Previously: The Red Piano.
Type: PE (Preternatural Entity).
Period/location of origin: Subject was first observed on Nov. 5, 2007 in the city of Fresno, California. It is not known whether subject predates this observation, or whether it is originally from Fresno.
Appearance: Subject, known as the “Fresno Nightcrawler,” appears to be a disembodied pair of pants or trousers, approximately two to three feet in height, walking around on their own. There may or may not be a small head attached directly to the top of the trousers — where the waistband would be, if subject were, in fact, a pair of sentient trousers.
Subject is likely NOT a pair of sentient trousers.
Subject is also not singular; there appear to be multiple Nightcrawlers roaming Fresno — and possibly the wider world, as well.
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Modus operandi: Unknown. Subject mostly seems to like to just… run around at night in unexpected locales. Whether it actively enjoys confusing those who witness it — and acts accordingly — or whether its goal is simply to exist remains to be seen.
Containment: Unknown; possibly not required. Subject is, as far as this researcher knows, still on the loose.
Additional notes: The first known sighting of subject allegedly occurred on Nov. 5, 2007, when a Fresno resident, identified only as “Jose,” reportedly spotted it on his security system’s camera footage. Jose had initially set up the cameras due to a rash of burglaries and break-ins in his area; however, on the evening of Nov. 5, he awoke to the sound of his dogs barking and discovered that one of his cameras had caught not a burglar, but what he later described as a pair of white pajama pants walking unassisted across his lawn. A second creature with the same appearance followed shortly after the first.
Shortly after recording it, Jose brought the footage the Spanish-language television network Univision, who then contacted paranormal investigator Victor Camacho of the website and radio program Los Desvelados (in translation, “The Sleepless Ones”). Camacho posted a video to the Desvelado network’s YouTube channel examining the footage on Nov. 19, 2007. Following the airing of the footage on Univision, subject gained the name by which it is popularly known: The Fresno Nightcrawler.
Camacho later spoke of the experience in at the 2008 MUFON UFO Symposium in San Jose, California. According to Camacho, the television network wanted Camacho to assert, on air, that the footage displayed evidence of aliens present on Earth. Camacho said he was unwilling to make this assertion due to insufficient evidence.
He did, however, note that Jose did appear to be genuinely frightened by what he had witnessed, and desperately sought answers to the questions he had about it. This resulted in Camacho visiting Jose several months later to walk through the property, so as to get a better sense of where precisely subject had passed and what route it had taken. Camacho recorded this walk-through on video and presented it in his talk.
“Jose” is, unfortunately, no longer with us; the Fresno Bee reported in 2018 that, according to Camacho, he had passed away a few years prior following a vehicular collision.
An alleged second sighting of subject is believed to have occurred in 2011 in Yosemite National Park. In footage reportedly recorded on March 28 of that year by another security system set up as a safeguard against burglary, two pairs of what look like voluminous white pants can be seen to stride unassisted across the lawn. The movement of the creatures seen in this footage is somewhat different than that displayed in the 2007 video, prompting questions of whether the Yosemite sighting is, in fact, another sighting of subject.
A 2014 alleged sighting of a creature in the Fort Hill area of Highland County, Ohio has also been linked to subject, although it is not clear whether or not the creature actually is another example of a Nightcrawler, or whether it simply shares some common characteristics with it. As reported in the Highland County Press at the time, the witnesses of the sighting described the creature as “asphalt gray… and about seven feet tall,” with “no arms that [they] could see” and “no jawline,” but with “muscular” legs that “bent backward,” causing the creature to “[lean] forward as it ran.” Notable differences between the Carmel Area Creature, is it is sometimes known, include its height — at an approximate seven feet in height, it is more than twice the believed height of the Fresno Nightcrawler — and the fact that it appears as muscular legs, rather than loose pants or trousers
An additional alleged sighting was recorded in Poland in 2017. Footage of this sighting appears much the same as the 2007 and 2011 sightings and offers no new information about subject.
Theories abound regarding what, precisely, these Fresno Nightcrawlers might be. Aliens or beings of an otherwise extraterrestrial nature is a popular one; indeed, subject’s inclusion in several reality shows centered around the paranormal and UFOlogy, including a 2010 episode of the Syfy series Fact Or Faked: Paranormal Files and a 2022 episode of History’s The Proof Is Out There, have done much to maintain this theory’s popularity.
However, there are also plenty of earthly possibilities, as well. Subject may simply have been a deer standing on its hind legs, for instance.
Additionally, the possibility that any — or all — of the alleged recordings of subject might be hoaxes cannot be ignored. As YouTuber Captain Disillusion demonstrated in 2012, it would have been quite easy to create the original 2007 footage with camera trickery and movie magic. Additionally, it has been suggested that subject’s appearance in several of the extant videos said to depict it feature not a strange creature, but clever demonstrations of the very human skills of puppetry or stilt-walking.
Regardless, subject maintains a great deal of popularity; this researcher would even go so far as to call it a beloved fixture of pop culture: Artists have rendered numerous interpretations of subject; merchandise such as T-shirts, stickers, and even plushies may be purchased depicting subject; and so on and so forth. As Michael Banti of Weird Fresno put it to the Fresno Bee in 2018, subject has a certain degree of cuteness that helps bolster its reputation; these days, Banti sees the Fresno Nightcrawler as “up there with Chupacabra, the Mothman, and Bigfoot.” It seems to be particularly enjoyed by those outside of Fresno, rather than those who actually hail from the city; either way, though, it is abundantly clear that people really love the Fresno Nightcrawler.
It is unknown whether subject is connected in any way other than thematically to the Dr. Seuss narrative poem “What Was I Afraid Of?” Appearing within the collection The Sneetches And Other Stories, which was first published in 1961, “What Was I Afraid Of?” features a disembodied pair of green trousers that repeatedly frightens the poem’s narrator. It is eventually revealed that the Pale Green Pants are lonely as a result of its condition — potential friends are routinely frightened away from approaching, due to the pants’ eerie appearance — after which the narrator and the Pale Green Pants become close friends.
Perhaps, like the Pale Green Pants, the Fresno Nightcrawler simply desires company.
Recommendation: Live and let live. The seemingly sentient trousers do not, after all, appear to be malicious or hostile.
And anyway: Who doesn’t enjoy a nighttime stroll from time to time?
Resources:
“Cute Cryptid: Fresno Nightcrawler Is A Paranormal Darling With Supernatural Fandom” at the Fresno Bee.
Original 2007 Fresno Nightcrawler footage, looped several times.
Victor Camacho commenting on the original footage in 2007.
Victor Camacho’s 2008 talk at the MUFON UFO Symposium.
2011 Yosemite sighting of the Fresno Nightcrawler.
“Strange Creature Reported In Carmel Area” in the Highland County Press.
2017 Poland sighting of the Fresno Nightcrawler.
Sinisterhood podcast, episode 192: “The Fresno Nightcrawler.”
“Fresno Nightcrawlers” at The Human Exception.
Captain Disillusion on the Fresno Nightcrawlers.
Weird Fresno. (Early Nightcrawlers coverage circa 2008-2011 here, here, and here.)
Recreation of “What Was I Afraid Of?” by Theodor “Dr. Seuss” Geisel.
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