In one week in 1909, hundreds of people in New Jersey said they saw the 'Jersey Devil', and schools closed

In southern New Jersey, there is a large pine forest called the Pine Barrens, sandy land, swamps, stretching as far as the eye can see. Legend has it that in 1735, there was a woman here surnamed Leeds who had already given birth to twelve children; when she was pregnant with the thirteenth, exhausted and miserable, she cursed, "Let the devil take it." When the child was born, it looked normal at first, but after a few hours, it changed: it grew a horse's head, bat's wings, cloven hooves, and a tail, shrieked, and flew out of the chimney, disappearing into the pine forest.

From then on, it lived in the woods, and everyone called it the "Jersey Devil."

In January 1909, the legend suddenly exploded. Starting January 16, within one week, hundreds of people in New Jersey and Pennsylvania said they had seen it: some said it flew over rooftops, its wings flapping the wind; some woke up in the morning to see a row of hoof prints in the snow, leading from the yard to the fence, over it, then climbing onto the roof and coming down the other side, without a break. Someone shot at it but missed. Schools closed, and some factories stopped work; farmers dared not go out at night, and newspapers ran stories about it on the front page every day.

The Philadelphia Zoo offered a ten-thousand-dollar reward for a live capture. Later, someone came forward to admit that part of it was a hoax: the owner of a Philadelphia exhibition hall had someone tie fake wings onto a kangaroo, paint stripes on it, and put it on display in a window, claiming it was the Devil. By the end of January, the commotion died down on its own.

Others say that the hoof prints that week were made by wild dogs, rabbits, and foxes in the snow, distorted by the wind until they looked like a continuous row of hoof prints.

The legend never disappeared. In 1982, an ice hockey team that moved from Colorado to New Jersey held a public naming contest, and the final team name chosen was the "Devils."

#Paranormal #网络转载 #怪兽