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JANUARY 21, 1909, CLAYTON, NEW JERSEY, USA, WILLIAM WASSO:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

"Jersey Devil" literature says that during the Jersey Devil reports of 1909, or precisely on January 21, 1909, there was a short period of relief in public concern about the "beast" when Councilman R. L. Campbell of Clayton, New Jersey, told the Devil was dead.

Campbell had heard the report of a track-walker of the electric railway between Clayton and Newfield named William Wasso. It is claimed the latter was going toward Clayton when he spotted the Jersey Devil 300 feet ahead of him, sniffing the third rail, when his long slimy tail touched it. There was a puff of fire and smoke and a violent explosion which melted the tracks for 20 feet in all directions. No remnant of the creature was left so Wasso concluded the Jersey Devil had been "annihilated."

Basic information table:

Narratives:

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

The authors say that during the Jersey Devil reports of 1909, there was a short period of relief as Councilman R. L. Campbell of Clayton, New Jersey, wrongly said the Devil was dead.

He had heard the report of a track-walker of the electric railway between Clayton and Newfield named William Wasso. Wasso was going toward Clayton when he spotted the Jersey Devil 300 feet ahead of him, sniffing the third rail, when his long slimy tail touched it. There was a puff of fire and smoke and a violent explosion which melted the tracks for 20 feet in all directions. No remnant of the creature was left so Wasso concluded the Jersey Devil had been annihilated.

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

The authors say that during the Jersey Devil appearances of 1909, William Wasso, a trackwalker on the electric railroad between Clayton and Newfield, told Clayton Councilman R.L. Campbell that the Jersey Devil had been blasted to death by high voltage when its long, slimy tail came into contact with the third rail.

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

[Ref. ar1:] ALBERT ROSALES:

Albert Rosales indicates that near Clayton, New Jersey, on January 21, 1909, in the afternoon "A man walking along the tracks of the electric railway spotted a creature he thought was the 'Jersey Devil,' just ahead. The creature sniffed the tracks, and then its tail touched the rail. Immediately, the sparks began to fly. After the smoke had dust cleared, 20 feet of track had melted and the creature was gone. The same or similar creature was later seen on the same date just over the border in Pennsylvania. A woman claimed she saw him in her yard. It spit flames form his mouth and left."

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

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 among 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.

Electric railways of the type involved here use a third rail to get the electric power. It provided DC power likely between 650 and 1000 Volts. This third rail systems present electric shock hazards, higher system voltages (above 1500 Volts) are not considered safe. But in order for someone to be electrocuted by this third rail, contact with ground is needed. Insulators normally keep the power from reaching ground. This is why a bird may step unharmed on the third rail.

The idea here seems to be that the "Jersey Devil" made contact with both the rail and the ground, and conducted power. This could of course hurt or kill a bird; however it would not at all destroy any of the tracks.

This makes it likely that either R. L. Campbell or the alleged William Wasso made the story up entirely. Maybe councilman Campbell invented this as a way to calm people down, as "Jersey Devil" stories had spread a real panic in the area.

Another possibility is that an actual bird was injured but not killed; the lack of remnant would be explained by the bird flying away, rather than by supernatural essence of a real otherworldly devil. The damages to the tracks and the explosion" would have been exaggerations by one of the parties involved in passing on the story.

Let me note a problem with the story. We are told that Wasso was 300 feet from the "Jersey Devil". We are told that his tail was "slimy." I do not think anyone can see such a detail at such a distance. The "slimy" tail sounds like an invented feature to "explain" the conductivity between the third rail and the ground.

List of issues:

Evaluation:

Possible invention, or confusion, animal.

Sources references:

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

• [mm1] * "The Jersey Devil", book by James F. McCloy, Ray Miller, Jr., Middle Atlantic Press publishers, USA, 1976.
• [mm1] * "The Jersey Devil", book by James F. McCloy, Ray Miller, Jr., BB&A publishers, USA, pp 60-61, 1987.
• [---] ? "Mysterious monsters: Real or unreal?", book by Jerry A. Young, Willowisp Press publishers, USA, 1983.
• [mm2] * "Phantom of the Pines: More Tales of the Jersey Devil", book by James F. McCloy, Ray Miller, Jr, BB&A publishers, USA, page 72, 1998.
• [dh1] * "Phenomenal Week", web page by Laura K. Leuter, the New Jersey Devils Hunters, USA, 2004, at www.njdevilhunters.com/1909.html
• [ar1] * "1909 Humanoid Reports, compiled by Albert Rosales, circa 2006, at www.aforteanosla.com.ar/albert/anuarios/1909%20Humanoid%20Reports.pdf

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This page was last updated on April 6, 2013