Top Ten Unsolved Mysteries and Creepy Legends in California

California Mysteries. Even though I don't believe most of these stories and legends, I find them fun and interesting. So here are some strange ones from my home state.
The Top Ten
1 Mt. Shasta

Probably the strangest place in all of California. It's like California's version of Skinwalker Ranch. Every creepy, weird and mysterious thing you can imagine. U.F.O.s, Bigfoots, Ghosts, Anomalous Energies, Unexplained Disappearances and everything else. Some even theorize the mountain is an Earth "power point". The main legend associated with this volcano is it's the new home for the Lemurians (Lemuria is the Atlantis of the Pacific). Native American tribes in the area claim their ancestors use to see "sky boats" coming in from the ocean then flying from the water to the mountain. Local residents claim encounters with pale white people with elongated heads. I've actually driven past Mt. Shasta. It's quite impressive and beautiful.

2 "Air Raid" UFO over L.A.

Known as The Battle of Los Angeles. On February 24-25 1942, just a few months after America entered WWll, air raid sirens went off in the city of Los Angeles and a total blackout of the city was ordered. A very large craft entered and hovered over L.A. Shortly after the sirens and blackout, our military shone a spotlight on the craft and started unloading. They began to shoot 50 cal. machine guns and firing 12.8 pound anti aircraft shells at it. Between 3:16am and 4:14am, over 1,400 shells were fired. The shelling assault did nothing to the craft which reportedly slowly cruised away back towards the Pacific Ocean. According to witnesses, the artillery was exploding all around the craft like it had a protective force field or shield of some sort. The "all clear" order wasn't giving until after 7 am. Several buildings and cars were damaged and 5 people died as a result of the anti aircraft shelling. The Los Angeles Times has a great photo of the craft (incident) on it's front page for February 26, 1942. Official explanation : False alarm caused by "war nerves".

3 Black Dahlia Murder

The murder of Elizabeth Short. One of the most famous unsolved murders. Short, a native of Boston, relocated to Southern California in hopes of becoming an actress. On the morning of January 15, 1947, Short's body was discovered in an undeveloped area of Los Angeles (on South Norton Ave. between Coliseum and West 39th). She was naked, had cuts and slashes all over her body, severed from the waist, her right breast was cut off, drained of blood, and giving a "Glasgow Smile" (both sides of her face were cut from mouth to ear giving her a "Joker" smile). Even more disturbing than that, the person who dumped the body set her up like she was "posing". The lower half of her body was about a foot away from the upper with her legs open (in a sexual manner) and her intestines neatly tucked under her buttocks. The top half had her arms over her head, with her elbows bent at a right angle. The police also noted that someone washed the body before dumping it. During the investigation on January 21 1947, a local newspaper editor received a phone call claiming to be Short's killer. He informed him he was eventually going to turn himself in but first he wanted the police to pursue him a little further. He also told the editor to expect some of Shorts belongings in the mail. On January 24, a manila envelope was discovered by a postal worker which contained Shorts' birth certificate, business cards, photos, names written down on a piece of paper, and an address book with the name Mark Hansen across the front. Police claim the envelope and all its content, like the body, was cleaned with gasoline. The cops were still able to get partial fingerprints from it. Well, the cops claim the sample were compromised during transit and could not be properly analyzed (some claim cover-up. There's a theory that the killer may have been a cop or someone very powerful and well protected.) Needless to say Mark Hansen was instantly a suspect. Mark was a wealthy... more

4 The Riverside Hospital Incident

To this day, I'm really curious about what happened here. Back in the early or mid 90s, a couple of us were hanging out at a friend's house when there was a live breaking special report that interrupted the T.V. The reporter was on scene at Riverside Hospital in Riverside, California where the hospital was evacuated because of "toxic fumes" that came out of a women. They reported that a woman came in under, what they thought was, cardiac arrest. When they cut here open for surgery, or it might of been when they simply stuck an I.V. in her, toxic fumes came out of the woman's body. They reported the woman's blood was "crystalized" and the doctors and nurses who were working on her got very ill from the fumes and THEIR BLOOD STARTED TO CRYSTALIZE TOO. The reporters (this broke on many local channels here) looked scared and panicked. The scene in the background seemed chaotic. It was mid evening when this happened. The news said that was all the info they had at the time and would report back and keep us updated throughout the night and have more on it in the morning. Well guess what? Complete silence. No follow up reports, nothing in the newspaper. Me and my friends were so intrigued by this story, we were searching for days for more info with no avail. The media must of been told to drop the story and stay silent by somebody for some reason.

5 The Dark Watchers

In the Santa Lucia Mountains, which stretches between Avila to Monterey along the coast, are The Dark Watchers. Apparently, The Dark Watchers are gigantic shadow phantoms that numerous hikers have claimed to see on a regular basis. They always appear around twilight and appear to be gazing off at nothing in particular. When and if people are able to make it up to where they're at and approach them, they vanish right before their eyes. Supposedly, they are so big they've been reported to have been sighted from pilots flying over the area. People who frequently hike the area claim it's almost a guarantee you'll see them. They've even been depicted on cave drawings from the Chumash Indians and are part of their oral legends. In the 60s, a local high school principal who frequently hiked the area was able to observe one for a long period of time. He claims he witnessed it long enough to make out clothing (they have capes or cloaks) and noticed the figure was strangely studying or surveying the mountains.

6 The Lizard People Under Los Angeles

Supposedly there's an underground city built by "lizard people" under Los Angeles. This all got started by a mining engineer and treasure hunter named G. Warren Shufelt in 1933. Shufelt apparently built a radio x ray device and found tunnels (I know for a fact an underground tunnel system exist cause I've been in them. They are rumored to stretch from the coast all the way to Riverside. One supposedly goes directly under Disneyland.), chambers and even "underground cities" under L.A. According to Shufelt, the city he found under L.A., was in the shape of a lizard (its head under northeast Los Angeles with its body extending to the downtown Central Library where the tail is located). With permission from the city (he was to turn over any treasure or artifacts that were found to the city) he began drilling from a Los Angeles Library located at 518 Hill St. His shaft made it down 250 ft before the city abruptly called off the project for some reason. The hole was then filled. The L.A. Times newspaper did a few reports on this story. Check out the front page on January 29, 1934. Now for how the "lizard people" story came to be. When the news broke of the discovery of the catacombs and "city" under L.A., Little Chief Greenleaf of the Hopi Indian Tribe claims his tribe knows who built and occupied the underground city. They claim that an ancient race of scientifically advanced humanoid reptiles built the catacombs and city, using chemicals to dissolve or bore out the rocks/ground, to escape from some sort of cataclysm over 5,000 years ago. One interesting note is they claimed the tunnels from the "city" extend all the way to and out the Pacific Ocean. They claimed the ebb and flow of the ocean waters forced air into their city through the tunnels. Now Google underwater entrance off the coast of Southern California. Kinda weird right? Sleestaks anybody? I also wanted to note when I first heard of this story many years... more

7 Watts Dog Woman

In 1961 in the city of Watts police were receiving numerous phone calls from multiple concerned citizens about a strange bizarre creature that had a body of a dog and a face of a woman roaming around. She was described as having hair all over her body and walked on all four legs but all the people that reported it swears it was not a dog. Police initially thought the first few reports were prank calls, however after 3 more hours of numerous calls, they changed their minds. To this day there are reports of a unknown creature that lurks around the train tracks of Watts.

8 Wetzel's Riverside Monster

As usual, there's a lot of "monster" stories associated with this kind of topic. I chose to post this one cause not only is it one of the more intriguing ones, it also happened about 3-4 miles from where I use to live. On November 8 1958, a man named Charles Wetzel was driving on Main St. in Riverside, California. When he approached the bridge that goes over the riverbed which was flooded and over flowing it's banks, his radio cut out. As he's trying to fix his car radio, a creature emerged and started attacking his car. He describes the creature as a bipedal, reptilian like, 6-7 feet tall, scaly skin, no nose, no ears and florescent eyes. He also described it as having, "a round scarecrowish like head like something out of Halloween". (I find it interesting that this happened right after Halloween. Prank?) He further described it as having long slender arms and legs that grew out of it's sides rather then underneath it's body. His account is the creature jumped on his hood and started to claw at his windshield. out he floored the accelerator causing the creature to fall off his hood onto the ground where he claims he partially ran the thing over. He reported the incident to the police. The police reports state that there were indeed deep claw marks on his windshield and underneath his car, he did appear to run something large over. The next night another man claimed he also was attacked by an unknown creature in the same area. It gets a little weirder. On July 21 of the same year, across the country in Nebraska, another man with the same name (Charles Wetzel, whom both had a son named Charles) also encountered a creature. However, the Charles Wetzel in Nebraska claims he encountered a tall "kangaroo like" creature. Nowadays there are a lot of homeless that live down in the riverbed. To this day there are strange reports along the riverbed of reptile like creatures hovering over the water and watching people.

9 Tahoe Tessie

What's an unsolved mysteries list without a lake monster right? We have got a couple (stories) over here. I chose "Tahoe Tessie" because it's the most frequently sighted. About a half a dozen sightings are reported each year. The creature is described as 20 - 80 feet long, serpent like, with reptile features and smooth skin. Reportedly it swims with an "up and down" motion rather then "side to side" like a snake or reptile would. Lake Tahoe is a very old, large deep lake (1,465 feet) with a lot of underwater caves so it would be ideal for a "monster" to occupy. It is rumored that in 1970 Jacques Cousteau himself came to study and explore the lake. It is claimed that he discovered something so disturbing, he wouldn't release any data or underwater footage because humanity wasn't ready for what he discovered in the lake. Personally, I think people might be seeing a large sturgeon or catfish (look up how freakishly big these fish can get).

10 Zodiac Killer The Zodiac Killer is the pseudonym of an unidentified serial killer who operated in Northern California in the late 1960s.

I have no clue as to why the zodiac killer is not on here, he was never even caught and was one of the biggest serial killers of all time. In California is where he was. Come on now...

He is full named Arthur Leigh Allen; he is the one who murdered 5 victims in 1968-1969, he wasn't found, at least his Identity looks like a cartoon.

The Contenders
11 Bigfoot/Sasquatch

We had a recent sighting here in the So.Cal mountains (Lake Arrowhead) that was all over the media. Personally, I think the lady and her kids that reported it are mistaken or just straight full of crap. However, people claim they see these gorilla dudes and dudettes regularly. Especially in northern California.

12 Death of Elisa Lam

Elisa Lam was found in a water tank of a hotel. It is unknown if it was a suicide or homicide.

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