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JANUARY 21, 1909, RIVERTON, NEW JERSEY, USA, MRS. WILLIAM TACKFLING:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

On January 22, 1909, at least three newspapers reported that in Riverton, New Jersey, USA, on January 21, 1909, "A posse of our bravest young men set tout to-night to hunt down the 'devil.' It appeared at the home of Mrs. William Tackfling this morning, barked though the window and flew away. Its tracks are everywhere."

Basic information table:

Narratives:

[Ref. ts1:] "THE SUN" NEWSPAPER:

$500 FOR THE LEEDS DEVIL SHOWMAN SAYS IT'S A VAMPIRE AND HE WANTS IT BACK. Vampirophobia Spreads From Jersey to Philadelphia, and Mothers Are Keeping the Kids Indoors - Beastie Kills a Bulldog and Steals a Chicken. Philadelphia, Jan. 21. -- It seems probable that the "Leeds devil," which has had all south Jersey terrorized for four days and which transferred its activity to Philadelphia last night and today, will be captured within a day or two and the real reason for its appearance be made known to a world in which two suckers for the press agent are born everyday. In the meantime from every town in south Jersey come reports of dogs torn in pieces, bloodcurling encounters and descriptions that fit any prehistoric monster one might pick out. Lots of these come from reputable people who are firmly convinced that they saw what they say they saw. J. J. Hope, an animal trainer and dealer at 36 North Ninth street, issued a statement this afternoon saying that the strange bird beast is "an Australian vampire devil" which escaped from him ten days ago. He offers $500 reward for its capture. He gives warning to all who wish to try for the reward that the creature is dangerous. Hope says that no one should attempt the feat unless armed and that a net should be utilized to secure the beastie before it is approached. "I am very anxious to recover the vampire," he said this afternoon. "There is only one like it in captivity, at that is at the Zoological Garden in Berlin. I purchased the animal in Europe and it arrived in this city ten days ago. I had it in a menagerie at Beach street and Fairmount avenue, and it escpaed from there. "It can swim as well as fly, and after it had broken out of its cage it swarm across the Delaware. I have no doubt that the animal which has been seen in Jersey is the one I lost. The description given by Nelson Evans and his wife at Gloucester city fits it exactly. "Scientists are puzzled to give a name to the beast, which is a combination of bat, kangaroo and pony. It is white and belongs to the kangaroo family, for it travels by leaps and has the marsupial pouch under the breast with which the kangaroo is provided. "You should have seen the havoc caused by the beast's effort to break from its cage. A more ferocious animal I have never seen. "The beast has the head of a horse, stands nearly 3 feet high and is covered with short, thick fur. On its back are two wings that measure 4 feet, so that when it is flying the stretch of the wings from tip to tip is almost 10 feet." Mr. Hope backed up his offer of a reward of $500 by inserting an advertisement to that effect on to-day's newspapers. On the heels of this announcement came a very pronounced attack of vampirophobia in the downtown section about Fifth and Porter street. There the Taggart school was nearly put out of business, and to-night mothers are not allowing their children on the streets. About 3 o'clock, according to the stories of the children, they saw a big bat hovering over the school. It was five feet long, they said. The children were just leaving. Mary Ellen Carson of 2514 South Marshall street, a six-year-old pupil, told her parents she was chased by it. There are forty men and women who affirm that the thing swooped down among the children, scattered them, then flapped around the street, stole a chicken out of the yard of 2522 South Fifth street and soared away. It flew over League Island, where a lot of Marines fired at it. Then it disappeared into Jersey again. All these people solemnly swear they saw the "Vampire." In fact if something rather weird is not flying around, the condition of mind of South Jersey and Philadelphia would provide a feast for students of mob hallucination. Here are a few scattered reports from various sections: RIVERSIDE, N. J., Jan 21. -- John Manz saw his bulldog torn to pieces by the "devil" last night. Manz says he saw a great bird with a horse's face swoop down and kill the dog. RIVERTON, N. J., Jan 21. -- A posse of our bravest young men set tout to-night to hunt down the "devil." It appeared at the home of Mrs. William Tackfling this morning, barked though the window and flew away. Its tracks are everywhere. PEMBERTON, N. J., Jan 21. -- The "What-is-it" was seen by two persons in this town. Edward Archer, a conductor of the Pemberton Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, says that the creature sprang at him early this morning as he was going out of his barn. It was hiding behind a shed, he says, and he has a confused recollection of a hairy body coming at him. Then he ran as he never ran before. He also declares that the Rev. John Purcel, a clergyman living at Pemberton, saw the "Thing" last night. It was crossing the snow in quick, short leaps and its progress was very rapid. Mr Purcel describes the creature as about three feet long and having a long black hair. MOUNT HOLLY. N. J. Jan 21. -- William Cronk, a venerable citizen says he saw a large bird flying low across the lawn as he was eating dinner yesterday. The bird flew about two feet from the ground and soared over the fence, turning in the direction of Rancocas Creek. It had long legs and wings with a spread of four feet. These are only a few of hundreds of similar reports.

[Ref. nb1:] "NEW BRUNSWICK TIMES" NEWSPAPER:

Note: this article was the same as [ts1] above, and it also appeared in [wp1].

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.

All we know is that "it" barked abd flew. Si it may have been a bird with a long neck, such as the sandhill crane.

We have no UFO, no aliens, nothing evil, nothing "paranormal" whatsoever. Nothing that could kill the idea that the woman may have briefly and poorly seen the scary-looking sandhill at a time when everyone talked about the "Jersey Devil".

There is not enough information to make this explanation a certainty, but there is not a single piece of information that would support she saw a real devil, or an alien, or a pterodactyl, "Bigfoot" or anything extraordinary.

"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 wingspan can reach more than 2 meters.

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.

List of issues:

Evaluation:

Possible confusion, bird, sandhill crane. Not UFO-related.

Sources references:

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

• [ts1] * Article in the newspaper The Sun, New York, USA, page 4, January 22, 1909.
• [nb1] * Article in the newspaper New Brunswick Times, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, January 22, 1909.
• [wp1] * Article in the newspaper The Washington Post, Washington D.C., USA, page 2, January 22, 1909.

Document history:

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This page was last updated on April 13, 2013