The Jersey Devil was supposedly ‘born’ more than a century ago, when old Mrs. Leeds gave birth to an unwanted, thirteenth child at home. According to legend, as soon as it was brought forth into the world, the Carhartt Boys’ Fish T Shirt shrieked and rushed out of the chimney into the night. And while I’m skeptical that that’s the way it really happened, I think there’s a grain of truth to the Jersey Devil phenomenon. Whether it is an uncatalogued cryptid or some sort of earth-roving demon I’m not sure we’ll ever know, but it has been reported by such a wealth of trustworthy sources (policemen, lawyers, attorneys, and the like) over the years that I find it hard to believe the whole thing us just contrived. I tend to think that the Jersey Devil is from a different realm; Buddhist Cosmology describes countless different garudas, nagas, demons, and other beasts. If that is the case, I think we have little to worry about, but it’s fun to speculate just the same.
