The legend of the Jersey Devil starts with a woman who went by the last name of “Leeds” (which is why it’s also known as the “Leeds Devil”) . This woman, reffered to as a “whore” in most accounts, uttered something akin to “Let him be the devil!” whilst birthing her 13th child. Legend has it that hell heard her, and she gave birth to a creature with the head of a collie dog, the face of a horse, a long neck, two foot tall wings, back legs like a crane, and a horse’s hooves. It stood about three and a half feet high, and upon being born, it screeched a hateful screech and flew away to forever haunt the New Jersey (USA) Pine Barrens. Anyone think that maybe she actually said “Let him be a handsome devil!”? Maybe she wanted her new baby boy to be a smooth ladies man, but hell needs it’s hearing checked, so she got hosed and gave birth to ole’ horse face. Anyhow, over the years there’s been numerous sightings of this cute little guy, mostly doing things that resemble the actions of an autistic flamingo (eating people’s trash, attacking small animals, flying into power lines etc.), but the most famous encounter(s) occured the week of January 16th thru the 23rd , in 1909.
During a time that newspapers dubbed “Phenomenal Week” (Way to go early 1900s newspaper editors. Very creative. Was “Super Seven Days” taken? Fail.), reports of Jersey Devil-esque footprints in the snow preceded hundreds of sightings, in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware; enough that schools troughout the Delaware Valley were shut down for days. During this time, it alledgedly showed aggresive behavior; attacking a trolley car full of people and a social club (it probably just wanted to do the Charleston, or the Lindy Hop, or whatever awkward dance people in Jersey did at that point). It even took a few bullets to the chest from local police, but escaped unharmed. Since that time, sightings have calmed down and the Jersey Devil has become more of a pop-culture phenomenon than a terror (The New Jersey Devils NHL franchise is even named after it). However, some still believe it’s out there with bad intentions, including some folks in 1957 that alledgedly found the corpse of it or one of its relatives; and a group known as “Devil Hunters” that reported ten encounters with it in 2008 alone.
Unfortunately for it’s believers, evidence of the Jersey Devil’s existance is as scarce at Jersey’s non-Atlantic City tourist population (Zing! Take that Jersey!), so for right now, the Jersey Devil remains…an Otherworld Mystery.
