An Evil Gnome in Tulare County

A family moved in to a farm house near the Tule River in the area around Porterville, in rural Tulare County, California.

After moving in, the mother, Tammy, began to feel on edge, as if she was always being watched. And one location, in particular, made her uneasy: the barn. Even the family's animals (pets as well as fowl such as geese and chickens) avoided the barn, and everyone got the creeps when near it. They could never put a finger on what bothered them, but knew that something was not right.

One night, when returning home from the grocery store with one of her children, Tammy heard a sinister chuckling and saw movement out of the corner of her eyes. Turning, she saw a small (2-3 feet tall), gnome-like creature. It as wearing a red hat, a gold-colored shirt, and black pants, and when it "smiled" at her, it revealed to rows of brown, decayed, and sharp teeth.

Tammy ushered her child into the house, and they huddled inside as the creature waited outside. They said that they could see it's red hat through the kitchen window, which would have required it to climb the wall, grow, or hover, as that window is a good ten feet off of the ground. The creature eventually left. Although Tammy and her family would occasionally hear the creature chuckling, they never saw it again, and eventually moved off of the property.

Eventually, a woman named Charlie and her family moved into the house, and it all began again. They noticed that animals, both domestic and wild, avoided a building that they called "the shack" (presumably the barn that made Tammy uneasy). On at least one occasion, Charlie felt so unnerved while walking near the shack that she picked up her two young children and broke into a sprint to get away from it.

And then, one day, things picked up and became much more frightening.

Charlie heard what sounded like a car fighting with something inside the shack. When her husband went to investigate, he found a cat alright, entirely skinned on one side and with a huge bite taken out of its neck. He stepped out to clear his head, and when he stepped back in, the cat was gone.

A short time later, at 3 a.m.*, Charlie and her husband woke to a guttural, eerie singing coming from the back yard. Looking out their window, they saw the same creature. It was looking at them as they looked through their window at it. It pulled a fish out of the koi pond that Charlie had installed, and smiled as it ate the fish and stared at the couple. Charlie's husband yelled out the window that he was going to call the police, an the gnome flipped them off** and then walked away, laughing the entire time. When the police arrive,d they found nothing but child-sized foot prints.

The creature returned every night at 3 a.m., messed about with their lawn ornaments (mostly gnome and fairy ornaments, naturally) and eating the fish in the pond. Finally, the family locked the ornaments away and put the fish into a tank in the house. When the creature showed up the following night, it was pissed. It proceeded to scream in it's odd, guttural language, while running in circles around the house. Charlie ran downstairs to find the dogs barking at the dog door, which she quickly secured from the inside before running upstairs to lock all of the windows.

The family left shortly thereafter. When a writer introduced Charlie and Tammy to each other, they went back to look in on the property. The barn/shack was gone, but when they went to speak with the current resident, they were rudely rebuffed and sent packing. A commenter claiming to be Tammy claimed that she would later learn, however, that others in the area had been terrorized by the creature for years, and that, some years later, the creature seemed to follow her to her new home. Some web commenters from the area claim that, while they never saw anything, they always felt uneasy in the vicinity and avoided the property in question.




* I make a point of noting the time only because 3 a.m. plays a prominent role in modern ghost folklore. This seems to be a development of the last few decades, with midnight being important in earlier folklore. Initially, the 3 a.m. time, from what I have read, comes from the three numbers that mark "the beast" in the book of revelations, which has come to be the "number of the devil" in popular folklore, and so the fact that there are three numbers have made 3 a.m. (get it get it?) important to many people who like a religious bent to their ghost stories. I have also heard that as this is three in the dark, it can be a dark reflection or parody of the holy trinity.  Personally, I have always thought this was a rather silly conceit that generally just makes me roll my eyes, but that's me.

** Well, rude hand gestures ARE the universal language, after all.

Commentary: While not specifically a ghost story, I feel like this one falls more on the weird spirit side of the spectrum than the cryptozoological one, so I decided to add it here.

That said, the story fits very nicely into the tradition of the western European Faerie stories. Although we tend to use the term "fairy tale" nowadays to describe something both fantastic and gentle if not childish, the actual folklore from which the term "fairy" comes were, in fact, more often dark and molevolent (indeed, if you were to tell a 10th century person that they were "fae" they wouldn't think that you were calling them feminine, they would think that you were saying that they were doomed to a horrible fate at the hands of the supernatural). When Black Sabbath sang about fairies in boots dancing with dwarves, they weren't trying to call up a cartoonish image, but were, instead, trying to describe something otherworldly and terrifying.

So, the idea of a malicious gnome terrorizing a family in an isolated farmhouse is absolutely in keeping with these older traditions. That said, the description of the creature in the story doesn't match that of a gnome so much as it does a faerie (later Christianized as a demon) from northern Europe known as a Redcap - these creatures looked in many respects like the garden gnomes that we appreciate so much, but were vicious murderers whose hats were red with the blood of their victims. Should their hats dry out the redcap would die (or be sent back to Hell, or be banished from the material plan, etc. etc.). The redcaps wore iron boots (unlike other such folkloric creatures, they weren't afraid of iron), but nonetheless ran faster than any human could. They were vile, often dirty, and enjoyed the pain and suffering of others.

It is interesting to me, as a resident of the San Joaquin Valley, where this story takes place (Tulare County is just south of Fresno County, where I currently live) that this story is reliant on northwestern European faerie mythology, and not the more common Latino folklore that permeates much of our local ghost folklore (in fact, I went for a walk this afternoon along a trail said to be haunted by a La Llorona spirit). Given the tendency for many neo-pagan groups to rehash selective elements of Celtic and Germanic folklore, it may be that this is the source of this, or it may be something else.  Regardless, it makes for an interesting story.

Naturally, the internet being the internet, on the web pages where this story was posted there is a lot of speculation as to what happened, ranging from discussions of fairies to speculation that the little man might have been an escaped mental patient. And in one web forum the there is an active debate as to whether or not one more fervent evangelic Christian poster is justified in calling this thing a demon.

The text of the story at Weird Fresno is taken from Mysterious Universe, so they may seem redundant, but the blog comments at Weird Fresno are worth a look.  First, off, there is someone who claims to be the "Tammy" from the story, further describing her experiences.  Secondly, there is a commenter who claims to have seen the same type of creature at another location in another state.  As stated above, this story bears more than a passing resemblance to some of the faerie folklore from which gnomes are derived, so it seems only fitting that others would claim similar encounters.


Sources: Weird Fresno, Mysterious Universe 

Phantom Hitchhiker, Delano, CA

Delano is one of those small, Central Valley cities that is typical of California. Delano is an agricultural center, located in one of the most fertile areas of the world (while people outside of California tend to think of the state as being one big beach, the majority of it is actually excellent agricultural land), it is home to numerous farms, related businesses, a politically and socially conservative population (something else common in California, despite the stereotype), and, apparently, a butt-load of ghosts. One of these ghosts is a phantom hitchhiker that haunts Browning Road in southern Delano.

There is no consensus on the origin of the ghost, though the most common story seems to be that she was a young woman who was crossing the street early one morning when she was struck by a speeding vehicle. Regardless, she is said to appear on the side of the road, sometimes looking as if she's about to cross, other times looking as if she's trying to flag a ride. Some stories tell that she actually appears in the backseat of cars driving down Browning Road (shades of Highway 152?), while others hold that the ghost has moved into the path of oncoming traffic only to vanish as the cars swerve to avoid her.

People posting to internet forums* report that, in addition to trying to cross the street, dodge traffic, and catch a ride, the young woman also will run after cars driving on Browning Road, and has been heard latching on to the car's undercarriage and messing about with the machinery. Two posters report making an effort to attract the ghost's attention - one reports that he and his passenger saw the ghost appear next to the car, and they quickly high-tailed it out of there; the other reports that they drove up and down the road looking for the ghost, and finally stopped and exited the car, mocking it. Upon returning to their vehicle, they saw the spirit in the back seat, though it promptly vanished, leaving a cold spot in the back of the car.

There is at least one variation on the story that holds that the ghost is not a phantom hitchhiker, but rather the spirits of two men who appear as shaodws and leap at cars. And one variation on the "ghost appears in the backseat" element says that the ghost is not seen in the backseat, but can be felt nudging the driver from the back seat.




*Ahhh, publication on the Illustrious Internet! Well-vetted and accurate. You can believe everything that you read there, especially if it's posted by someone with the monniker of Sluggo!


Commentary: I have complained before about how the ease of copying and pasting on the internet can lead to folklore stagnating. In this case, though, the use of the internet appears to have led to the stories flourishing and mutating in interesting ways. While most of the posts on the internet message board threads about this story bare all of the marks of being someone wanting to tell tall tales, they are, nonetheless, great variations on, and continuations of, the original story. When one searches, there is, of course, a fair amount of cutting-and-pasting between different sites. But there is also a good deal of originality, and that's part of what makes ghost stories so wonderful.

One thing that this story brings to mind, at least for me, is that the generall classification of a ghost story often doesn't quite describe it. This one is often described as a vanishing hitchhiker, and there are elements of that tale here, but the ghost just as often simply appears near the car, chases the car, or appears within the car, all without anyone trying to give her a ride. This is, in some ways, similar to Ressurection Mary, where the ghost does sometimes go for a ride, but just as often is said to do something else altogether.

I also like the variation that describes her latching on to the underside of a car and mucking about with it, making her similar to a gremlin. I wonder if this is an example of two stories coming together, or of one story simply gaining attributes similar to another, but independently.



Sources: Weird Fresno, Strange USA Forums, Unsolvedmsyeries.com (AKA, the web page that time forgot), Oddly, a Facebook page, Shadowlands.net