I recently received the following account. The witness referenced Is 'Penelope' More Than An Urban Legend?:
Hello Lon, I have been searching for months to find answers to what it is my wife and I saw near Labor Day 2014 while camping in the eastern Sierras in the Mono Village area. Most websites are just so outlandish and full of people that want to believe in monsters or UFOS it just became frustrating that any hope of putting together the puzzle and maybe learning something from these rare experiences would be lost.
I read the reported sighting of the man and his son seeing a tall skinny witch-looking thing outside his R.V. in the same region. Also I was very interested in an article that discussed the Bigfoot problem and how people might be seeing "Ghosts" of animals from the past. This is why it's so hard to gather evidence on. Maybe they materialize and de-materialize and we are just lucky to be present. This seems like a legitimate explanation to me because the creature I saw running by the road if living, breathing and hunting in our physical world would send all the people that live in Mono County back to the city once reports came of its appearance.
I have been coming to the same area to camp and fish for over 30 years. Hell it's 40 years to be exact. The Twin Lakes resort in Bridgeport, CA right on the CA-Nevada border, about an hour north of Mono Lake. High elevation, tons of wildlife & great fishing. One-way road up to the Twins ending at the base of the huge mountain range, north side of Yosemite. My parents brought me when I was 5 and now I bring them and my family every year, so I am very familiar with the wildlife. On many occasions had up-close experiences with many of its inhabitants, for instance one time a bear was spooked and backed up into my tent sending me flying over the other 2 in my tent. I've seen some stuff. My family loves to fish, mostly catch and release. My favorite past time is hiking and bird/animal watching. I have developed a keen eye for locating and identifying all types of wildlife. To give you an example of what I have personally seen in this valley - mountain lion, Sierra moose, bald eagle, golden eagle nesting, mountain goats, osprey, king snake - the list goes on. The point I'm trying to make is I've seen every kind of animal in this wilderness and I have a great knowledge of every other species of animal all over the world. Nature and wildlife have been a life-long interest of mine and been the subject of much of my art since a child. Knowing the body parts and how they move together has been essential to understand as an artist. OK now to the sighting.
My wife, stepson and myself were headed to the creek for some daybreak fishing. We left before dawn to get the car parked and walk to the creek. The time must have been close to 5:30 a.m. and it was still very dark and a slight fog. This trip which is about a quarter mile from cabin to creek is always full of nocturnal animals headed home after raiding the local campgrounds. So mule deer, black bear & huge jack rabbits crossing the road is no surprise. Like I have done a hundred times before, keep an eye out, slow down, hit the high beams to illuminate the beasts with eyes reflecting my car lights. This time my lights caught something crossing the road that did not have reflective nocturnal eyes, so I slow down immediately to about 20 mph and tried my best to identify what it was. I was having trouble doing so since the thing was moving very low to the ground. It's belly just inches from touching the ground. It appeared very pale or white, so I think goat or sheep. I immediately remembered decades ago there had been sheep herders on the side of the hill but they had been gone for many years. Well when my high beams hit this thing it turned its long neck and glared at us and almost shook it's head as if we pissed it off and didn't want to be seen at all. At first sight it was crossing the street almost diagonally headed our way then along the side of the road in our direction. Now my wife had seen it from the start, but I needed extra time so that I could I.D. it and give her an explanation of what type of animal it was, like I always do. I asked her "what is that?" I just wanted to make sure she was seeing and observing the same thing I was.
Now the first odd thing that I couldn't understand, besides the way it was crawling so low to the ground. Unlike a hunting cat, the legs were all wrong. Its knees seemed to be backwards but it was running on them. My thought was that it was an escaped sheep or goat that had broken knees and it was running for its life because it was moving fast. As it came closer and closer towards us I could hardly take my eyes off its freaky legs. I still lay awake at night puzzled by how they were working. I've not seen any mammal move this way. The closest thing would be a crab or insect, the front and back legs moved together in unison. There was no bouncing, swaying, galloping or jumping like that of a mammal. This creature's torso, which was about 4 feet long stayed straight, low to the ground as its legs/arms did all the work. To me it looked like a puppet with a marionette moving it along. So unreal, like one of H.R. Gigers 'Alien' creatures is shown climbing around super fast with only it's arms/legs moving.
By this time my wife could only get out "what the hell..." as we saw it from maybe 50 yards away to about 20 yards. You could see that it had no fur at all -just pale, sinewy stretched skin over long, skinny well-defined limbs. Its "broken" knees were long skinny fingers or claws, a foot long or more. The torso was maybe the size of a large goat, but it also had broad shoulders - very human. Possibly like this thing normally walks upright. This is what my wife kept pointing out. The shoulders made it look human. All this was freaky but we both stared intensely, as to figure out what it was. When as we got closer the face became more and more defined. The first second we laid eyes on it, the face and head did not make sense. But I put my mind at ease saying to myself "well it looks strange now but when you get face to face you will see a familiar goat snout, or cat/canine nose or jack rabbit face" No. This thing looked like it came out of a horror movie - like a space alien creature or humanoid monster. The nose I was looking for was not there - just a flat opening with two nose holes high up on the face. No ears! Just small holes on the side of its head - but whatever they were they were smaller than a human's for sure!?? It had high brow ridge bones, but the skull did not have a huge human cranium, more like the size of a chimps. It had a large chin that protruded, maybe strong jawbones. But this part I totally don't get at all. The eyes. I saw these large eye sockets off in the distance, but they never reflected in the light. As it came nearer and nearer I saw the color red, not like a light that was glowing but maybe many veins. The blood within was giving it the darkest color on this pale beast. As we were within 10-15 yards away I only saw sockets and no eyeball, like that of a blind cave fish??? Now this blew me away. I thought how is this thing turning its head to glare at me with no eyes? Was it a ghost? But as it passed us and I came to a complete stop I saw it zip into the chaparral and kick up dust.
This thing had been flesh and blood at least for the 15 to 20 seconds that we observed it. I might add there was no smell or anything else odd that we noticed. I should have taken pictures of the tracks but did not think to do it because I was very puzzled and thought maybe we had witnessed a ghost because of how unreal it appeared. I was also with my family, which I am very protective of. Normally if I had been alone I would be on the trail. What this thing was doing so close to a campground puzzles me. My wife said, even though I was only thinking it, this thing seemed intelligent and was creeping in the dark - mad at us for discovering it. The mouth was closed but it had tight closed lips that almost seemed to grin. I did not see any teeth, large canine or flat herbivores. Its skull was that of a predator - not prey - with eye sockets positioned on the front, not the sides. I have seen a great many extraordinary things in my life so I have learned to be a great eyewitness and not jumped to conclusions - only observe, make note and evaluate later. My wife is the biggest skeptic I have ever met, not fully believing the many extraordinary stories I have told. She comes from a lifetime of cold, hard harsh reality - no room for any stretch of the imagination. Well now she is a believer and is afraid to this day of what is walking around those Sierra Nevada mountains. I would be open for correspondence. Thank you - Steve M
NOTE: These descriptions, in all of the encounters, kind of resemble that of a strange being known as a 'Rake.' Could 'Penelope' be a ghost or cryptid that manifests after transporting from another reality? Who knows...but there is definitely something odd being seen in the Sierra Nevada range. Lon
Strange California Monsters
Weird California: You Travel Guide to California's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets
Spooky California: Tales of Hauntings, Strange Happenings, and Other Local Lore
Mysterious California: Strange places and eerie phenomena in the Golden State
