Phantom

For other uses, see Phantom (disambiguation).

Phantom

Java Edition

Bedrock Edition

Health points	20HP × 10
Behavior	Hostile
Mob type	Undead Monster
Attack strength	In Java Edition: Easy and Normal: 2HP Hard: 3HP In Bedrock Edition[1]: Easy: 4HP Normal: 6HP Hard: 9HP
Hitbox size	Height: 0.5 Blocks Width: 0.9 Blocks
Speed	0.7
Spawn	In the Overworld at nighttime or during thunderstorms, when the player has not entered a bed or straw bed, or died for ≥3 in-game days

Phantoms are flying undead hostile mobs that spawn in the night sky when the player has not slept in a bed or straw bed or died for at least 3 in-game days. They attack by diving at the player from the sky to bite them.

Spawning

Phantoms spawn unless the game rule spawn_phantoms‌^{[JE only]} or doInsomnia‌^{[BE only]} is set to false. The spawning mechanics differ between Java and Bedrock editions. In both editions, they spawn in the Overworld above a player whose "Time Since Last Rest" statistic is at least 1 hour (72000 ticks or 3 in-game days). This statistic is reset when the player dies or enters a bed or straw bed. This does not require skipping the night. Furthermore, the player must not have a block overhead that blocks light in any way; for example, leaves prevent phantoms from spawning as they have a light opacity of 2, but glass does not, as its light opacity is 0. Phantoms do not spawn above players in Spectator mode, but they do spawn above players in Creative mode.^[2]

Bedrock Edition

Phantom spawning is similar to other monsters spawning: the spawn location must have a light level of 7 or less, and spawns are limited by the monster population cap. Phantoms are also subject to a density cap of 5. Phantom spawn attempts are made on surface blocks throughout the same spawn radius as other monsters. However, when a phantom spawn attempt succeeds, the phantom appears somewhere in a 21×15×21 cube centered 28 blocks above the player instead of at the block where the spawn attempt occurred.

This means phantoms can also spawn during daytime as long as there are suitable blocks around players who are directly below the sky. The number of phantoms spawned is 1-2 in Easy difficulty, 1-3 in Normal, and 1-4 in Hard. Blocks that can spawn phantoms needs to count as surface, that is, they have to be the highest spawnable block having no solid blocks directly above them. A solid floor under a roof of leaves, with at least 8 air blocks in between, meets this criteria.

Java Edition

Phantoms attempt to spawn every 1–2 minutes. They spawn only if it is night or a thunderstorm is happening, the player is above sea level (Y>62) with sky visible directly above (cobwebs do not block this), and the local difficulty is greater than a randomly chosen value between 0.0 and 3.0. The formula ^x−72000⁄_x represents the chance of a successful spawn, where x is the number of ticks since the player last entered a bed or straw bed or died. This roughly comes to a ¹⁄₄ (25.0%) chance on day 4, a ²⁄₅ (40.0%) chance on day 5, a ³⁄₆ (¹⁄₂) (50.0%) chance on day 6, ⁴⁄₇ (about 57.1%) chance on day 7, and so on.

If all conditions are met, a group of phantoms attempts to spawn 20–34 blocks above the player, and off to the side by a Chebyshev distance of up to 10 blocks. The number of phantoms spawned is 1-2 in Easy difficulty, 1-3 in Normal, and 1-4 in Hard. Phantoms can spawn inside buildings, if the player is outside and the building is both near enough and the building has a large enough cavity for them to spawn inside.

Phantoms count toward the hostile mob cap, but they do not adhere to it when spawning.^[3] Their spawning mechanic is based on the location of players in the world rather than by chance, unlike regular mob spawning. Phantom spawning is completely independent of biome, meaning they can spawn in biomes that normally prevent hostile mob spawning such as mushroom fields,^[4] deep dark^[5] and the void.^[6] The number of phantoms that spawn indirectly increase in number every consecutive night a player has not entered a bed or straw bed, as there is a higher chance that phantoms spawn every time there is a spawn attempt. They then stop spawning when the player lies down in bed or straw bed.

Drops

On death

Java Edition:

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Phantom Membrane[A]	0–1	50.00%	0.50	0–2	75.00%	1.00	0–3	87.50%	1.50	0–4	91.67%	2.00

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Phantom Membrane[A]	0–1	1⁄2	1⁄2	0–2	3⁄4	1	0–3	7⁄8	3⁄2	0–4	11⁄12	2

Item		Amount	Probability
			Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Phantom Membrane[A]	0	1⁄2 (50.00%)	1⁄4 (25.00%)	1⁄8 (12.50%)	1⁄12 (8.33%)
		1	1⁄2 (50.00%)	1⁄2 (50.00%)	3⁄8 (37.50%)	1⁄4 (25.00%)
		2	0	1⁄4 (25.00%)	3⁄8 (37.50%)	1⁄3 (33.33%)
		3	0	0	1⁄8 (12.50%)	1⁄4 (25.00%)
		4	0	0	0	1⁄12 (8.33%)
		Average	1⁄2 (0.50)	1 (1.00)	3⁄2 (1.50)	2 (2.00)

Killed		1
Item		Expected Drops
		Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Phantom Membrane[A]	0.50	1.00	1.50	2.00

Bedrock Edition:

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Phantom Membrane[A]	0–1	50.00%	0.50	0–2	50.00%	0.75	0–3	50.00%	1.00	0–4	50.00%	1.25

Item		Quantity / Chance / Average
		Default			Looting I			Looting II			Looting III
	Phantom Membrane[A]	0–1	1⁄2	1⁄2	0–2	1⁄2	3⁄4	0–3	1⁄2	1	0–4	1⁄2	5⁄4

Item		Amount	Probability
			Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Phantom Membrane[A]	0	1⁄2 (50.00%)	1⁄2 (50.00%)	1⁄2 (50.00%)	1⁄2 (50.00%)
		1	1⁄2 (50.00%)	1⁄4 (25.00%)	1⁄8 (12.50%)	1⁄12 (8.33%)
		2	0	1⁄4 (25.00%)	1⁄4 (25.00%)	1⁄6 (16.67%)
		3	0	0	1⁄8 (12.50%)	1⁄6 (16.67%)
		4	0	0	0	1⁄12 (8.33%)
		Average	1⁄2 (0.50)	3⁄4 (0.75)	1 (1.00)	5⁄4 (1.25)

Killed		1
Item		Expected Drops
		Default	Looting I	Looting II	Looting III
	Phantom Membrane[A]	0.50	0.75	1.00	1.25

• 5XP when killed by the player or a tamed wolf.

Behavior

When idle, phantoms fly around in a roughly circular pattern within 15 to 25 blocks of a player horizontally and within 24 to 35 blocks of a player vertically. They leave a trail of gray smoke while they fly. Their movement speed when attacking is one of the fastest of any mob, up to 20 blocks per second. They have a large search radius, targeting and following players from 64 blocks away. Once every 10-20 seconds‌^{[BE only]} or every 8-12 seconds‌^{[JE only]}, they swoop in to attack.

If stopped or hurt during this action, the phantom retreats back to its original elevation. When a path to its original elevation is obstructed by a block, the phantom continues attempting to return - they will rarely attack or swoop down until they reach it. They will not pathfind to the elevation, simply flying up into a block, so they are relatively safe in this state. In the case of spawning under a high glass ceiling, phantoms spawn, immediately attack, and then fly up to the glass.

Phantoms attack exposed players in beds or straw beds, but do not attack players in Creative mode.

Phantoms switch targets if a player has spawned them but another player qualifies to be attacked, however they are neutralized if the spawning or targeted player resets their timer.

Phantoms can move through water at their normal speed and do not drown. They can be captured in a boat or minecart.

A phantom's body disappears when under the Invisibility effect, but its eyes and smoke particles are still visible.

Cats hiss at phantoms that are currently attacking players, and phantoms try to stay at least 16 blocks away from them, ignoring blocks obstructing line of sight. In Bedrock Edition, phantoms also avoid ocelots in the same manner.

Being an undead mob, they are:

• damaged by the status effect Instant Health and healed by the status effect Instant Damage.
• unaffected by the status effects Regeneration and Poison.
• ignored by the wither.
• affected by the Smite enchantment.
• unable to swim in water, but do not drown.
• a threat to armadillos, causing them to hide in their shell.

Like zombies and skeletons, phantoms burn in sunlight.

The eyes of phantoms are emissive with Vibrant Visuals.

Sounds

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

Data values

ID

Java Edition:

Name	Identifier	Entity tags	Translation key
Phantom	phantom	burn_in_daylight can_breathe_under_water fall_damage_immune ignores_poison_and_regen inverted_healing_and_harm undead wither_friends sensitive_to_smite	entity.minecraft.phantom

Bedrock Edition:

Name	Identifier	Numeric ID	Family	Translation key
Phantom	phantom	58	mob monster phantom undead	entity.phantom.name

Entity data

Phantoms have entity data associated with them that contains various properties.

Java Edition:

Bedrock Edition:

See Bedrock Edition level format/Entity format.

Achievements

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		Monster Hunter	Attack and destroy a monster.	Kill one of these 41 monsters: Blaze Bogged Breeze Camel Husk Cave Spider Creaking (by destroying its creaking heart) Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Parched Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Horse Zombie Nautilus Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this achievement.	15	Bronze
		It Spreads	Kill a mob next to a catalyst	Kill any mob that drops experience near a sculk catalyst, with the sole exception of the ender dragon. Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this achievement.	10	Bronze

Achievements that apply to all mobs:

Icon		Achievement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)	Gamerscore earned	Trophy type (PS)
PS4	Other
		Overkill	Deal nine hearts of damage in a single hit.	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have nine hearts of health overall.	30	Bronze
		Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have 50 hearts of health overall.	20	Silver
		Mob Kabob	Hit five mobs in the same Charge attack using the Spear	Armor stands and players also count for this achievement as they are technically mobs.	10	Bronze

Advancements

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	Monster Hunter	Kill any hostile monster	Kill one of these 41​[until: Fourth Drop 2026]/42​[upcoming] monsters: Blaze Bogged Breeze Camel Husk Cave Spider Creaking (by destroying its creaking heart) Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Frostbite​[upcoming: Fourth Drop 2026] Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Parched Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Horse Zombie Nautilus Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.
	It Spreads	Kill a mob near a Sculk Catalyst	Kill any mob that drops experience near a sculk catalyst, with the sole exception of the ender dragon. Mobs that drop no experience are ignored for this advancement.
	Monsters Hunted	Kill one of every hostile monster	Kill each of these 41​[upcoming: Fourth Drop 2026]/42​[upcoming] monsters: Blaze Bogged Breeze Camel Husk Cave Spider Creaking (by destroying its creaking heart) Creeper Drowned Elder Guardian Ender Dragon Enderman Endermite Evoker Frostbite​[upcoming: Fourth Drop 2026] Ghast Guardian Hoglin Husk Magma Cube Parched Phantom Piglin Piglin Brute Pillager Ravager Shulker Silverfish Skeleton Slime Spider Stray Vex Vindicator Witch Wither Wither Skeleton Zoglin Zombie Zombie Horse Zombie Nautilus Zombie Villager Zombified Piglin Other mobs may be killed, but are ignored for this advancement.
	Two Birds, One Arrow	Kill two Phantoms with a piercing Arrow	Use a crossbow enchanted with Piercing to kill two phantoms with a single arrow shot.

Advancements that apply to all mobs:

Icon	Advancement	In-game description	Actual requirements (if different)
	Adventure	Adventure, exploration and combat	Kill any mob, or be killed by any living entity.
	A Throwaway Joke	Throw a Trident at something. Note: Throwing away your only weapon is not a good idea.	Hit a mob with a thrown trident.
	Take Aim	Shoot something with an Arrow	Using a bow or a crossbow, shoot a mob with an arrow, tipped arrow, or spectral arrow.
	Mob Kabob	Hit five mobs in the same Charge attack using the Spear	Armor Stand and Mannequin also count for this advancement.
	Arbalistic	Kill five unique mobs with one crossbow shot	Armor Stand and Mannequin also count for this advancement. This is a hidden advancement, meaning that it can be viewed by the player only after completing it, regardless of if its child advancement(s), if any, have been completed.
	Over-Overkill	Deal 50 hearts of damage in a single hit using the Mace	Damage can be dealt to any mob, even those that do not have 50 hearts of health overall.

Videos

History

Development

November 1, 2017							Phantoms are first shown on YouTube (back then known only as Mob B and The Monster of the Night Skies). The colored version later appeared after it won the vote.
November 14, 2017							The article about the phantom was published, which introduced a community vote option for the phantom at MINECON Earth 2017.
November 18, 2017							The phantom wins the vote at MINECON Earth. It is the second of mobs that were added as a result of the community voting for it.
December 13, 2017							A newer version of the model is shown by jeb. Adrian Östergård jokingly refers to it as a Raybow.
December 13, 2017							Another version of the model is shown by jeb later that day with another model and a missing texture.
?							At some point in development, the phantom’s model and texture resembled the final design.
?							A texture almost identical to the final design with a red color.

Java Edition

Java Edition
1.13			18w07a				Added phantoms with a placeholder drop of 1-4 leather.
			18w09a				Phantoms no longer spawn in the End.
							Phantoms now despawn at daytime.
			18w10a				The model and texture of phantoms have been changed.
			18w10c				Phantoms are now considered undead.
			18w10d				Phantoms now burn in sunlight like most undead mobs.
							Phantoms no longer despawn at daytime.
			18w14a				With the addition of phantom membranes, phantoms now drop 0-1 phantom membrane, instead of leather.
			18w19a				The phantom's animation has been changed to have the wings flap quicker and smoother.
							Phantoms now drop experience.[7]
			pre1				Phantoms now have new flapping sounds.
1.14			18w43a				Phantoms are now required for the "Two Birds, One Arrow" advancement.
			18w44a				Phantoms are now afraid of cats.
			pre3				The damage of phantoms has been reduced from 6HP to 2HP.[8]
1.15			19w36a				Phantom spawning can now be toggled with the game rule doInsomnia.
26.3			snap3				Added straw beds, which also prevent phantoms from spawning.

Bedrock Edition

Bedrock Edition
1.6.0			beta 1.6.0.1				Added phantoms with the health of 10HP, with a placeholder drop of 1-4 leather.
			beta 1.6.0.5				Phantoms now drop phantom membranes.
							The phantom's health has been increased from 10HP to 20HP × 10.
							Phantoms now burn in direct sunlight.
							Due to a bug, phantoms are now able to drown.[9]
			beta 1.6.0.6				Phantom spawning can now be toggled with the game rule doInsomnia.
1.8.0			beta 1.8.0.8				Phantoms are now afraid of cats.
1.21.80			Preview 1.21.80.20				Phantoms are now imitated by parrots.
1.21.130			Preview 1.21.130.22				Phantoms are no longer able to drown.
26.40 Experiment Drop 3 of 2026			Preview 26.40.30				Added straw beds, which also prevent phantoms from spawning.
26.50			Preview 26.50.22				All features from the "Drop 3 of 2026" experiment have been fully implemented.

Legacy Console Edition

Legacy Console Edition
Xbox 360	Xbox One	PS3	PS4	PS Vita	Wii U	Switch
TU69		1.76	1.76	1.76	Patch 38		Added phantoms.
							Phantoms only have 10 health.
							The maximum number of phantoms in a world is 5.
			1.83				Phantoms are now afraid of cats.

Data history

Issues

Issues relating to "Phantom" are maintained on the bug tracker. Issues should be reported and viewed there.

Trivia

• At one point before the release of 18w10a, the phantom texture was made red, but it was decided that it appeared too much like a Nether mob.^[10]
• The unused red design was used later in Minecraft Dungeons as a pet phantom.
• The phantom was originally going to have a mouth, like the drawing shown during MINECON Earth, but it was eventually scrapped because "it looked so much like a muppet".^[10] Earlier designs can be seen on Minecraft's Instagram account.^[11]
• The sounds of the phantom were taken from Samuel Åberg's son screaming.^[12][13]
• Despite being flying mobs, phantoms can destroy turtle eggs when on top of them.^[14]
• In its Mob Menagerie, phantoms's real-world parallel was stated to be bats, as well as mentions of the extinct pterosaur, quetzalcoatlus.^[15]

Gallery

Renders

• 
  Non-moving phantom (this state cannot be seen in-game)

Screenshots

• 
  A phantom under the Invisibility effect
• 
  Phantoms exposed to sunlight and taking fire damage
• 
  The particles produced by the phantom's wings can be clearly seen
• 
  A phantom swooping down at a player at night leaving a trail of gray smoke
• 
  A phantom stuck in a player's boat, caught in the daylight

Mojang images

• 
  A player avoiding a phantom by using the Invisibility effect
• 
  A swarm of phantoms
• 
  Another swarm of phantoms
• 
  A phantom on fire
• 
  A player riding a phantom

Development images

• 
  A phantom with a model template texture
• 
  A phantom with no texture
• 
  Phantoms flying overhead
• 
  A phantom flying high in the air, using its model and texture from 18w07a
• 
  A phantom flying high in the air, using its model and texture from 18w07a. The smoke particles beside each of its wings can be seen
• 
  The phantom's poses

Concept artwork

• 
  Mob B alongside the other mobs
• 
  Mob B finally wins in Minecon Earth Mob Vote
• 
  All the revisions of the phantom design, except for the red revision
• 
  The red phantom revision
• 
  Concept sketches

Textures

• 
  Phantom texture file
• 
  Old texture before 18w10a

In other media

• 
  Artwork of a phantom
• 
  LEGO Minecraft Phantom
• 
  "Phantoms and Witches and Ghasts, Oh My," an officially licensed T-Shirt
• 
  Phantom Plush
• 
  A demotivational poster of a phantom
• 
  World Kindness Day artwork
• 
  A phantom lunging at the Nitwit
• 
  A phantom as seen in Minecraft Dungeons
• 
  An action figure of a phantom
• 
  The same figure, but unboxed.
• 
  Phantoms in Minecraft (Dark Horse Comics)

References