The Dark Watchers

 

There is nothing that catches my attention more than a local legend that gives me chills. California State has a doozy of a goosebumps maker - the Dark Watchers.

The Santa Lucia mountains of California near Monterrey are a breathtaking coastal range that is the birthplace of a long-held legend.

Often seen standing looking out over the sea, these 7-10-foot tall beings are often described as having a hat, cloak, and walking stick. 

 it is rare that hikers in this beautiful nature setting get a glimpse of them. It is said carrying a gun or wearing weather-protective clothing seems to keep them in hiding. 

While some belief this legend was born from legends of the Chumash Tribe, others believe they are tales repeated over time.

Skeptics eagerly prounounced they are tree stumps and shadows seem from a distance. 

Interestingly, the giant Moai statues of Easter Island also stare out west over the Pacific in the same timeless search. 

Those mountainous regions of California have a long history of Star People visitors, Hav-Musuv giants from Death Valley who wore robes and carries sticks, as well as tribes of unknown origin (I believe to be Japanese Ainu people) like this one from the 1800s in what today is Las Vegas area and who wear interesting hats and wear beards - 

In this region there is also the mysterious wall, referred to as the East Bay Walls, that they have yet to understand its origins or age. 

Explorer Hernan Cortes went in seach of an island and found the Baja of California in the 1500s. 

In that odd way that ghostly spectres can haunt lands they once walked or their images replay under the right conditions, this might be an explanation for a man with a cloak and a hat, but certainly not one of such statuesque height. 

We can go down the many explanations for the Dark Watchers, but what interests me is how much of this region has legends of giants, huge skeletons found on the channel islands, the sinking of the supposed continent of Lemuria and its occupants fleeing all along the Pacific coastlines. 

Could such a culture exist? Well, some may say that the caverns of Mt. Shasta are the entrance to such an underground world. Others might say that the type of woods and the way the light hits them can play tricks, yet others may report these are ghostly apparitions.

So long as they seek to avoid us and look out over the ocean as if missing their homeland, I'd say we have nothing to fear. 

Perhaps we just share this realm, whether in our legends or in this space.