O.P.I.S. Oklahoma Paranormal Information Syndicate

01/18/2026

😳 this is a story I have not heard of

“THERE WAS NO ESCAPE FROM THE WAVE”
THE BOSTON MOLASSES FLOOD

On January 15, 1919, one of the strangest disasters in American history occurred at the harbor in Boston, Massachusetts. Although it seems unbelievable, 21 people were killed that day and another 150 were injured when a flood of molasses swept over the neighborhood, bringing with it terror and death.

The events began four years earlier, in 1915, when the Purity Distilling Company constructed a huge storage tank in Boston’s North End. It was designed to hold shipments of Caribbean molasses that could be distilled into rum and industrial alcohol. Located on Commercial Street, near Boston Harbor, the immense tank towered over the nearby neighborhood of homes and businesses.

In the years that followed the tank’s construction, Purity and its parent company, U.S. Industrial Alcohol, had thrived thanks to the wartime demands for industrial alcohol, which was used in the production of weapons during World War I.

Those who lived and worked near the tank watched it with growing concern. The immense structure shuddered and groaned each time it was filled. Molasses seeped through the tank’s seams, running to the ground in thin, sticky rivulets. Purity Distilling responded by painting the exterior of the tank brown, making it harder to see the leaking molasses.

There was grumbling that something terrible was bound to happen one of these days.

That day was January 15, 1919. It was an unseasonably warm winter’s day for Boston – close to 40 degrees -- and many people were out and about. Robert Burnett was at home on Commercial Street eating dinner with his family. Ralph Martin and Dave Spellman were relaxing in North End Park, sitting on an automobile. Bridgett Cloughtery, her daughter Theresa and her son, Stephen, were eating in their dining room at 6 Copps Hill Terrace. Bridgett’s son, Martin, who worked nights, was asleep in the next room. Earlier, Mrs. Cougherty had been hanging laundry outside and had stopped to wave at a neighborhood child, little Maria DiStasio, who was gathering firewood.

Things were quiet in the nearby business establishments. William White, the custodian of the giant molasses tank, locked up and headed uptown to meet his wife for lunch and shopping. At freight house No. 4 of the Boston & Worcester Street Railway Company, freight agent Dorley worked with a crew of three clerks in a small office above the warehouse.

In the recreation room of a nearby firehouse, the men from fireboat No. 31 were passing the afternoon. Hoseman William H. Connor, who had just returned from the war, was playing cards with fellow firefighters Nat Bowering, Patrick Driscoll, Frank McDermott, and George Lahey. Lahey later recalled that one of the firemen remarked on how quiet the day had been with no alarm all morning.

Daily life in the neighborhood continued just as it was supposed to. Horses pulled freight wagons down the street. Children from the nearby homes finished their lunches and told their mothers goodbye, walking back to school after the mid-day break. Workmen finished their lunches and returned to their labors. A railway train rattled past on the elevated tracks just west of the giant molasses tank.

Then, suddenly, the lives of those who lived and worked near the tank changed forever.

Most of the witnesses later agreed that the first sign of disaster came not with an explosion but with an ominous rumbling sound. The cause of the accident remains a mystery to this day, but whether it was a tank failure, or an explosion, makes little difference – the deadly results were the same.

The giant tank suddenly ruptured with such force that its three-quarter-inch steel sides blasted into the elevated railway tracks. The huge steel girders were bent and twisted, and more than 100 feet of the elevated tracks were utterly destroyed in a matter of seconds.

Every gallon of the thick molasses weighed almost 12 pounds. In a few moments, more than 27 million pounds of molasses was freed from the tank. A sticky wave more than 30-feet-high gushed out of the tank and bore down on the homes of Copps Hill Terrace. After the wave smashed against the brick structures at the base of the hill, it swirled with deadly force back toward the harbor.

Robert Burnett, who had been at home with his family eating dinner in their second-floor dining room, told the Boston Post:

“I thought it was an elevated train, until I heard a swish as if the wind was rushing. Then it became dark. I looked out from the windows and saw this black wave coming. It didn’t rush. It just rolled, slowly as it seemed, like the side of a mountain falling into space. Of course, it came quickly… We snatched open the door of the hall and molasses was already at the top of the 14-step flight of stairs. I slammed the door and we ran for the roof.”

At 6 Copps Hill Terrace, Martin Cloughtery woke up when he heard a slight rumble outside. He later told the newspapers that he “could see nothing but blackness all around with a few flashes of light. I seemed to be smothering when I got a breath of fresh air. I did not know where I was. I thought I was in the water… I found what turned out to be part of my house resting on my chest.”

Martin’s mother, Bridgett Cloughtery, was killed when the wave of molasses struck their home. Reports stated that she had been “blown through the walls of her home and buried under the debris of her dwelling.”

Martin McDonough lived in another apartment in the same building. The last thing he remembered hearing was a crash as he was taking a bite of mashed potatoes. He was later found unconscious in the street. The entire building had been flattened when the molasses spill swept it more than 100 feet off its foundation.

The body of little Maria DiStasio was found buried beneath wreckage near the elevated train tracks where she had been gathering firewood.

At the freight office, agent Dorley knew exactly what the sound was when he first heard it. “The molasses tank is gone,” he cried to the other clerks in the office.

Twenty-one people died in the disaster and another 150 were injured. Many others escaped death by sheer luck. A police officer who was walking his beat felt some liquid hit the back of his uniform and was able to duck around the corner of a brick building before the force of the wave hit. A sailor, who had been standing on a corner chatting with a girl, was swept away, but only slightly injured. The girl was listed among the missing. In North End Park, Dave Spellman watched as the wave of molasses washed his friend Ralph Martin into the harbor. He tried to save him but was unable to fight his way through the thick and sticky goo. A workman unloading a load of lard was severely injured and his horse killed when the wave of molasses struck his delivery wagon. Another workman, who was loading a wagon at the street railway terminal was thrown to the pavement and his horse and wagon crushed. An oil tanker was completely demolished. Two girls, ages nine and eleven, didn’t return to school after the noon break and it was realized they were lost in the wave.

Most of the deaths that resulted from the disaster were caused by suffocation. There was simply no escape from it. As the molasses swept over its victims, they were unable to run, swim or even move. Once it washed over a person’s head, there was no way to breathe or get free from the sticky mass. To die in such a way was undoubtedly terrifying.

Lieutenant Commander William Copeland was on the upper deck of the training ship “Nantucket” when he saw the tank burst open. Within five minutes, his crew had rushed to the scene with stretchers, first-aid kits and sailors to aid in the rescue of survivors. From the Charlestown Navy Yard, Commander William Rush sent crews from the minesweepers “Starling”, “Breaker”, and “Billow”, which were anchored off the North End pier. Two Navy tugboats and a submarine chaser hurried to the scene and an Army hospital in Roxbury sent a medical detachment of 80 men. The Boston Red Cross also rushed to the accident site to offer support services.

What the rescue crews found was a huge sticky mess. Reeking, waist-deep molasses sloshed through the ruins of houses, freight terminals, and warehouses. Wagons and railroad cars had been shattered and overturned by the heavy tide. Stunned survivors staggered in the morass, shaking and bogged down by the thick liquid. The sludge was so sticky and impenetrable that medical personnel on the scene and at the local hospitals were unable to immediately determine the gender of the survivors that were brought to them. As it slopped onto the floors, the molasses fouled the wheels of the hospital gurneys and dirtied the hallways and exam rooms.

Rescuers waded through tangles of debris, the hazards of which were hidden under the mess. They risked their own safety as they slogged through the wreckage. Their rubber boots became a hindrance as they filled with the oozing slime and men could be seen in their stocking feet as they chopped at debris with fire axes or cut through metal with acetylene torches.

During a day filled with valiant efforts, the most harrowing rescue occurred at the fireboat No. 31 firehouse. George Lahey had just left the card game and was going upstairs to check on the crew’s boat when the wave of molasses hit. The tide actually lifted the three-and-a-half-story firehouse and then slammed it on the ground again. The force of the blow threw Lahey back down the stairs to the recreation room and sent him sprawling. Molasses and pieces of metal tank crashed through the firehouse and overturned a huge slate pool table, pinning Lahey to the floor.

Meanwhile, before the impact, fireman William Connor saw a wall of molasses that he guessed to be 150 feet high approaching the station like a cyclone. He yelled at the other men to jump and Patrick Driscoll hurled himself headfirst through the closest window. But Connor and Nat Bowering, along with Lahey, were not so lucky. They were knocked down on the floor and trapped in the building when the second story collapsed. The only thing that kept the men from being crushed to death by the second floor was a few chairs and a piano. There was barely 18 inches between the trapped men and the floor that loomed above them. Connor knew that if anyone attempted to rescue them – and entered the second floor – they would be killed instantly.

The prospect of being crushed to death was only one of the men’s worries. The building had barely escaped being washed out into the harbor. Stuck at the edge of the wrecked dock, the fire station was directly in the path of thousands of gallons of molasses as it flowed toward the water.

Trapped on their backs, the three men would see out of a narrow opening and quickly realized the danger they were in. The flood of molasses, deadly in its own right, carried crushed pieces of wreckage with it as it flowed toward the place where they were trapped. If they were not crushed by the building collapsing, they could be drowned in the molasses or cut to pieces by the debris that came along with the wave.

Connor was able to grab hold of Lahey’s foot, which was sticking through a partition that separated them. Lahey pleaded for help. The molasses was flowing in around him and was nearly up to his neck. Connor was also stuck but knowing that the men would be drowned if the molasses was not allowed to flow through the building, he crawled to an opening and kicked out a tangle of boards that were stuck over an open hold in the side of the firehouse. The level of the molasses dropped as it seeped through the ruins. “It seemed like weeks that we lay there,” Connor later recalled. “The flood of molasses at times flowed up to our ears. We bumped our heads on the floor above, always trying to keep our nose and mouth above the fluid.”

Finally, after about 30 minutes, a sailor from the “Nantucket” saw Connor’s foot moving in the ruins. He signaled his fellow rescuers and they began a two-hour effort to work the firefighters loose. Not worrying about their own safety, a team of sailors smashed into the building and worked their way inside. With saws and their bare hands, they tore away the beams that imprisoned Bowering and Connor. Sailors pulled the two men to safety and then went back for Lahey. They desperately cut away a portion of the wood floor beneath him and rescuers were able to make contact with the trapped man. With Lahey’s fading voice directing their work, a team of 50 men used torches and cutting saws to remove the iron and steel that held him in place.

Sadly, the rescue came too late. Just minutes before the sailors reached Lahey, he had lost consciousness. His head dropped into the molasses and he drowned.

Lahey did not die alone in the disaster. Another 20 people joined him in an early grave. Crews spent months spraying the area with fire hoses to clean molasses off the bricks and cobblestone streets of Boston’s North End.

The question of who was responsible for the tragedy languished in the courts for years. The distilling company argued that some outside force caused the tank to explode. Prosecutors called it a “ghost defense,” laughing that the company seemed to think that “ghosts and hobgoblins” were responsible for the rupture.

In the end, most came to believe that the tank was simply not strong enough to contain the massive load of syrup. The company paid out nearly $1 million in claims, an insufficient amount to make up for the lost and shattered lives caused by something as simple as molasses.

01/18/2026

In the late 1860s, Jonathan Pierce, a cracker manufacturer who made a fortune selling hardtack to the Union army during the Civil War, built a palace along Chouteau Avenue that couldn’t be missed.

The five-story “Cracker Castle” cost $115,000 and had so many rooms that visitors frequently got lost in it. Bold in its Victorian flourishes, it was one of the largest of many elaborate homes built near Lafayette Park in the late 1800s.

The Cracker Castle suffered heavy damage in the 1896 cyclone that tore across the area, and its ruins were carted away soon afterward.

Learn about some of St. Louis’s other lost buildings: https://bit.ly/45zNaQA

As we get ready for the St. Louis Birthday Bash (Feb. 13–15), we’ll be celebrating the city’s past, present, and future and inviting you to rediscover what makes St. Louis so unique.

01/18/2026

1922 account. I've heard of people not liking their son-in-law but he's just not letting it go.

01/18/2026

ROBBING BANKS WITH THE TERRIL GANG

On January 17, 1927, the Terrill Gang, bank robbers led by Matthew Kimes and Ray Terrill, was almost finished off near Joplin, Missouri, ending years of high profile bank robberies and prison escapes. According to legend, members of the gang had taken a blood oath to free each other from jail, should they ever be captured, or die in the attempt. But considering that Ray Terrill eventually died in prison, the idea of a “blood oath” seems to be one of the many legends of the “public enemies” era.

Ray Terrill began his outlaw career with the infamous Central Park gang based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the early 1920s. The gang would spawn many of the outlaws of the Depression-era, including Volney Davis and the Barker gang. Terrill was first arrested with Arthur Barker while burglarizing a bank in Muskogee, Oklahoma on January 15, 1921. He was convicted of second-degree burglary and sentenced to two years in prison. Upon his release on March 1, 1923, Terrill joined up with Al Spencer's gang and participated in a March 26 bank robbery in Mannford, which left two people dead after a violent shootout and getaway. He was also padt of Spencer’s gang, which included Frank Nash (later killed at the Kansas City Massacre) and among others, that stole $20,000 in cash and bonds from the Katy Limited near Okesa on August 20, 1923. This was the last recorded train robbery in the state's history.

After Spencer was killed by police a month later, Terrill formed his own gang. Some of his earliest recruits were Herman Barker, Wilbur Underhill, and Elmer H. Inman. They specialized in night burglaries of banks and stores and always hauled away the safe to be opened and dumped at Herman Barker’s home at the Radium Springs Health Resort near Salina, Oklahoma.

Terrill and his gang operated for three more years, until he and Inman were arrested in 1926. They were both convicted and sent to prison, but they escaped on September 27, 1926. They went their separate ways after the escape and Terrill formed a new gang with brothers George and Matthew Kimes. Both brothers had already robbed several banks – and each escaped from prison – before meeting up with Terrill. The first bank the new gang hit was in Beggs, which netted them $5,000 and then they simultaneously robbed two banks in Covington sis days later.

On August 27, 1926, the Kimes brothers became involved in a shootout with police, which led to the death of Deputy Perry Chuculate. They also kidnapped the local police chief, along with several other hostages, as they attempted to flee to Arkansas. Trapped by lawmen near Rudy the next day, the brothers surrendered after being wounded in another shootout. George Kimes was given a 25-year sentence in prison and Matthew received 20 years for the death of Chuculate – but he wouldn’t stay behind bars for long. On November 21, 1927, Terrill, Herman Barker, and Elmer Inman raided the Sallisaw jail and broke out Matthew Kimes. They followed this with another robbery on January 10, looting $42,950 from a bank in Sapulpa, Oklahoma.

On January 17, 1927, they chose a new target and attempted to burglarize another bank in Jasper, Missouri. However, the police arrived and caught them in the act, causing them to flee in separate cars. Matt Kimes and two unknown men escaped into Kansas. After a high speed chase, Terrill and Barker are trailed to a house at 602 East Main in Carterville, Missouri, near Joplin. Barker was wounded by police in a shootout and both men surrendered.

Terrill was not charged in the latest robberies. Instead, he was to be returned to prison to complete his 1926 sentence. But on January 19, while being transferred to McAlester prison in Oklahoma, he escaped from custody by jumping out of a moving police car and fled on foot.

Terrill joined back up with Kimes and they were named as the primes suspects in a McCune, Kansas, daylight bank robbery that netted them $207,000. Two days later, the two bandits, along with nine other gunmen, looted two banks of $18,000 in Beggs, Oklahoma. Marshal W.J. McAnnally was gunned down in the street while trying to stop the robberies.

That turned out to be the gang’s last hurrah. Kimes was arrested in Arizona, near the Grand Canyon, on June 24. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Marshal McAnnally. Terrill and Inman were arrested in the underworld hideout of Hot Springs, Arkansas, on November 27.

Ray Terrill died in prison, but Kimes eventually escaped once again. He was able to obtain a six-day leave of absence, with the help of influential friends, and released to go quail hunting with his lawyer on November 26, 1934. He was given another leave in November 1945, but chose to escape and robbed a bank in Morton, Texas. A warrant was made for his arrest, however Kimes was run down by a poultry truck in North Little Rock on December 1, 1945. He admitted himself to the hospital under an alias, but FBI agents nabbed him the next day. He died from his injuries two weeks later.

It seems ironic that a man who robbed banks, shot at the police, dodged countless bullets, and escaped from several prisons was unable to escape from death in the form of a poultry truck.

01/18/2026

The Yowie Encounters (Late 1800s–present) – Eastern Australia

Across the forests and mountain ranges of eastern Australia, reports have surfaced for over a century of a large, unknown hominid referred to as the Yowie. Witnesses include bushmen, hikers, farmers, and Aboriginal Australians, many of whom describe close encounters rather than distant sightings. The creature is typically described as a tall, powerfully built figure covered in dark hair, with broad shoulders, long arms, and a strong, musky odor.

Accounts frequently mention the Yowie emitting loud, guttural vocalizations and displaying territorial behavior such as tree knocking or rock throwing. Several encounters describe the creature observing humans from a distance before retreating into dense bushland, while others report aggressive displays meant to drive intruders away. Large footprints discovered after sightings are often cited as further evidence, showing a humanoid shape far exceeding human size.

Despite similarities to Bigfoot-like creatures reported elsewhere, Australian witnesses insist the Yowie’s behavior and appearance are distinct. Skeptics suggest misidentification or folklore, yet the consistency of modern and historical reports continues to defy simple explanation. In a landscape known for its unique and isolated wildlife, the Yowie remains one of Australia’s most persistent cryptid encounter mysteries.

Read real-life encounters with various cryptids in my new book "Mysterious Creatures: Cryptid Encounters - In The Authors Words Volume 3"
Get your copy here 👇
www.intheauthorswords3.com

01/18/2026

THE JERSEY DEVIL

During the early morning hours of January 18, 1909, a flurry of strange events began in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. People began to be terrorized by a creature with glowing eyes, a ram’s head, curved horns, an elongated neck, short front legs, hind legs like a crane that ended in horse’s hooves, and large, bat-like wings. The monster – known for more than a century as the Jersey Devil – wreaked havoc all over the region for more than a week.

The creature first appeared in Bristol, Pennsylvania. It was spotted by three witnesses, including a police officer named Jacks Sackville, who shot at it and missed. After sunrise, local residents found strange hoof-like prints in their snow-covered yards. No one could provide a reasonable explanation for where they had come from.

That night, the Joseph Lowden family of Burlington, heard noises that sounded like something heavy trampling the snow in their backyard. The sounds circled the house and then scraped against the back door as if someone was trying to open it. When they examined the yard the following morning, they found strange tracks everywhere. Something had scuffled in the snow around their trash cans and the garbage had been half-eaten. The tracks defied all explanation --- and the Lowdens were not the only ones to find them. Hardly a yard in Burlington seemed to be untouched by the weird hoof prints. They climbed trees, skipped from one rooftop to another, trampled across fields, into streets, over fences and then vanished, as if whatever had made them simply flew away.

The hoof-like tracks frightened the populace and a general panic gripped the town. Doors and windows were bolted, and people refused to leave home, especially after dark. Those who did venture out went in search of the creature. Attempts were made to try and capture or kill it but were all unsuccessful. Dogs brought in to search but they refused to follow the trail left by the monster. Men on foot followed prints for almost four miles but then they disappeared. Farmers set out steel traps but - luckily for them - they never caught anything in them.

Then on January 19, around 2:00 a.m., Nelson Evans, a Gloucester City paper hanger, and his wife were awakened at their home. Strange noises were coming from outside and the couple nervously peered out their window to see a large animal on the roof of their shed. They watched for a full 10 minutes as the Jersey Devil stomped back and forth. They described the beast as, “about three and a half feet high, with a face like a collie and a head 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's hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them." Mrs. Nelson also added that as the creature flapped its wings, it made a muffled sound "like a wood saw makes when it strikes a rotten place." A drawing based on the Nelsons’ description appeared in the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin and became the most famous rendition of the creature.

Yet another hunt was started for the Devil that day near Gloucester. Hank White and Tom Hamilton tracked the creature for close to 20 miles through the forest. They were amazed to see the tracks jump over eight-foot fences and then duck under spaces no more than eight inches high. By the time the hunt was called off, White stated that he would not venture outside his home without a gun until the monster had left the region.

Sightings of the monster's hoof prints continued all over southern New Jersey. The daughter of William Pine, from Camden, was bringing her father his dinner pail when she stumbled across a series of strange tracks in the snow. She became so frightened that she fell into a dead faint. Her father and others examined the tracks and stated that they resembled those of a donkey with only two legs. One of the tracks, they said, was larger than the other, which made it seem "obviously deformed."

Early Wednesday morning, January 20, an unidentified Burlington policeman spotted the creature and said that it "had no teeth and its eyes were blazing coals." That same morning, Reverend John Pursell spotted the beast in Pemberton. He said that he had "never saw anything like it before."

Predictably, more hunts were organized that day. Haddonfield was the scene of two search parties, led by a Dr. Glover and a Mr. Holloway. They found many tracks in the fields and woods around town, but all the trails ended suddenly when the creature apparently took flight. Another search party hunted the creature near Collinswood and while they found many tracks, they only got a fleeting glimpse of the monster as it winged its way north toward Moorestown.

The creature was seen again late that night, this time in Springside, just south of Burlington City, by a trolley car operator named Edward Davis. He was shocked when he saw a strange shape leap across the tracks in front of the trolley and then disappear into the shadows. Davis said that it resembled a "winged kangaroo with a long neck."

That same night, residents in Riverside discovered a series of odd tracks leading throughout the town, especially near chicken coops, buildings, and even outhouses.

In the early morning hours of Thursday, January 21, the Jersey Devil put in a frightening appearance in Camden. Members of the Black Hawk Social Club were at a meeting around 1:00 a.m. and a Mr. Rouh was distracted by what he called an "uncanny sound" outside the back window. He turned to see a gruesome face staring in at him and he let out a scream. The other club members fled in terror but Rouh grabbed a club and waved it at the creature. He stated that it flew off, emitting "bloodcurdling sounds."

An hour later, a Public Service Railway Trolley was pulling out of Clementon and heading for Camden. It had just passed Haddon Heights when a passenger yelled out and pointed to the window. Everyone on board crowded up to the glass to see a winged creature swoop past them. The trolley traveled another two hundred yards before it stopped and when it did, the creature circled above the car, hissing loudly. A few moments later, it flew away and headed north. Within days, trolley cars began carrying armed guards on board to protect the passengers.

A short time later, the creature turned up again, this time on the road between Trenton and Ewing. William Cromley was returning home from his job as the doorkeeper at the Trent Theater in Trenton when his horse panicked and stopped in the road. He climbed out of the buggy to see what was wrong and saw "a sight that froze the blood in his veins and caused his hair to stand upright." Confronting him on the road was a winged beast that was larger than a big dog with glowing, sparkling eyes. The beast growled at him and then spread its wings and flew off.

Not long after this sighting, Trenton City Councilman E.P. Weeden was awakened by the sound of someone trying to forcibly enter his home. Banging and crashing sounds were heard coming from the back door and he sprang out of bed to see what was going on. Weeden flung open a second-floor window and looked out, only to see a black shape suddenly vanish into the darkness. The movement was accompanied by the sound of beating wings and the next morning, he found cloven tracks in the snow of his yard and on his roof.

Later that afternoon, Mrs. J.H, White was taking clothes off her line when she noticed a strange creature huddled in the corner of her yard. She promptly screamed and fainted. Her husband rushed out the back door to find his wife on the ground and the Devil lurking a few feet away. He chased the monster with a wooden pole, and it leapt over the fence and vanished. White ran out into the alley in pursuit but soon quit the chase and returned to his wife, who was still unconscious. He called the family doctor, who spent more than an hour reviving Mrs. White from her terrifying experience.

A short time later, the Devil was seen in West Collingswood. Charles Klos and George Boggs were walking down Grant Avenue when they saw what they first thought was an ostrich perched on the roof of the fire chief's home. Concerned, the two men called in a fire alarm and when a department truck arrived, they turned their hoses on the creature. At first, it fled some distance down the street and then the beast ignored the water and charged directly at the now-frightened men. As they ran for cover, it spread its wings and soared over them, disappearing into the dusk.

Leaving the West Collinswood firemen behind, the Devil traveled up Mount Ephraim Avenue and attacked a dog belonging to Mrs. Mary Sorbinski in South Camden. When she heard the dog’s cries in the darkness, she dashed outside and drove the Devil away with a broom. The creature fled, but not before tearing a chunk of flesh from the dog. Mrs. Sorbinski carried her wounded pet inside and immediately called the police. By the time that patrolmen arrived, a crowd of more than 100 people had gathered at the house. The crowd was witness to the piercing screams that suddenly erupted from nearby. The police officers emptied their revolvers at the shadow that loomed against the night sky, but the Devil escaped once again.

In the days that followed, eyewitness accounts of the Jersey Devil filled the newspapers, accompanied by photos and reports of cloven footprints that had been found in yards, woods, and parking lots. The Philadelphia Zoo offered a $10,000 reward for the beast’s capture, but there were no takers. Many people refused to leave their homes, even in broad daylight, and many schools closed, due to a lack of students. Theaters canceled performances and mills in Gloucester and Hainesport were shut down when workers refused to report for their shifts.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the Jersey Devil vanished.

The stunning events of 1909 had come to an end. Up until that time, it was always assumed that the Jersey Devil was nothing more than a legend, an old wives' tale from the rugged, remote Barrens. It had supposedly been born to a New Jersey woman named Leeds in the middle 1700s. In the early 1800s, naval hero Stephen Decatur was test-firing cannon balls when the Devil flew across the sky. No one really believed such stories were true – until now.

In 1909, the region had been the site of the mythical beast's real-life rampage, leaving hundreds of stunned eyewitnesses in its wake.

And this wasn’t the end.

It returned in 1927 when a cab driver was changing a tire one night while headed for Salem. He had just finished when his cab began shaking violently. He looked up to see a gigantic, winged figure pounding on the roof. The driver, leaving his jack and flat tire behind, jumped into the car, and quickly drove away. He reported the encounter to the Salem police.

In August 1930, berry pickers at Leeds Point and Mays Landing reported seeing the Devil, crashing through the fields and devouring blueberries. It was reported again two weeks later to the north and then it disappeared again.

In November 1951, a group of children was allegedly cornered by the Devil at the Duport Clubhouse in Gibbstown. The creature bounded away without hurting anyone. Reports claimed that it was spotted by dozens of witnesses before finally vanishing again.

Sightings continued here and there for years and then peaked once more in 1960 when bloodcurdling cries terrorized a group of people near Mays Landing. State officials tried to calm the nervous residents, but no explanation could be found for the weird sounds. Policemen nailed signs and posters everywhere stating that the Jersey Devil was a hoax, but curiosity-seekers flooded into the area anyway. Harry Hunt, who owned the Hunt Brothers Circus, offered $100,000 for the beast’s capture, hoping to add it to his sideshow attractions. Needless to say, the monster was never snared.

One of the most recent sightings of the creature occurred in 1993 when a forest ranger named John Irwin was driving along the Mullica River in southern New Jersey. He was startled to find the road ahead of him blocked by the Jersey Devil. He described it as being about six-feet tall with horns and matted black fur. Could this have been the reported Jersey Devil, or some other creature altogether? Irwin stated that he and the creature stared at one another for several minutes before the monster turned and ran into the forest.

Today, there are only a few, isolated sightings of the Jersey Devil. It appears the paved roads, electric lights, and modern conveniences that have come to the region over the course of three centuries have driven the monster so far into hiding that it has vanished altogether. The lack of proof of the monster's existence in recent times leads many to believe the Devil was nothing more than a creation of New Jersey folklore and a product of mass hysteria. But was it really?

If it was merely a myth, then how do we explain the sightings of the creature and the witness accounts from reliable persons like businessmen, police officers, and public officials? They are not easy to dismiss as hearsay or the result of heavy drinking. Could the Jersey Devil have been real after all?

And if so, is it still out there somewhere in the remote regions of the Pine Barrens - just waiting to be found?

Check out the full story of the Jersey Devil and many other American monsters in Troy’s book, CABINET OF CURIOSITIES 2. Signed copies are available at https://tinyurl.com/yxr2sq98