Face To Face With The Jersey Devil

Everyone I'm sure has heard of the Jersey Devil at least once in their life, but can anyone say that they have seen this creature face to face?

Everyone that reads this hub will probably think I have lost it or that I am nuts and I don't blame you one bit. The truth of the matter is that I have been face to face with the Jersey Devil.

Many of people has witnessed the site of the Jersey Devil and have reported it to the authorities for documentation.

Born deep in the forest of the Jersey Pine Barrens by "Mother Leeds" back in the early 1700's the Jersey Devil got it's name.

Mother Leeds gave birth to her 13th child and kept the child locked in the basement of the home in which they lived in the pines. She threw food down to the child and kept him locked up and to never let him out, until one stormy night this creature escaped from the home and fled deep into the forest.

Many claim that Mother Leeds invoked the devil while giving birth to her 13th child.

They claim that Mother Leeds, was a supposed witch, although there are many variations on this.

Throughout the 1800's many livestock were found killed, strange looking tracks, and odd sounds reported throughout the pine barrens and Batsto, New Jersey.

Back in my younger years my family owned a home on Long Beach Island, New Jersey. In order to get to the Island you needed to go through the New Jersey Pine Barrens. There are 1000's upon thousands of acres of pines, and many say that this is the birth place and the home of the Jersey Devil.

I had heard of this creature lurking in the woods all through my school years, but never thought a thing about it. I thought, as many do, that it is nothing but a myth of some sort, a fairy tail if you will.

I lived on the Island ever summer and met many new friends throughout the years there. These friends would always talk about the Jersey Devil and just how close the island was to the Jersey Pines.

As everyone started to get their drivers licenses we decided one day to take a trip into the Jersey Pines. We arrived and realized that there were many dirt roads to enter into these pines. Most of us had cars and that was not the vehicle to go deep into this wilderness, so we headed back to the island.

We had heard about a lake deep into the forest which was called "Hidden Lakes" to many. This warm spring filled lake was about 3 mile into the pines. All dirt roads, hills, trees to navigate around and such a challenge to get into.

We had a friend that owned a 4x4 pickup truck and called upon him to help us get through the this terrain and get us to the lake. After some time navigating through the pines we then reach the lake.

There were many different campsites set up all around the lake when we arrived. These sites were all occupied by different towns in a 50 mile or so radius from the pines. Everyone took care of their own site, and that was their site only.

We found a nice area that we would claim for ourselves and started to clean up the twigs and brush to make a great little campsite of our own.

These campsites sat high above the lake and was such a beautiful site looking down into the greenish blue water. We had the Tarzan swing and all the neat things young people needed to have fun, including that beer keg and our campfire as well.

We got everything setup the way we wanted it, and after the weekend was over we headed back to the Island waiting on the next weekend trip to come.

The following weekend came and everyone that was staying in our camp stocked up on food, our grill to cook on and oh yes, our keg of beer. This beer will be well deserved after what we witnessed the next trip to the pines.

We left the Island on route to our campsite in the pines excited about another fun weekend for all of us. We turned off the main road and headed down a 3 mile road of many different turns. For some reason we got lost and must of turned onto the wrong road. Trying to figure out were we went wrong we stopped the truck to get our bearings and try to turn around on this so narrow road or should I say path. The roads were only as wide as our truck with no room at all to turn around. The only thing we could really do is to back up to were we must of took the wrong turn.

As we sat staring down the long narrow dirt road with thick woods on both side of us, a creature appeared before our very eyes. It came out of the woods form the right hand side and stood exactly in the center of this dirt road.

This creature appeared to be about 7 foot tall with webbed wings spread out from it's sides as to say STOP right there. The color of the body was entirely red and some type of horns out of the top of the head. The webbed wings stretched across the entire roadway.

As fast as it came out of the woods, stopped in front of us, for I would say, 5 to 10 seconds stared and ran off to the left back into the woods and was never seen again , at least by us. In our truck were two other people plus myself and we all saw the same thing at the same time.

It was The Jersey Devil. The three of us just looked at each other and said what in the hell was that? We figured out real fast how to back that truck up in high speed to get the heck out of there.

We finally got to our campsite and poured the first of many beers for the evening and the rest of the weekend as well. We had our camp fire story to tell not only to the people in our campsite, but everyone that camped around the lake.

Of course, everyone said we must have had too much to drink, but I assure you we had not one drop of beer or booze that day, until we finally arrived at our campsite.

So, no matter what any of my family or friends say, the three of us saw the same thing at the same time and witness something that is only in stories, but I can assure you that The Jersey Devil Does Exist !!!