Adeptus Ridiculous - Jersey Devil: An American Monster | Detective Ridiculous

Episode Date: October 29, 2023

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everybody to another episode of Detective Ridiculous, where we talk about the only thing worse than Warhammer real life. Before we get started, if you want to check out our Patreon at patreon.com slash adeptis ridiculous where you can get bloopers, HD posters, and Discord access across the board. Go ahead and give it a look. And if you're feeling particularly spicy, there is Halloween merchandise still out for only a couple of days. just a few. It ends in October. Grab it while it's hot at Orchidate.com.

Link in the description. It's good merch too, man. The glow in the dark stuff is like radiant. Like it's not just a little bit of glowing. This thing will light up the night. It's crazy. It's really fun when I walk at, walk at night.

And it's just like, ooh, I forgot. This is glowy. Yeah, you could light up the city street with this thing. It's crazy. I love it. It's a lot of fun. I'm obviously glow in the dark is affected by how bright you hit it with. Yeah, it's got to like charge up a little, well, not charge up.

But yeah, yeah, it's got to get hit with a little light first, yeah. Speaking of getting hit with a little light, just a little. Just a little light. I don't have a segue for this. What, uh, all right. So, uh, what is on the docket for today's hour and a half long episode that you will say will only be an hour? Well, hey now. Honestly, I, I don't think today is.

going to be a super ridiculously long episode. All right, I think, well, you know, I don't, okay, I'm not, yeah. So, uh, today on detective ridiculous, we're wandering back into the territory of creepy little cryptids, because it's Halloween. We've got to get in the spirit with the creepy little crawlies. and today's topic is one that a lot of people probably you included have heard about, but you probably don't know like the origin story of it. So today, oh, yep, today we're going to be covering the Jersey Devil. Is that not a sports team? It is.

It's one of my favorite hockey teams actually. But they got the name from the, the cryptid, the Jersey devil. You didn't know that? You thought it was just, you thought it was just an NHL team and that's just, they're just the devils from New Jersey? Well, yeah, because everything from New Jersey are the devil. Oh, wow.

Bang. Big bang. Dang. Bada, no, but actually, I had no idea. This was actually a real thing. Oh, okay. I genuinely thought, like, most people knew that, like, the Jersey devil was like this sort of creepy little cryptid.

from New Jersey. So that's cool. That you're going to learn about it for like the first time that it's actually this weird cryptid. Yes, sir. All right.

So let's jump right into this thing because even though this is an episode on the Jersey Devil, it wasn't always called the Jersey Devil. So the origin story for this thing is it's a little far-fetched.

So just bear with me on this one, because it is a cryptid that dates all the way back to the 1700s. So it's going to get a little weird, so just humor me on this origin story a little bit. I mean, the image that Shy Post is already very strange. So I am, I'm not sure if that's like the OG depiction or if there, I mean, I'm assuming there will be much like the moth man, there will be like, very, very. the look will have changed throughout the years maybe ever so slightly. Oh, yeah.

So I've seen that depiction that I'm assuming Shia is on the screen right now. And that's honestly one of the more goofy renditions of it, to be fair. That's, yeah, yeah. So like I said, we're way back in 1735 in a place called Leeds Point in the Pine Barons of New Jersey. Jersey. There's a woman there named Jane Leeds, commonly referred to as Mother Leeds, who has given birth to a staggering 12 children in her lifetime, which might explain the nickname Mother Leeds. But at some point in 1735, I don't think there's a specific date in 1735, she becomes pregnant with her 13th child. And Jane is not.

happy about it at all. She's just like, oh, how could this happen to me? It's hard enough dealing with 12 other children. What am I going to do with unlucky number 13? I don't want it. I don't need it. So she's essentially like, you know what, F this kid. And she starts cursing it while it's still in the womb. And she's like yelling at her stomach about how the child is going to be nothing good. It's just going to be trouble. It's going to be the death of her and how the child is quite literally going to be

the devil. Did she not say these things to any of the other 12 children? No, she didn't. I guess she was going through it with the I guess she was going through it with the other 12 and then unlucky number 13 was just the straw

that broke the camels back. Okay, because I was like, I feel like that would be number four. in this day and age. Yeah. But when you said she wasn't having it, I was like, oh no, is she going to have like an abortion? And then I was like, wait, this is the 1700s. Also, if I'm not mistaken, some of these stories had her quite literally in church

praying to God and being like, let this baby be the devil, why don't you? Because she's just that kind of crazy. Okay, well, so she's 1700s, cookey, uh, midwife kind of thing. Yeah, kind of, yeah. It's, yep, you nail on the head with that one. Yep, you've got the idea.

All right, all right. Then, on a dark and stormy night in 1735, mother leads would go into labor with this 13th child that she proclaimed would be the devil. And things go mostly normal in the, The actual childbirth, the kid is born, fairly normal, comes out of the womb, umbilical courts cut, and then, suddenly, it starts to change and transform in front of their very eyes, Bricky.

Suddenly, its hands and feet turn into hooves. A devil's tail sprouts from its backside. The child starts to bleed and scream like an animal as its head transforms into that of a goat. giant bat wings erupt from the child's back and before anyone could come to terms with what the hell they had just seen it flies up and out of the chimney

into the unknown where it would haunt the pine baron's lead point and New Jersey until this very day man what the hell man what the hell that's a great reaction what the hell is that that what that's that's how the jersey devil was born gave birth to a demon baby yes she gave birth to a hell a demon baby this thing is all kinds of cursed bat wings goat face devil tail bleeding and

flying away craziness and at this yeah how you how you feeling about that you okay Little shocked. Kind of expected Not that. Just a little shock. Not a big shock. Just a little shocked. And at this point, the thing is just known as the Leeds devil to the locals.

Because as you might imagine, the pine barons are like, whoa, all right. So Mother Leeds is probably dabbing in witchcraft. and, you know, the occult, and rumors start floating around that the father of this baby was literally the devil himself, that Mother Leeds had communed with the devil in all of her weird witchcraft and satanic occult

in order to give birth to the Leeds devil. And they even tried to call in an exorcist to like, oh, please drive out this crazy devil, baby. And of course, it was unsuccessful. And as you can imagine, the leads devil turned into basically a scapegoat for anything that bad, anything bad that happened in the town. There was a bad year of crops. And of course, it was the Leeds devil. It cursed us. If livestock disappeared and nobody knew why. Well, then of course the Leeds devil swooped in, grabbed it, and ate it. What other answer could there possibly be?

If something bad happened and there was no explanation for it, then by God, it must have been that damn mutated devil baby from the Leeds at work again. And there were a few sightings of the Leeds Devil by noteworthy people over the years to add a little fuel to this fire. And there is specifically one that I have to talk about. So do you know the infamous pirate Captain Kidd? at all? Um, the name only. I was the same way. The only thing you really need to know about him is that he buried a magnificent treasure hall somewhere unknown. And in this particular tale slash sighting, uh, he buried this magnificent treasure in a place called Barnaget Bay,

which is like this bay in New Jersey that's kind of overlooking the Atlantic. And, According to this story that I've read in a couple places, after burying his treasure here, he kills one of his crewmates and beheads him and buries him with the treasure, with the idea that this crewman and his soul would guard the treasure for all of eternity. And according to the tale, I kid you not, the ghost of the pirate not only guards the treasure, but the ghost, the headless ghost of this crewman becomes best friends with the Leeds Devil. The headless ghost becomes friends with the demon baby.

Yep. Okay. The reported sightings say that the Leeds Devil was walking along the coast with the headless pirate, like they were just sort of chums, just walking along the coast, enjoying the view. Just a headless ghost in his best pal, the demonic, goat-headed, bat-wing, devil-tail-hoove demon-baby thing. Best buds, apparently. Okay, so, like, I thought you were going to go somewhere wildly different with that.

Me too. I expected something about, like, the crewman was the ex-lover of Mother Leeds. And their spirit was fertilized the baby. I don't know, dude. Yeah, when I first read about that siting, there's like a book on it. I, unfortunately, I didn't read it. I just saw a bunch of people talking about like the Captain Kidd sighting and, oh, it's just the head. I guess some people also think that it was literally Captain Kidd that was beheaded and left with his treasure and became good friends with the Jersey Devil.

But yeah, I was assuming it was going to be something crazy and it's like, no, they just become really good friends. and it's like, okay, all right. They just become bros. Yeah, and hey, I make a pretty great anime. That would be a great synopsis for an anime, to be fair. Like the Japanese version of those particular entities and some kind of like... Shonen anime or something where they're treasure hunting? What's the crap?

What's the name of the Death Note guy, the demon? Oh, Ryuk. Riuke, yes. I can imagine, like, the two of them just going off on silly little adventurer tales, and they eventually run into normal pirates and they lose their goddamn minds. Like, like, anti-hero, anti-hero story. Ah, yes, yeah. Hey, I'd watch it.

I'd read it, sure. What if the main villain is the mom? I mean, sure. It's a revenge quest. I just wanted a normal. life, but you cursed me this whole time. I didn't ask for this mother leads. All right. So, so our horrible plot aside. Yes. So the other sort of famous sighting was actually from Napoleon Bonaparte's little brother Joseph. And I actually found this story over at CNN's website. So you know it must be

accurate. So Joseph Bonaparte had an mistake called Point Breeze that was located in Border Town, New Jersey. And while he was out hunting one day, he came upon some really strange looking tracks. They were like hooves, but none that he'd ever seen before because like when he looked at the tracks, he was like, you know what? This animal's like bipedal. It's walking on two legs.

Like it's not what, it's hooves, but it's, but it's, like by Peter, what? And then as he's following these tracks, they just stop. They just stop going anywhere. It's just like it just vanished. Like it just, you know, flew away. But then Joseph hears something behind him, just sort of like this rustling, something, and then like a hiss. And when Joseph turned around, there he was, face to face with a beast he had never seen before. According to the story, it had the neck of a crane, hooves like a whore. horse, stumpy arms with paws and a face like a horse or camel. But the monstrous devil of Leeds never attacked him, and it just flew away after staring down

Napoleon Bonaparte's little brother. And when Joseph told his friends and family about this just baffling creature, and he was like, here's what it looked like, here's what it did, oh man, it was crazy, they were all like, dude, you don't know the local legend of the Leeds devil? You just had a close encounter with the Jersey devil, with the Leeds devil. And I believe every time he went out on a hunt, he would specifically go looking for this thing because he's like, I encountered what? There were even Commodores at the time that proclaimed that they saw this devil flying through the air. and they were like, what the fuck is that?

And they were like, all right, we got to figure, shoot it with a cannonball. And they shoot the devil with a cannonball, direct hit. And the devil's just like, meh, skirts it off, keeps flying like nothing happened. Does he make the sound? Yes, he absolutely. He gets hit with a cannibal. No, he probably gets hit with a cannibal. He's like, oof.

And then just, you know, I was thinking of skirt. Sure, Bricky. You said he skirts it off. That's true. I did say he's... Oh, that's why. Okay. Skirt!

You know, give it some credit to the cannonball operator, hitting him. Oh, yeah. Like, that's a shot. Well, I mean, it is a flying goat. I imagine essentially, it's a flying goat. I can't imagine the thing has that much maneuverability. No, man. Aiming a damn cannon?

Like our cannons meant, our cannons meant to be fired into the broad sides of other ships. Like, hitting a, hitting a goat, that's a good shot. Nice. That's true. With a cannonball, that's not, that's not a terrible shot. Okay, fine. We'll get, we'll give props. Give the sailor some credit. God damn it. Okay, fine. It's a nice shot. It's a nice shot. Now, as I'm sure you're aware, I have been calling this thing, the leads devil for most of this. episode, which is because the name Jersey Devil wasn't actually coined until the 1900s. The first time the words Jersey Devil show up are in newspaper clippings from around January 18, 1909. Newspaper clippings exist, speaking of strange tracks that lead up to a house, and then just like with Joseph Bonaparte, they just vanish.

as if the, and the clipping specifically says it was as if the creature had taken flight into realms of space. And that the Jersey Devil, specifically it says, and that the Jersey Devil was surely in the neighborhood. And up until this point, you know, rumors and folklore of the devil had been printed because it made, you know, for good newspaper sales. It had been local legend for a while. but this is the first time someone named it the Jersey Devil. Prior to this, it had been given a lot of other strange names too, besides Leeds Devil.

It was also called the Wazelbug, the Air Hoss, and the Jersey Terror. Okay, I gotta understand the first one. The Wazelb. What is a Wazelb? Is it just an old statement from the...

I gotta believe that's just 1900s, for just something weird that you can't explain, you know, like a, yeah, like, oh, that fling-flangin thing, and, you know, old time you speak. But yeah, Jersey tear pretty good compared to Wazelbug and Air Hoss. Air Hoss. Air Hoss. There are even clippings calling this thing the Jabber Walk. There's a legit newspaper clipping that claims a woman had fainted in frighten.

from seeing the Jabberwock, which sounds crazy, but when you look up the Lewis Carroll monster, it kind of does loosely fit the description of what people claim the Jersey Devil look like, kind of this winged, demon, goat-like monstrosity. So Jabberwock, not terrible, but, I mean, you know, I think it's, is Jabberwock trademarked? Is that a trademarked name? Jabberwalk? Yeah, like the monster in

What is that left photo? Yeah, like I said, some of the depictions of this thing. That face are a little strange, right? The teeth. Yeah, again, this is what, 1900s though, so, you know, New Jersey's bogey or

whatever. Yeah, it's, it's there. very, very fantasized. But anyway, in 1909, when the Jersey Devil saw a resurgence in popularity, it was in large part because of like this massive hoax that some newspapers played on the public. And you can find a ton of these newspaper clippings online. But there's this one clipping that suggests there's this zoological garden,

And I think Philadelphia, that was offering a reward of $10,000. This is 1909. They were offering a reward of $10,000 to anyone who could bring them the Jersey Devil. I mean, that's like, I mean, that's good money nowadays, but that's big money then. Yeah, that's big. 1900s, that's huge. and what came next were a flood of fictional stories about the Jersey devil being cited, footprints being seen, and even some newspapers actually publishing fake footprints in the snow,

claiming them to be the Jersey devil, just to really, you know, be like, look at what we've got, buy our newspaper, look at what we found. Oh, ho, ho, ho, look at all the, buy our newspaper, please. The problem was all of these sort of like hoax news reports on the Jersey Devil started to feel a little too real to some people. Like genuinely, the residents of the area are kind of freaked out and both school and church attendances had dropped significantly, assuming that either the Jersey Devil was real and no one wanted to necessarily be caught by it. Although I find the church drop thing a little weird that like church attendance would drop. Because you'd think if there was something that was literally called the Jersey devil running around and you believed it, you'd probably be more inclined to spend more time at church to pray this thing away. You want some kind of salvation or like get this thing away from us.

Yeah, yeah. Ask the divine for help since there's a literal devil running. running around, why you test my faith this way? But I don't know. Maybe they were just really scared and didn't want to leave the house, and they were just praying at home. Apparently even cats, chickens, and just like people's pets that were outside, were being killed because they were being mistaken for the Jersey devil.

Oh, God damn it. They shot Fido from Mr. Rickenbottom's yard or something. Stuff like that, yeah. cats, dogs, chickens. Because it's, like we said, it's $10,000 in the 1900s. People are going to be trigger-happy for anything that even

remotely looks weird to them. Like if they see something screwing around in the dark, it's like, oh, that could be the devil. Well, better find out, shoot it. Because that's 10 grand. That's potentially 10 grand. There were even

newspaper clipping saying that a lot of the residents wanted to send an urgent message to President Roosevelt to send his biggest guns down to the sort of Jersey area and just, hey, put an end of this devil once and for all so that we can go back to living in peace and just be rid of this devil. So things are getting kind of spicy.

And the general public pretty bothered by all the devil stuff. like from that one source I had that had all these like newspaper clippings. It was like newspaper publishers and stuff. We're getting a ton of backlash because the public are rightfully so, again, pretty freaked out by the Jersey Devil. Apparently the legend and the folklore of the Jersey Devil had reached like national scale. This wasn't just isolated to Leeds Point, Pine Barron's, news. Jersey, Philadelphia, Delaware. This was being treated on a national level at like the same scale as Bigfoot.

And so to sort of like backpedal a little bit because this whole hoax was their fault because they spread all of those crazy stories with the crazy footprints trying to sell newspapers. A bunch of newspapers were just like, you know what? Let's just stop covering this thing. Like, people are getting really anxious, really upset with us. It's actually, it's probably costing us viewers because they don't want to support it. Let's just, you know, let's put an end to it.

There were even some newspaper clippings that were like, oh, look at that, everyone. We have confirmation. The Jersey Devil, it was killed. It's dead. Please don't worry anymore. And the story in that clipping is about how the Jersey devil, like, it died because, it literally exploded when its slimy tail

made contact with an electric railroad. That's great. That is a fantastic clipping. He just, he goes like, oops. Like a bird caught in the wrong electrical wire. Exactly.

And it just exploded. That's great. That's great. Also, can I just comment on the suited Jersey devil with the sassy and the sassy hand in front of the hips

and the pointed beard and everything I had not seen that until now I saw the other two pictures I put

I had not seen the sassy suited devil hands on hips hooves devil tail just looking very uh yeah that's

that's that's that's peak jersey devil peak peak peak it's so unfortunate that he blew up into a cloud of smoke

Yeah, it's unfortunate. He wasn't watching where that tail was, you know? And from the same source, there was also this newspaper clipping talking about a guy named Norman Jeffries, who while every other newspaper was like, yo, we got to back off on this. Like, you know, it's getting hot. It's getting like a little, let's back off. Let's not print any more of that. Let's say he's dead. Norman Jeffries was like, no, dude, I'm going to profit my brains off off this thing.

I don't give up what the people think. And instead of backpedaling or trying to claim he had killed the Jersey Devil, he instead claimed that he had caught the Jersey Devil. And not only had he caught the Jersey Devil, but he was going to put it on display in his museum, which was called the Ninth and Arch Museum. I was about to say there's no way in hell he isn't going to try to make a buck from that. He's obviously going to grift someone.

Yep, yep, yep. So this part is a little messed up because what Norman did to sort of swindle people into believing that he had the Jersey Devil was he actually decorated a real-life kangaroo. I guess it was like a tamed kangaroo that wasn't like, you know, malicious or wouldn't like punch him in the face because, you know, you try to mess with a kangaroo. that thing will mess you up. But he decorated a real kangaroo with like copper wings and paint and horns and stuff like that to make this kangaroo fit the description of the Jersey devil.

Wait, where was this? This was in, it's either, it's in like New Jersey or Philadelphia or like Delaware. Where did you get a kangaroo? So all I could find was like he found like a tamed kangaroo. Like it was specifically. Yeah, it was probably like a zoo kangaroo. I don't know how he got a zoo to give him a kangaroo. Because his museum was like not a big deal.

Like it was basically an unsuccessful mess. So I don't know how he could afford a kangaroo in the first place. Yeah, I don't know how he like maybe had a friend who had like a trip from. Australia because I was like you know they're not native here so yeah or maybe he had like a friend at the zoo that was like oh you need a kangaroo I got you I got you but he took this decorated kangaroo and he chained it up behind a caged curtain and he had people pay 10 cents to see this poor decorated caged up kangaroo that was pretending to be the jersey devil how long did that last before he was called on his shit ah I'm glad you asked a

Apparently, this big stunt of his was only good for about two weeks' worth of crowded museum visits before his shitty little museum went skirting back to obscurity. Skirt! Norman Jeffries would eventually on his deathbed at the age of 67,

finally come clean, and say something to the effect of like, oh, you know, it was just all the theatrics of the Jersey Devil had roused my showman instincts, and that's why I did what I did. It wasn't. It certainly had nothing to do with the money, and it certainly had nothing to do with the fact that I was desperate, and my ninth and arched museum was a failure. It was my

showman instinct that made me do it. Man was a charlatan to his grave. I know. I'm like, brother, please. If you think anybody believes you're crazy. So, up until this point, we're kind of learning that the Jersey devil is like, you know, massively not real. Like, I hate to burst anyone's bubble here because there are legit still, to this day, people claiming that they have spotted the Jersey devil. But again, this thing super doesn't actually exist. Like, I mean, you listen to the stories, it's super doesn't exist.

Oh, hold on to that picture, Shai. Oh, my goodness gracious. Hold on to that picture. What is that Halloween decoration? We'll talk about that later. Actually, is that the next thing I was going to talk? Hold on. A lot of the more recent sightings are really awful fake attempts.

Damn, that is. Shy, you beat me to it. So in 2015, there was this. really terrible one where I think some guy thought he was taking or he claims he thought he was taking a picture of a llama and then the llama sprouted wings and flew away and it is one of the most fake things I've ever seen in my life it's it's it is a that picture that shy put up is a still frame of one of these like recent um new jersey devil sightings and it's just it looks like a stuffed animal or like a pinata or something or like some jerk like tied wings to his dog or something.

It reminds me very much of probably what the Norman Jeffrey's hoax looked like where it's like you can't be serious. Dude, this thing looks ridiculous. It looks like you just tied wings onto a poor little animal and just paraded it around for, you know. I, it's the fact that its legs are just like, it's like when you're going to hold. when you hold like a dog and the air and his feet just kind of lay there like like a corgi being carried carries a little stumpy

legs. All we're missing is I mean at least it looks like they did a decent enough job photoshopping out the strings that they probably used to you know pull this thing up so that's good on them. It looks like AI generated a little bit yeah it does

doesn't it? It's got like AI generate me in a sighting of a flying goat. It does. That's exactly what it looks like. But yeah, people are like parading this like video and clips from this around is like, oh, see? The Jersey Devil

exists. And it's like, come on, man. Come on. But there is actually a more compelling origin story for the tale of the Jersey devil. And this one actually involves Benjamin

Franklin, if you can believe it. Oh man. Electricity coming back to haunt them. So we need to take a massive time travel backwards. I mean, we're already way back in the 1900s, but now

we need to pour ourselves all the way back to the late 1600s, early 1700s. So way back in the olden days of 1620, New Jersey was originally settled in by

the Quakers. So, you know, pretty stern in their religious practices, all that sort of stuff. And the first sort of royal governor of New Jersey was a man named Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury. And he was a really, really awful governor and obviously very British. He was corrupt. He misappropriated and embezzled funds. And for some reason, everyone gets really hung up on the fact that. that he may or may not have been a cross-dresser,

which is up for debate because some historians think that that cross-dressing thing was just slandering gossip from the multitude of people who despised him. And others are just like, you know, yeah, he might have been just a drag queen doing his thing and trying his best to represent the queen. Who knows? That's a very strange thing to be hung up on. Yeah, like every source I saw was like, oh, by the, the way. Did you know Lord Cornbury was accused of dressing as a woman? And it's like, oh, I,

how, okay. I guess for the time it would have been a big deal? Yeah, for the time it would have been considered weird and all the kind of stuff at the time frame, but like, it's a very strange thing to be hung up on. Yeah. Anyway, so Lord Cornbury is super not liked in New Jersey at this time for being just the worst kind of governor you'd ever see. And one of his more trusted counselors was a man named Daniel Leeds, who was also born in Leeds, England. And as you can see, the word of the day is Leeds.

I recommend you not play the game of take a shot every time D.K. says Leeds this episode, because, yeesh. Any relation to Mother... Wait, no, wait. What was Mother Leeds real name again? Jane Leads And she lived in Leeds point

Okay so okay I was like For a second I had to Determine and realize Was her name actually Leeds Or was it her nickname So her she lived in Leeds And it was her name Yep

And it was her nickname was Mother Leeds Well because her name is Leeds Right well yeah Because she has 13 kids Does this other Leads have any relation to Mother Leeds or is his name Leeds also because he lives in Leeds? Oh, well, maybe we'll find out. Yeah, and this Leeds, this Leeds is from Leeds England. And he's Leeds, Leeds, Leeds, Leeds. So it's the different Leeds? Yeah, they're leading us on, you could say.

I, I want to Leeds. Anyway, so through Daniel's position, he acquires some land in New Jersey. That land gets past down through generations, and that is how you get the leads point that we talked about earlier in the episode, is because Daniel Leeds pretty well-to-do with the governor, gets some land, acquire some land, hooray, Leeds point. But trouble starts for Daniel Leeds right around 1687 when he decides he's going to publish an almanac, which is more or less like an astrologer. and meteorological calendar with sort of important dates and events written in it. From what I gather at the time, they were mostly used for farmers so they know what sort of weather

patterns and seasonal stuff is coming their way. Problem is, Daniel's almanac apparently leans a little too hard into the astrological stuff. Leans a little too hard into it for the Quakers liking, and they find the use of like, like, Roman god names, just a little too pagan for their liking. They also weren't super thrilled, you know, being Quakers and all, that Daniel was trying to basically determine God's plan and interpret the movements of the heavens. Like they were so not thrilled with him that they junked every single copy of his almanac that they could get their greedy little hands on.

So Daniel Leeds not very happy that the Quakers are so adamant about just junking his almanac and he would actually leave the Quaker organization and I think he would convert to Anglicanism different religion.

Okay. And he would actually not only would he write almanac but he would start writing like anti-quaker pamphlets talking about how they've strayed a little too far from, you know, religious beliefs and stuff and they're just a little too radical. Okay.

And even though there was nothing really heretical about his almanact, in fact, in his almanac, he basically writes that he's trying to better understand God's will, he's trying to better understand the meaning of Christianity, and overall give himself a better grasp and understanding of his faith. But the Quakers don't really understand that. They're still like, dude, you're just, that's pagan worship. You're worshipping a fault.

You're trying to tell us what God's planning, and you can't do that. And the Quakers start referring to Daniel as Satan's Harbinger, and that he was an evil man that was literally working with the devil. to create his almanac. Not only that, he's become a much more buddy-buddy with Lord Cornberry, who, again, they absolutely hate anyway, so that's another checkmark for another reason why they should hate Daniel. And I think one of the sources I read said that Daniel at the time had enough sway to be like, hey, Lord Cornberry, you know those Quakers that are trying to get into political positions?

Yeah, they suck. Don't vote him in. and he literally made sure that like the Quakers couldn't get into like important political positions. So. Okay, this is this is gone on a very bizarre tangent that I didn't quite think it would go by. Yeah, I was about to say, I know this is kind of a long way to go for the payoff, but I swear we're getting back to the Jersey devil stuff. I promise.

I believe you. I'm just, I'm, is all, Lord Cornberry. Yeah. And the almanac is quite the Jersey devil segue. Essentially what you need to know is that Daniel Leeds right now is being looked at by most of New Jersey as like a pagan devil worshipper. He does not have a pagan devil worshipper that is working in hand with an awful British governor that nobody loves. Right, because we hate the British right now. Of course, of course.

Anyway, so Daniel eventually turns the business of his almanac over to his son, Titan, who keeps the almanac going just as his father did. But he decides, you know what, if this is the Leeds family almanac, we got to put the family crest on the front of this thing. And if you look at the picture, shy posted, that's Titan's new almanac. can see that the Leeds family crest has a kind of familiar looking thing on it, three of them specifically. It's kind of... Oh my goodness. Kind of got some devil wings on it.

Looks like something with horns on it. It's got hooves. It's flying around. Oh, so they just saw that crest and were like, oh my God. we were right the whole time. All I'm saying is that that creature looks pretty familiar to something we've been talking about this whole episode. Now, there is another player in the Almanac game at the time.

We're in 1733, by the way, and Benjamin Franklin is writing the Poor Man Richer's Almanac. Franklin sees all the craziness around, the Leeds family, knows all about the heated rivalry between Daniel and the Quakers, and he's like, you know what? I can use this. I can make headlines for my almanac with this. So Franklin decides to publish in his almanac that he used some of these pagan astrological readings and calculations to find out that Titan Leeds was going to die on October 17th of that year. year. And October 17th came and passed, and you know what? Titan Leeds didn't die. So naturally

Titan Leeds starts, he starts gloating. And he's like, ah, Franklin, you're a liar, you're a fraud. And he's taking this super serious when Franklin is essentially at this point, he's like a 1700s troll. He's literally doing this for the lulls. And with that, mind, Franklin's like, oh, I'm not a fraud, I'm not a liar, I was actually right. The Titan Leeds that's publishing all this stuff, the Titan Leeds that's calling me a fraud, he's a ghost. He's brought back from the grave to haunt me and be mad, and he's just, he's huffing that copium specifically because he is dead. And the craziest thing is that Franklin's plan worked. His poor Richard Almanac became the new hot publication, and it was just another sort of humiliation for the Leeds family.

And their reputation after that kind of just became that the Quakers hated them. They were devil worshippers. They were into the occult. They sided with Lord Cornberry. Even his son was just a copium ghost resurrected from the grave because he couldn't handle Franklin. And so essentially what happens is the Leeds family reputation just absolutely tanks. And they become just the easiest targets for someone that wants to make an anti-British

statement. They were a family that were seen as having worked with the devil. They were called Satan's Harbinger. their family crest had three devil-looking wyvern creatures on it and nobody had a single kind thing to say about them. What a raw deal. Yep.

And so more than likely, the Jersey devil and the story of Mother Leeds was probably just generational fallout from how much the Leeds family reputation had crumbled and fallen until gossip and hearsay probably morphed into this crazy tale about the Leeds family descendant, mother Leeds, a Jane Leeds. There actually never was a Jane Leeds, by the way, in historical documents. There was like a Debra Lee that gave birth to 12 kids, but like nothing was really connected to her. So more than likely, the Jersey Devil story was just like I said,

it was generational fallout from a family that was unfortunately thought to be pagan devil worshippers because they got on the wrong side of the Quakers. Go ahead. No, no, no, no. I'm really putting the right words into this

one because it's a pretty raw deal. That's a super raw deal. It is a crazy raw deal. It's a, it's kind of insane and absolutely awful but it just I'm like in my mind I'm giggling to myself because it started from

a devil baby goat yep and it turned into this it turned into this I was like this all began because the lady's 13th kid she was like God damn it I hate this child

this one of all the ones and this entire thing has gone from it. Yep, yep, yep, yep. As Shai said, Franklin turned the death of Leeds into a running joke when the date and time of the prediction arrived and Leeds did not die. Franklin declared that Leeds actually had died

but that someone had usurped his name and was now using it to falsely publish his almanac. In the following years, Franklin continued to insist Leeds was dead until finally in 1738, Leeds actually did die. This prompted Franklin to congratulate the men who had usurped Leeds name for finally deciding to end their pretense. Lovely.

Just lovely. Yep. And that's kind of it for the Jersey Devil. There's still, like I said, there's still a bunch of people that are actually proclaiming that they've seen the Jersey Devil. They've spotted the Jersey Devil. I've found it. It's like, no, you haven't.

You probably haven't because it probably doesn't actually exist. And it's probably, you know, so. I do think it's rather interesting that I only ever heard of it from the hockey team. My favorite hockey team, too. I love the Devils. They're a great team. It took all of my willpower not to put in like a 20-minute tangent about just how good they are. I, you know, I got a picture with the Stanley Cup when I was like seven years old.

with my family because they had it down when the ducks won it Oh yeah I went to game 6 Game 5? I went to one of them I saw it live yeah

I've been a few ducks games You know because I'm Korea Back in his heyday I think Can't really do names But I know the ducks and the devils For the most part Their goalie was

Martin Broder. He's the one that maybe want to play hockey in the first place. What is what is the emblem of the Jersey Devil's hockey team? So it is essentially it is a stylized N that connects with a J

in the shape of like a winged devil. It's great. I love it. They haven't ever changed it. It's been that forever. That kind of looks like the modernized company logo of the Jersey of the Jersey devil. They used to be the Colorado Rockies,

and then the team failed there, and so they moved to New Jersey, and they're like, what should we name the team? And everyone was like, ah, duh, New Jersey Devils, hello,

don't be stupid. Yeah, that's how the NHL team got their name. I got to be honest, I never heard of this thing in my life. I mean, it looks like a devil in a, you know,

the devil part and the goat part work, right? Black Phillip. whole thing. But, you know, would you live deliciously, et cetera? But you live moss. But the baby part threw me for a loop. Yeah.

I wasn't sure what to expect. Because aside from, like, the team, I didn't know any other stories either. So I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. And going into it, it was kind of just like, as soon as I read the mother leads part, I was like, okay. So this is super, like, not a thing. Like, this thing doesn't exist whatsoever, even a little bit. Like, it's not, it's not like it's the other cryptids where it's like, oh, yeah, maybe it's just a crane or something that a lot of people have seen. It's like, no, this is just super hoaxy.

It's, this is pretty ridiculous. This one feels like a classic. what is it? Detective ridiculous, what I'd say. There was a you know what makes me think of all this after we started doing cryptids is we started doing them a little bit

and then I play disco elysium and there is a character in that game called Lena, the cryptozoologist and her husband and they're actually an adorable couple but

Kim doesn't like is the classic like oh this stuff is so stupid why would you ever think about fake it's obviously stupid and fake and your stuff is stupid and I played the supportive friend where I was like Kim shut your ass up I want to listen to tonight because Lena's the old lady in the wheelchair um I want to listen to nice Lena talk to me about cool cryptids because I'm I'm being kind to the old woman um in all fairness as as absolutely wacky and ridiculous as cryptozoology gets.

I will give them credit that the stories are, for the most part, very interesting to listen to, even if they are very, very clearly based in just

complete fiction. I like, I like, yeah, that's right, Kim does also say, eventually if you push him hard enough,

he's like, fuck it, let's hear more about cryptids. But I, They often are, they always refer to themselves as their own worst critic. And it's like, yeah, things like, in this case, I imagine they would be things like the Jersey devil give us a bad name because it's obviously stupid. We care about much more, you know, interesting creatures, etc. Yep, yep.

The Jersey devil more than likely is just generational slander. Generational slander. generational slander, dude. Sheesh. Poor fucking family. Poor Leeds family. But that's what happens when you go against the Quakers and you side with the British. Nothing good ever comes from siding with the British.

That's true. There have been many countries that have learned that. You've got to learn the hard way sometimes. You've got to learn the hard way. See, I told you'd be under an hour. You're right. I did not believe you in the slightest, but I believe you now. Yeah.

It's one of the few times where the detective ridiculous episode is going to be shorter than the adeptus ridiculous episode. Well, whenever Kuriath is on, we always go too long. Yeah, but that's, we have a lot of fun with him, so it's fine. It's fine. That's very true. It's fine. Unless Shai has something else she wants to add. I think we can call this a, I think we can call this a rap.

She do be typing, though. Is there no mean we could make out of the rap? I mean, unless you want to... Unless you want to freestyle the ending. No, I was thinking more like some kind of... What is it? Some like devil pun to be made with the phrase rap. No, I'm...

All right. You know what? Hit the pipe button. Remember, ever trust the British or you'll be $10,000 in debt with plastic miniatures. Amen, brother. Amen.