Tag: Explained

Status: Explained — folklore plus a 1909 newspaper-driven panic that researchers call mass hysteria.

About the pin: The legend is tied to Leeds Point; reports covered all of South Jersey.

The Jersey Devil, also called the Leeds Devil, is a legendary creature said to live in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. It is usually described as a flying biped with hooves, a horse- or goat-like head, bat-like wings and a forked tail.

According to one version of the legend, in 1735 a woman named Leeds, already the mother of twelve children, cursed her thirteenth with the words “let the child be the devil.” The baby is said to have grown wings, claws and a tail, and flown up the chimney into the pines. Other versions put the story in other places and decades. The name “Jersey Devil” does not show up in print until the 20th century.

The big flap came during the week of January 16–23, 1909, when newspapers published hundreds of claimed encounters across South Jersey and the Philadelphia area, including claims that it attacked a trolley car. The image of the batlike creature with a horse's head became standard from these stories. Researchers cite the 1909 panic as a classic example of mass hysteria spreading from a regional legend.

Sources: Wikipedia: Jersey Devil

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Status: Explained (probably) — historians generally think a wolf or several wolves, or other known animals, were responsible, though debate continues.

About the pin: Pinned near Langogne, the area of the first attacks; the attacks covered a large region.

Between 30 June 1764 and 19 June 1767 an animal or animals terrorised the former province of Gévaudan in the Margeride Mountains of south-central France. The number of victims depends on the source: a 1987 study estimated 210 attacks with 113 deaths and 49 injuries, while other sources say 60 to 100 adults and children were killed.

The first recorded attack was in early summer 1764, when a young woman tending cattle near Langogne saw a beast “like a wolf, yet not a wolf” and was saved by the bulls in her herd. The first official victim, 14-year-old Jeanne Boulet, was killed on 30 June near Les Hubacs. The attacks usually targeted lone people, often children and women, tending livestock.

The story reached King Louis XV, who decreed that the French state would help find and kill the beast. Several animals were reported killed during the affair. Engravings of the time, like the one shown here, helped the legend spread across Europe, and it is still debated whether the attacker was a wolf or something else.

Sources: Wikipedia: Beast of Gévaudan

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Status: Explained (probably) — most of the reports are judged to be hoaxes or misidentified wildlife, and the National Park Service calls it a hoax.

About the pin: A regional legend; the pin is in the Big Cypress area, one of the most-cited areas.

The skunk ape is a large, hairy, ape-like creature said to live in forests and swamps in the southeastern United States, most of all in Florida. It is called “skunk” for the foul smell that witnesses report.

Accounts go back to the early 1800s: in 1818, local newspapers reported a story from what is now Apalachicola, Florida, about a “man-sized monkey” raiding food stores and stalking fishermen. Reports were most common from the 1950s through the 1970s, and hundreds have been logged since. In 1977 a bill was proposed in the Florida legislature to make it illegal to “take, possess, harm or molest anthropoids or humanoid animals”; it did not pass.

Mainstream scientists consider the skunk ape folklore, misidentification and hoax. The skeptical investigator Joe Nickell suggests some sightings may be Florida black bears, possibly with mange. The National Park Service considers it a hoax.

Sources: Wikipedia: Skunk ape

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Status: Explained — the second officer who shot an animal two weeks after the 1972 report said it was a large iguana missing its tail.

About the pin: Pinned in Loveland; the 1972 report was on a road by the Little Miami River.

The Loveland frog, or frogman, is a legendary humanoid creature reportedly seen in Loveland, Ohio. It is usually described as about four feet tall. The legend begins with a 1955 story about a businessman or salesman who saw three froglike figures standing along a road at night, with leathery skin; some versions add one holding a wand that threw sparks.

At 1:00 a.m. on March 3, 1972, a Loveland police officer driving on Riverside Drive by the Little Miami River reported a leathery animal three to four feet long that “crouched like a frog” before it climbed over a guardrail toward the river.

Two weeks later a second officer reported seeing a similar animal, shot it, and found that it was a large iguana, about three feet long, missing its tail. He said the first officer agreed it was what he had seen. The creature has since become a city mascot and has appeared in a musical and documentaries.

Sources: Wikipedia: Loveland frog

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Status: Explained (probably) — a wildlife biologist at the time suggested a sandhill crane, and others suggest owls; the link to the bridge collapse is a later legend.

About the pin: Pinned in Point Pleasant; the first sightings were at a former munitions site just outside town.

On November 15, 1966, two young couples from Point Pleasant, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette, told police they had seen a large dark creature with glowing red eyes near “the TNT area,” a former munitions plant. The Point Pleasant Register ran the first story on November 16, and the national press soon picked it up. Over the following year there were many more reports.

A wildlife biologist at West Virginia University told reporters that the descriptions fit a sandhill crane, which stands nearly as tall as a person, has a wingspan of about seven feet and has reddish skin around its eyes. Other explanations include herons and barred owls.

On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge between Point Pleasant and Ohio collapsed in rush hour, killing 46 people. Investigators traced the failure to a single cracked eyebar. The idea that Mothman was connected came later, in John Keel's 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies and the 2002 film. Point Pleasant now has a Mothman statue and a festival.

Sources: Wikipedia: Mothman · Wikipedia: Silver Bridge

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