Monsters You Never Heard Of

Monsters they frighten us and they fascinate us.

People have probably always been like that. You can imagine people thousands of years ago sitting around a campfire at night. They hear noises out there in the darkness, just beyond the light of the fire. What is it? A harmless animal? A dangerous animal? Perhaps it is something strange and terrible and completely unknown—a monster.

Of course, people would be afraid. They would imagine all kinds of terrible and terrifying creatures. Everyone would want to know what was out there. But very few would be brave enough to go out into the dark and try to find the thing.

Today we are more fascinated by monsters than frightened by them. We might feel differently if we thought we were going to meet one in the woods. But as long as we are safe at home, most of us like to believe in monsters. It would be boring to think that science has been able to identify and classify every large animal on earth. It is far more exciting to believe that there still are strange, terrifying, and unknown things out there somewhere.

Creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster are well known. But there are many other monsters that some people believe exist now, or have existed not too long ago. These monsters just have not received the right publicity.

Here, for your education and entertainment, are accounts of a dozen of these lesser-known monsters—monsters you probably never heard of before.

These monsters are a mixed group. They range from a 115-foot-long snake with glowing eyes to a winged thing in the pine woods of New Jersey, and from something that might have been human and hopping around London in Queen Victoria's day to something that might be a kangaroo hopping around Chicago in our own day. These monsters range from creatures that are quite down to earth, and ordinary—for monsters—to creatures that seem out of this world.

All of these accounts are "told as true." That is, they are reports of what was supposed to have actually happened. They are not just stories made up to frighten and amuse people.

I warn you, however, if you are looking for hard evidence that any of these creatures exist, you are not going to find very much of it here, because there isn't very much. Most monsters have proved to be extremely hard to catch, and these are no exception.

But then, if we could catch them and classify them, they really wouldn't be monsters anymore, would they?

Right in the middle of one of the most thickly populated areas in the United States are the New Jersey Pine Barrens. The Pine Barrens are about 1,700 square miles of trees, sandy soil, and not much else.

Not many people live in the Pine Barrens. About 150 years ago iron was mined there. But it was poor quality iron and could not compete with better iron found in other places. The mines closed down. Some people moved away. The small number of people who do live in this region today are poor and isolated.

From the Pine Barrens come tales of a monster called the Jersey Devil.

The earliest tales of the Jersey Devil date back to colonial times. According to one legend, the Jersey Devil was the monstrous offspring of a woman known only as Mother Leeds. The creature is also called, among other things, the Leeds Devil.

Views of the Jersey Devil that appeared in a Philadelphia newspaper during the 1909 scare.

Mother Leeds had a dozen children and didn't want any more. When she discovered she was going to have another one, she said, "I am tired of children! Let it be a devil!" And, according to the legend, it was. After it was born the monstrous thing escaped up the chimney and hid out in the Pine Barrens.

There are many other versions of this story. But this one is the most common.

Whatever its origin, by the middle of the nineteenth century a lot of people thought there was some sort of monster living in the Pine Barrens.

There have been many different descriptions of the Jersey Devil. In general, the descriptions say the monster has a body like a kangaroo, a head like a horse, wings like a bat, horselike or piglike feet, and a forked or pointed tail.

That description makes the Jersey Devil sound like a joke. But it was no joke. During the nineteenth century a lot of people reported seeing the thing.

Others said they could hear its terrible screams in the woods. Strange footprints were found. The Jersey Devil was even accused of killing large numbers of chickens and sheep. Many people in the Pine Barrens were really afraid of it. They didn't like to go out after dark.

Outsiders thought "the Pineys," as the people of the Pine Barrens were sometimes called, were just superstitious. Late in the nineteenth century one man predicted that "with the advent of the new century," belief in the monster would die out. He was as wrong as he could be.

In the week of January 16 to 23, 1909, the Jersey Devil left the Pine Barrens and wandered around more populated regions surrounding the Barrens. The Devil or its footprints were seen by thousands. Many of those who reported seeing the creature were highly respected members of their communities.

There was, for example, E. W. Minster, the postmaster of Bristol, New Jersey. Minster was a light sleeper. At about two o'clock in the morning of January 17, 1909, he was awakened by a strange noise. He looked out his window, just in time to see the Jersey Devil fly past.

"Its head resembled that of a ram, with curled horns, and its long thick neck was thrust forward in flight. It had long thin wings and short legs, the front legs shorter than the hind. Again, it uttered its mournful and awful call—a combination of a squawk and a whistle, the beginning very high and piercing and ending very low and hoarse . . ."

On Thursday of that fateful week all the passengers on a late night trolley car going from Clementon to Camden, New Jersey, saw the thing circling overhead. The conductor, Lewis Boeger, later described what he had seen:

"In general appearance it resembled a kangaroo . . . It has a long neck and from what glimpse I got of its head its features were hideous. It has wings of a fairly good size and of course in the darkness looked black. Its legs are long and somewhat slender and were held in just such a position as a swan's when it is flying. We all tried to get a look at its feet to see what shape they were but the darkness was too great. It looked to be about four feet high."

There were hundreds of such reports in the newspapers throughout the area.

Then there were the footprints. The prints looked like the hoofprints of a small pony. They seemed to be all over the place. Some even appeared on the tops of roofs.

People were genuinely frightened. Many would not go out at night. Children were kept home from school. Hunting parties were organized. Many people claimed to have shot at the thing. There were even reports that it had been killed or captured. The reports turned out to be false.

Then, just as mysteriously as the Jersey Devil scare began, it ended.

While people stopped seeing the Jersey Devil, interest in the monster remained high. The Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000 reward for the capture of the creature. The Zoo director didn't really believe in the Devil. He said, "Undoubtedly it could draw crowds to the [zoo] and would be of educational value too if it exists. But my private opinion is that it is going to be very hard to capture."

There were plenty of hoaxes too. A couple of showmen named Jacob F. Hope and Norman Jefferies created their own Jersey Devil. They rented a large kangaroo, and fixed a set of false wings on its back. They painted green stripes on the animal. Then they put it on exhibit in Philadelphia. People had to pay a dime to get a quick look at it. Jefferies later admitted his part in the hoax.

An advertisement for the Jersey Devil hoax created by Hope and Jefferies.

After the one amazing week in January, 1909, sightings of the Jersey Devil dropped off sharply. But people still reported seeing the strange creature, from time to time. There was a regular Jersey Devil panic in Gibbstown, New Jersey, in 1951. Some children saw the "thing" from the window of their clubhouse at the edge of town. A group of teenagers went out in the woods to hunt for it. One said that the thing nearly caught him. Many people reported hearing "shrill, unearthly screams" in the woods.

The chief of police searched the area but found nothing. The children at the Gibbstown schools were so excited that the principal called the chief of police for help. The chief was also getting a lot of calls from frightened residents and from curious outsiders. Finally, he got fed up. He posted signs all around town which read: THE JERSEY DEVIL IS A HOAX.

Still, people report seeing it and hearing it. When chickens are killed or dogs disappear, there are always those who say, "The Jersey Devil did it."

What was, or is, the Jersey Devil?

Of course, no one really knows, but there are plenty of theories. The most probable one is that the whole thing is a case of mass hysteria.

Others think that the legend has some beginning in reality. Perhaps there really was a "Mother Leeds" or someone like that. She may have had a deformed child. At one time such children were kept hidden away. Perhaps this unfortunate child ran away and lived in the dense woods of the Pine Barrens. He may never have been seen clearly. He may have lived by raiding farms and isolated houses. Wild stories would have grown up around such a person.