Since 1735, a winged creature with a horse-like head has terrorized New Jersey's Pine Barrens. In 1909, over 1,000 sightings were reported in a single week, triggering mass panic.
In 1735, deep in the Pine Barrens of southern New Jersey, a woman named Jane Leeds gave birth to her thirteenth child. The legend says she was exhausted, cursing her fate. "Let this one be the Devil!" she screamed.
What happened next has been told and retold for nearly three centuries. The newborn transformed before the eyes of everyone in the room—sprouting a horse-like head, bat wings, cloven hooves, and a forked tail. The creature attacked the midwife, let out an unearthly shriek, and flew up the chimney into the darkness of the Pine Barrens.
Thus was born the Jersey Devil. A folktale, certainly. But the sightings that followed—spanning nearly 300 years—are harder to dismiss.
The Pine Barrens cover roughly 4,500 square kilometers of southern New Jersey, making it the largest stretch of undeveloped land on the American East Coast. The acidic soil produces stunted pine forests. Iron-rich streams run dark red. The landscape feels alien, otherworldly.
The region once thrived on iron production, but when the industry collapsed in the mid-1800s, most residents left. What remained were abandoned furnaces, crumbling ghost towns, and an impenetrable forest. It was the perfect breeding ground for legend.
January 16 to 23, 1909. One week. What unfolded during those seven days ranks among the most extraordinary episodes in American cryptozoology.
Across more than 30 towns surrounding the Pine Barrens, sightings of the Jersey Devil erupted simultaneously. In Haddonfield, unidentifiable hoofprints appeared in fresh snow—tracks that ran across rooftops. In Bristol, a police officer watched a winged creature sail across the night sky. In Burlington, multiple residents reported encountering a monstrous figure in their backyards.
Schools closed. Factories shut down. Armed posses patrolled the Pine Barrens. The Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000 reward for the creature's capture.
More than 1,000 sightings in seven days. Then, as suddenly as it began, the panic stopped.
Sightings have continued steadily since 1909. In 1951, a Boy Scout troop fled their campsite after encountering an unidentifiable creature. Throughout the 1960s, livestock in the Pine Barrens area turned up dead under mysterious circumstances. As recently as 2015, a photograph of a winged figure soaring over a golf course went viral on social media.
Few cryptids anywhere in the world can claim a sighting history spanning nearly three centuries. Whether the Jersey Devil is mass hysteria, misidentified wildlife, or something that defies explanation, the Pine Barrens remain as dark and inscrutable as ever. Somewhere in that ancient forest, the thirteenth child may still be flying.
