There are cryptids you can almost respect. Bigfoot, for example — majestic, mysterious, blurry in every photo like he’s permanently on the run from copyright infringement. The Yeti, Bigfoot’s more sophisticated older brother. Even the Chupacabra, Mexico’s favorite demonic desert creature.
But then there’s the Jersey Devil, whose mythology pales in comparison to its cryptid cousins.
The story goes like this: Sometime in the 1700s, in the gloomy heart of the Pine Barrens, a woman known only as Mother Leeds gave birth to her thirteenth child, screamed something along the lines of “Let it be the Devil!” and — poof — demonic bat-winged goat-baby appears, screeches at the midwives, and flies up the chimney into legend.
That’s it. That’s the lore.
For centuries, the Jersey Devil has been blamed for everything from livestock disappearances to mysterious screams in the woods to that deep, unsettling feeling you get when you realize you’re still in New Jersey.
Descriptions vary wildly, depending on how many pints of beer the witness had consumed prior to the sighting. Sometimes it has the head of a horse. Sometimes it’s a goat. Sometimes it’s a kangaroo with wings, horns, and a bad attitude. Sometimes it’s just Carl from the bar stumbling through the woods after last call, but hey — who’s keeping track?
There have been so many sightings — thousands, if you believe the local tourism boards — but no decent photos, no tracks, no skeletons, no droppings, no fur samples, no scales, no anything that might suggest an actual biological creature exists. Just grainy stories and the burning need for the Pine Barrens to have something — anything — interesting happen once every few decades.
And of course, the merchandise flows like cheap beer: Jersey Devil t-shirts. Jersey Devil action figures. Jersey Devil IPA (not bad, honestly). You can even buy a “Summon the Jersey Devil” candle kit if you want to spend $14.99 on paraffin-scented disappointment.
The Jersey Devil isn’t proof of the supernatural. It’s proof that once a story gets loose, it doesn’t need facts — it just needs enough people willing to buy into it, print it on a coffee mug, and sell it at the gas station.