16: The Jersey Devil | Red Thread
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Yucky.

A chill iced the faces of the young men hunkering in the barracks, a collective of over two thousand with not a single one having the guarantee that tomorrow would ever come for any of them. They knew the numbers. The Royal Navy had over five thousand men on the march, likely a conservative estimate after their previous victories. Mutterings from the officers' tables betrayed any semblance of eternal confidence. "Fort Lee may as well be flying the British Red Ensign tonight, lest the inevitable be delayed any longer."

A young lad stirred, standing from the oak bench he was previously seated at, feeling the need to relieve himself. He did not want to perish with a full bladder after all. Aiming to find a latrine before the candles were extinguished, he wrapped a standard-issue scarf around his wind-burned lips and pulled the tent flaps apart before sidestepping a guard doing the rounds outside. He was tall and broad-shouldered, a veritable human cannon if there ever was one.

He could feel the man's eyes piercing him, watching him for any signs of desertion. He ignored the feeling of guilt for even pondering the notion, for even letting it fester in his mind at all, and pushed past both the man and his intrusive thoughts. The soft crunch of snow beneath his feet drowned any notion that desertion would be fruitful regardless. He didn't have the supplies to survive outside the fort. He would either die frozen wandering in the snow, or he would die an American. A patriotic end sounded more palatable for some reason.

At least he would die with purpose. I'm the latrine. He trudged past the palisade, a wooden fence to where the latrines were located. He passed a few other lads with equally solemn looking faces. He didn't know them, not even remotely, but he knew just from a brief glance that they were all truly in a unified state tonight.

Not simply only in ideals, but in their shared fate. He arrived at the pit and troubled himself for an instinctual deep sigh at the sight. The air stung as he exhaled. The latrine itself was a long horizontal pit, located a distance from the camp so that it wouldn't be an affront to the senses for those inside the walls. He noted, as he squatted over the line, that he was the only one here.

The privacy was uncommon but highly appreciated. In truth, he couldn't remember the last time he had been so alone and yet he could still feel those eyes piercing him. Maybe not the same eyes as those belonging to the guard who he had pushed past moments ago, but the notion was the same. It still felt like he was being watched, analyzed. Someone or something was sizing him up. The thought made the hair on his neck stand on end. His eyes darted around the perimeter of the palisade, the walls separating the latrine

the latrine area from the rest of the camp. There were no guards adorning the entrances, not a single soul. Why couldn't he escape this feeling? He could feel his heart beating like a war drum, thumping relentlessly against his ribcage. It drowned out all of his other senses like a thick, oily deluge over the water.

He looked for any indication of where this anxiety was stemming from. "It should be common sense," his brain barked. He was in his most vulnerable state, his pants coiled around his ankles as he bared himself over the pit while he was attacked by the cold and the dark. He couldn't have made himself a more perfect target if he tried. There was no calm to be found here in a place like this. It was simply the appropriate and only response

His ears joined the party now as he heard the crunch of snow from behind him.

He hadn't taken a step. He had not moved an inch. He knew for a fact that no one had been here. Still, when he arrived and he hadn't seen a soul enter the area since he had submitted into his squat. He dared not turn around as fear gripped every inch of his body so tight and so fiercely that movement seemed impossible. And his pants strangled his ankles so much so that any movement was precarious regardless. The crunching snow, louder and louder still, left no room for doubt.

There was something behind him. Some indeterminable question mark inching closer and closer. Is this how he would die? Is this how he would be remembered? As a naked fool cowering over a latrine in fear. He couldn't imagine anything worse. In truth, and the very idea struck him from his inaction. He suddenly tipped forward, twisting at the same time, landing with a thud on his bare ass in the snow.

He was now facing what was once his flank, staring with unfettered bewilderment. He had expected to see a redcoat, but what he saw was not of this world, or nothing he himself had seen in his life up until that point. Two legs held up a figure of about four foot in height.

Or whatever it was.

He couldn't help it, though. He could be damned. Instinct took hold and a scream left his lips instinctually and he scurried backwards away from the sight, his hands digging into the snow as he desperately attempted to put distance between himself and whatever his eyes were seeing. The creature, startled, unfurled its wings and took to the sky without any effort. The young man kept screaming until footsteps found him from behind. His fellow soldiers looked at him with utter confusement.

as he laid in the snow with his pants still around his ankles screaming into the void. They had one immediate thought as they rolled their eyes: a young lad trying to earn his removal from the army through any means possible. Scholars now know what actually happened, however. That young lad had seen a figure that would come to be known as the Jersey Devil.

And this is the red thread. We are those scholars, baby. We're the scholars. We're the scholars that have determined that that thing was the Jersey devil.

That was a long build up for it. That's like when you, you know how like when kids would smoke a cigarette and their parents are like, okay, well then smoke the whole fucking pack then you like this so much. No, oh no, I hate it. That kind of thing. I bet there's a lot of people like, what? Get to the point. I know. I couldn't help it. Good, good. I got into the mindset of a, what do you call it? An army man back in the Revolutionary War and then I forgot about the Jersey Devil.

That is true patriotism right there. He got so engrossed with the idea of the American soldier that he forgot about the cryptid. The patriotism took over. USA! USA! Okay.

Okay, so here's the problem. Like, if you want to make a scary story, it can't be done in like a paragraph. It can't. Because there's not enough. You don't have any kind of thing to latch onto to make it scary. Well, that's only because you're not a professional like the Redditors on two sentence horror. Yeah, true. I need to go study two sentence horror. Damn it.

Anyway, this is the red thread. I'm Jackson, Charlie and Isaiah, both here as usual. They're both cryptid skulls as well. I've seen their credentials, they're top quality stuff. They've gone to the best cryptid university, so I trust them to give a reputable recount of what the Jersey Devil is, so that's why they're here. And yeah, this week we're going to be talking about the Jersey Devil, which I would say is one of the more, probably one of the more famous cryptids, right? It's got a long history.

It's got to be top 10, I think. Yeah. One of our friends of the show, I guess, friend of the official podcast, Psychic Pebbles. I think this is his favorite cryptid. So shout out to Psychic Pebbles. Do you remember him talking about it when he came on the show, Charlie? I'm pretty sure he went on. I vaguely remember him talking about the Jersey Devil. I don't remember what he said about it. I think he said he believed it's real. He's seen it. I think he said he's seen it. Anyway.

Anyway, regardless, that just screams to me, if a cultured man like Zach, Psychic Pebbles, knows a lot about the Jersey Devil and loves him, then this is going to be a quality cryptid in my mind.

So, yeah. How much do you guys actually know about the Jersey Devil? Not too much for me. It's been a long time since I ever even heard about the Jersey Devil. I obviously know it generally, but I don't know any of its origins or anything. What it likes to eat. Like...

what it likes to do. It's got a long history. Yeah, I think I know knock on wood pretty much all the main things about the Jersey devil. I covered it recently in my, uh, cryptid series and I gave it an S tier ranking cause I do think it's a really cool cryptid. Um,

but I wouldn't call it my number one, but I get, I get why it would be someone's number one. Although I think it's a bit hypocritical if he did, like if he truly believes in it and thinks he saw it, I don't know why it's not in smiling friends. It seems kind of, you know,

A little strange to me. There's a new season coming of Smiling Friends, isn't there? So very, very likely that Jersey Devil will show up in that. I think if he doesn't put it in season two, I think the Jersey Devil should kill him. That's my official stance. Out of respect.

See, this is what I think. So in Zach's case, I think he is from New Jersey or he's from around there. Maybe, maybe New York, regardless though. I think it's really cool in America that pretty much every place has a cryptid, its own cryptid due to just a long history. We've got cryptids over here in Australia for sure, but like there's no sunshine coast beast or anything like that for me. So I don't have any like direct. You've got the bun. Yeah. What else do you have? Yeah. But that's,

Jesus, I can't remember. Drop bears, obviously people say drop bears are cryptid, but that's more of a meme. But yeah, like the bunyip is the main one I know. And that's more like, well, there's a lot of like Aboriginal folklore. I don't know if you would count them as cryptids though, but like the dream serpent and stuff like that.

If Americans count them, then I'd say it would count. But yeah, I see what you mean. It's very different vibes because we've got, like you said, we've got a cryptid pretty much every 10 square miles or something else. Yeah. Like Goatman himself is in like a hundred different cities across the country, apparently. Like a different denomination of Goatman for each city, which is like crazy and also super cool. I don't have that, which is a shame because I would really like that. But...

I get to live vicariously through you guys at least and the Jersey Devil is one of those ways I get to live through you or at least psychic pebbles. So anyway, before we get started on this episode though, let's shout out the notes for this week. Link below in the description. You can see the research as well as that very long intro if you want to read it in your own time. It's all in there.

So yeah, you can find that in the description below. And there's also audio platform links as well. So you can listen to it at work or when you're on your cryptid hunts for yourself out in the woods, you can listen to the episode about the Jersey Devil for research notes. And beyond that, this episode is made possible by our friends over at ExpressVPN. They're massive Jersey Devil fans and you'll hear more from them later on in the episode.

Um, yeah. Okay. So that's, that's all the notes. Let's talk about the Jersey devil itself. The appearance. Look at it. Look at it. Uh, it's up on screen and we'll describe, I described it pretty accurately. I would say in the, you know, the intro. Uh, what do you guys think? Was I pretty close? Uh, kind of, this looks, well, at least the far right one looks significantly more cartoonish than your description would have you believe. Okay. Well, first of all, was my description scary? No. Okay.

Okay. He's just trying to be a hater. I love the intro. I thought it was great pacing and all that. Charlie just wants to see you cry. So I think... Yeah, I know Charlie by now. I just know you're better than this, Jackson. I know you could have come up with scary stuff. Surely I'm not better than this if it's been... I will say...

after the epstein one i haven't seen anything top that i'll admit yeah it's so but it's so difficult because like i don't want to it's if i do the whole you are the thing like you are epstein or whatever every single time then it's just like played out i think if you ended that revolutionary war story with you look down into the pond you're jeffrey epstein i think that would have been the

Like your intro was a huge red herring the whole time. It had nothing to do with the Jersey devil. You're just Epstein again. And now we're talking about the Jersey devil. Yes. Yeah. Wait, I don't remember. Was Epstein from Jersey? Cause that would be hilarious. He would be the Jersey devil, but I don't think he was from New York. Wasn't he? Yeah. All I got to say is since Epstein died, Jersey devil has been real quiet, you know, but

All right. Well, we got the court mandated Jeffrey Epstein reference out of the way now. So we can continue on about the Jersey Devil. So the one on the right here, it's kind of like a little dragon goat.

Maybe? I don't know. What would you describe it as? It's like a magic dragon looking thing. Yeah, it looks cute. That representation to me looks cute. Yeah. Okay, hold on. You think it looks cute because it's the way the cartoonist drew it. But a horse-headed thing with wings like cloven hooves, I don't think it'd be cute in real life, even if the drawing's kind of sweet. You know?

Well, it depends. Does it, like, dance around and, like, tell jokes and stuff like that? Or is it just like a horse? Like, does it just, like, smell and stink? I think it just kills you. You wrote the story, don't you remember? It doesn't just dance around. Well, it did. It just, like, took off in my story. It did leave. That's true. It wasn't dancing. That's scaring. That's like a bad omen type of thing.

Anyway, to describe this for people at home, it's kind of like a mix of a body of a kangaroo, a kangaroo kind of a lamb. I don't know what to describe it as. It's got horns in some depictions. It's got a horse face. It's got a long neck, some wings, like leathery wings next to it, little hoofs that seem like

ineffectual but like it doesn't do anything they're just dangling from its torso and then two long legs at the back its entire pose is like extremely uh unrealistic like it looks like it would just fall over straight onto its face that's that's part of the horror of it it has a very uncanny appearance like it shouldn't exist or be able to walk the way that it does because it's supernatural

Yeah. And so its tail is also like very Satan-esque. It's got a very like devil, devilish tail. And like I said, the horns. Its face is depicted in multiple different ways across, across, uh, across depictions. It's got like a horse face in this one, then like a goat face. And then it's just like, it got a very, uh, human impish face in this one, in a different one. So, uh, discussions on its appearance, descriptions of the appearance of the Jersey devil kind of like,

ebb and flow depending on where the depiction is coming from. I don't know. I don't personally find it to be a very creepy looking cryptid, but I guess Isaiah, you might be right. If I was confronted with it in real life, the story might be different. Well, picture it this way. Horses, right, are pretty big. So imagine a horse that walks upright, has wings that have a span as long as it is, and horns on top of its head.

Right. And it moves on those rear legs and like a broken, jilted manner through the woods and lets out cries that sound like a dragon. You wouldn't want to run into that in the middle of the night.

Okay, that's pretty, that's compelling. That's compelling. I think I'm just too, I'm too corrupted by the very cute picture. Yeah, there's also plenty of other things you wouldn't want to run into in the middle of the night, though, that aren't that. Like, I wouldn't want to run into, like, a raccoon at night, even though I think they're kind of cute during the day. Okay, okay, hold on. You got me all wrong. I would love to run into a raccoon at night. I'd be that thing's best friend. I'd give it snacks. Oh, you say that until it starts fucking tearing you limb from limb. Okay.

Wait, but then, okay, you fucking, I'm sorry, language, but you hypocrite, you, you, you hypocrite, you said that a goat wouldn't be scary, even though it,

Goatman like in the Goatman intro story. You said a goat appearing behind you at night. Oh, and now you're saying Jackson with the receipts. Okay, that would be a fair point. If it wasn't a goat, a goat is still not scary under any circumstances. How is a raccoon more scary than a goat? A raccoon can have rabies. A goat can have rabies. When was the last time a goat had rabies? I'm gonna look it up. I mean, raccoons are very common carriers of rabies.

Yes, but they also have little hands and want to be friends, whereas goats just have hooves. So I think that offsets the whole rabies thing. Yeah, it's very rare for goats from what I can see here.

Well, rare, but still possible. And also, so the whole fear base... What if you have rabies, Charlie? You ever consider that? That's one of my biggest fears. It is. He doesn't shut up about it. So the basis of this fear is like, does the thing have rabies? Yeah. That's it. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Charlie's scale of fear is a spectrum of rabies to not rabies. And wherever it lies in there, that's where he's afraid of.

Well, the Jersey Devil definitely probably has rabies. Charlie, what is your nightmare scenario of a thing to have rabies that you run into? Like, what animal with rabies would you never want to encounter, above all else? It'd have to be a bat, because they're fast, they fly, and you don't really see them coming. And they are, I believe, the most common transmitter. What if it was, per se, like, a lion with rabies?

Yeah, it wouldn't bother me as much. I just don't find myself being around lions that often. That wouldn't bother you as much as a bat? A lion showing up wouldn't... I mean, a lion without rabies...

Yeah, but that would be the least of my concerns is the rabies. Yeah, true. At that point, yeah. All right. So the rabies is at its maximum threat level when it's a bat. It's a bat, yeah. Anything small. When the creature gets smaller. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anything small. Gotcha. All right. Well, for the rest of us who are cryptid truthers instead of conspiracy theorists and non-believers like you, I think that the Jersey Devil is pretty scary.

I like the idea of someone who is actually interested in the Jersey Devil, doesn't know any of us, clicks on this podcast to actually hear about the Jersey Devil. It's just been 30 minutes of short stories as well as rabies talk. We haven't touched on the Jersey Devil at all. We've talked about how it looks a little bit, but we'll get there. Yeah, here, you know what? You're right here. I'll take the origins. 1735, Jane Leeds, more commonly known as Mother Leeds, was living in the New Jersey Pine Barrens.

To her dismay, she discovered she was pregnant with her 13th child. Her family was poor and her husband was an alcoholic. Distraught with the possibility of having this child, she cursed aloud, "'Let this one be the devil.' And so it became one."

As her pregnancy went on, Mother Leeds had forgotten about her hateful words and prepared for the birth of her child. On a stormy night, she went into labor. Her family huddled around candlelight as she gave birth to a baby boy. A seemingly normal baby at first, suddenly it began to screech and change before their eyes. Wings grew out of its back and hair prickled up from its skin. He turned into the ugliest creature they had ever seen.

It attacked the family and the midwives and subsequently unfurled its wings and flew into the swampy area nearby where it's been lurking in the marshes of southern New Jersey ever since. This is the most common story on the origins of the Jersey Devil. However, details around certain aspects of the story have been known to change. There have been variations on this story of Mother Leeds. Some believe that she was a witch and the women who assisted her in labor were only there out of sheer curiosity as they had all heard the rumors that she would give birth to the devil.

When the baby was born healthy, the surrounding crowd were disappointed until the baby began to shift into the devil. Mother Leeds has also been described as a young girl from Leeds Point helplessly falling in love with a British soldier. The Battle of Chestnut Neck was happening at the time and the divide between Americans and British meant the relationship between Mother Leeds and her British lover was frowned upon. The town's folk cursed her and when she later gave birth to her child, they became the Leeds Devil.

There are also stories of a family curse plaguing the family, resulting in the birth of the Jersey Devil. And another tells of how Mother Leeds was a Quaker, and Quakers believe that everyone has a connection to God, which sometimes called inner light or spirit.

She refused to be converted by a clergyman and got mad and he got mad and cursed her next child to be the offspring of Satan. Some even believe the story that a young girl had passed a hungry gypsy asking for food. She refused, scared, and in result that gypsy cursed her.

As you can see, there are various different versions of the story, with some adding different themes and historical context for the abomination. Religious aspect with Quakers, historical aspect with contentious breakup between colonies in England, but one fact always remains the same. Mother Leeds gave birth to the devil that night and it would go on to haunt the local woods as the Jersey Devil.

Yeah, so it's always the same kind of... In terms of the origins of the Jersey Devil, it's kind of like there's slight variations, but the core idea that Mother Leeds or this Jane Leeds woman gave birth to the devil in the early 1700s. Question from me, from Jackson. When was the Salem Witch Trials? And was Salem around there? Salem's around Boston, right? Or somewhere around that area? Salem Witch Trials. 1692. So that's pretty... That's like...

somewhat close in time like a few decades before that uh so the the idea of witches and giving but which is giving birth to you know abominations was prevalent around that time so that's kind of uh along the same lines as this um yeah so it's the same kind of story there's a few elements like

bringing in religion, obviously with the Quakers and stuff like that, as well as the historical stuff, like the war between Britain and the US at the time that flavor certain elements. But it's fundamentally the same story at the end of the day. This woman gives birth to this creature. She has been spited or she's evil or she has been wronged in some way. And this is her curse that she gives to the world.

Yeah, Isaiah, did you have anything to add to this? Any kind of insight as to like the religious element, maybe? Yeah, so you can kind of see you're spot on with talking about the Salem witch trials. There was this spirit of, I don't want to say paranoia, but almost like a practicality to everything to do with religion that was very prevalent, especially in like Britain and American colonies around this time.

You basically had the rise of, like, spiritualist ideas or the idea that members of the church, clergy, pastors, or whatever, would have special abilities or something like that. Like, they could perceive who was demonic and who wasn't. This is when a lot of beliefs around, like, speaking in tongues and stuff like that became popular in, like, you know, European civilizations. So you have, like, a very...

A heavy hand on the performance part of scripture, of spirituality. So because of that, naturally the enemies of spirituality started to take forefront too. It wasn't that people in town were enemies of you or they just didn't want to be a part of the church. They were witches or warlocks and performed

black magic. It was seen that if in a lot now, of course, this isn't with every religion across the board, but in a lot of like Quaker beliefs and stuff like that, if say you had a bad season on the farm of your, your cows didn't produce milk or you didn't have a lot of, you know, your crops come to prosper, then either you've done something to make God upset or,

And he's the one cursing your farm or someone else is cursing you and not allowing your stuff to come to fruition. So if the person who is having a hard time is a like powerful member in the town, then he can use his influence to say, oh, well, it's this person who doesn't like me and they're actually a witch. So you kind of have that same spirit here. All the story around mother leads involves that she was ungrateful for another child, perhaps.

or that she was in some kind of affair or that she was a witch. There's always some negative aspect applied to her. So naturally the offspring of that must be the devil. So it's interesting. You can see like, it's almost like the Jersey devil was a villain made for the quote unquote heroes of the time. Something that naturally counters everything they believe. So yeah, it's very stooped in like that colonialist spiritualism.

You'll definitely see that later on. When we were doing our research, there was a very interesting, prominent theory based around the creation of the Jersey Devil.

of the origins, I guess, like the story has a very interesting beginning and it comes down to that idea that you just espoused of kind of like a rivalry between two people and using this kind of religious or spiritual context to kind of blame one another. And it's very interesting. So we'll get down to that eventually after we talk about stuff like the sightings. But first, a word from the sponsors of this episode.

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So the very first, well, let's talk about the prominent sightings because there are a lot of them. I've got this map of notable sightings, which is a Google map. You tried it every single time he's poked his head out. I didn't do that. It was someone else. So credit to whoever did that. But yeah, there's an interesting little map here. So you're saying you did this all yourself and if someone else says they made it, they're a liar. That's what you're saying. I appreciate you taking the time for this, Jackson. It probably wasn't easy. It's a lot.

So everyone, this is Jackson's and if you got a problem with that, you can take it up with him. Where'd it go? I moved it. Because it's mine. You can't have it.

okay so uh the very first well not the very first but one of the main sightings was from joseph bonaparte so napoleon's brother and the king of spain during the peninsula wars he lost spain to england and had to leave he's thrown in the early 1800s so he traveled to america for a new start he was a uh you know he came to america because he wanted that american dream that's what that's what

Spanish kings did in those days. They just fled to America. I guess America kind of accepted everyone at that time in terms of if they had wealth.

So he went to America in exile after Napoleon's defeat, settling on a large property in Bordentown in New Jersey. He adapted into life in America while building a mansion and throwing lavish parties. He was a bit of a party monster. Joseph enjoyed hunting and went out one snowy afternoon in 1812 to a nearby woody area, and he began following some tracks he found on the ground, noting that one foot seemed to be bigger than the other.

And this is actually kind of a fact that comes up in a lot of sightings. For some reason, there's a mismatched foot size on the

On the Jersey Devil, that's kind of like a common fact in the sightings, which I guess speaks to its level of just abomination. It's just like a mutated freak almost of just, you know, an amalgamation of different body parts. I love the idea that you see two different size footprints. You're like this fucking unholy heathen, this disgusting creature. Feet aren't symmetrical.

Man, whatever this is, we have to kill it. This needs to die. I assume it's like a pretty significant difference and not just like, you know, a centimeter width increase or something. It has to be like significant for it to be noted. Well, yeah, even still, though, I probably wouldn't be like if I saw two different size footprints, I probably wouldn't like blow a gourd or like lose my gourd over it. I'd probably just be like, oh, that's kind of interesting.

Well, that proves you don't have what it takes to be the king of Spain. That's true. Yeah, that's what separates me from Joseph. If you're not willing to kill people that look different than you, then you're not cut out for aristocracy. Yeah, that's why you got kicked out. Get in or get out.

So the track suddenly stopped with no other prints in the snow leading anywhere. The only way for the creature to move away would be by flight. A hissing noise caught Joseph's attention and he found himself facing a massive beast. This is another thing that happens. It's described as massive here, but in a lot of other accounts, it's like four foot high. It's like tiny. It's like the size of a dog. Well, well...

Okay, yeah, that is, but in other accounts it's described as the size of a dog, basically. So there's a massive discrepancy between sizing accounts. Sometimes it's enormous, sometimes it's small. What if there was multiple of them? What if the devil had more devils? Oh, yeah, if the devil spawned more, like Jane Leeds had triplets or something. But how do they breed? How would they breed? It's kind of like...

You know how tech inserts work in Call of Duty? Like, you know, you drop one and that's where you spawn. Well, after the first one spawned, he can probably just call in more from hell or something, right? Well, I was thinking something different. It could probably just like actually reproduce. It just has more choices. It can fuck a horse. It can fuck a goat. It can fuck whatever and make like an offspring. Yeah, it can fuck bats. What the fuck?

As long as it has a body part that belongs to that animal, it can fuck it, basically. The way Charlie said that, like, I just made an absurd claim, and he goes, well, I actually was thinking of something completely different. I was thinking of how it fucks. We're just gonna gloss over whatever that was.

I appreciate your theory, Isaiah, but have you considered the things that it might be fucking? Weird. Anyway, so... This is going to be the first R-rated red thread. Oh, no, we've crossed. Do you remember the Wendigo episode? Yeah, true. That was us fucking. That was completely different. That was super different.

And there was no offspring out of that. So it's completely like, at least this one's practical. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we know someone's going to draw that. Be careful. Joseph had his rifle with him, the rifle he brought from Spain, but he was so startled that he was unable to use it. Instead, they both just stared at each other, which is what all these cryptids do. They always just stare. Do something, damn it. The creature then flew away. It did something. There you go. There you go.

Yeah, they're just bitches. They just fly away. I guess he knew that this was the king of Spain. So no, no sense trying, trying anything against him. When talking to people, he knew about what happened. His friends broke the news that he had just seen the Jersey devil.

He never saw it again, but searched for it constantly until he returned to Europe. So he was a changed man from that point on. I just like the fact that the King of Spain saw this son of a bitch. It goes all the way to the top. It's not just like local hooligans or crackheads or anything like that that have just seen the Jersey Devil in the streets or anything. The King of Spain saw it.

That's how big this is. And he told all of his descendants about it. So then every year they get together at Bohemian Grove and have ceremony in honor of it. Like it's, it all makes sense if you think about it, you know? Yeah. If you think about it really hard. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So I don't think that was the first sighting. The first sighting was back in 1725, around when the story started, obviously. The story started in 1735, sorry, so around then. So those stories were just kind of like secondhand accounts, you know, nothing too crazy. It's just like, oh, I saw the Jersey Devil in the woods. Don't go out there. That kind of thing. But yeah, the Joseph Bonaparte sighting was like the first big one in terms of sightings.

And then it had kind of an explosion in popularity, like early 1900s, where it says the Jersey Devil was well and truly out and about in January of 1909 with thousands of reported sightings.

yeah she got insane yeah yeah like a thousand sightings all at once sounds like sounds like um a bunch of people got together and decided to yeah mass paranoia hun definitely not a series of demon monsters in the air that's what they that's definitely what they you know i'll take this i'll take your stance i'll take your stance this time i believe it

I actually, like, I want to believe it because there's so many stories here in January. It seems insane that it would just crop up like that. You make me sick. Come on. Come on. It's so cool. Continue. You make me sick. I heard that, Charlie. On the weekend of the 16th of January,

It was seen flying over Woodsbury, and its tracks were found in the snow in Bristol, Pennsylvania. These strange tracks, where they would stop and start suddenly, were found all over, especially in Burlington. On the 19th, a couple in Gloucester saw the Jersey Devil for over 10 minutes outside their window in the early hours of the morning, from which we have a statement from Nelson Evans that says, "...it was about three feet and a half high."

with a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse. It had a long neck, wings about two feet long, and its back legs were like those of a crane, and it had horse hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them. It didn't use the front legs at all while we were watching. My wife and I were scared, I tell you, but I managed to open the window and say, shoo! And it turned around, barked at me, and flew away. Ha ha ha ha ha!

This old guy like, alright, you've had your fun, get out of here. Scram. Imagine the bulls on a man who has to see, like, who sees a cryptid like this and just opens the window and says, shoo. Just like, get out of here, scram. Just the most hateful, like, he fought in the Civil War. Now he's like throwing open his window. This used to be a nice neighborhood.

And yet again, the Jersey devil just flees. Like he just flies away. Well, this time he barked at him. I want to know what that, if it was actually like a dog bark, cause his description's weird. It has the head of a dog in the face of a horse. Wouldn't that just be a horse? Don't they both have like a long face dog? Yeah. Maybe it's just a long face dog.

Yeah, maybe it has like a really long snout. Apart from the wings and flying away. Yeah. That's not dog-like. What, your dogs don't do that in Australia? What the heck? Yeah, no. You gotta get with the times. He also says that it had horse's hooves. So...

Again, a lot of... Oh, wait. Yeah. I'm seeing a lot of artistic discretion in Nelson Evans' thing. Because how do you... From where you were at, how do you know it was horse hooves? That's what I'm saying. Could have been goat hooves? Could have been cow hooves, right? Yeah. What do you mean it was a dog's head with a horse face? It's just a horse. It would be hard for him to say if it was on the ground. But as we know, the Jersey Devil stands on his back legs like a civilized cryptid.

it cryptid so it's got its little hooves that's what I mean he's using too much discretion like he's like oh it had the hooves of a horse like you gotta imagine in like a Liam Neeson voice like he's like I saw it out in the pines with its wretched growl or whatever it's like okay how the stories are very prevalent at this time so he already knew the details of what it was meant to look like as well so that probably colored what he thought he saw if he genuinely thought he saw the Jersey Devil

I think he's a fucking liar. I think Nelson Evans is a man you can't trust as far as you can throw him. You know what? I was being critical of his description until Charlie just said that, and I realized I have to get back to my soapbox. So I think Nelson was right about everything he said, actually. This is what I have to say to that. Well, nope, that fart wasn't loud enough to be picked up, but I farted when you said that. I thought it was going to be a fart.

What was that noise? Is someone, are you like, were you moving the mic directly to your asshole? No, I didn't. I just, I don't know if you heard it, but I just like moved in my chair, but yeah, I just lifted a cheek.

See, he can't even get a solid retort out. And this is the guy you're going to believe, people. This is the guy. I like how a fart being picked up would have been a solid retort. Well, it would have. It would have been impressive, okay? I would have heard it and I would have shut up. But since I didn't hear anything, this man's a fraud. And Nelson Evans saw the Jersey Devil that day.

I mean, I agree. Charlie's argument was not very persuasive. In fact, it was inaudible. See, there you go. Look at that. That's a real American. You know what, Jackson? You might be Australian, but you're a patriot in my book.

Look, I'm just high, okay? I'm just having a good time talking about Christmas. Now you should clarify that you're high on, like, pain pills for your wisdom teeth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I should get what he said. I got my wisdom teeth removed two days ago, and it hurts a lot, so I'm on pain medication, and I can't feel a thing. I feel great. Look how much of a trooper he is, though. He still shows up to the recording after getting his teeth yanked, and Charlie, you can't even fart for him? No.

I'm working on another one right now, actually. I was trying to make it a surprise, but okay. It better be crispy after the rhyme. It'll be when you least expect it to. Working on one as well, like you're sitting there just trying to load it up.

Look, as someone with four extra holes in his head right now, I just wanted to talk about cryptids with my friends. All right. So I'm having a great time right here. Okay. That's good. That's good. Yeah. Even though Charlie can't farm for me. He's trying to create a cryptid for you right now. Thank you. Once again, I'm imagining that person who really cares about the Jersey devil listening to this podcast. This is the last episode of the Red Throat I ever watch. Yeah.

Hey, remember to rate us on Spotify, by the way, and leave comments about Charlie's pathetic fart. I'd love to read those. The Jersey Devil was also chased off from attacking a trolley car in Hayden Heights. Armed security guards began to monitor the local trolley cars in nearby neighborhoods to help protect the community.

Poultry farmers were finding their chickens dead, and the Jersey Devil was even seen attacking a dog before the owner scared it away. This is the first report of the Jersey Devil attacking a living creature. The public tried to track the Jersey Devil down. They followed tracks, some even for over 30 kilometers, to find the beast. A worker? What?

Wait, does it track stop and disappear or does he fucking just walk in a line for 30 kilometers that are entirely trackable? I think that means the trackers went 30 kilometers.

Yeah, but they would have to be tracking tracks. That's what they do, right? I can see the Jersey Devil flying and bursts, but even if they're not following tracks, you can track something. Like when you track deer, you continue in the direction that you see signs of it. You don't have a clear path through the ground. Okay, but how do you track a thing with wings that flies? How do you actually track birds? It's not like straight soaring. It's probably doing little hops, kind of like the way a turkey does. Yeah.

It's wings probably don't work super well. It's a horse size thing, right? Like, so it jumps a little bit and flood kind of like you ever seen a chicken, like when you throw it in the air, it kind of like flutters to the ground. Yeah. It just glides. Yeah. Yeah. Kind of like that. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. The Jersey devil is like a chicken is what I'm trying to say. A worker in Atlantic city even apparently shot the Jersey devil though. It did not though. It did nothing but slightly injure it for a short period of time.

It seemed nothing could harm the creature. Some even saw it walk on electric rails unaffected. It caused a storm of panic through the towns who were waiting for the next sighting or the next attack. Its reign of terror ended on the 22nd when it was last reportedly seen that month.

So the 22nd, that's only about a week of sightings, but there were just constant sightings throughout that entire week, which is kind of strange. I get the whole concept of mass paranoia, but it's so strange to me that it just ends just as quickly as it begun. Pretty convenient, huh? That it seems everyone, like, for one week saw it and then no one saw it after that could be mass paranoia. Could be...

an easy mass paranoia wait hold on backtrack mass paranoia could be the easy excuse for um whatever they don't want you to know about what do they not want you to know about the jersey devil

Yeah, I mean, apart from the conspiratorial element there, like, what if it is just the Jersey Devil? Like, straight up, like, it's a week of sightings. I just don't understand how it could stop. If it was mass paranoia, wouldn't this continue for like a pretty sizable time and have more of a waning off period of people just getting bored of it, of saying the sightings and stuff? How does it just end like that just so suddenly?

That's a good question. I don't remember. The last major case I remember of it starting and stopping suddenly was with the Pokemon Porygon episode. I think that pretty much started and stopped very quick, but it's been a while since I've looked at it. Wait, the Porygon episode is connected to the Jersey Devil?

The mass hysteria element of it. Oh, I see the mass hysteria. Not that the episode of poor Jan was making people see the Jersey Devil. No, that would be pretty crazy though if it did. I got you.

There's been a lot of cases of mass hysteria that have happened recently and stuff like that. I made a video covering a bunch of... There's this one on TV. It was a Spanish TV show where the episode showed a bunch of teenagers pretending to be sick to stay home from school. And after it aired, thousands of teenagers reported being sick across the city.

and like exhibiting symptoms and stuff like that was that mass paranoia or like kids figuring out hey this works they were displaying symptoms and fooled doctors for a few days so okay well that's interesting it's weird it's weird weird things happen but this isn't one of those cases and it's actually the jersey devil is what i meant to say yeah it's absolutely the jersey devil

Can someone in the comments, though, if someone's, like, an expert on mass, like, hysteria and stuff like that, could someone explain why that is? Why it suddenly drops off? Because I would be interested in knowing, like...

the science behind it, if there is any such science, because it, it does seem super weird to me that it just, just stops. It just stops. Well, it could be, it could be like this. If mass hysteria is like a wholly emotional thing, say there was like two or three sightings that were just outright hoaxes or whatever initially. Right. And then everyone hears about those sightings at the same time. And then everyone has their own sighting afterwards. Well, the reports of that could take a week, you know,

you know, to fully make their way around the circuit or whatever. So maybe everyone hears about it. Everyone has their own episode and then it ends. Right. So it's not so much that they all quit after a week. It's that everyone kind of got it out of their system in those four days. So it's like a virus, almost like an infection. It like spreads through the community, hits everyone. And then it just like dies because of that. Everyone has their phase. Everyone has a moment and then it's, they're done with it. Yeah.

That's interesting, yeah. I could believe that. I'm literally just a YouTuber. I'm a college dropout. But just a hypothetical. It sounded good. Yeah, don't worry, I'm a college dropout too. Charlie's not though, so he should weigh in on this. He's got a fitness degree. Yeah, I'm college educated. That sounded pretty good. Sorry, officer. I apologize.

Hey, look at us. College dropouts, at least we can fart, Isaiah. Yeah, a lot of good that degree does to now. I successfully farted, it's just you didn't hear it. Well, is there any point to it then? Oh yeah, I'm sure you did, college boy.

all right so also there's a news like i include in the document uh there's a newspaper clipping about the lead devil which is what it was called at the time leads devil um and yeah so it's a newspaper clipping with an article about it with a funny little drawing of what they imagine the lead devil to look like and it says fly rival of leads devil has jersey people frightened

So, yeah, it's a long little, you know, article about it. It's just very interesting that this was so prevalent that it was in the papers and stuff at the time. Shows how much it had spread during that one week where everyone was in fear. And then we have the cab attack. Charlie, would you like to? Yep.

Fear over the Jersey Devil had died down with no particular sightings reported, and besides, a few keen people trying to find tracks on the ground, many had forgotten about the creature entirely.

That was until 1927. A cab driver was heading towards Salem when he suddenly needed to change his tire. When he pulled over, a creature had landed with a thud on the roof of his car. The car shook violently as the menacing creature scared the driver who managed to run away. Frightened, he went to the police, but upon returning to the car, there was no trace of anything occurring. Believable?

Nope. Okay. Moving on. No, no. That's coming from someone who just doesn't want to see the truth that's in front of them. Okay. Yeah. Clearly this man was terrified and definitely wasn't using it as a gimmick so that people would want to ride in the taxi cab that the Jersey devil landed on. Oh, that's a really smart business strategy. I did not think of that either. Yeah. Yo kids, you want to get in the devil truck or whatever? Yeah.

Gee whiz, mister. I sure do. But why would he go to the police? Surely he could just do it without going to the police. Well, it gets written about if you go to the police. It makes it seem more real. Hmm.

No, I believe him. After the mass paranoia and stuff like that, like all those sightings and stuff, I really, I think the Jersey Devil existed in the area at the time. So also, he probably hated cab drivers, so it makes sense why it would attack the cab driver. Heading towards Salem as well, that's an interesting point. That's where the witches live. Look at that. It all comes together. It all comes together.

They've also got a One Piece wanted poster here for the Jersey Devil that was put up in 1960. So there were some terrifying screams heard by many locals in May Landing. No one could identify what type of animal could make a sound like the high-pitched scream they could hear. Many started to wonder, could this be the Jersey Devil? Rewards began to be advertised for people willing to try and capture the beast...

Jesus fucking Christ.

These rewards were never claimed and no Jersey Devil was captured. So they were obviously just set up to promote that wealthy business as well as the circus, which is pretty obvious. But $250,000? If someone had actually captured the Jersey Devil, they would have made $2.6 million in today monies from that $250,000 back in 1960. Pretty good deal.

Yeah, pretty good deal. And that's also, I think, where the little, like, police sketch comes from for the Jersey Devil itself, which is like... It looks like a tapeworm, kind of, with wings and a horse's face, a little bit. Like a worm. It's got a very worm-like body there, with tiny little legs. Do we know who was issuing that reward? Because if it was, like...

the state or something that, and they never thought to take it down, that reward could still be active and adjusted for inflation. You could get two and a half million out of capturing this thing. No, I three printed Jersey devil today. I'm not, I'm not encouraging our listeners to go with like a net and a comedically large, like box with a carrot and a stick, uh, in the middle of the Jersey pine Barrens. But if you did, you could get really rich really fast. So,

Aren't scientists like crossbreeding creatures and creating like deformities and stuff like hybrids and stuff? Surely we can get there using that, using science. We could absolutely make it now. If we play God hard enough, we might get $2.6 million. Waste like hundreds of millions of dollars in crossbreeding programs and stuff like that. Like just this scientific abomination to earn $2.5 million. Just to claim the reward.

They were too busy to see if they could. They never stopped to ask if they should. They never did the math. We create these new races of demons to destroy the world and we'll be like, we'll be taking our check by mail. Thank you very much. We did it, Patrick. We saved the city.

Yeah. It's like how in Jurassic Park they created all the fucking dinosaurs and didn't realize how they just like procreate. Like they splice them with frog DNA and then the dinosaurs get out and just like split off from one another and just breed that way. They thought it was impossible that they would. I don't know why I'm talking about it like it actually happened. No, it did. It did happen. And I think it's important that we remember the tragedy at Isla Sorna. Yeah.

You guys remember the dinosaurs mixed with the frog DNA and we just never saw it coming? That's what we have to- we have to take these lessons. You know, after all that nuclear testing we did in the ocean that that giant lizard creature attacked Tokyo, you know? That was another tragedy that just science let happen. That was just- we need to learn one day. Yeah, we need to learn from these lessons.

The humanity of it all is tragic. And also people, you know, in New York when they spilled all those chemicals into their toilets and it made like, you know, those four like... Ninja turtles. Yeah, whatever they were, like the karate turtles or whatever they were. They were good though. They helped us. They helped

New York. They still help us. But not to our credit. It comes out of our own hubris allows things like that to happen. I see what you're saying, Jackson. We gotta stop. We don't think things through.

Anyway. Then there was the Green Tree Road sighting. Mary Ritzer Christensen was driving along Green Tree Road when something caught her eye. I wonder what it was. In her rear view, she saw a creature unlike anything she had ever seen before. Something that looked like a goat but walked like a human. Mary avoided driving down that road forevermore. Hope it wasn't the only road through town. She has always insisted that she was sober. That's a weird...

I think that's right. She's always insisted that she was sober when she saw the Jersey devil. And while she was previously skeptical of the theory, she now believed in the creature.

I swear I'm not a drunk. I'm not an alcoholic. The way that phrase is very funny. It's like she went into town. I saw the devil and I'm not drunk this time. And I'm stone cold sober. I know we've had a few, you know, mishaps before, but this time. Oh, sorry. So this is Mary's statement to a publication called Weird New Jersey, which I assume is not biased at all and is very reputable. So the quote is, the first

figure still taller than a man by far and had thick haunches supporting its nearly human looking torso and huge woolly head. I mean that could have just been like a big dude you know. Could have been Charlie honestly. He's tall. It's a tall. It's a taller than a man by far. And he had a woolly head. That honestly could be Charlie. Yeah Charlie on stilts maybe. Yeah did you hear it fart though? That would if she did it's not him.

I wish there was like an account over cryptid that just bothered. There is! There's ones that like they smell really bad and emit swamp gas all the time. Well yeah, that's different than like actually burying us and letting one out. There has to be one, hold on. There has to be, yeah. There absolutely is somewhere. Mechanical keyboard clicking. Continue. Charlie, you can take the next few if you want. Yeah, I'll just blast through these. These all look pretty credible.

1980, Chief Ranger Alan McFarlane stumbled across a brutal attack on numerous pigs. He described the massacre as something that stumped his wild animal knowledge. The bodies had been torn and mutilated and the backs of their heads eaten and ripped out. Most notably, there were no tracks of blood leading from the scene, almost as if the animal had flown and perched on the pigs. It could just be a giant eagle, right? Yeah, it could just be a huge bird of prey. Mm-hmm.

And there's another Forest Ranger sighting. We got John Irwin, who claims that he encountered the Jersey Devil and the Pine Barrens in 1993. He was along the Mullica River driving his car when the Jersey Devil jumped out in front of him. While the Pine Barrens is home to many different types of animals, such as bears, John said this was nothing like he had ever seen before. Towering over six feet with black matted fur and devilish horns, they stared at each other, Irwin afraid to move.

They were there for several moments with John, able to get a really good look at the creature he believes was the Jersey Devil. It didn't attack, but ran back into the forest, allowing John to safely get away. Is it strange that these are pretty, I guess, credible people? I mean, they're professionals. They're forest rangers, chief ranger. We had the King of Spain. Not really, I don't think.

So what would be the motive for this? It's not like he's advertising the forest. In fact, he's making the forest worse. He's being like, don't go in there. There's a fucking strange creature. That's not an advertisement. No, people love that. It makes it more interesting. Like, this would absolutely be great publicity for the forest, perhaps. Okay. Yeah, I don't know. But I just... I don't think even being forest rangers, they'd be...

I feel like they would be able to apprehend the Jersey Devil like they come equipped with weapons as rangers. They handcuff him. We're taking you in. Why would they lie? Therefore, it has to be real. Look at that. You've outdid yourself, Charlie. You're too far ahead of the case. That's true. Easy. Very convincing.

This seems to be the most recent one. This is Lori Winnellman and her young son, Glenn Jr. had ventured out into the snow one night in January 2004 to turn off their Christmas lights. Lori bent over to turn off the Christmas lights before turning around to see her son with a shocked look on his face. Turning once again to see what he was looking at, she saw a massive winged creature perched high on a tree above them.

Instantly, they began to run towards the house. Lori says she heard a swoop and felt a rush of air above them and realized that the creature had flown onto the roof of their house where it began to walk across the roof. They managed to get inside and began to scream and cry out in terror for help. After a sleepless night, they awoke in the morning to find perfectly preserved bizarre footprints on their roof that measured 9 inches by 5 inches and spaced 4 feet apart.

And then look, there's the footprints there. This is on screen as well, but for audio listeners, it is a snow-covered roof with little footprints that look like little cat paws for some reason, but that's still them. They're there, they're footprints. It's also in a perfectly straight line, so maybe one leg, I guess. Look at that. The Jersey Devil is so evil and wicked that now he's imitating the common house cat. Fuck.

It's got such cute little paw prints, too. It wants you to think so you get close and he can kill you. They don't look like hoof prints. They look like little paw prints. Anyway, so there's photographic proof. Police and wildlife experts were baffled by the footprints and unable to identify them to any animal. Probably because I imagine it's not an animal. They just went up there with like a household object and stamped into the roof and called it an animal.

Some believe that it could have been a great horned owl, as Glenn described the creatures having large round eyes, but the estimated weight of the animal that made these footprints was much greater than a great horned owl. There's a video called...

Yeah, there's a video called The Jersey Devil New Evidence Emerging Documentary in English Part 1, which at the 3.30 mark, there's an interview with Laurie about the incident. Yeah, so she goes into detail about it there, but it's like all the things that we just described. But it's there for people that want to hear it for themselves. And then, so Charlie said that was the most recent. He was a liar. A filthy goddamn liar. Yeah.

2004, that's ages ago. In 2015, the Jersey Devil has shown up in his most dramatic way yet on camera. We have photographic

Pictures of him now. In October 2015, David Black claimed to have photographed the Jersey Devil. Sounds like it was like a modeling gig. David has been called crazy, but he has stuck by his story. He was allegedly driving home from work in the evening when he saw what he first thought was a llama running nearby. As he stopped to get a photo. What the fuck? Why would you stop to get a photo of a llama anyway? You've never seen a llama before? It's just in a place it's not supposed to be, I guess.

Anyway, as he sought to get a photo, the animal suddenly grew wings and began to fly over a golf course. And then this is the quote from David's statement on the sighting. "Yes, I swear it's not photoshopped or a staged thing," Black responded when I asked if he was willing to let me use his name and state that the photo he sent was not manipulated in any way. "People have said it's fake, but it's not. I'm honestly just looking for an explanation for what I saw." Imagine if this isn't fake and he actually genuinely is like freaking out about like, "What the fuck did I see? Why won't anyone take this seriously?"

But like the photo itself, if one of you guys wants to describe it as well, but it is just a goat floating in the air, kind of. Yeah. It's just a goat. It's got wings, kind of. It's like a black cloud behind him.

I don't know. He's just like floating upwards. It does look photoshopped. I'll be honest. Okay. Long silence. Anyone want to add anything to it? I just think it's absurd that we have photographic evidence and yet you still deny even though the evidence is the truth right in front of you. But that's okay. I believe the whole 1900 stuff. I just don't believe David here with his photoshopping.

So you don't believe the Jersey Devil can look like a poorly photoshopped Jersey Devil if it's so Jesus? That's how good he is. Alright, more importantly though, shortly after a video emerged from a woman named Emily Martin who actually managed to take a video of the Jersey Devil. It should be noted that this is shortly after the David Black picture. So motivation might be that she saw the picture and was like, I can do better.

Even though she claims the video is undocked and completely real, many believe this video is fake with the unnatural movement of the body and the strange graceful way it flies. You guys should open up the video and have a quick look. It's very short. I did just that. That is the most convincing evidence yet. I'll give you that. Have you guys never seen this video before? Stupid little arm. It's so cute. See, this is what I mean. It's kind of like a little fairy. It's not moving an inch except for its wings that are trying so hard. Which are flapping.

Yeah, it looks like it's flying out of control. It doesn't know how to fly. It's like it's about to crash into the tree. I mean, yeah, that's what he looks like. I'll see what the joke is here. Emily did get something sinister on footage, that's for sure.

Look at its little hands. So its entire body is not moving. Its wings are just propelling it forward aimlessly like it's out of control. It's like a PNG except for the wings behind it.

And also why, if it was over to her left, why was she aiming up in the sky away from it? Waiting for it to come into frame. That's what I was thinking. Like she, she's, she wasn't capturing it directly. She was like capturing the sky and then it flew into frame, which makes absolutely no sense. If you saw the Jersey devil, you would be, you would film it immediately. Like you would have the camera point at it immediately. Not like the cinematic shot. But of course what actually happened is the devil told her it was going to be over there. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, of course. Anyway, so those are the most recent sightings and photographic and video proof. So I think we can give this the red thread stamp of it's real. The Jersey Devil is a legitimate creature. Caption on film. Yes.

There's no doubt about it. But still, let's do our due diligence and go over some theories about what it potentially could be. And honestly, there doesn't seem to be any theories, any real theories about what it is other than some people claim that it's creatures like the blue heron or the hammerhead bat.

But I do have an interesting story. Isaiah, would you like to take this one? Because this is an interesting kind of basis for the story itself, like the origin story. Like, yeah, a compelling reason why it existed in the first place. Excellent.

There is another story that has the roots of the Jersey Devil in politics. Daniel Leeds and his family came to America in 1677. The family were devoted Quakers and were very politically and religiously active authors and publishers. Despite this, Daniel was always a bit of an outcast in the religion.

They settled in Burlington, where shortly after he published an almanac, an annual calendar that contains important dates. Many of his neighbors were also Quakers who promptly attacked him over the use of astrology in the almanac. He was seen as a lunatic and his fellow Quakers began to call him evil. While he made a public apology, he went against the wishes of the town to destroy all copies and instead continue to publish the almanac.

So this was like the first example of like cancel culture, guys. You got canceled. The woke, the woke, the woke is I'm trying to destroy the devil's good name as a true patriot and truther of the country and truth also. Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe society was this bad. I can't believe Obama did this.

This is so funny. He continued his writings and his neighbors continued to suppress and hate his work. Like any real American. In 1699, he released The Trumpet Sounded Out of the Wilderness of America, which was an anti-Quaker book. Yeah, so he got canceled and bullied so hard by his own people that he's like, fuck you guys. You guys suck. So then he started publishing anti-Quaker stuff.

Just hilarious. I'm not afraid. He's listening to that while he's doing it. In the following years, he continued printing anti-Quaker pamphlets and pieces of work. One even titled Satan's Harbinger encountered his false news of a trumpet detected his crooked ways in the wilderness laid open to view of the Imperial.

Very catchy title there. Yeah, what a short, easy to remember thing. Also, what is his actual fascination with trumpets? Because they show up in every single fucking title that he creates. I believe he's talking about Quaker ideas around trumpets and revelation and stuff like that, if I had to guess. So it's a Quaker belief that trumpets are like a core tenant of their belief system?

If I had to guess, I'm not super familiar with Quakers. I know the basis is that they are a very sinners in the hands of an angry God kind of perspective. Like very, um, they see God as more of a, uh, a ruler and they believe more in penance than they do, uh,

abstinence i mean they also believe in abstinence but they're very penitent religion if that makes sense i didn't even know they were were a religion i thought they were like a brand of food which is wild well that's well that's what quaker is named on yeah yeah oh so that is actually a brand okay it yeah quaker oats is a food that's named it got its name because it was started by quakers

Ah, okay. That makes sense. In most traditions, you'll see Quakers. They're confused a lot for like Amish or Midianites because a lot of sects of them will like abstain from technology or like modern implements and stuff like that. Because again, they have a focus on sort of not earning, but placing themselves in a, again, a sort of penitent state in worship to God. Okay. Yeah.

So anyway, because of his anti-Quaker works, this led many to believe that he worshipped the devil. Daniel retired in 1716. His son, Titan Leeds, which is a cool name, in 1728, redesigned the front page of the almanac and their family crest to feature wyverns, mythical creatures that resemble dragons with two legs, wings, and a long pointed tail that has a venomous stinger at the end. This somewhat resembles the Jersey Devil.

titan then interestingly enough ended up in a feud with benjamin franklin haven't heard of him no it's like having an end credit moment like this is like the avengers moment of this episode it is for richard zalmanak he said that astrological calculations showed that titan leads would die in 1733

When this didn't happen, Titan called out Franklin as a liar. Ha, you liar? I'm still alive. Ha ha, you fool. That is true. So wait, before we go on, an almanac is kind of like a... I think it's described as like a calendar of sorts, a calendar of predictions based on astrological...

It is a calendar that has pieces of advice. It uses the stars to talk about the best times of the year to plant crops, to bring up crops, stuff like that. So it's pretty obvious why the Quakers would have an issue with him then, or the almanac. A normal almanac would be fine if it was just... Everyone had almanacs who farmed, because it's like, this is a good week to plant your stuff. This is a good week to plant this, whatever. Everyone had them. It's because he used astrology.

as a part of his deductions that they had an issue with it. Because astrology has history and paganism. There's some stuff and there's some verses in the Bible that people have pulled to say astrology is expressly satanic. So like all those things. Yeah. Christian groups have had a lot of Christian groups have had problems with astrology for a long time. So that's why they had an issue with it. Right. That makes sense.

So he ended up in a feud with Franklin. And when that didn't happen, Titan called him out. But to rebuke this, Franklin said that Titan did die and that his ghost and that this was his ghost and argued that Titan must have been resurrected from the dead. This was this was a publicity stunt by Franklin to remove competition against his almanac, which became famous while Titans did not.

In Benjamin Franklin's siding, he says, Honest Titan, deceased, was raised from the dead and made to abuse his old friend, Franklin. What was Benjamin Franklin's problem, dude? I thought this guy was like an American hero. He is, but also Titan could have been a jerk. Who knows? Maybe Titan was really annoying and Franklin was like, oh, maybe you are dead. Did we ever think of that? Yeah.

Benjamin Franklin sounds like a lunatic though like he's also doing like astrological predictions I mean yeah you guys don't remember Benjamin wasn't Benjamin Franklin like a nudist well that doesn't mean he's a lunatic first of all he hooked up with like every woman in France

Benjamin Franklin loves to compose. You guys are just making him sound cool. Like, that's sort of lunatic. What do you mean? He likes to be naked and he likes to fuck. No, he used to just be naked for the fun of it. So, like, naked calisthenics, air baths, headstands, and other artistic things he would do while naked.

He was the first perineum bleacher. Perineum tanner, first of all. You want to know some cursed knowledge about Benjamin Franklin? Supposedly, this is rumored. I don't know if it's true, but according to myth, when he was in France, he hooked up with so many women. And while doing so, he practiced...

I'm a good little Christian boy, so I'm not going to say it. You can defer. He practiced rather than a woman performing a favor for a man. He performed a favor for a woman. If you catch my drift, which was rare at the time. And apparently he had to be banished. I don't know what he's Charlie. He ate her out. There you go. Thank you, Charlie.

Thank you. So he apparently would do that so much that he had to be removed from staying at the palace in France because women were coming to his door all hours of the night wanting to see him. To at one point, there was a line out the door. This is something that he told his bros and he's like, yeah, dude, I totally much fucks with house. They kept coming over and I couldn't stop. And it was just a lonely old man, probably, that had

hadn't seen a woman. That's what I think, especially when you see all the drawings of him being like this fat loser looking guy. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like he had an ego and he just wanted to fluff it. The way I choose to see it, because it was by Benjamin Franklin going to France that he managed to convince Lafayette to give us assistance in the revolution, which won the war. So if you think about it, Benjamin,

Benjamin Franklin performing his husbandly duties won the war, won us our independence. So maybe if you Australians tried a little bit harder, you wouldn't have a British flag on your flag right now. I don't believe in it. I don't believe in pleasuring others. Jesus Christ. Anyway, Benjamin Franklin...

Yeah, so Titan Leeds died a few years later in 1938, which is very close to when the stories say that the Jersey Devil was born. As intense feelings of revolution were present at the time, the Leeds family were easy targets for people to target as they were British. The Leeds Devil, or the Jersey Devil, became a symbol of political disdain born from a distaste for the British as well as the Leeds family. So, oh, sorry, not 1938. This would have been like 1838 probably. 1738. Yeah.

Titan Leeds died in 1938. After living for a crisp 200 years. Just to prove Benjamin Franklin wrong. Yeah, Benjamin Franklin said you're resurrected from the dead and he's like, am not and died 230 years later. Fueled by spite.

No, but so that he died around the same time that the Jersey devil story began. So I think it's, I think they're connected, especially since this was the lead family and it was called the leads monster, which yeah, I think it was connected. I think that's where the whole story was born from. I'm sure you guys agree. Yep. Of course. Okay, cool.

All right. And now we have modern day pop culture because he still exists in some things. People still talk about him, including us. So he's alive and well in media today. Probably the best known reference is from season one, episode five of the X-Files titled The Jersey Devil, where the lead characters try to track down the Jersey Devil. There's also a professional ice hockey team in Newark, New Jersey. That's also called the New Jersey Devils. Are they any good?

They're pretty okay from what I understand. They usually do pretty well. Let's see how they're doing this year. Because we're in playoffs right now. He's called the NJ Devil, and he's a seven-foot red and black devil. This drawing from the X-Files is the most pathetic attempt of the Jersey Devil I've ever seen. That's not even close. I don't even know...

So that was just a picture when I googled the Jersey Devil X-Files episode. I don't even know if that's meant to be a portrayal of the Jersey Devil. I think it might be. It's just a drawing of a man. That is just a man with long hair. It just stands out like this. That is Charlie spotted in the middle of the woods. It actually is. Draw a silent fart coming out of him. It's uncanny, the resemblance.

And the Devils did a big stinker this year. Ugh, yuck. Yeah. Unfortunate. It's also a roller coaster. It's also one of the world's fastest single rail roller coasters located at Six Flags Great Adventure, which opened in June 2021. And beyond that, the Jersey Devil is set to appear in the next expansion of Fallout 76 in the Atlantic City update. They're still updating that piece of shit? Yeah. Dude, did you not hear? Fallout 76 is good now.

yeah people keep saying that i just can't believe it i don't believe it either yeah i actually played it the other night and it's still like super broken but i will you know what while i log in once the jersey devil is added i'll go meet the jersey devil see what they do with him sounds good i'll join you nice yeah let's let's play it sounds cool all right um any last thoughts about the jersey devil i mean that's everything yeah he's a real goofy thing

Still S tier, Isaiah?

He's a fascinating creature for a lot of regions, in-birthed with a lot of that early Americana spirit. So yeah, he's an SQ encrypted to me.

He was going to be A tier for me, probably. Just based... Like, entirely designed around the fact that he is so popular and you hear about him so much. But I'm actually pushing him up to S tier because I didn't realize that Benjamin Franklin and the King of Spain were both included in the story. And I just don't know how much... No other fucking cryptid has that kind of star appeal. This is a star-studded cast. I mean, how many cryptids do you know that have a...

A hockey team named after them, right? True. Or a roller coaster. Yeah. There's a lot to it. And also, again, that one week period back in 1909, I think it was, where it was cited so much. I think that's like...

It's compelling to some degree, even though it's probably mass hysteria. It's still like a super cool part of the mythos of the Jersey Devil. And I'm taking your stance this time, Isaiah. I believe he existed at that time, but he was unfortunately killed. Or, no, if he was killed, they would have had a body. He probably just died. Well, no, he's a satanic creature, isn't he? Like, you shoot him, he dies, and he just sinks into hell or something, I assume. There'd be a report of that, though.

Not if he's hung in hell. Where's the body, Charlie? I guess, but someone would definitely be like, yeah, I just killed the Jersey Devil. And no one would believe him because there's no body. Yeah, but it'd still be reported like this guy might have killed the Jersey Devil. They fucking report a cab driver who heard him rustling on his roof. They would absolutely report that. But you hear Charlie over here, it's never enough for him. It's always got to be. He wants the body, but oh, the body couldn't be there. Yeah, what would it take? There's photographic proof, Charlie.

No, I thought the video was very compelling. There you go. That's the spirit. So now that all three of us believe in the Jersey Devil and understand him to be a real thing that can happen, I think we're good. I think we did what we set out to do. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the Jersey Devil. That's all it is, really. That's all these cryptid episodes are, really. There's not really much else we can dive into beyond...

everything that we've dived into. So that's going to do it for this episode of Red Thread. Let us know your thoughts below, what you think of Red Thread, cryptid episodes, stuff like this. Let us know your thoughts on Red Thread.

the Jersey devil as well as rate us on Spotify like us subscribe to us all that good stuff let us know if you're waiting for Charlie to fart to spread his cheeks and fart for us let us know if that's something that you want from future episodes of Red Thread we can make it a running theme he can start every episode off instead of me writing 8 minute stories or whatever it was he can start off with a little trumpet of his own perhaps

let us know your thoughts

Alright, that's going to be it. That's going to do it for this episode. Thank you to Isaiah for joining us for this one, even with these wisdom teeth being removed. Absolutely. I'm glad for all the ridiculousness that's gone on on this episode. I have an excuse. And to that one person who came here because they really wanted to learn about the Jersey Devil, I'm so sorry. I mean, in between elements. He did. He was educational. He paid for it. He paid for it. Yeah.

Yeah, go listen to the other episodes if you want more information about things other than the Jersey Devil. Let us know what you guys think. Anyway, that's it. Thank you. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Thank you all for watching. Bye-bye.