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January 17, 1909, Bristol, Pennsylvania, USA, E. W. Minster:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

"Jersey Devil" books and articles indicate that E. W. Minster, the Postmaster of Bristol, reported en encounter dated January 17, 1909, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, USA:

"I awoke about two o'clock in the morning... and finding myself unable to sleep, I arose and wet my head with cold water as a cure for insomnia."

"As I got up I heard an eerie, almost supernatural sound from the direction of the river... I looked out upon the Delaware and saw flying diagonally across what appeared to be a large crane, but which was emitting a glow like a fire-fly."

"Its head resembled that of a ram, with curled horns, and its long thick neck was thrust forward in flight." (The other version say it was a thin neck). "It had long thin wings and short legs, the front legs shorter than the hind. Again, it uttered its mournful and awful call - a combination of a squawk and a whistle, the beginning very high and piercing and ending very low and hoarse..."

Basic information table:

Narratives:

[Ref. mm1:] JAMES MCCLOY AND RAY MILLER:

The authors say that about the same time of the James Sackville encounter [my file here], E. W. Minster, the Postmaster of Bristol, saw the Jersey Devil, and he said:

"I awoke about two o'clock in the morning... and finding myself unable to sleep, I arose and wet my head with cold water as a cure for insomnia."

"As I got up I heard an eerie, almost supernatural sound from the direction of the river... I looked out upon the Delaware and saw flying diagonally across what appeared to be a large crane, but which was emitting a glow like a fire-fly."

"Its head resembled that of a ram, with curled horns, and its long thick neck was thrust forward in flight. It had long thin wings and short legs, the front legs shorter than the hind. Again, it uttered its mournful and awful call - a combination of a squawk and a whistle, the beginning very high and piercing and ending very low and hoarse..."

[Ref. jc1:] JEROME CLARK:

The author indicates that at 2 a.m. on January 17, 1909, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, postmaster E. W. Minster saw a glowing monster fly above the Delaware river.

He said it had a ramlike head with curled horns, long thin wings, short legs, the rear one being longer than the front ones, and it emtitted cries sounding like a combined squawk and whistle.

[Ref. mm2:] JAMES MCCLOY AND RAY MILLER:

The authors say that on January 17, 1909, E. W. Minster, Bristol's postmaster, saw the Jersey Devil at about 2 a.m.. He heard "a supernatural sound", looked out, and saw a strange creature flying over the river. He said it resembled a large crane, and it glowed like a firefly. Its head had ram horns, and its neck was long and thin. The creature let out a strange cry, which sounded like a cross between a squawk and a whistle.

[Ref. jc2:] JEROME CLARK:

Jerome Clark says the first sighting of the "Jersey Devil" in 1909 was on January 17, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, when postmater "E. W. Minister" saw a glowing monster fly over the Delaware River. He said it had a ramlike head with curled horns, and stayed aloft with long thin wings. It had short legs, the rear ones longer than the front ones, and it emitted cries that sounded like a combined squawk and whistle.

[Ref. lc1:] LOREN COLEMAN:

The author indicates that on January 17, 1909, Bristol postmaster E. W. Minster told his encounter to reporters:

He woke up at about 2 in the morning, and found himself unable to sleep, so he stood up, and wet his head with water as a cure for insomnia.

As he got up he heard an eerie, almost supernatural sound from the direction of the river, he looked out upon the Delaware and saw flying diagonally what appeared to be a large crane but which emitted a glow like a firefly.

Its head resembled that of a ram, with curled horns, its long thin neck was thrust foward in flight, it had long white wings and short legs, the front legs were shorter than the hind legs.

It uttered its mournful and awful call again, a combination of a squawk and a whistle, with a very high and piercing beginning and a low and hoarse end.

[Ref. dh1:] "NEW JERSEY DEVILS HUNTERS":

[Ref. dj1:] DAVE JULIANO:

Dave Juliano indicates that early Sunday morning, January 16, 1909, in Bristol, Pennsylvania, E. W. Minister, Postmaster of Bristol, PA, also saw a bird-like creature with a horse's head that had a piercing scream. When daylight came, the residents of Bristol found hoof prints in the snow. Two local trappers said they had never seen tracks like those before.

The author mentions many other encounters and discusses various theories on the "Jersey Devil". Please refer to his article for a complete read and references cited.

He says Mrs. Cassidy of Clayton thought it was an invasion of scrowfoot ducks, but this bird is much too small to fit [I certainly agree.] He says others believe the devil "is really a sand hill crane, a bird that used to live in South Jersey until it was pushed out by man. The sand hill crane weighs about 12 lbs., is 4 foot high, and has a wingspan of 80 inches. It avoids man but if confronted it will fight. It has a loud scream whooping voice that can be heard at a distance. This could account for the screams heard by witnesses. The crane also eats potatoes and corn. This could account for the raids on crops." [This is in my opinion the correct explanation for many of the Jersey devil sightings]. The author notes that this theory doesn't explain the killing of live stock or why people described the devil as having a horses head, bat wings and tail, all of which the crane doesn't have.

One Professor Bralhopf said that "the tracks were made by some prehistoric animal form the Jurassic period" that survived underground in a cavern. An expert from the Smithsonian Institute had a theory about ancient creatures surviving underground and said the Jersey Devil was a Pterodactyl. The Academy of Natural Sciences could find no record of any creature, living or extinct, that resembles the Jersey Devil.

Jack E. Boucher, author of Absagami Yesteryear, has a theory in which he believes the devil was a deformed child. He thinks a Mrs. Leeds had a disfigured child and kept it locked away in the house. She grew sick and couldn't feed the child anymore, so it escaped out of hunger and raided local farms for food, but this doesn't take into account the incredible life span of the devil; the child would have been 174 years old in 1909. It also doesn't account for the sightings of the devil flying.

Only a small amount of the sightings and footprints could be hoaxes [Said because cryptozoologist Ivan Sanderson showed some of the footprints were part of some real estate scan]. The Jersey Devil has been seen by reliable people such as police, government officials, postmasters, businessman, and other people whose "integrity is beyond question." Some of the hoof prints may have been hoaxes but most of the tracks are unexplained, especially the ones on roof tops and tracks that ended abruptly as if the creature took wing [Not hoayes but evidence of a bird like the sandhill crane.].

Another theory is that the Jersey Devil was "the very essence of evil, embodied", that appears before any great conflict. The Jersey devil was sighted before the start of the Civil War. It was also seen right before the Spanish American War and WW I. In 1939, before the start of WW II, Mount Holly citizens were awakened by the noise of hooves on their roof tops. The Devil was seen on December 7, 1941, right before Pearl Harbor was bombed. He was also seen right before the Vietnam War.

Another theory said that Mother Leeds was a witch and the devil was a result of a witches curse. When Commodore Decatur fired a cannon ball at the devil, it went through him and he was unaffected.

The author concludes that whether the Jersey devil is a bird or a demon, is still left ot speculation.

[Ref. ar1:] ALBERT ROSALES:

Albert Rosales indicates that in Bristol, New Jersey on January 17, 1909 at 0200 a.m., "The local postmaster, E W Minster, was awakened by strange noises. Being a light sleeper he was used to waking up in the middle of the night. As he tried to go back to sleep, he heard an eerie, almost supernatural sound from the direction of the river. He looked out of his window toward the Delaware River. He saw what looked like a huge crane, except that its body glowed like a firefly’s, flying over the river. The creature had a head with curled horns like a ram’s. It also had a long, thick neck and long, thin wings and short legs . He saw four legs. The front legs were shorter than the back ones. It then uttered a mournful and awful sound, like a combination of a squawk and a whistle, and flew away."

Albert Rosales indicates that the source is "Jerry A Young, Mysterious Monsters".

[Ref. sl1:] STEVEN LEMONGELLO:

The writer tells of the Jersey Devil sightings from January 16 to 22, 1909, 100 years ago, refering to the 1976 book "The Jersey Devil" by James F. McCloy and Ray Miller Jr.

He says that on January 17, the postmaster of Bristol even saw the Devil in the act of flying, lest one start to think he was some kind of mutant, flightless ostrich.

"I heard an eerie, almost supernatural sound," said the postmaster, as recounted in the book. "Its head resembled that of a ram, with curled horns, and its long, thick neck was thrust forward in flight."

[Ref. gm1:] "JERSEY DEVIL" GOOGLE MAP:

[Ref. pw1:] PATTY A. WILSON:

This author said that on the night of January 16, 1909, a Bristol resident claimed to see the Jersey Devil, and he described it as "having a ram-like head with curled horns, a long neck, thin wings, and four legs, the front pair shorter than the back."

The following morning, miles of hoofprints were found in the snow and attributed to the Jersey Devil.

She says on January 18, postmaster E. W. Minster of Bristol was awakened at 2:00 a.m. by a haunting sound from the Delaware River, so strange that it compelled him to get up and check it out. He looked out his window and saw a strange creature like a "large crane" flying across the night sky, glowing softly. The beast had thin wings, long back legs, short front legs, and a long neck. The cry it emitted was somewhere between a squeal and a whistle. Minster in sheer schock watched the beast as if faded in the darness.

Points to consider:

Before discussing this particular case, I must make some general remarks about what was called the "Jersey Devil".

In Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, for nearly two centuries at least, some people give reports of encounters with a "creature" whose descriptions suggested that it was some sort of "devil", though in my opinion it was often merely a large bird in migration there, the sandhill crane.

Ufologically, these stories are mostly not considered as related in any way with UFOs or UFO occupants, in my opinion too they should not be part of a catalog of "close encounters of the third kind".

However, some ufologists included such stories in such catalogs, thinking for some reason it does have something to do with the UFO question. Most of the time, they do not include all the Jersey Devil reports, but only a few of them, maybe due to lack of documentation or maybe for some other reason I do not understand.

So I have to include all these stories, because if some source considers, rightly or wrongly, that this a UFO-related, then it is within my scope, not to immediately and arbitrarily disregard their idea, but to evaluate it, and thus to collect the documentation and the comments about it. And therefore, I have to check and document all reported, not just those selected arbitrarily by these ufologists who believed this is UFO material. This is why you cans see I have a file for each Jersey Devil reports, even those that were never included in the ufology literature.

I should note that most stories are fragmentary, often because the sources write about several observations, and what is said about one report is supposed to be implicitly true for the others. I do not do it that way; I publish case files individually and discuss each on its own merits or issues, and offer a specific assessment for each case. But of course, generalities can be said on these reports. As I do not want to disconnect individual reports from these generalities, I make the following notes.

I want to first list the various explanations offered for the "Jersey Devil" - they could apply its late equivalent the West Virginia "Mothman" which was introduced in UFO books the 1960s:

• "Devil" per se, a creature from hell, the one that Christian traditions talks about. It is not far from the explanations that claimed "witches" made this Devil appear using witchcraft.
• "Devil" in the sense that there would be some sort of "parallel world" that shelters evil creatures who occasionally pop in "our" world. It is further argued that UFOs and their occupants are of the same nature, in an attempt to support a "theory of everything" claiming the existence of some "other worlds" or "parallel worlds or "other dimensions".
• UFO occupants, aliens; some rare ufologists seem to consider that any unusual creature must come down from some spacecraft, whether it is a "Bigfoot", "Chupacabras", "Devil" ou whatever else. A variant thereof proposes that all these creatures are "engineered" by more "classic" extraterrestrial beings.
• Some cryptozoologists put forth that the "Jersey Devil" is some ordinary earthly animal hitherto undiscovered by mainstream science. Most cryptozoologist do not vehemently claim this as if it was a proven fact, but merely suggest it is a possibility amon other possibilities.
• Some cryptozoologists felt that the Jersey Devil may be a "Bigfoot". This generally does not fit well with the descriptions, whereas a known bird fits better. Yes, some reports mention a four-legged creature, but generally with wings too.
• It was suggested the Jersey Devil is a Pterodactyl, the prehistoric dinosaur-bird, allegedly still living nowadays. Or some other survivor of the distant prehistoric times.
• An investigation by cryptozoologist Ivan Sanderson made him explain that there was a real estate scam in 1909 there in which people had created false traces of the "Jersey Devil." Most debaters admit this, but consider, rightly in my opinion, it could not be the single explanation for all the reports. This does not mean that other reports could not be hoaxes too, and some definitely were, as the "Hyman" case or the case of the dead kangaroo fitted with wings.
• Some offer a pure "folklore" explanation. There would never have been any true observation, everything would be purely invented nonsense. It can obviously be suggested that some, if not all, of the stories are of this nature. It is clear that a Jersey Devil folklore has emerged, but it cannot be used as evidence that all reports were entirely imaginary from the start.
• At the time, a "malformed" and abandoned child ("the baby of Mrs. Leeds") was said to be the explanation. But it turned out that the descriptions, the geographical and temporal span, leave little credence to this explanation if it was supposed to be the only one.
• Various birds were named as an explanation for the Jersey Devil. Some are completely unsuitable, too small or too different from the descriptions. However, one bird seems to be an excellent candidate, the sandhill crane. In each of my "Jersey Devil" case file, I obviously check this explanation out. I am neither the first nor the only one to propose it, however, many authors made no mention of the sandhill crane, preferring to highlight the ridiculous "explanation" explanations to support their favorite one. For example they would ridicule the "Mrs. Leeds' baby" explanation to try to convince the Jersey Devil must have been "supernatural".

Now let's see this report.

Let's note that this happened at 2 in the morning, thus in the night, in conditions of visibility that were certainly: the night, maybe a great distance, maybe even fog.

The witness said it was "like a large crane".

This of course highly suggest it was exactly a large crane, such as the sanhill crane.

Many other details of his description do not fit, however: the "glowing" of the creature, the "smaller front legs", and the head "like a ram with curled horns".

The most striking feature, apparently, that is, the "glow", is however not impossible to explain for a bird. Like in some other cases, there is the possibility that the bird rubbed against some phosphorescent fungi. Or even simpler, it was maybe just "glowing" in the moonlight or street lights. I don not favor this, because he said it was like a firefly, a quite strong glow is thus suggested, and it looks more like phosphorescent fungi to me.

One may recall that even Charles Fort told in his 1931 book "Lo!": "We are told of a commonplace ending of this alleged mystery: that finally a gamekeeper shot one of these objects, and found that it was a common barn owl, phosphorescent with decayed wood from its nesting place, or with a fungous disease of its feathers."

There are 71 identified species of glowing fungi. Most glow in green, just like fireflies:

The front legs may have been some erroneous interpretation of darker parts at the front of the bird's body.

The ram-like head seems odd. Is it possible that the red parts of a sandhill crane's head appeared to him as "curled horns"? I do not know.

There is not enough information to make the sandhill crane explanation a certainty, it even seems at odds with crucial parts of the description. But maybe what he said was not well understood, or a distorted story told from one persone to another and another until it was printed. I do not known how and when he made his report; probably to a newspaperman but maybe not directly.

"Sandhill Crane" (Grus canadensis) - pictures above - is a species of big crane living in North America, Canada, and in the extreme northeast of Siberia. Some are resident, some are migratory, passing sometimes indeed by the states where the "Jersey Devil" was reported.

Its sound is described as having to do with a French "r" sound, a frog's squawk and a trumpet tone. Male and female sometimes engage in duets of complex cries.

Its wingspan can reach more than 2 meters.

List of issues:

Evaluation:

Possible sandhill crane. Not UFO-related.

Sources references:

* = Source I checked.
? = Source I am told about but could not check yet. Help appreciated.

• [---] * New York Folklore Quarterly, Volume 30, New York Folklore Society, USA, page 234, 1974.
• [mm1] * "The Jersey Devil", book by James F. McCloy, Ray Miller, Jr., Middle Atlantic Press publishers, USA, 1976.
• [---] ? "Mysterious Monsters: Real or Unreal?", book by Jerry A. Young, Willowisp Press publishers, USA, 1983.
• [---] * "The Unexplained II: Mysteries of mind, space and time", book by Peter Brookesmith, Marshall Cavendish Corporation publishers, USA, page 1127, 1985.
• [mm1] * "The Jersey Devil", book by James F. McCloy, Ray Miller, Jr., BB&A publishers, USA, page 41, 1987.
• [---] ? "Creatures from Elsewhere: Weird Animals That No-One Can Explain", book by Peter Brookesmith, Book Sales publishers, USA, page 25, 1989.
• [---] ? "Bizarre Phenomena", edited by Reader's Digest Associated, USA, page 62, 1992.
• [---] * "Encyclopedia of strange and unexplained physical phenomena", book by Jerome Clark, Gale Research Incorporated, USA, page 168, 1993.
• [jc1] * "Jersey Devil", in "Unexplained!", book by Jerome Clark, Visible Ink publishers, USA, page 196, 1993.
• [---] * "Animal Ghost Stories", book by Nancy Roberts, August House publishers, USA, page 136, 1995.
• [mm2] * "Phantom of the Pines: More Tales of the Jersey Devil", book by James F. McCloy and Ray Miller, Jr, BB&A publishers, USA, page 89, 1998.
• [jc2] * "Unexplained: Strange Sightings, Incredible Occurrences and Puzzling Physical Phenomena", book by Jerome Clark, Visible Ink Press publishers, USA, page 562, 1998.
• [---] * "The Unexplained: An Illustrated Guide to the World's Natural and Paranormal Mysteries", book by Karl P. N. Shuker, JG Press publishers, USA, page 132, 1996.
• [lc1] * "The Jersey Devil", in "Mysterious America", book by Loren Coleman, Simon and Schuster publishers, USA, page 233, 2001.
• [dh1] * "Phenomenal Week", web page by Laura K. Leuter, the New Jersey Devils Hunters, USA, 2004, at www.njdevilhunters.com/1909.html
• [dj1] * "The Jersey Devil", article by Dave Juliano at the Shadowlands website, USA, circa 2004, at theshadowlands.net/jd.htm
• [ar1] * "1909 Humanoid Reports, compiled by Albert Rosales, circa 2006, at www.aforteanosla.com.ar/albert/anuarios/1909%20Humanoid%20Reports.pdf
• [sl1] * "Believe it or not, this little devil had a wild week 100 years ago", article by Steven Lemongello, Staff writer, in the newspaper The Press of Atlantic City, Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA, January 12, 2009.
• [gm1] * Google Maps, 2010, at maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&t=h&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=111307155664998215229.000492efa03d92c95c0b9
• [pw1] * "Monsters of Pennsylvania", book by Patty A. Wilson, Stackpole Books publishers, USA, page 104, 2010.

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This page was last updated on July 15, 2013.