by Oubliette

As a native-born New Jerseyan, I was happy to learn that MonsterQuest was going to investigate my home state’s most famous resident, the Jersey Devil.  Other states have their lake monsters, swamp creatures and other assorted unknown beasts, but the Jersey Devil is, like the state itself, quite unique.

The Jersey Devil has been described as having a horse’s head, large, bat-like wings, a serpent’s tail and horses hooves.  It has been variously described as between 3 and 7 feet tall, with a wingspan approaching 10 feet or more. A truly frightful description, indeed.

New Jersey contains two State Parks where most of the sightings have been reported:  Wharton and Lebanon, the former located in parts of  Camden, Atlantic and Burlington Counties, the latter being situated in Burlington County.  Both are huge in area and are popular destinations for nature lovers of all kinds and, unfortunately, arsonists as well.  Still the size of these two parks put together is staggering in a state so small, comprised of 1.1 million acres.

Here are some helpful facts:  The Pine Barrens is unique in the world, containing flora and fauna not found anywhere else.  An eerie place even in the daytime, it has found its way into the movies and on TV, and supposedly made an appearance on an episode of the Sopranos, though the actual location of the shoot was in New York State.

This brings me to something that was not mentioned in the show but I feel is of great importance, and I will discuss this later on.  For people not familiar with the Pine Barrens, it is not the deep, dark forests that cover, for instance, Maine, but consists of varieties of pine that tend to be either short and shrub like (scrub pine) or very tall but with sparse branches (pitch pine).  Even in the densest of sections (and somewhat contrary to the impression given by MonsterQuest), one can still easily see the sky above, and the sunlight has no problem illuminating even the remotest areas.  There are hardwoods such as the Atlantic White Cedar, the Red Oak and the Black Jack Oak, but pine trees far outnumber any other type.

I have always felt that, in, general, MonsterQuest takes an intelligent approach to its investigations.  In this particular episode, they did quite well, but with a few glitches.  However, it was a decent overview of both the history and some of the research that has gone into this enigmatic beast.

The show concentrates on the Winkelmann family, specifically Laura and her son Glenn, Jr., who claimed to have seen a creature with some of the features of the Jersey Devil.  This is not the first time I have heard this story, as pictures of the footprints on the roof of the family’s home had appeared in the magazine Weird New Jersey several years ago.  The family seems credible and there is no indication that they have fabricated any part of their experience.

While turning off Christmas lights outside the home, Glenn Jr. is startled by what he believes to be a huge creature with glowing reddish/orange eyes glaring down at him from near the top of a tree.  His mother also sees this strange animal, and they both run towards the house, fearing an attack.  This causes the beast to swoop down over their heads, large wings flapping, and land on their house.  It then apparently walked around their roof, leaving behind footprints accompanied by a clicking sound, before taking to the air and into the night.

Police were called, and photographs taken the next morning of the eerie prints.  Statements were taken from both the mother and her son, and one more sighting of what was purported to be the Jersey Devil was added to the many reported each year, mostly in the Southern area of the state.

MonsterQuest put together a decent team: a retired NYPD detective, a naturalist and a team of hunters and other people familiar with The Barrens.  A scouting team led by a professional tracker, Dave Fanz, tackled the job of trying to flush out the Devil.   Using a technique favored by Native Americans, it is a simple but effective hunting tool.  A number of hunters are split into two groups. The first group, spreading themselves out over a selected area, tries to drive any and all creatures within that space towards a waiting team.   This hopefully corrals any animals within the circle and causes them to flee from their hiding places and towards the waiting skirmish line.  People are also stationed as observers in seats placed relatively high up in trees so as to spot and identify any movement.

Laura Leuter from the Jersey Devil Hunters gives us some interesting statistics, stating that there has been thousands of sightings over at least two centuries, including the famous rash of multi-state sightings in 1909.  She and her organization maintain records using various databases and provides viewers with the history of this enigmatic creature.  Those interested can access this information here: http://njdevilhunters.com/sightings.html

The story of Mrs. Leeds and the birth of her 13th child is well-known to most people interested in both folklore and crypto-animals.  Worn out by hard work and already raising 12 children, the exasperated woman, beset by labor pains, cursed the fact that there would be yet another mouth to feed.  She begged that this infant should be not a human babe, but let it “be a devil”.  No sooner then these words were said that the newborn, at first normal in appearance, suddenly changed into a demon, who then flew rapidly up the chimney, uttering an eerie cry.  And so the legend was born.

What is left of the Leeds house was briefly shown to viewers, but there is not much to see–just the stones left from a crumbling foundation.  Not mentioned is the fact that the Leeds family descendants still live in the area, and there is a Leeds Point locale bearing their family name.

Of course this story has all the marks of a folk tale, and no doubt that is probably what it is.  But it does give an added bit of eeriness to the story and brings quite a few visitors to the so-called birthplace of New Jersey’s enigmatic creature.

People claiming to have seen the Devil range from Napoleon’s brother Joseph to a shopkeeper in Smithville (whom I think was frightened of an indeterminate shadow).  Even the carcass of what was probably a dead dog washed up on a NY beach was thought to possibly be the Jersey Devil, so widespread is the belief in this creature.

Returning to MonsterQuest's investigation, retired NYPD Det. Mitch Parker and his partner interview the Winkelmann family, study the police reports and determine that their story is very credible.  Following along that line, a polygraph was administered to both mother and son, who passed with flying colors.  At least it indicates that Laura and Glenn truly believe in their frightening encounter with something unknown on that cold, dark night.

However, naturalist Troy Ettel of the NJ Conservation Society assessed the description and behavior of what the family saw that night, and came to some interesting conclusions.  The Great Horned Owl is one of but many types of night birds inhabiting the Pine Barrens.  It can grow to quite a huge size, has a large wingspan, glowing round eyes and feet with sharp claws that it is not afraid to use to either gather prey or fend off a possible intruder.  Of interest are two distinct horn like feather protrusions on its head. It is an impressive looking bird and certain features seem to correlate quite a bit with the Winkelmann’s description.  More about that later.

Meanwhile, the hunting team begins their exercise early in the morning (6 am), attempting to flush out any animals that might be hiding in the brush, They only succeed in finding the ubiquitous white-tailed deer (which abound everywhere, not only in the Pine Barrens but throughout most of rural and suburban New Jersey) and causing some birds to take flight out of the treetops.  By 11:00 am, they call it quits, having come up with nothing to indicate that the Jersey Devil was anywhere in the vicinity.

Finally, artist Mike Mellilo, was commissioned to produce a sculpture based on the descriptions provided by Laura and her son.  The result is an imposing piece that seemed to fill the room with a feeling of malevolence and absolute terror.  Frightening in appearance, it could hold its own in any horror movie.

The Winkelmanns, when brought face to face with Mr. Mellilo’s creation, reacted as though they were once again staring at whatever terrorized them that fateful night.  The look of shock and fear on their faces, as the sculpture brought back all the horrifying emotions as they encountered the monster was certainly genuine.  There was no acting here.  Both mother and son felt that they were looking at an extremely close rendition of something that had seared itself into their memories and has probably given them nightmares ever since.

Does the Jersey Devil exist?  Did Laura and her son Glenn actually encounter this denizen of the pines?  And what of all the thousands of sightings reported over the centuries?

I would have to say the jury is still out.  MonsterQuest’s investigation was partly flawed by having the hunting party search for an animal that is basically nocturnal.  In my opinion, this was a major drawback, but they made a valiant effort nonetheless.

It is here that I would like to bring up a previous point made earlier about the types of trees comprising the Pine Barrens.  Most larger creatures that call the Barrens home would find it very hard to hide in the sparse branches of the Pitch Pine.  As stated before, this is a large forest, but not very dense.  An argument could be made that a cryptid such as the Jersey Devil would be quite visible as it perched or flew through the treetops.

My take on the episode:

It is my opinion that what the Winkelmanns saw that night was a very large specimen of a Great Horned Owl.  I have come to this conclusion based on several details:

1.  The video shown early in the show of an owl swooping towards the camera immediately reminded me of two things: the facial description as related by both mother and son (including the glowing round eyes and pushed in face).   In additon, there was also the giant wings, very impressive while the bird is in flight, and with a very large wingspan that would give the animal an even greater impression of its actual size.

2.  The naturalist, Troy Ettles, made reference to the clicking noises produced by this type of owl’s beak whenever it feels itself threatened in any way.  This would explain the clicking or clacking sounds the Winkelmanns heard.  With the snow on the roof, I doubt very much if there would have been any sounds made by the feet except for soft thumps.

3.  In addition, the prints themselves could certainly have been distorted, having been made in the snow.  Add this to the spacing in between the prints and the fact that the naturalist felt that this indicated the hopping of a bird (birds find it difficult to walk in snow and thus hop around instead of walking) gives the owl theory added credibility.  (Plus the fact that I just made my own observations of what happens to animal prints in snow; i.e. rabbit prints had morphed into what looked like horses hooves as well as cloven hooves.)

4.  The weight of an animal the size of what the Winkelmanns saw would have been impossible for the tree in which it was perching to have supported its weight.  However, birds are much lighter relative to mammals or a mammal-like creature and certainly find no difficulty perching high up in trees.

Given the above, I conclude that the mother and son had a very scary encounter with a large specimen of the Great Horned Owl.  With the conditions under which the event took place–it was dark, with only the string of Christmas lights and whatever illumination was coming from the house itself–they could easily have missed some of the clues, such as feathers, that would have helped them identify what they had seen.  Add their intense fear to the situation, and we have a very scary but very natural explanation of what happened on that terrifying night.

But it must be admitted that the creature seen that night did not fully resemble most descriptions of the horse headed animal claimed to have been seen by thousands of people since the 1700s.  What are we to make of that, or the hundreds of sightings that occurred during the massive event of 1909?  And, last but not least, what about the people who claimed to have seen a creature with the head of a horse, wings of a bat, long tail and horse-like hooves that startled them as it took flight into the darkness of a star-studded sky?

This edition of MonsterQuest certainly did not prove the existence of such a creature.  Yet accounts of sightings still are reported in decent numbers on a yearly basis.  The Pine Barrens may not be dense, but it covers such a huge area that an unidentified animal, or even a mutation, could not only hide but survive in this exotic and unique corner of our amazing planet.