From Lon Chaney’s sympathetic portrayals of disfigured “monsters” like the Phantom of the Opera to resurrected prehistoric lizards in the atomic age to today’s never-ending franchises of digitally-created space aliens; monsters have always been good to Hollywood.

However, just as prophets tend to be ignored in their own lands, the Hollywood film industry has steadfastly ignored Southern California’s own homegrown monster since the first film cameras rolled in the golden state: the Monster of Elizabeth Lake in the Antelope Valley.

Before it became known as Elizabeth Lake, Father Junipero Sierra named it “La Laguna de Diablo” (the Devil’s Lake) because local tribes believed that the devil formed the lake as a passage to the underworld and left it protected by his “pet,” a monster described by Spooky California author S.E. Schlosser as possessing the “wings of a giant bat, the body of a dragon, a round flattened head and the crafty eyes of a serpent.” The early Tataviam, Kitanemuk and Serrano tribes as well as the Spanish settlers believed that the devil’s pet hibernated for long periods of time, then awakened and arose from the lake to rampage across the area, devouring livestock, wild game and humans alike before it returned to its watery home.

A great stench filling the air always heralded the emergence of the creature. The waters churned, the local wildlife howled and scattered as the creature breached the surface flapping its giant wings – the tempest created by its giant