Case file · Folklore / legend
The Dark Watchers
Tall, dark human-like silhouettes, sometimes with hats or staffs, said to watch travellers from the ridges of the Santa Lucia Mountains above Big Sur at dusk and to vanish if approached.
1937 CE · 36.15, -121.62 · status: legend
The account
Robinson Jeffers wrote of them in 'Such Counsels You Gave to Me' (1937) and John Steinbeck in the story 'Flight' (1938); both drew on local tradition. Settlers are said to have called them 'los vigilantes oscuros'.
The sceptical view
The 'Brocken spectre', a hiker's shadow cast onto mist or fog, and odd-shaped rocks and trees in low light explain the descriptions well. Despite popular claims, nothing like the legend has been found in Chumash or Salinan mythology.