There is a monster called the Rake that lives on the internet.

You've probably seen a photo of it, a thin, scrawny, pale, hairless creature crawling toward trail cam at night.

Its attacks on people are legend.

Tonight we're going to study its most recent and most famous encounter and see if we can track down this elusive and terrifying creature and find its origin story.

That's all coming up next on Skeptoid.

You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com. The Rake that comes for you in the night.

This very creepy Halloween episode was sponsored by Brad Pridikin. To personally sponsor your own

episode, come to skeptoid.com slash sponsor.

Welcome to the show that separates fact from fiction, science from pseudoscience, real history from fake history, and helps us all make better life decisions by knowing what's real and what's not.

They say it is tall, pale, thin, with its gray skin stretched tight.

Its eyes are sunken, hollow, black, and expressionless like those of a doll.

It is hairless and naked, its nose merely vestigial, its lips thin, and its teeth sharp.

The rake, so they say, would be taller than a man if it stood, but it never does, moving

about instead like a spider on all fours, backward, forward, upside down, it doesn't matter.

The rake only comes out at night in wooded or suburban areas. And it watches you,

following alongside undercover as you walk. But before it attacks, it reveals its most terrifying

trait. It speaks in a thin, raspy, cadaverous voice.

Tonight, for Halloween, we're going to look at the urban legend of the rake.

From whence does it come?

And what has happened that has persuaded some people that it is a real creature and not mere folklore?

There are two names by which this legendary creature is known,

the rake and also the pale crawler.

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