Posted on 03/15/2021 5:30:39 PM PDT by BenLurkin
For hundreds of years, people have looked up at the hazy peaks of California's Santa Lucia Mountains at sunset and seen tall, cloaked figures staring back. Then, within moments, the eerie silhouettes disappear.
These twilight apparitions are known as the Dark Watchers — shady, sometimes 10-foot-tall (3 meters) men bedecked in sinister hats and capes.
One famous observer who felt the presence of the Watchers was the American author John Steinbeck. In his 1938 short story "Flight," a character sees a black figure leering down at him from a nearby ridgetop, "but he looked quickly away, for it was one of the dark watchers," Steinbeck wrote. "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."
One theory...it's a classic case of pareidolia: a psychological phenomenon in which an observer's brain finds patterns or significance in a vague or random image.
This pattern-seeking effect could be amplified by the presence of fog or low-flying clouds, according to Dowd. Shadows cast against clouds are responsible for another infamous illusion, known as the Brocken specter.
"German locals near the Harz Mountains have, for centuries, reported seeing shadowy figures on Brocken peak," Dowd wrote. "In reality, the Brocken spectre … happens when shadows — like those of a hiker — are cast on particularly misty mountain peaks...."
The spectral figures are usually surrounded by a rainbow-colored halo, produced by sunlight refracting off of water droplets in the fog or clouds, according to the BBC. While it's common in the Harz Mountains, where fogs frequently creep in at low altitudes, you can see the effect on any misty mountainside with the sun at your back and the clouds below you.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Timothy Leary’s dead
Terence McKenna had a great term for such “spooky” or “weird” stuff.
He called them “metaphysical spankings”, natures way of reminding us we are not at the top of the hierarchy of being.
I would like to purchase a sinister hat and cape myself.
Centuries?
The good ol’ Stoned Ape Theory...
Pareidolia - Face on Mars:
http://www.universetoday.com/103326/faces-and-animals-on-mars-pure-pareidolia/
I’ve been mountain biking around the wild lands of California for almost 40 years now - and I can tell you I have surprised many a man woman child an animal Alike !
I’m very polite however, I never ever run anybody over
In fact I’ve sacrificed myself first a few times
I through hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 1975, most of which is in California, and never experienced this.
Going for the Snidley Whiplash look?
No, no, no, no, no, he’s outside, looking in.
I have seen some really weird, strange things in the East Tennessee mountains......
I quit drinkin’ moonshine in 1996 and haven’t seen any of these things since.....
That’s a good idea. I also admired Snidely. And I could tie my ex-wife to a railroad track. She won’t mind. Heheh.
Yes, that’s the look I’m going for.
Yikes!
A sighting of the Witch of the Chappaquiddick waste, looking, no doubt, for her lost bottle of chardonnay! (I do not see her familiar, Huma Cat!)
This bird is one of the freakiest I have seen and would scare me at night. It doesn’t make a sound in this video but the sound it does make is as freaky as it looks when it opens it’s huge mouth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69BjTx9BIQY
Maybe because the PCT is nowhere near the Santa Lucia Mountains?
The Santa Lucias are a coastal range, which is where this occurrence is reported.
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