Is this the Jersey Devil???

where is this voice located? I want to know. It may be interesting to hear what may be his voice.

Originally posted by TheAgentNineteen
U should have heard the recording of it's "voice". It makes your spine tingle. Sounds like the cross between a lady shrieking, and machinery.

I'll link the site when I find it.

There's a recording? By all means, find this link and share. I for one would love to see if it sounds anything like what I heard in NY. Especially since if it is the same thing that is reported to be by this illusive creature, well maybe someone will hear it and know what it is.

[edit on 13-7-2004 by Relentless]

i've seen that comparison before. imo, it's a great find.

think about when the 'original' devil sightings were... wasn't it around the time of travelling curcuses and roadside shows? possibly someone decided it'd be a good hoax to pull off, since there was no outlet to conjur up an Aussie Bloke.

Get yourself one of those funky looking bats, dress it up a bit.. set it loose, watch the shoot hit the foot and have a laugh.

if you're from NJ i'm sure you've heard the stories about the devil's 'children'. a way for people to explain what they think they saw, wasn't really that huge at all?

As to the lady shreiking noises heard by people there are many animals that make these noises and all of them will send a chill down your spine. I still remember the first night i heard a bobcat scream and i thought someone was being killed. Peacocks also make some eirie sounds that are similiar to that of a women screeching in pain. The person who mentioned the rabbit's scream could be correct as well , you should hear what a rabbit sounds like when its being eaten god its creepy. Given i spent several years as an importer/exporter for the exotica animal industry i have heard some very spine tingling sounds be made by some of the smallest of animals and if released into the wild these noises would make stories pop up out of the woodwork.

To the guy that questioned as to wether such a bat could surrvive do to lack of food i can shed some light onto that topic. Herbivores, carnivores, and insectivores will all change thier diet if need be to surrvive. Ive been part of several studies in the past of various animals that have been classified as herbivores and if a dry season or some other force wipes out the vegatation in an area the herbivores will do one of two things , move on or become carnivores. More often then not they will become carnivores in order to surrvive. Granted the animals digestive system wont be designed for this type of diet and the animal might not be the best health however it will surrvive. Addtionally animals will adapt to enviroments that they are not designed to live in , ground dwelling animals will take to the trees if the food is up there and some animals that do not hibernate in their natural enviroment will in an enviroment they are introduced into.

The horse shoe footprints found during the time of 1909 would not be uncommon as it wasnt exactly odd to have horses traveling thoughout the US . In current times horses are used much less of course and i would wager some of the reports are due to the mind seeing what the mind wants to see through the power of suggestion. A good example happened to me last night when i went out my front door. As i walked outside some animal of some sorts went running trough the tree tops frantickly trying to get away. As the animal ran i could not see it i could only hear it and it sounded like it was the size of a deer but it was well up in the air 15 feet or so and couldnt be a deer. My mind of course was thinking about the jersey devil due to this thread so of course that was the first thing that popped into my mind however some investigating revealed it was nothing more then a very over wieght fox squirell. Another similiar incident wich could explain the height issue happened a few months back to me when i went out at night to feed my animals. I have a flashlight which fits on my head like a miners helmet that i use when i go out at night and every night i see 3 sets of glowing eyes looking back at me ( my pets eyes ) however this one night i saw 4 sets of eyes looking back at me. I saw my pets eyes reflecting but this 4th set was looking at me from 8 feet up in the air and they allmost looked human. Now if i had done what most people would do and took off running i would have sworn i saw an 8 foot tall creature in the woods. However i stood my ground ( probably frozen from fright really ) and i stared at the set of eyes until they moved , it was nothing more then a raccoon holding on to the side of a tree 8 feet up not a yeti sizing me up.

While I believe that most reported sightings are like minniescar's Racoon in a tree variety or other animals screams in the night, there are plenty of credible eyewitness accounts that have seen and described this creature. This thread has me re-reading my copy of "The Jersey Devil" by James F. McCloy and Ray Miller Jr. It covers the rash of Jan. '09 sightings fairly well. After reading the timeline and eyewitness accounts of that week in 1909, it is very hard to dismiss it all as mass halucinations or a bat.

The West Collingswood Fire Dept. turned the fire hose on him while the JD was on the roof of the fire chief's house during the Jan. 1909 sightings. Seen by a large group that time. Thousands saw him or his hoof prints that week. Many tracks are on the roofs of houses or sheds that couldn't be from a horse. A goat maybe but you would think that a goat would be recognized by the people who saw it. Think about it, wouldn't you want to be the one to dispell the rumor that a devil is amongst us at a time when the schools closed, the streets emptied, and people refused to go to work out of fear.

It really sounds like some kind of creature that normally keeps to itself but made it's presence well known that week by some explanation or another, whether it be fueled by anger or distress.

As to hoof prints on the roof i cannot easily explain that without seeing them. At the same time bats in general keep thier feet in a c like shape allmost like they where holding a drink. Prints left behind by a large bat could eaisly produce a shape quite similiar to that of a horseshoe depending on the species of bat. If you look at the picture on the link below you can see what im saying as for the way the hand is held , note how it has more then 2 fingers but it cups the hand so you would only see the impression of 2 of them.

www.batworld.org...

I can explain a group of people seeing a horsehead bat and the entire group of people saying it was the jersey devil. Ok when you see some type of animal you are not familiar with the first thing you do is look at its face , its only a normal reaction. Even if you get nothing but a look of the face your brain will draw conclusions for the body and if an individual where to see the head of a horse then the body would follow in the mental image. The wings of course could not be overlooked since that would be the method of travel for the creature to depart so of course they too would be in your mental image , a horse with wings would be pretty much the final imagery. Of course you take in consideration that you have a group of individuals all of which saw the creature and one says "didnt it look like a horse to you " then the next individual not knowing what they saw thinks of the mental image within thier own head and it too ends up with a similiar description.

Now given the time frame of 1909 most of the indivisuals even ones with higher educations would be considered semi uneducated by todays standards. By no means will i say these people where stupid but im infering they would be uneducated of the animals outside thier realm. If they saw a deer they would know it but if they saw a emu or a Llama these would be monsters to them.

A good example stems back to my early animal days when i was working for a smokers right organazation at fairs aquiring signatures and using that to fund my animal buisiness. On one trip that i was to setup at the fair i contacted a person in regards to a large caimen alligator which i ended up buying while i was in town. As a result of the caimen being discovered by the cleaning lady in the hotel i was kicked out of the one hotel the town had and forced to sleep in my car on the fair grounds.( with the caimen i might add ) Well at the fair there was a little side show like setup and they had a continous recording of "come see the rat the worlds largest rat , caught in the sewers of new york " Eventually curiousity got the best of me and i checked it out , the creature in question was a 125 pound capabara a member of the rodent family but not a rat. As i watched the croud gawk in amazement i couldnt get over the people who really thought this creature was a rat, but they didnt know any better. The guy running the booth had wonderous tales of how the rat lost his tail as a result of fighting with one of those huge gators loose in New yorks sewers. The crowd ate it up and they all went home thinking they had seen a 125 pound sewer rat. I really think i was the only one who knew what this creature was and that it hadnt lost its tail due to a fight with a gator it wasnt born with one in the first place.


I spent the remainder of the week sleeping in my car listening to the repeating recording ( which played 24/7) of come see the rat the worlds largest rat" and "come see the snake the worlds largest snake" by the end of the week i wanted to introduce the two of them and at least cut down on one of the recordings i had to listen to.

Here's a site with a bunch of bat noises. No hammer head bats though, I can't seem to find audio of it.

www.partnersinrhyme.com...

You know if someone was really up to the task and wanted to somewhat verify this theory they could research ship logs the days prior to the 1909 sightings. See what ships came into harbor and then see what ports those ships came from. See if you can find a ship that may have ported in an area that horse head bats lived in.

Well, the legend starts around 1735 so one would have to check back further than 1909.
Here's a few sites with origin stories.
www.diskworks.com...
theshadowlands.net...
www.strangemag.com...

it propley is one of the jersy devils but one never knows

yes the legend stems back to the 1700's however the biggest group of sightings where in 1909. The sightings in 1909 where many and concentrated over a weeks time frame. This style of sighting follows the pattern of a new creature being introduced into a new environment ( or an old one being disturbed) from what I remember of the tale the creature was seen several times by several people for a period a little over a week possibly after that it died off but it fueled an old legend that existed in the area for many years. The tales stemming back from the 1700's could have been just that "tales" . As ive found out through my personal experiences and observations when you tell a tale about a strange creature in the area people begin to see the creature. For instance the first night after posting in this thread I went out the front door of my house to hear loud rustling in the woods that sounded like a huge animal but it was running through the tree tops. Of course the first thing that popped into my mind was the jersey devil even though I live no where near jersey ( about 900+ miles away ) by this simple inference in my mind the noises got skewed in my mental vision of what was really happening. Turns out it was simply a big fox squirrel ( didn�t realize how big them things got )

This is long but it has a point to it so bare with me.........

Here is a prime example of how a legend is born and how unknowingly gave girth to a tale that lives on. One time when I was 15 my parents went out of town and of course I did what every 15 year old left home alone does and that is call all my friends to come over. The house I grew up in was on a 20 acre farm built on a hill , further up on the hill behind the house was a rock chimney the only remains of a house built probably in the 17-1800's then on the side of the house you could see a where the old dirt road way used to be.
Not to far from the house trough the fields was the local sportsmen club plus the neighbor was a gun smith all of this set the stage perfectly. So hear I am sneaking liquor from my parents and trying to get closer to the girl next to me as my friends and I sat around on the front porch. That�s when I decided to tell a tale to scare the girls and perhaps get them to snuggle a little closer.


The tale began right after we heard a gun shot off in the distance ( from the sportsmen�s club hehe ) and one of the girls said what�s that. I replied that�s probably "old Joe trying to make his way home look out for him" of course this got everybody�s attention. I began my story, see old Joe was a hunter and a trapper way back in the 1700's , he would leave his wife and 2 kids for weeks at a time on hunting trips. The way the land is laid out the old house was on top of the tallest hill and it could be seen from almost a mile away down the old roadway. So Joe�s wife being somewhat of a romantic each time he left his she would light a candle and keep it lit until he returned so old Joe could see his way home from the end of the road. His wife also gave him a lantern made from an old green wine bottle that shined green in the darkness so Joe�s wife could tell it was him coming home at night. I went on with the tale talking about how much Joe loved his wife and kids and such with the whole "even in death we wont part" kinda thing. Then I began with the tragedy part of the tale, on Joe�s last trip he was fishing in a stream and the fish where biting nonstop, even though he knew he needed to be getting home he kept fishing. Joe stayed by the river bank well past the time he had told his wife he would so he was arriving over two hours late from his 10 o�clock arrival time he told his wife. When he got within about a mile of home he couldn�t believe what he was seeing the glow of the candle was so bright it lit up the sky. That�s when he realized his house was on fire!, see the candle his wife had lit had burned down and fallen over and ignited some straw which was by the window. Joe�s wife and two children where asleep since it was so late and the fire spread before they even knew it had started. Joe began to panic , he ran as fast as he could shooting anything that got in his way of getting home to save his family no matter how big or small Joe shot it. As Joe got closer he could here the screams of his wife and child as the flames had woken them up and they where being burned alive. Joe got close enough to the house just in time to watch the roof collapse and the whole house come down with his wife and children inside just at the stroke of midnight. Had Joe just been a few minutes sooner he could have saved them , had he not stayed so late this never would have happened. Old Joe just sat down there and died , some say he died of a broken heart others say he took his own life no one knows for sure. Since that night Joe�s spirit returns and relives that night each time his spirit tries to get to the house to save his family but fails. So on summer nights you can see Old Joe�s green glowing lantern running through the woods and hear his rifle shots as he shoots anything between him and his family, you just need to hope your not in his way. I of course pointed to the old roadway next to the house just as you could hear another gun shot in the distance, ( again coming from the sportsmen club but it sounded real close ) I of course said he should be coming through soon of course every one wanted to go inside ( I scared them good I guess ) to make matters even more fun my mother had a goldfish pond on the other side of a building near the old road way. The pond had lights in it and wouldn�t you know it they where green. The switch to turn the lights on couldn�t have been in a better location to set this up , it was right next to the window looking out towards the old roadway. So being the little devil I was I leaned over to the window close to midnight and flicked the switch when no one was looking and of course wouldn�t you know it one of the girls spotted the green glow coming from the other side of the building. The girls where terrified and my buddies where a little shaken as we peered out the window at the green glowing light. To make matters even scarier another gun shot rang out and I flicked the switch off without any of them seeing me and said I guess he didn�t make it again tonight. Other then this small group of people I never told that tale to anyone nor did I tell any of them that I made it up as I went along , there never was an old Joe other then a moonshiner that had a still in the 1900's somewhere nearby, there was an old Joe road a few miles away , I guess these two things made me decide to make my ghost "old Joe" instead of Old Steve.


I never really thought about the whole evening until a few months back my girlfriends 8 year old boy was having a friend sleep over and I overheard them say "old Joe". I asked the boys what they where talking about and the boy spending the night told me the same tale I had made up close to 20 years earlier. I asked the boys where they had heard the tale and they said at school and then went on to tell me how so and so had seen the green glowing light. It seems the people at my party told others and the legend grew ,some where in the tales past it took a slight shift and now old Joe is running down old Joe road to save his family. I did a little asking around at the next big cub scout meeting we had and I asked a few of the younger parents if they had ever heard the tale and I was surprised that most of them had and even one claimed to have seen the glowing light, plus the others had friends who had sighted Old Joe as well. A few of the parents said they had spent several nights camping out with friends trying to catch a glimpse of Old Joe as he ran through the woods. Even more amazing one of the parents who grew up several counties away said he had heard the tale when he was in high school as well and they had driven to old Joe road to see for themselves.


Other then just now I have not told a single person that a half drunk horny 15 year old made up the whole thing, I hate to kill a legend. Plus the people who have said they camped out looking for him acted like it was one of the best times in their life. I had no intentions on creating a legend that night I just wanted to cop a feel from the girl with me when she snuggled me in fright. I never told the tale again nor did i ever think it would ever be told again, i would never have believed it would turn into this. However from that one evening a local legend was born and he has been seen by many which shows the power of suggestion is awfully strong......

Relentless, you may want to download and listen to the scream of a panther as it is terrifying, and could be what you heard, or maybe some other animal as well.

Panthers are more common than some of the officials such as with Fish and Wildlife think. There's been a panther near where I live and yet F&W claim none are around here.

He was around quite a lot until the Blue Angels air-show which flew quite low, and I think that may have scared him off. Others in the neighborhood had seen and heard him or her, but fortunately no people wound up prey.

This critter might also explain the Mothman in West Virginia. Very interesting! Nice job

im guessing the movie The mothman prophecies was loosley based on the mothman from West Viginia? If something like that existed you would only wonder how something like that would go un-photographed.

Originally posted by TheUntoldStory
im guessing the movie The mothman prophecies was loosley based on the mothman from West Viginia? If something like that existed you would only wonder how something like that would go un-photographed.

Very loosely. There was an excellant website on the "real" Mothman incident. Let me see if I can find it. I do remember enough that this bat fits the description close enough to make it worth looking into.

You have voted NotTooHappy for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.

I thought this section of ATS called "Cryptozoology and Mythical Beasts" was for puns and one-liners. Thanks for proving me wrong!

[edit on 30-9-2005 by saint4God]

It's a Covenant......With wings....and no clothes.....O_o

Originally posted by JIMC5499
Very loosely. There was an excellant website on the "real" Mothman incident. Let me see if I can find it. I do remember enough that this bat fits the description close enough to make it worth looking into.

This is one of the sites that I was talking about.

Mothman

My theory.

The Jersey devil, leeds devil, or Jabberwock. Is a animist spirit. Like the skinwalker. A Form of spirit able to shape change. (found in many animistic myths.)

The leeds devil manifests itself as a Flying upright horse. Perhaps earlier, When the Indians dwelt in New Jersey. The spirit had another form.

Perhaps the indians worshiped it. Like the Egyptians worshiped thier Animist Gods. And it "protected" them. Or Presecuted them. Depending if they insulted it.

The Invading white men called it a devil and based a myth on it. And they in turn, venerated or feared the leeds spirit. (Who now assumed the form of a spirit that the white man would recognize.)

(Of course, This theory is based upon assumed belief of the reality of the various supernatural events.)

Or it could be a stork.

a storck terrorizing everybody. that would be great, if it could live in new jersey running around wild haha.