Mystery Creature Caught On Video In California Foothills, Authorities Say It Could Be An Ape

California resident Jake Gardiner is not sure exactly what he saw but he believes it was a mystery creature climbing through the trees in the foothills of La Crescenta, near the 210 Freeway.

Gardiner who works near the area, spotted the creature while he was taking a stroll in the woods during his lunch break last week. A blurred video of the creature that he shot with his cellphone has gone viral since, reports said.

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"At first, I heard a bunch of strange noises in the trees. Figured it was just some types of bird or something like that,” Gardiner told KTLA, a CW-affiliated television station located in Los Angeles, in an interview Tuesday. Gardiner said he felt something was watching him from a distance and got the uneasy.

Gardiner says he saw something move in the trees and pulled out his cellphone and started shooting. Although, he could not make much of the creature while he was recording the video, when he checked the clip later, he noticed something unusual.

“You can definitely see a torso and four limbs moving around and swinging around,” Gardiner said. “It’s a pretty obvious kind of motion," Gardiner told the local channel.

The video has drawn the attention of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is investigating it with the help of Los Angeles Animal Control, reports said.

The department says the creature might be an ape, but there is no confirmation.

Andrew Hughan, who is with the Department of Fish and Wildlife told KTLA that it's not often that an ape is spotted by people in the California woods. “We’ve had this before where we get exotic pets and people can’t take care of them,” Hughan said. “They either let them go or escape.”

However, he said that apes are dangerous. He said: "These animals are incredibly strong. And they can very easily kill or seriously injure a person because — if it turns out to be an ape — this animal is scared, hungry, out of its element." He added that although the situation is not alarming now, people should avoid heading out to the woods to look for that creature.

A similar mysterious creature was captured on a resident's security camera in Norwalk, which is a suburban city in Los Angeles County, in July 2014. The animal in the video was passing silently through a residential neighborhood, and according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials, it was not a mountain animal, which it was initially thought to be, NBC reported.

Apart from these sightings, California coastline also has a long history of visits by alleged sea monsters. In November, a number of photographs showing mysterious jelly-like creatures washed up on the sands in Huntington Beach in Southern California, went viral on social media, KTLA reported.

One Facebook user, Ryan Rustan, wrote on his profile that while walking on the shoreline, he felt "little water baloons popping" under his feet. When he looked down, he did not know whether those creatures were jellyfish or eggs but there were thousands of them.