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JANUARY 21, 1909, BURLINGTON, NEW JERSEY, USA, MRS. MICHAEL RYAN:

Brief summary of the event and follow-up:

An article about the "Jersey Devil" encounters in the newspaper Trenton Evening Times, of Trenton, New Jersey, USA, for January 22, 1909, on page 1 and 3, reported:

"In Burlington, at 6 o'clock this morning, Mrs. Michael Ryan, of Penn street, saw the creature on the fence in her back yard. She said it is broad across the shoulders, has wings, and small legs, and when seen, was crouching as if about to spring at her window. She hurriedly drew in the blinds and jumped back in bed but had not succeeded in pulling the covers over her head before there were three distinct taps on the shutters. Mrs. Ryan's son, Edward, was called from another part of the house, though a thorough search of the premises failed to discover any other evidence of the 'Flying Hoof's' visit beyond the strange, weird footprints seen in so many places."

Later Jersey Devil literature told it happened on January 21, 1909, a normal, cold, and snowy morning, that Mrs. Ryan froze in fright, that the creature had a head like a horse's, its short wings seemed to be partly spread, that Mrs. Ryan collapsed into a chair, not her bed, saying:

"For some minutes I was so frightened I was unable to scream. My husband and son had already gone to work, and I was finally able to waken my youngest son, Edward, who was asleep upstairs."

Edward found no creature in the alley, and left to catch a train. As soon as the light was good enough, neighbors searched the place and observed small pony-like prints leading to a fence. Mrs. Ryan and many neighbors were distraught for a considerable time thereafter.

Basic information table:

Narratives:

[Ref. te1:] "TRENTON EVENING TIMES" NEWSPAPER:

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

The author says that on January 21, 1909, in the normal, cold, and snowy morning, Mrs. Michael Ryan of Penn Street near York in Burlington opened her shutters at six a.m., heard a noise in the alley next to the house, and looked out to see what was the matter. She froze in fright.

It had a peculiar shaped body and long bird-like legs, while its head looked like a horse. Its short wings seemed to be partly spread, and it was stooping as if about to leap.

Mrs. Ryan violently closed the windows and collapsed into a chair. As she retold it, "for some minutes I was so frightened I was unable to scream. My husband and son had already gone to work, and I was finally able to waken my youngest son, Edward, who was asleep upstairs."

Edward found no creature in the alley, and left to catch a train. As soon as the light was good enough, neighbors searched the place and observed small, pony-like prints leading to a fence. Mrs. Ryan and many neighbors were distraught for a considerable time thereafter.

One Philadelphia newspaper reported that C. Rue Taylor, the mayor of Burlington, became so concerned over this latest "Devil" affair in his town that he ordered police "to keep a sharp lookout for the creature and to shoot it on sight."

[Ref. jc1:] JEROME CLARK:

Jerome Clark says on January 19, 1909, at 6 a.m., in Burlington, the "Jersey Devil" prowled in an alley, seen by Mrs. Michael Ryan who said it had long birdlike legs,a horse's head, and short wings.

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

[Ref. ar1:] ALBERT ROSALES:

Albert Rosales indicates that in Burlington, New Jersey, on January 19, 1909 at 06:00 a.m., "Mrs. Michael Ryan saw a strange creature prowling through an alley. She described it as having long bird-like legs, a horse’s head, and short wings. Reputed to have been the 'Jersey Devil.'"

Albert Rosales indicates that the source is "Jerome Clark, Unexplained!".

[Ref. ya1:] "100 YEARS AGO" BLOG:

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.

Let's note that this happened at a time when it was not possible to see well: the neighbors waited for acceptable conditions before looking for traces.

The description is almost entirely that of a bird, except for the "horse's head", a feature not mentioned in all sources.

We have no UFO, no aliens, nothing evil, nothing "paranormal" whatsoever. Nothing that could kill the idea that this man may have seen from some distance, in poor conditions, a sandhill crane, whose weird head scared the woman.

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 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 confusion, bird, sandhill crane.

Sources references:

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

• [te1] ? Article in the newspaper Trenton Evening Times, Trenton, New Jersey, USA, page 1,3, January 22, 1909.
• [---] ? Article in the newspaper The Globe, 1909, USA.
• [---] * New York Folklore Quarterly, Volume 30, New York Folklore Society, USA, 1974.
• [mm1] * "The Jersey Devil", book by James F. McCloy, Ray Miller, Jr., Middle Atlantic Press publishers, USA, 1976.
• [jc1] * "Jersey Devil", in "Unexplained!", book by Jerome Clark, Visible Ink publishers, USA, page 197, 1993.
• [mm1] * "The Jersey Devil", book by James F. McCloy and Ray Miller, Jr., BB&A publishers, USA, pp 58-59, 1987.
• [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
• [ya1] * Blog entry on the blog 100 Years Ago, Januay 21, 2009, at 100yearsagotoday.blogspot.fr/2009/01/jan-22-1909-friday.html

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This page was last updated on April 6, 2013