Is the White Enderman Real in Minecraft?

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Minecraft expert Jose Rivera explains the legend behind Minecraft’s creepiest mob

Co-authored by Jose Rivera and Amy Bobinger, BA

Last Updated: February 18, 2026 Fact Checked

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• What is the White Enderman?
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• Are White Endermen real?
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• Creepypastas and Lore
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• Origin
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• How rare is the White Enderman?
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• Video

|Show more |Show less

Have you ever been exploring remote Minecraft biomes, only to see something slender, white, and just plain strange in the distance? Or maybe you've seen White Endermen in Minecraft creepypastas and you want to know more about them. Either way, we've got you covered. We talked to Minecraft expert Jose Rivera to find out everything there is to know about the White Enderman, including what it is, whether it's real, and the lore behind it.

What is a White Enderman in Minecraft?

Minecraft expert Jose Rivera says that the White Enderman is a white or pale mob with black or glowing eyes, appearing in glitchy worlds. The effect is usually caused by haze over a regular Enderman, but they may also spawn on crowded servers. White Endermen are frequently the subject of fan-made creepypastas.

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Section 1 of 5:

What is the White Enderman in Minecraft?

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1. 
   The White Enderman is a mob that is rumored to appear in Minecraft. Rivera says, “The White Enderman is a chilling reimagining of Minecraft’s classic Enderman.” He explains that while regular Endermen are usually pitch black with purple eyes, the White Enderman variant is “entirely white or ghostly pale, often with black void-like or glowing eyes.” He adds that the White Enderman usually appears in “specific seeds or glitchy worlds.”

   • “Players describe the White Enderman as a harbinger of corruption, a sign that their world is about to collapse, mobs will turn hostile, or inventory data will vanish,” says Rivera.
   • White Endermen are the same size as regular black Endermen. They’re sometimes said to have normal purple eyes, but other times, their eyes are described as green or blue. Some people claim that they have green auras around them.This first known appearance of a White Enderman was recorded by YouTuber @RejectedShotgun in September 2011.
   • White Endermen are often believed to have originated from the Farlands, and as such, they’re sometimes called Farlands Endermen. However, they may spawn more often in snowy or cold biomes.
   • Some people claim that White Endermen have special powers, like the ability to walk on water or to kill players without making eye contact.

   Meet the wikiHow Expert

   Jose Rivera is a social media strategist and content creator with over 200 million views across his social media channels. He specializes in topics like anime, gaming, movies, and TV.
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Section 2 of 5:

Are White Endermen real?

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1. 
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   Yes, but they’re likely the product of a fog-based glitch. “Just like Entity 404, the White Enderman is not an official mob,” says Rivera. “There’s no record of it in Minecraft’s source files, nor can it spawn naturally.” That said, he says that they can occur as a result of “lighting or rendering glitches that make an Enderman appear washed-out or glowing white.”

   • A fog or haze effect in some versions of Minecraft (like Beta 1.8) can create a negative color effect. This can sometimes cause an Enderman to appear white from a distance—but as the player gets closer to the Enderman, the color will revert back to normal, so the Enderman will appear black again.
     • This is especially likely to happen if your render distance is set to “tiny” since you’ll see the Enderman from farther away.
     • The haze color glitch is likely what caused the White Enderman in @RejectedShotgun’s 2011 video.
     • The haze color glitch also sometimes affects Spiders.
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   Other glitches may also temporarily generate White Endermen. Using a graphic enhancement mod like Optifine or turning on the “Vibrant Visuals” effect can sometimes trigger a negative color effect in Minecraft, similar to the haze color glitch. This effect may be more likely to occur if there’s a bright light nearby.

   • Tapping an Enderman on mobile may cause its colors to temporarily invert, making it look white.
   • Also, in earlier versions of Minecraft, White Endermen may have spawned on overloaded multiplayer servers with severe lag. This bug is believed to have been patched, but in 2024, YouTuber @ThatChiefGuy posted a video where he and his friends used a lag machine to overload their server, leading to several White Endermen being spawned.
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   White Endermen can be created intentionally via mods or texture packs. Rivera says that White Endermen are usually the result of “texture packs and shaders that recolor the Endermen for effect” or “mods and custom maps designed specifically to recreate the creepypasta, often packaged with spooky ambient sounds and fake ‘corruption’ events.”

   • If you’re into playing modded Minecraft, you can force White Endermen into your game. Download a White Enderman mod from a source you trust, then transfer it to your mod folder and play it via Minecraft Forge.
   • Some mods will spawn White Endermen periodically. For instance, 1 out of every 100 Endermen might be white.
   • Others are more in-depth, giving White Endermen the power to infect animals, villagers, and blocks, or even to teleport the player to another world.
   • You can also download White Endermen Minecraft skins to customize your own character.
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Section 3 of 5:

White Enderman Creepypastas and Fan-Made Lore

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1. 
   White Enderman are a popular subject in Minecraft lore. Even though White Endermen are just the product of a glitch, the Minecraft community has turned them into something so much more. They’ve become the frequent subject of Minecraft creepypastas (fictional scary stories) and lore videos, and a kind of mythos has risen up around them.

   • Rivera explains, “In typical horror retellings, players encounter one in the distance, attempt to approach, and then watch their world degrade into chaos: files missing, textures flickering, and audio warping before the screen fades to black.”
     • “The myth persists because the image—a white, human-shaped figure standing still in the dark—is so effective at scaring players. It’s Herobrine meets SCP-096: simple, eerie, and just plausible enough to feel like it could exist.”
   • This entry on Minecraft Fandom claims that White Endermen can kill you in Creative mode, have the ability to delete your world after you die, and can walk on water. It also says they won’t stop chasing you once they start.
   • According to this legend from YouTuber @Faberistry, a young Enderman turned white while on a quest to the Overworld. He looked at the sun, burning the protective purple glaze off his eyes so they turned green. Then, he fell into the ocean, burning his skin and turning it white.
   • In this story posted to Minecraft Creepypasta, players are stalked by two Enderman taller than End City—one black and one white. In a creepy twist, the real-life players mysteriously die at the same time as their Minecraft characters.
   • This video from YouTuber @Kunai claims that White Endermen were originally ancient builders who got trapped in the Farlands, eventually turning white as a result of living in the shadows of the Farland’s towering walls.

Section 4 of 5:

How did the White Enderman myth start?

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1. The White Enderman originated on the Minecraft Creepypasta Wiki. Rivera says, “The White Enderman myth emerged around the mid-to-late 2010s, paralleling Entity 404’s rise. Early entries appear on the Minecraft Creepypasta Wiki from that period, describing near-identical encounters with pale Endermen haunting players’ survival worlds.”

   • “By 2018–2019, the legend had exploded through YouTube narrations, and later through TikTok short-form horror videos, where clips of ‘spotted White Enderman’ became a recurring viral theme,” continues Rivera. “It now sits alongside Herobrine, Entity 303, and Giant Alex as one of Minecraft’s most recognizable horror archetypes.”
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Section 5 of 5:

How rare is the White Enderman in Minecraft?

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1. 
   It’s very rare to see a White Enderman in Minecraft. White Endermen don’t spawn naturally in Minecraft. They’re the result of a glitch, which means to replicate it, you have to find an already-elusive Enderman and view it from just the right render distance, with the right amount of haze or color saturation to cause the colors to shift.

   • You can increase the chances of seeing a white Enderman with mods or texture packs.

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