'Darkguards' have been scaring tourists in the mountains of California for 300 years: what is this phenomenon

For hundreds of years, people have gazed at the misty peaks of the Santa Lucia Mountains in California at sunset and seen tall, cloaked figures looking down. Then, in a matter of seconds, the eerie silhouettes disappeared. Who are the "Darkguards", and why they appear, said the publication Live Science.

Photo: Shutterstock

These ghosts are known as “dark guards” - 3-meter silhouettes dressed in ominous hats and capes. They mostly appear during the day. Californians have been seeing them for over 300 years.

“When the Spanish arrived in the 1700s, they began calling the ghosts los Vigilantes Oscuros (literally, the dark guardians),” writes Kathy Dowd. “And when Anglo-American settlers began to move into the region, they felt as if they were being watched from the hills.”

One of the famous people who felt the presence of the “guardians” was the American writer John Steinbeck. In his 1938 short story "Flight," a character sees a black figure looking down at him from a nearby ridgetop, "but he quickly looked away, for it was one of the dark guardians," Steinbeck wrote. “No one knew who the guards were or where they lived, but it was better to ignore them and never show interest in them.”

Who or what are the "dark guards"

According to Daoud, one of the theories is that they are just a figment of the imagination of people. In other words, this is a classic case of pareidolia: a psychological phenomenon in which the human brain finds patterns or meaning in a vague or random image.

This phenomenon is the reason why some people see the faces of dolls on the moon or the face of Jesus on burnt toast. In this case, the usual shadows on the tops of the hills of Santa Lucia can be interpreted by the viewer's brain as tall, disguised figures. "Guardians" usually appear in the late afternoon, when long shadows adorn the hills.

This pattern-finding effect can be enhanced by the presence of fog or low-flying clouds, Dowd said. The shadows cast on the clouds are the cause of another notorious illusion known as Brokken's ghost.

“German locals near the Harz Mountains have reported seeing dark figures on the Brocken peak for centuries,” writes Dowd. “Actually, the Brocken ghost... appears when shadows fall on particularly foggy mountain peaks.” If the sun is behind the observer, the fog plays with the shadow, making it huge and threatening.”

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Spectral figures are usually surrounded by a rainbow-colored halo created by sunlight refracting from water droplets in fog or clouds. While this is common in the Harz Mountains, where fog often occurs at low altitudes, you can see the effect on any foggy mountainside with the sun behind you and clouds below you. You may have seen it yourself from the airplane window. Flying between the sun and the clouds, the plane can cast rainbow-framed shadows on the clouds below, which appear supernaturally large.

Then it is possible that tourists in the Santa Lucia mountains are just looking into their own shadows.

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