Jon Solo Sebastian 10/16/2026:

Have you ever taken a late evening or late night walk in the dark and get that strange feeling like something is watching you or following you? You turn back to look and see nothing, but you still feel it. Then, BOOM, out of nowhere, an unsettling pale white hairless humanoid creature is crawling on all fours toward you in an arachnid-like pace. You suddenly feel ice cold as it opens its tiny mouth to reveal needle-like teeth while it begins making a clicking sound. Its eyes flash from dark sockets to bright yellow, and it stands up to reveal to you that its roughly eight-foot stature is somehow more terrifying than it was on all fours. What do you do?

Most sightings or encounters with the Pale Crawler are a little less scary than the scenario above. Typically they’re just following people around being more of a stalker than an attacker; they allegedly only attack when provoked. Not that stalking is an okay thing for them to do either, though. This is all based on the crawler being real, of course.

What is a Pale Crawler?

This week’s creature feature makes an appearance in my upcoming book The Hunted: Echoes of Summer. This book marks the first time The Hunted series will be available as a physical book rather than just ebooks. It will also include the latest and last part of the four book series titled: Judgment Day. Keep an eye out here and on my socials for the release date announcement.

It wouldn’t surprise me if you’ve never heard of the Pale Crawler. It’s a “newer” cryptid in the land of creepy-crawly’s. Most folktales come from hundreds to thousands of years ago, but sightings of the crawler didn’t start until the internet and online forums started gaining popularity. The Pale Crawler has since become one of the strangest cryptids to possibly roam the earth with theories ranging from extraterristrials, interdimensional creatures (some claim Sasquatch to be interdimensional, as well) to Wendigo’s or Ghouls.

I can’t say which mythological creature category it would fall into, but Vampire or Wendigo seems fitting. I’ll get to that thought in a moment; even though I’ve lightly described what they look like in the opening scenario, I’m sure you’d like a better description so you can keep an eye out for them on your walks!

Here, we have its bio, or the back of its player card:

A tall, pale humanoid that stands roughly seven feet tall. They have extremely thin bodies, their skin is said to look like tight thin leather. They have oddly proportioned arms, likely for crawling purposes, but their forearms are nearly twice the length of their upper arms. Their hands, or claws, are long and thin, and their faces are reportedly similar to the gray aliens where they don’t have much in the way of facial features; no protruding nose, and a small mouth—the mouth is small, but the teeth are sharp and needle-like. Even though their appearance gives off a sickly and weak vibe, they possess great strength, acrobatic-like agility and dexterity. They are also extremely fast on all fours or upright, so I don’t recommend running from them, or challenging them to a race.

They mainly live in caves that are near water, or have water reservoirs in the caves. Some say they reside mostly near cemeteries because they supposedly feed on freshly deceased bodies. This characteristic, while gross, leads me to believe they could be a relative of a vampire or wendigo. The reason people see them outside of those areas could be that the cemeteries are scarce of fresh bodies for them to feed on, so they head into town or nearby areas hoping to find a different source of food. They’re believed to not be hostile toward humans, but some have reported seeing them feed on small animals.

Sightings

Here’s a list of the most common locations the pale crawler has been spotted. According to sources, the following states in the USA have the most reported sightings: Ohio (my home state, again!), Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, Utah, Texas, and Massachusetts. Also, outside of the USA, countries like, Canada, Poland, Australia, and Russia are presumed hotspots for sightings of the beast. If you’re from any of these areas and have seen this creature, I’d love to hear about it!

There’ve been copious Pale Crawler sightings over the years, and they sound believable, but are people really seeing what they claim to be? I’ll let you be the judge based off of these alleged sightings.

Effingham, Illinois in 2010, friends were driving out to a cemetery that is known for its haunted encounters. They never made it to the cemetery because they saw something on the side of the road that frightened them so much they went back home. A creature with glowing yellow eyes, which is likely due to the headlights shining on them, is crouched down watching the approaching car. They said it was skinny with long arms, no real standout facial features, and gray or pale white skin. It watched them drive by, and then faded into the shadows. I believe they certainly saw something that night because they all described its characteristics the exact same way. One of the friends did some digging over the next few months to discover other people nearby had similar encounters, and described the same creature they saw that night.

In 2022, near Elkhorn, Wisconsin (home of the Beast of Bray Road), a witness spotted what might have been a crawler at an intersection of Bray Road. Isn’t it possible they were seeing the beast rather than the crawler? Possible, yes, but the creatures do not share any characteristics other than both being seen on the side of the road. What did they see, your guess is as good as mine. Many of the reported sightings are similar to this where the details aren’t very detailed, or camera footage has been “lost.”

Higgins Lake, Michigan, 2008: two men were attacked in the woods, and one of them didn’t survive. A recording that unsurprisingly vanished would’ve discredited the police’s declaration of it being a bear attack. The most interesting part about this sighting is one, I didn’t see any mention of the crawler, and two, the abundance of black bears in Michigan makes me agree with the police on this one.

I’ve thought about the countless nights I’ve been on the road for work, and all the normal creatures I see hanging out by the side of the road, and running in front of my truck, and I can think of a few times something caught my attention—this isn’t a Pale Crawler sighting. I’ve seen deer that look spooky in the distance. The lights catch their eyes making them glow red or yellow, and they appear to be tall in the dark of night. Couldn’t they easily be mistaken for a cryptid?

I was driving by some open land one night, and I know we have coyote’s in the area, but what I thought I saw was much larger than that. It was wolf-like in size and features. I stopped my truck and went in reverse to make sure my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me. They were in fact doing that because when I looked in the area, there was nothing there. I took it a step further, and got out with my flashlight and walked over to where I had seen it. I spotted some fresh paw prints, but they weren’t big enough to match the massive beast I apparently did not see. My point is this, and this comes from someone who believes many of these cryptids exist or at least had existed at some point. At night, our eyes can easily be fooled based on lighting, shadows, and even our moods. We might be seeing something, but our mind turns it into something we had recently seen on TV or at the movies. Other times, though, we could very well be seeing a creepy crawler, or bigfoot, or the Bray Beast. I’ve certainly seen some strange things in the night… you’ll hear more about that some other time.

For now, The Pale Crawler: Real or Fake?