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Removing the following sentence from the intro because no sources were provided and this folklore seems pretty specific to the Santa Lucia Range. "They have also been spotted in some areas of Wisconsin and Illinois such as Milwaukee, and police reports had been made in the town of Kenosha but were suspended since no actual proof was provided."

Rosenbergwrite (talk) 16:55, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article is too short and requires significant attention. There is not a lot of information on these particular entities in this article and the first reported mention/sightings of them as well as the possible origins of the these pieces are important to the article and need to be added with proper citations given form them. There should also be more information on possible theories on what these things are since this section really doesn't go into to much detail that explicitly references that these are theories on these particular entities. Hopefully this article gets the attention it needs since this seems like a very fascinating subject.--Paleface Jack (talk) 17:31, 14 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The reference for this is a review of In Search of the Dark Watchers, and it seems to originate on page twelve of that book: "The early Spanish explorers, as well as the later Mexican ranchers and their vaqueros, called them 'Los Vigilantes Obscuros.'" It would be nice to have something a little less modern and in-bubble to support a historical assertion. Also, on page eleven it says (emphasis mine):"They are called by many names, but in reference to the Big Sur alone, these diminuitive beings have always been known as the Dark Watchers." Seems to contradict the unreferenced "tall, sometimes giant sized" description, which also doesn't seem to appear in either of the primary poems. --tronvillain (talk) 21:10, 8 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Since the "witnesses" never get a good look at them, I would expect contradictory descriptions to appear. Imagination fills in the blanks.

If the only think the "witnesses" experience is a feeling of being watched, I would wonder whether persecutory delusion is in effect. "According to the DSM-IV-TR, persecutory delusions are the most common form of delusions in paranoid schizophrenia, where the person believes "he or she is being tormented, followed, tricked, spied on, or ridiculed". This idea also turns up in false reports of being stalked:

"Brown, S. A. (2008). "The Reality of Persecutory Beliefs: Base Rate Information for Clinicians". Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry. 10 (3): 163–178. doi:10.1891/1559-4343.10.3.163. Collapsing across two studies that examined 40 British and 18 Australian false reporters (as determined by evidence overwhelmingly against their claims), these individuals fell into the following categories: delusional (64%), factitious/attention seeking (15%), hypersensitivity due to previous stalking (12%), were the stalker themselves (7%), and malingering individuals (2%) (Purcell, Pathe, & Mullen, 2002; Sheridan & Blaauw, 2004)." Dimadick (talk) 06:32, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Currently, the last paragraph in History says "According to newspaper archives in the mid-1960s, a Monterery Peninsula local and former high school principal went on a hiking trip in the Santa Lucias when he suddenly spotted a dark figure standing on a rock and surveying the area. When the principal called out to the other hikers, the creature vanished." Can anyone confirm that's actually on page 304 of the 304 page book, and if it gives any sources? Given that the Weird US website entry says More recently, a local high school principal was on a hunting trip in the Santa Lucias when he spotted a dark figure in a hat and long cape, standing on a rock across a canyon and slowly surveying the surroundings. When the principal called out to the other hunters, the phantom vanished, and the man was left wondering., either the book and website contradict each other, or whatever's in the book didn't make it onto this page faithfully.^[1] Looking back through the archive, that paragraph was the same even in 2010. --tronvillain (talk) 13:21, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looking a little further, the Weird California site from 2007 has "In the mid sixties, a Monterery Peninsula local who was the past principal of a local high school saw them while hiking in the mountains. He had enough time to study the dark figure, to see its clothing and notice how the figure was strangely studying the mountains. When the principal called out to his fellow hikers, the figure disappeared." The story seems to have shifted a little in a few years, but the WeirdCA page at least lists some sources... one of which is Weird California (2006), page 56.^[2] It seems Weird California is completely separate from Weird US and the associated Weird California book, so I'm still not sure what the text of the book originally was. In The National Directory (2002), it's a principal again, "recently."^[3] --tronvillain (talk) 15:22, 9 May 2018 (UTC); edited 18:14, 9 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]