Phantom Animatronics

Core Five Nights at Freddy's Series
Main plotline by Scott Cawthon and partnered game companies

Not what you were looking for? See Animatronic (disambiguation).

Phantom Chica and Phantom Foxy from the "In your mind" teaser for Five Nights at Freddy's 3.

Phantom Balloon Boy from the "Guess who" teaser for Five Nights at Freddy's 3.

“In addition to Springtrap, there are loads of animatronic hallucinations to deal with. All of them will cause systems to malfunction unless you take quick action, and suspiciously, all the animatronics appear burned.” — The Freddy Files, page 64

The phantom animatronics are hallucination-like variants of the original animatronics who haunt in Fazbear's Fright: The Horror Attraction throughout the nights.

The phantom animatronics first appeared in Five Nights at Freddy's 3 as side antagonists. Some of them returned in Ultimate Custom Night and Five Nights at Freddy's VR: Help Wanted.

Physical Appearance

The phantom animatronics are burnt and damaged ghost-like entities based on the animatronics, with greenish hues and charred colors. Their dark color tones make these variants almost blend in with the backgrounds, as well as making them hardly noticeable, especially when viewing the security cameras. All of the phantom animatronics have empty black eyes with grayish-colored irises and glowing white pupils. Their charred appearance may foreshadow Fazbear's Fright burning down.

Functionality

The phantoms' origins and whereabouts are unexplored. They will randomly appear on certain cameras or in the Office. If one is to witness the phantoms, they cannot physically kill but jumpscare them, then disappear in a flash of light to either disable their ventilation or merely act as distractions.

Animatronics

Phantom Freddy

Main article: Phantom Freddy

A phantom variant of Freddy Fazbear, typically based on withered Golden Freddy from the third and seventh game, but takes the form as classic Freddy in Help Wanted. First debuted in Five Nights at Freddy's 3, he resides in the hallway outside of the Office.

Phantom Balloon Boy

Main article: Phantom BB

A phantom variant of Balloon Boy. He first appeared in Five Nights at Freddy's 3, where he spawns almost anywhere in security cameras.

Phantom Chica

Main article: Phantom Chica

A phantom variant of Chica, with a design based on the classic variant. She first appeared in Five Nights at Freddy's 3, where she spawns from CAM 07.

Phantom Mangle

Main article: Phantom Mangle

A phantom variant of Mangle. It first appeared in Five Nights at Freddy's 3, where it spawns from CAM 04.

Phantom Foxy

Main article: Phantom Foxy

A phantom variant of Foxy, with his design based on Withered Foxy from the third game, but in Help Wanted, he is based on the classic Foxy. He first appeared in Five Nights at Freddy's 3, where he spawns inside the Office.

Phantom Puppet

Main article: Phantom Puppet

A phantom variant of the Puppet. It only appeared in Five Nights at Freddy's 3, where it spawns from CAM 08.

Theories and Speculation

"I was the first! I have seen everything!" This article or section contains a lot of speculation, which usually occurs from pre-release media, or just things that are still unknown, so please keep that in mind while reading. The page will continue to be updated with the most accurate information as more solid evidence is supplied.

• While the phantoms origins are unknown and where they came from, they are heavily theorized to be recreations of the animatronics that the children had formerly possessed from the Missing Children Incident. While this theory is very controversial among fans. There could many reasons connecting the phantoms existence and where they came from.
  • In Five Nights at Freddy's 3, it is entirely possible for multiple phantoms to appear on the Monitor in one run, totaling over at least three phantoms. This shows that the phantoms have very erratic behavior when dealing with the night guard. This is applied with other possessed animatronics who are very aggressive in other games throughout the franchise.
    • However, they don't seem to be too aggressive with the night guard as the six of them are incapable of killing the guard and merely serve as distractions.
    • Also, if the theory was true, it would be unknown why the phantoms don't attack Springtrap and attack the night guard instead. This could be because when an entity dies, their memories escape rapidly making them become delusional and disoriented making them vengeful against the wrong person.
• There is also another theory that the phantoms could have been created by Golden Freddy and The Puppet as those two didn't want to be freed yet as they wanted William to be dead. They could have possibly created the phantoms in order to kill William, however due to the fact that William was now Springtrap and the fact that the phantoms were probably given a target system to track William down and kill him once and for all, this may have confused the phantoms thinking that the night guard was William instead.
  • Another reason to prove that the phantoms were created by the Puppet is that there are times when Phantom Puppet will turn to normal Puppet, showing how the Puppet could be responsible.
• It's quite ironic that Bonnie doesn't have a phantom counterpart due to the fact that he's a standard animatronic.
  • This could because Springtrap already takes a role as a Bonnie counterpart as Springtrap resembles Bonnie and the rest of his counterparts.

Trivia

• These are the only animatronic counterparts of the series not to outright kill the protagonists, and instead taking the role as distractions or obstacles to hinder the progress.
  • Despite the phantoms serving as obstacles, there is a rare bug on the original mobile version where Phantom Freddy and Phantom Chica can directly end the game.
• In Ultimate Custom Night, Phantom Freddy, Phantom Mangle, and Phantom BB's appearances are less burnt and more brighter to see.
• Phantom Freddy, Phantom Mangle, and Phantom BB have had the most appearances out of the other three phantoms, as the three of them have appeared in three games. Phantom Foxy and Phantom Chica have appeared in two games so far.
  • All of the phantoms have appeared in more than one game except Phantom Puppet, who has only appeared in Five Nights at Freddy's 3 so far.
• Despite the designated phantoms that appear in Help Wanted (with those being Phantom Freddy, Phantom Foxy, Phantom Mangle, and Phantom BB), none of their models appear in the Gallery area or have their own action figures.
  • They, along with Endo-02, Bidybab, Minireena, Coffee, Glitchtrap, PlushKins and the Blacklight Animatronics are the only animatronics that don't appear in the Gallery Mode.