Spring Heeled Jack

Originally posted by Byrd
There really wasn't anything that he did that was totally unexplainable. The "spitting fire" is a common magician's trick and needs just time and space to set up. The "leaping" is something that's easily done with wires and an accomplice (they had stage mechanisms that could do this... in a dark night in the right setting, you could set this thing up and people would swear it was a man jumping to amazing heights ... because they couldn't see the wire.)

But, no, it has nothing in common with chupacabras.

Another clue that the jumping was done by wire is that a) they didn't have the metallurgical technology for this and b) they didn't have stabilizing gryoscopes. I have a friend who owns a pair of "jumper stilts;" basically leg extensions with powerful springs that CAN enable you to jump higher than normal.

He nearly broke his leg and his arm, and it was extremely unreliable on anything except a very smooth surface and in ideal conditions. Even after a month of practice, it was still a fairly dangerous (but fun) toy.

...and he wasn't jumping as high as Jack was reported to.

It would be extremely obvious if he was using wires, for one he would have to hang about in that area for a while setting it all up, and secondly after the leap he would still be attatched to all the wires and therefore wouldnt be able to go very far at all. Thirdly there aren't reports of pully's being set up in the areas where he was sighted

well i lived 6 years in india and i was there when that thing appeared but dont know if you should trust the indian people they have a lot of imagination and preety strange that monkey man just didnt appear anymore.

I found an interesting theory:

"It is thought that the original Spring-Heeled Jack (for there was obviously
more than one) was an Irish nobleman, The Marquis of Waterford, who was renowned for his sadistic taste in practical jokes, and his scorn for women.
Author Peter Haining in his book "The Legend and Bizarre Crimes of Spring-Heeled Jack" believes that Waterford's idea for the character of Jack was brought about by a humiliating experience with a woman and a police officer while travelling abroad. Haining believes that Waterford and his
rich friends thought up the idea as a prank to get even, by proxy, with the
police and women in general. Haining also believes that Waterford (who had friends who studied applied mechanics) helped him invent "spring-heeled boots" (boots with powerful springs in the heels) to help him with his attacks. It is likely that he also learned the technique of the fire-eater
in order to heighten the supernatural aura of Spring-Heeled Jack. In
addition, Waterford had strangely protuberent eyes, which matched the
descriptions of Jack. He was also in the area when many of the attacks
occured. As a final piece of evidence, the servant boy who scared Jack away saw a crest with the letter "W" on the man's cloak.
Although the mystery of Spring-Heeled Jack's identity has probably been
ascertained, it is far more entertaining and romantic to think of
Spring-Heeled Jack as a mysterious creature of the night who may someday leap from the shadows again."

That came from here

Dude, SHJ was a real-american (sorry, british) super hero! Bounding around on springs, cape, tight costume, stealing women. Every women wants him and every guy wants to be him!

That's strange, but very interesting..I'm going to try and read more about it.

I found out that a similar creature appeared in India. The police made some drawings of it, here they are

i read a book skulduggery pleasent playing with fire and springheeled jack was a big part he was a criminal duh for murder and apparently looked revolting and always wore his trademark old weatherworn tophat and oilskin night black coatand there is also a movie abt him i have looked into him quite a lot and have become an expert of some sort on the subject and if you want more info just ask me in a email or add me on msn at [email protected]

Dude sounds pretty awesome. I wonder why he didn't just shoot these flames from his mouth and burn people alive? That'd be awesome.

Say, do you think Spring Heeled Jack knows Cotton Eyed Joe?

It seems Spring Heeled Jack didn't actually want to kill anyone. He jumped around and said "BOOGEDY BOOGEDY" a lot but excepting the few women he clawed he never really hurt anyone.
Even in the New Delhi case. The only damage said to be caused by the Monkey Man were bites, scratches and bruises. The deaths were all caused by either mobs setting upon people they thought were the Monkey Man, or people who fell fleeing downstairs.

reply to post by JackofBlades

So many theories, if only something like that happened in these days people could get footage. isnt it assame nothing like that happens in these days, funny it doesnt.

The springs theory doesn't hold much water, the German paratroopers (prior to WW2) experimented with carriage springs for easy landings. The result being a rash of broken ankles.

There probably was some weird sht going on with SHJ bouncing around.
He was shot at twice (once by sentrys at Aldershot, the other by militia/crowds) and he didn't go down or appear injured.
He keeps appearing through the decades. I think a motorist reported seeing him a whiole back.
Wonder where he is now?

reply to post by WatchRider


Spring-Heeled Jack was probably a myth that people took as being real. Once reported, and once in the collective psyche, every shadow people saw at night, every cat disappearing over a fence, every tree branch blowing in the breeze, every cloud of fog, was attributed to him. People get carried away. Using eyewitness accounts is ridiculously flawed. Really, really, ridiculously.

When was the last sighting of Springheel Jack/ The Rooftop Madman and anything like that?

apparently the last reports were about the 1870s in Sheffield when there was reports of the "Park Ghost" and "Peckham Ghost" both of which were described as "Springheel Jacks"

No it was after that. The Rooftop Madman (A person almost exactly the same as Springheel Jack) was seen in Argentina in 2005 and I'm wondering if there have been any more recent reports. Thanks for trying to help anyway though.

I have some cryptozoology books that mentioned him if I remember correctly. Pretty strange if you ask me. I have a vision of a wanker running around in the dark, dressed up like a monkey with claws on springs, and scaring the hell out of people. When was the last reported sighting?

Originally posted by yetifood12
No it was after that. The Rooftop Madman (A person almost exactly the same as Springheel Jack) was seen in Argentina in 2005 and I'm wondering if there have been any more recent reports. Thanks for trying to help anyway though.

Didn't they link the Rooftop Madman to the Mothman? I thought the descriptions were similar?

Originally posted by ZeroDeep
More like Spring Heeled Jackie chan.
Deep

In his cartoon show, he actually fought the Spring Heeled Jack. Super deep.

Originally posted by nastalgik

Originally posted by yetifood12
No it was after that. The Rooftop Madman (A person almost exactly the same as Springheel Jack) was seen in Argentina in 2005 and I'm wondering if there have been any more recent reports. Thanks for trying to help anyway though.

Didn't they link the Rooftop Madman to the Mothman? I thought the descriptions were similar?

It is possible that some people have likened those two beings, but in my opinion, the Rooftop Madman and the Mothman has NOTHING in common, other then their red eyes, which also Springheeled Jack was described as having.

The rooftopp Madman is almost exactly similar to the original Jack, apart from the face not being clearly described.

Yeah I meant that I thought they came up with the rooftop thing to be the Mothman. The monkey man thing looks incredibly freaky. I would kill it if it jumped out of the bushes