The Camouflage Creatures are a race of primitive humanoids roaming the forests of Leon County, FL. They have an astounding ability to cloak themselves, turning into the same colors as the nature around them, hence their name, as well as heightened agility, superhuman strength and speed, as well as complex group coordination. They wore no clothes, with their skin having a tree bark-like quality to it and possessed glowing red eyes with superior vision in the dark. Living primarily in an underground tunnel system, they lived undetected by the outside world for centuries until their existence was revealed following the disappearances of visitors of the woods they reside in, who they had captured and left for dead in a rudimentary prison chamber in coordinated attacks as prey and to keep invaders off their territory. They have a habit of using ruses, finding human weaknesses, and working in packs, making use of distractions and the elements of surprise, typically taking out the biggest perceived threat before picking off the remaining victims one by one.
Discovery in 1997[]
Fox Mulder and Dana Scully come across these creatures when travelling with FBI colleagues Michael Kinsley and Carla Stonecypher to a mandatory office collaboration conference in the area. As the two agents are loathe to be arriving there, they stop at Leon County, where they local police are looking into a potential shooting and are searching for traces of some recently missing people, Mulder taking the opportunity to investigate and stall the trip. Two surveyors, Marty Fox and Michael Sloan, as well as Michael Asekoff had gone missing while out in the woods, with no bodies recovered. The police only launched a search due to Asekoff telling his son Louis to run with their dog, making it out alive and contacting the authorities. Louis has become doubtful about his father's survival, figuring that since he was a good shot, he would've made it back by then. It only gets worse when the wild predators deemed responsible for the disappearances come back for the son the next night, invading the Asekoff home, luring out his mother and bolting the door to ensure his demise. Miraculously, he narrowly escapes again, managing to crawl through the dog door, after which he ran into Mulder, who had been staking out the house in anticipation of an attack, whom he warns of the beasts inside.
Tracks are found outside the house, and surprisingly, they look like human footprints. The forensics are wrong though, which encourages Mulder to assume paranormal leads going forward in the investigation. Mulder and Scully go with local PD officer Michele Fazekas and technician Jeff Glaser to scour the woods for the creatures, but the team is quickly separated and taken by the creatures, safe for Mulder and Scully. Scully herself is grabbed and nearly dragged away by one creature, but Mulder, seeing the creature's silhouette, shoots the being away. Mulder and Scully are left isolated throughout the night, and in the morning when trying to collect berries, Scully falls into a pit and finds a makeshift encampment - with all the missing victims in there, along with many dozens more, never reported and desiccated to the point of mummification, all hanged to the wall. The earliest missing ones are dead, but they find Fazekas and Asekoff still alive. before a creature with them in the hole tries to attack Scully, causing her to shoot the creature dead, revealing finally a human-like creature covered with wooden skin and glowing red eyes. Help follows shortly after in the form Kinsley and Stonecypher, who arrive with another, larger searching party to save the agents and the other survivors.
When getting back, Mulder tells Kinsley about a sign reading "AD NOCTUM" in the cave, a message also carved at the encampment and on a tree trunk at the lip of the wood where people go in to tour it. It was Latin for "into darkness", a phrase inscribed by the Spanish conquistadors to warn of nearby indigenous people whom the Spaniards tortured and massacred. Mulder theorizes that the creatures they found were 16th century Spanish colonists, who, like Ponce de Leon, had come to Northern Florida looking for the apocryphal Fountain of Youth, which they found in the caverns of the Floridian forest, giving them eternal youth. Either driven insane or greedily protecting the source, they slowly adapted to the environment over the last 400 years to become the bark creatures everyone found. Mulder is then informed the dead creature's gone missing, causing him to rush back to the hotel to get Scully and have her leave with him immediately. His assumptions are proven right: the red eyes of the camouflage bark creature open from underneath her bed. (TXF: "Detour")
