The Jersey Devil

From the East Coast of the United States comes one of the most fascinating and frightening of all the world’s animals unknown to science. More than a hundred people claim to have seen him as he has terrorized towns and caused schools and factories to close down. Some claim he is simply a mythical beast born of local superstitions and folklore others say the weight of evidence is just too great to dismiss the existence of an animal or a supernatural being that has become known as the Jersey Devil

The Pine Barrens of New Jersey where this animal has been sighted offers the perfect setting for such a mystery. With its eerie marshes and rambling old houses, it is easy to think of the supernatural. There has always been many a tale of how the Jersey Devil was born although shrouded in mystery as it is hard to work out where history ends and folklore begins; in each case it is said to be a woman who gave birth to the beast. The most common story of this occurrence was a woman called Mary Leeds who apart from being accused of witchcraft (Of course there was no proof, neither was there proof to suggest that the child’s father was the Devil himself as was believed by the public wrongly) was expecting her thirteenth child in 1735. Fed up of bearing so many children, she cursed that the devil could claim her next child. She got her wish for when the child was born, the face twisted into a horse’s head with horns and bat wings came out of the shoulders as the host of those shoulders grew larger in size. Then with a shriek or some say shrilling laugh, the animal, after beating everyone gravely with his tail, flew up the chimney off into the night. Despite an exorcism from a clergy in 1740, the beast was sighted again in 1790 and has been so over the months turned years turned centuries. While he has never attacked a person, he has been blamed for killing countless farm animals and pet dogs.

The highest sightings of the Jersey Devil occurred in 1909. People say they saw the animal flying by or stalking the woods. A bounty was put on the Beast’s head but posies and experts hunted to no avail for the animal. It was believed that the Devil himself possessed a deformed youth who was no doubt Mother Leeds’ unlucky child.  Irony that into the 70s, the hockey team the New Jersey Devils was formed. Some say it was probably due to a sighting of the Jersey Devil by three people who were resting in their car in the woods after coming back from a cancelled party

But according to one person, Harry Leeds, a descendant of Mother Leeds who believes there is nothing sinister about his background and believes the Jersey Devil is a force of good rather than evil, sightings of the Jersey Devil are believed to foretell a bad event. The Jersey Devil is indeed thought by a few to be a harbinger of doom as sightings have taken place on the eve of shipwrecks such as the Titanic and the outbreak of five wars, most notably the American civil war. His appearance is also said to have preceded the onset of bad weather. Incredibly some claim to have glimpsed the Devil just before hearing news of an election or change in government which the public would later be opposed to

It is believed that either a crane or a bat is mistaken for the Jersey Devil at night and due to the distance between the animal and the witness, these animals could appear bigger than they really are. The roars of the Jersey Devil could be attributed to wildcats such as the lynx or bobcat while the killing of livestock might be well explained by the guilt of foxes. It is also thought that the Jersey Devil could be a surviving Prehistoric flying Reptile. But if Science rules all this out, then what is the Jersey Devil? Is he the Devil himself? Is he out to gain souls for his beastly Kingdom? Or is he out to warn of danger? Whatever your verdict on this tale, it is true to say that over the decades, something very strange has scared a lot of people here as it is said the being that does the scaring, every seven years returns to the place in which he was born

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