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JANUARY 22, 1909, MORRISVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA, USA, SEVERAL MEN:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

The authors of a reference book about the "Jersey Devil" say that on January 22, 1909, about 7 in the evening, a report circulated that the Jersey Devil had been captured at last.

C. S. Hilk, a saloonkeeper of Lamberton Street, Trenton, received a phone call saying the Devil was locked in a barn on his farm across the Delaware River in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. The caller said the Devil had been riding atop a wagon driven into the barn by a farmhand, then several men slammed the door shut, trapping the beast.

The next day, Hilk and a number of curious people rowed a boat across the Delaware to go see the beast, but a thorough search of the barn proved the Jersey Devil had mysteriously disappeared.

According to other, later sources, it was not "the authorities" who searched the barn in vain.

Basic information table:

Narratives:

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

The authors say that on January 22, 1909, about 7 in the evening, a report circulated that the Jersey Devil had been captured at last.

A saloonkeeper of Lamberton Street, Trenton, received a phone call saying the Devil was locked in a barn on his farm across the Delaware River in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. The caller said the Devil had been riding atop a wagon driven into the barn by a farmhand, then several men slammed the door shut, trapping the beast.

A number of curious people rowed a boat across the Delaware to go see the beast, but a search of the barn proved the Jersey Devil had mysteriously disappeared.

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

The authors say that during January 1909, C. S. Hilk, a Trenton saloonkeeper, was told the Jersey Devil had been locked in a barn on a farm in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. The Devil supposedly had been sitting on a wagon as it was driven into the barn, and was trapped inside when the barn was closed.

Hearing of the supposed capture, Hilk and several others rowed across the Delaware rivers the next day, but though they searched the barn thoroughly, they found no trace of the creature.

[Ref. jr1:] JENNY RANDLES:

The British ufologist says that in 1909 there was an aborted attempt to pen the "Jersey Devil" into a barn in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, when the barn doors were open the "Jersey Devil" had vanished, never to return again.

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

[Ref. ch1:] LOREN COLEMAN AND BRUCE HALLENBECK:

The authors say that on January 22, 1909, in Morrisville, PA, a report was given that the Jersey Devil had been captured in a man's barn, but upon opening the doors of the barn, the hunters were disappointed to find the creature had vanished.

[Ref. pw1:] PATTY A. WILSON:

The author says that in January 1909, word was sent out that the beast had been cornered in a barn in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. The authorities investigated and were shocked to find that the beast had escaped.

[Ref. cs1:] "CASTLE OF SPIRITS" WEBSITE:

The website says that "There is a report that at 7 pm the beast had been captured in a barn in Morrisville, PA. When authorities investigate, they found that the devil had escaped again."

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" or 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.

The obvious problem is that no description of the alleged "Jersey Devil" is given, so it could just have been anything, for example the sandhill crane, or a complete hoax.

"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.

List of issues:

Evaluation:

Probable confusion, bird, sandhill crane, or hoax.

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, page 70, 1987.
• [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 70, 1998.
• [jr1] * "Mind Monsters - Invaders From Inner Space?", book by Jenny Randles, Aquarian Press publishers, U-K., 1990.
• [---] * "Strange & Unexplained Mysteries of the 20th Century", book by Jenny Randles, Sterling publishers, page 16, 1994.
• [dh1] * "Phenomenal Week", web page by Laura K. Leuter, the New Jersey Devils Hunters, USA, 2004, at www.njdevilhunters.com/1909.html
• [ch1] * "Monsters of New Jersey: Mysterious Creatures in the Garden State", book by Loren Coleman, Bruce G. Hallenbeck, Stackpole Books publishers, USA, page 108, 2010.
• [pw1] * "Monsters of Pennsylvania: Mysterious Creatures in the Keystone State", book by Patty A. Wilson, Stackpole Books publishers, USA, page 106, 2010.
• [cs1] * "Jersey Devil Sightings", web page at the Castle of Spirits website, circa 2013, at www.castleofspirits.com/stories03/jersey.html

Document history:

Authoring

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This page was last updated on July 18, 2013