The Niantic were the indigenous people of Blackwood Falls.
They named the town so after the large black tree which stood at its centre, which they believed fell from the sky, piercing the "spirit-world" and releasing the so-called "Hee-oko". The Tenth Doctor and Martha Jones later found the Hee-oko to be the alien Hervoken, and the tree to be the tip of their crashed ship, a Sky-heart. (AUDIO: Forever Autumn)