The Legend of the Dark Watchers

6/30/2025

by M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
Dark Watchers are beings described as tall, featureless silhouettes. Not always, but sometime they wear a brimmed hat or carry walking sticks. Most often seen between dusk to dawn, they appear as motionless figures that watch travelers from afar. Their legend originates in the Santa Lucia Mountain Range, and if you try to approach them they disappear.

Santa Lucia Mountains c.2014

In 1542, Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was the first European to sight the Santa Lucia Mountains, and they were named by cartographer Sebastian Vizcaino 60 years later.

The first accounts of these figures date back to the 18th century when the Spanish settlers referred to them as Los Vigilantes Oscuros.

They was no reference to the Dark Watchers from the Chumash who lived in the area prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Sightings of these silhouettes have been reported for 300 years up to present day. They are seen on cliffs where no human could climb, looking out to sea. Some have described them as being only 3 feet in height, akin to fairy folk. However most reports describe them as being very tall, between 7 and 10 feet in height. They have been sighted in the area from Avila Beach to Monterey.

John Steinbeck described the Dark Watchers in his 1938 short story Flight:

Pepé looked suspiciously back every minute or so, and his eyes sought the tops of the ridges ahead. Once, on a white barren spur, he saw a black figure for a moment; but he looked quickly away, for it was one of the dark watchers. No one knew who the watchers were, nor where they lived, but it was better to ignore them and never to show interest in them. They did not bother one who stayed on the trail and minded his own business.

No one has seen the face of a Dark Watcher

Steinbeck's son, Thomas Steinbeck would report later in adulthood that as a child he had seen the Dark Watchers. With Benjamin Brode as illustrator, he wrote In Search of the Dark Watchers.

In it he described where the Dark Watchers sense or smell the presence of gun oil, and other modern day materials like plastics, which in part is why they are so elusive. They appear to prefer hikers who carry only low-tech, old-school gear. They also appear to have exceptional hearing, and impeccable eyesight.

Thomas Steinbeck described where his grandmother Olive Hamilton Steinbeck believed she had contact with the Dark Watchers, who stayed hidden in the forest. She told her family she left fruits and nuts in a basket in a shaded alcove east of a trail on Mule Deer Canyon. She would walk this path on her way to teach school in Big Sur. After a couple of weeks she would return, and the food was gone and in its place were sea shells and feathers. She believed they were trading with her.

Dark Watchers are also known to were wide brimmed hats

In modern times hikers tell of feelings of being watched, and when they turn, only a fleeting glance is caught of a tall, dark figure.

Some say they are omens of bad luck if sighted, perhaps because they resemble the grim reaper. Others say they are benign, and only watch humans from afar.

There are reports of Dark Watchers in Canada, Texas, Alabama and the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains.. A pilot reported seeing seven of them while flying north of Vandenberg Air Force Base in 2011.

Even those traveling along the Pacific Coast Highway at dusk have looked out their car window and seen those lonely figures.

Excerpt from Robinson Jeffers poem Such Counsels You Gave to Me originally published in 1937:

He thought it might be one of the watchers, who are often seen in this length of coast-range, forms that look human to human eyes, but certainly are not human. They come from behind ridges to watch. He was not surprised when the figure turning toward him in the quiet twilight showed his own face. Then it melted and merged into the shadows beyond it.

These are stories told by those who have had disquieting sightings of what they believe are Dark Watchers:

My lady and I were walking along the beach in Malibu one night and when we were walking she stopped and just kept looking up ahead. I looked where she was looking and I saw something crouched down and stand up. It stood taller than an average person and I heard her say 'you saw that thing stand up right?' After she said that we saw another climb down a big rock on the coastline. These things didn’t look natural and had no features to say they were just other people. We turned around and just headed back towards our car

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I live in the countryside of Madera. About 2 years ago, I saw a tall thin figure standing in the shadow staring at me. I couldn’t see the face, what type of clothing it had on, nothing! I froze and kept my eyes on it, my cousin saw it too and she dragged me inside the house. I didn’t want to keep my eyes off of it, I thought if I turned my back on it, it would get me. Just today, another cousin came out last night to have some drinks. He said while he was outside, he saw a tall thin figure watching him. He also froze, he said when he blinked it vanished. He ran inside to get us and we all ran outside looking for this shadow.

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I was driving home from a beach trip with my girlfriend in 2016, going through Cuyama it was pitch black outside, we saw a large shadow figure glide across the road in front of our headlights. No notable features, just a large dark shadowy creature. If she wasn't awake to confirm what I just saw, I would have chocked it up to me being tired, but she saw what I saw. We let it go until a few days ago, when we brought it up again, searched up shadow people in Cuyama, and learned about "dark watchers" in Santa Lucia. This is so crazy to learn we aren't alone in this experience.

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Back when I was a teenager I used to go hiking in the desert and a mountain range where I lived 7 miles outside of Blythe, CA. One afternoon I went deeper into the mountain range than I had ever hiked before when I felt like I was being watched. The hairs on my arms stood up. I quickly started looking around fearing a mountain lion was near by, when I looked up towards the top of the mountain and saw a small cave-like opening at the top of a sheer wall. There looking out towards the valley I could see a hooded human figure. I could not see its face since it looked like it was covered by a thin veil but the hood and cloak looked tattered and ripped. The figure made no movements. I turned around and started to walk back the way I came and never went back to that area of the mountain range. That area was not well-traveled since there were no dirt roads or tracks so who knows what was up there. All I know is it was not human and I've never been back since. This was back in mid 90s.

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I've camped a few times in the Santa Lucia range near to Cone Peak, right near the coast and the 1. We were camping up on some of the coastal ridges there, overlooking the ocean, and definitely experienced some very strange energy. My first time up there, there were three of us, including myself. One person and myself both actually spotted one of the watchers up on a high ridge, partially obscured by low-flying clouds. Neither of us were familiar with them at this time and chocked it up to a tree. When we slept that night, we felt an indescribable discomfort and decided to keep driving north the next morning

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My boyfriend I were driving from Arroyo Grande to Stockton. About an hour outside of Arroyo Grande, we saw a dark human figure in the hills. It was several hundred yards away from the road, and seemed to be trudging laboriously uphill in the 95 degree sun. Despite rubbernecking multiple times to try to get a better look, we could distinguish no identifying marks, no seams of clothing, no hint of shoes or anything. Just solid black walking up the hill under the burning afternoon sun. There was a small station with a tank and satellite on the opposite side of the road. I wonder if we didn’t see some strange ritual.

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I was hiking up a remote trail up the 33 in Ojai, I was about an hour up the mountain, no people, no cars in sight. as I was hiking, I had this eerie feeling I was being watched. I looked up at the top of the mountain. It was a black figure. I waved, jokingly, not really thinking the object was a person. It waved back. Thinking I was maybe tripping, or that it was a tree waving in the wind, I took a puff of my cigarette, only to see the figure blow out a plume of smoke as well. I started seeing it flowing, and I say flowing, almost floating vertically. I ran like hell back to my car, spraining my knee in the process.

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I live in the country in Canada I saw a 7ft man very slowly walking along the fence line. He seemed to be all a solid shadow. But because he appeared to be behind the 6ft fence I didn't get a good look at him. Every time it is twilight I look out at all the fences to see him again to confirm what I saw, but I haven't seen him since.

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I'm a long distance runner and most of my training is in up in the good old Californian Mountains. I had a long run scheduled so I headed out. I headed to Veterans Park here in the San Fernando Valley. Time of day was 2:00 pm I was running and up in an area where no human could climb without gear I saw a black figure in plain daylight. I have never seen anything like it up in the mountain. It was as darker than dark, and I could not explain it. A year passed and I saw it again and in the same spot.

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I saw a dark figure about 7ft tall in one of the mountain by Vernal, Utah. it was a late winter, lots of snow, the moon was full and the light reflected off the snow so I had no problem seeing. I worked nights for a siesmic company as a trouble shooter. I heard a crew member say on the radio that he saw Jeepers Creeper, and he dropped everything he had and ran back to his truck. We thought that he was up too long without sleep, so they sent me to his location to finish what he had to do. While walking on top of the mountain to fix the problem, I saw it 20 feet in front of me. My heart started beating fast, I tried to run but it was hard because of the snow. As I was running it seemed to float on the snow. It moved really fast and start to circle me then stop. All I had on me was a pocket knife. I pulled it out and started to prey for GOD to help me fight it. I started to run towards it, I got about 10 ft. from it and it started to move back fast. I lost sight of it in the dark. I never saw its face, and it had a robe like the reaper. I don't know what it was.

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I remember one day my friend and I were coming back from Los Angeles. We passed the San Luis Obispo reservoir, and as we drove on the road I saw something at a distance down at the end of the mountain. It was a really big human figure, but it wasn't. It had a Black Cape kind of like the grim reaper and it was leaning over holding on to a staff at a "puddle of water" or so that is what it seemed at a distance. It was in daytime too, so I could identify it wasn't a person. Even in mid-light he was very black and reminded me of a raven. I told my friend that was driving to look over at the mountains, and surprisingly she was able to see a glimpse of it. I asked her what she saw without giving her my details, and she said exactly what I saw. She only looked at it for about 5 seconds, but she was able to see it. She almost lost control of the car too when she looked away at it, and I begged her to go back and see it, but she was very tired of driving already. These Dark Watchers are real!

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One early morning when my car was in the shop and my sister was taking me to and from work in Salinas over San Juan Grade Rd. we where coming home to the San Juan Bautista/Hollister side when we saw a very large dark figure standing at the edge of the mountains, which is extremely weird since I've never seen anyone cross over the barbed wire fence, and I travel that road daily and at all hours. We drove slowly behind the figure noticing it staring off into the distancing valleys and mountains (Fremonts Peak). It appeared to have a large cape with straight shoulders that where very broad. It seemed to have a hunch on it's back. At first from a distance I thought it was a condor but when I got closer it stood almost over 10 ft tall. It did not notice us driving behind it but when we found a spot on the cliff road to turn around and get a better look it was gone.

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Many many years ago I was with a friend driving through a dirt field here in Moreno Valley near Allessandro (old east part) near what I believe were old abandoned barns, that I always had heard were haunted when my friends car broke down. This could have been coincidence, it was a beat up Volkswagen bug. It was dusk at best and there was no way we were going to make it out of the field before it was pitch black, and instead of chancing getting retardedly lost and/or hurt in the dark we decided to sleep in the car, and set out in the morning to go get help to tow the car. Thi was wayyyyy before the days of everyone having cell phones and quick help. As we were killing time, in the pitch black now, we were hanging out inside and outside of the car, sharing smokes, and we started to distinctly see what looked like black shadows, evenly distributed completely encircling us. They did not move, they stayed motionless but were of significant size and based on the distance, I would say at least the size of a small car like the bug we ourselves were in. Whatever these were seemed hunched over, perhaps kneeling. Time passed, they never moved and though we walked around the car and got in and out of the car to see if what we were seeing was some sort of optical illusion, yet we couldn't explain or discredit what we were seeing. To this day, it racks my brain.

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Up here in the Eastern Sierras, we see the Dark Watchers all the time. They are always out at dusk and dawn. All you see is just a tall dark silhouette. They almost look like horses standing on their hind legs with the assistance of a walking stick. Its pretty creepy, and nobody has ever seen them close up. They disappear the moment you try to get closer.