Animal House: The Jersey Devil

Sometimes I wonder, really wonder, if we as humans have lost our collective mind or if there are really creatures living amongst us that we just don’t know about.  Last week I get a “” sighting and this week the legendary Jersey devil is back in the news.

Why legendary?  Stories of the Jersey Devil reach back some three hundred years and sightings are localized to only New Jersey and specifically in a one million acre forest in the center of the state, called the Pine Barrens. 

The legend says that in 1735 Mrs. Jane Leads was pregnant with her thirteenth child and she was said to have proclaimed that when she found herself with child, that the devil could have this one. The child was said to be born a monster and had a grotesque appearance. 

The description of the Jersey Devil has been highly consistent—a reptilian body, bat like wings, a horse like head, hoofs and signature red eyes. 

This clearly is just old folklore and some may even be able to read between the lines a little about what may have really taken place. 

So why would a legend persist for over three hundred years?  The legend of the Jersey Devil was so strong that men were not willing to venture out at night as it was said that the Devil was capable of taking away large dogs, sheep and small livestock. 

Remains of these animals were generally found which certainly fueled the legend.   Further fueling the legend was the sightings by credible and respected witnesses ranging from a respected naval commodore to Joseph Bonaparte, the former King of Spain and brother of Napoleon. 

The sightings continued into the early nineteen hundreds, where sightings became so prevalent that schools closed and people refused to go outside. 

There were several sightings in January of 1909 that included a police officer discharging his side arm at the creature and even a dog that was attacked by the devil in front of its owners.  This attack drew so much attention that a crowd of more than one hundred people gathered and the police were called. 

Again, a creature was seen by the collective group and again a police officer discharged his weapon at the suspected monster. 

The Philadelphia zoo was actually offering a $10,000 reward for the capture of the devil. The newspapers were filled with eye witness accounts and pictures.  This was before photo shop so faking a picture was much harder. 

And as quickly as the sightings came they vanished for almost twenty years and then again in 1927 the sightings were fast and furious. 

One such sighting was of a cab driver who was changing a tire when his cab started violently shaking, and on the roof was the creature.   The cab driver managed to escape, but not without scratches and damage to the cab.    

A few weeks later berry pickers sighted the creature tormenting animals near the berry fields, and then again there another sighting a few weeks later. 

Sightings continued through the years reaching a fevered pitch in the 1960s when screams could be heard throughout the area, and police even put signs up that the Jersey Devil was a hoax, but hundreds of people flooded the area to try and get a sighting of the beast.  A circus at the time even offered a $100,000 reward for its capture. 

Sightings have continued through the 1990s and almost all the sightings through the years have had credible witnesses like businessman, police officers, forest rangers and upstanding members of the community. 

The latest sightings have sparked several television shows to do investigations into the legend in the area. 

Fact, fiction, local legend—one certainly has to think twice about what all these people could have seen over three hundred years. 

Almost all legend is based in some truth, so with that, what could this animal be? Or is the real truth that when people see something they don’t understand our imaginations get the better of us?

We are constantly discovering new species of animals on our planet and the possibility does exist that given the huge forest and isolated areas these sightings have been in that it is merely a species we do not know about.

I’m not sure I am ready to say it was the devils spawn of the thirteenth birth of a woman who had forsaken God. Nor am I quite ready to believe there is a winged, horse headed, reptile-like monster with glowing red eyes lurking in the shadows. 

Could it really be a large bat species? 

It certainly is interesting to say the least and the persistence of the sightings and the length of time even surpass big foot and chance the Lake Champlain sea monster. 

Either way, if you’re in New Jersey, and you see something strange, you may come face to snout with the Jersey Devil.