heartsartspounding.com.