Vern Windsor was only about 5 years old when he first noticed the Night People. He thought to himself that they must just have been a normal feature of daily life - the world belonged to humans during the day and belonged to something else during the night. These weird visitations would last for a full year. Only when he got older would he realise that there was nothing humdrum about his experiences, and that the Night People were something extremely strange...
Of the Night[]
A depiction of one of the similarly fish-eyed Deep One Hybrids from the works of HP Lovecraft.
Vern would often look out of his window at night and see the Night People - and he thought this was totally normal at the time. They wandered around his yard and sometimes even into his neighbour's houses, seemingly unnoticed by any of the sleeping townsfolk aside from young Mr. Windsor. He described them as having abnormally large, almost fishlike eyes, but seemed to imply that their appearance was otherwise what would be expected of normal humans. They wore clothes and had children and lived 'regular' lives. At one point Vern even remembered seeing one of the adults mowing the lawn - but noted that this struck him as odd because he couldn't hear the mower. He could see them walking up and down his street, sometimes pausing to speak with each other 'like down home'. The bizarre Night People seemed to be living completely mundane lives, in contrast to their obviously inexplicable existence.
You might expect such a weird phenomenon to be contained to one location - and perhaps this article would be named the Night People of Orrick if that were true. However, it seems instead to be more likely that this phenomenon was bound to the unfortunate Vernon Windsor. When he and his family moved out of Orrick and went to Liberty, Missouri instead - his young self plainly noted that the Night People followed him there. They had the same unnerving fish-eyed visages, and were just continuing to go about their night-to-night lives. One night, however, when Vernon was roughly 6 years old, he decided that he would try and make contact with the fish-eyed folks. He had noticed that there were some nocturnal children playing in the yard next-door to him, and so he decided to go outside and play with them. This would be the action that would change everything. He went outside and suddenly something changed. One of the adults looked at him, and his heart sank as he realised 'they see me now'. The next thing he knew, it was daylight and he never saw the Night People again.
Folkloric Connections[]
Interestingly enough, Cherokee folklore describes very similar humanoid entities. They're called the Moon-Eyed People, and they supposedly lived in Appalachia before the Cherokee people arrived and expelled them. They were described as being small, white-skinned and as not seeing well in the daytime. This was supposedly where they got their odd name - they only had eyes for the moon. It is interesting to note, however, that Vernon's Night People could be described as being literally moon-eyed. Also intriguing is how the Moon-Eyed People were said to have fled west after being defeated by the Cherokee. Northwest of Appalachia is Missouri - which I feel leaves open the possibility that some Moon-Eyed People might have relocated to the aforementioned Show-Me State...
Sources[]
Interview with the witness conducted by Jason Offutt for his book 'Chasing American Monsters'
'Moon-Eyed People' on Wikipedia