A reader forwarded this account of a supposedly evil gnome that was terrorizing a farmhouse near Porterville, California. I don't know the background on this, so I'm posting as is.
"A woman by the name of Tammy moved herself and her three children into a small farmhouse on the Tule River near Porterville. Soon after moving in Tammy started feeling like something was watching them and had an uneasy feeling every time she walked by the old barn. For some reason, most of the animals on the farm seemed to avoid the rickety old building and soon she noticed that the number of her ducks and chickens had started to dwindle, but couldn't figure out why. She was soon going to have an idea why.
One night Tammy and her son were coming back from grocery shopping when, as she parked the car and got out, she noticed movement to her right. Thinking nothing of it she picked up a grocery bag and noticed it again, this time accompanied by what she described as a "very freaky, very evil-sounding chuckle." Looking in the direction of the noise Tammy noticed about 50 yards from her a small humanoid-looking figure. Or as she described it, a gnome.
The figure was about two to three feet in height and wore black baggy pants and a gold-colored shirt. The face was partially covered by a long salt and pepper beard and on top of the head was a long, red pointed hat. The nose was large and bulbous and the eyes were rather deep-set. As the figure grinned at them, Tammy noticed that the grin was almost from ear to ear and the teeth looked to be an ugly brown color and appeared to be either pointed or jagged.
Horrified, Tammy dropped the groceries, grabbed her son, and ran off towards the house with the cackling little man right on her heels. Tammy was able to get inside the house and was telling her two daughters what she saw when she saw movement outside the kitchen window. Upon investigating she saw the top of the figure's red pointed hat moving back and forth underneath the window. Finally, after what must have seemed like an eternity, the figure disappeared and Tammy was able to get the groceries from the car. This was the only time she actually saw the figure, but until she moved out she would always hear creepy chuckling coming from the old barn, as if it was taunting her or something.
You would think that this would be an isolated occurrence, but it seems the gnome wasn't satisfied with just terrorizing Tammy and her family.
In March 2010, a family moved into the same house on the Tule River. According to the wife, Charlie, it was perfect for what their family needed. Her husband took a particular liking to a pond on the property and decorated it with fairy, gnome, and toadstool yard ornaments and stocked it with Japanese koi fish. Not surprisingly, Charlie and her family also had an eerie feeling about the old barn on the property and tried to stay away from it as much as possible.
One night, at around 3:00 am, Charlie and her husband were woken by what can only be described as a "raspy, gurgling singing." Charlie and her husband looked out their bedroom window and what they saw defied what they considered their reality. Standing by the pond and holding one of the garden gnomes was a creature that came out of a Grimm's Fairy Tale, as Charlie described it. The creature was two to three feet tall, wearing maroon pants, a baggy yellow shirt with a brown vest over it, and a dark waistcoat. It had a large gray beard and was wearing a reddish-brown pointed hat. Charlie went on to say the most horrible part of the creature was its eyes and teeth. When it grinned its teeth appeared to be jagged and pointed and the eyes were small and beady and had a dark mean look to them.
Apparently, the creature saw the couple looking at it and reached into the pond, grabbed a koi, dropped it into its mouth, and swallowed it. Furious, Charlie's husband pushed open the window and yelled at the creature to leave the yard or he'd call the police. The gnome grinned and laughed as he gave them the finger and disappeared. The police were called, being notified that an "intruder" was on the property, but when they got there an hour later the only evidence that was found was small footprints, about the size of a child's, around the pond.
There were other times the gnome would visit the pond. Night after night it would be seen holding a yard ornament and eating a fish. The family eventually woke up, moved the ornaments, and put the fish into a tank inside the house. Apparently, this didn't go over well with the gnome. Upon the usual time of its appearance of 3:00 am, when the gnome saw that the yard ornaments and fish had been removed it went into a crazed frenzy and began yelling and screaming in some language that nobody could understand. But they understood it was pissed. It began to run around the house screaming in whatever language was native to it. The family felt safe until Charlie realized the dog door in the kitchen was unlocked and feared the creature would try to enter the house through that. She was able to lock it and then ran upstairs to close the rest of the windows. The last they heard of the creature was a very loud screeching, cackling sound that was heard underneath one of the living room windows. Charlie's husband went to investigate and saw the top of the creature's hat underneath the window."
NOTE: I did find a reference to this in an older article written and posted at Mysterious Universe, but beyond that, there are vague mentions of the account online. Lon
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