Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 127 - The Jersey Devil

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

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Whoa, Alex and Jesse, you don't get that reference yet, but you will soon. I thought that we opened a fucking portal into your, like, this one tape that I listened to when I was a toddler. No. The wazzle bug and hoodle doodle. Like, my grandma, my grandma always used to call me Kitty Kadoonser. Kitty Kadoonser. I was like, what is Kitty Kadoonser? I don't, I still don't know. I, yeah, I have no idea, but that's a great, it just like, that seems like it's a fun thing to say. I realize that.

That's all you need. In your life, you will always have those things where you think everyone understands the reference. Like, I can always reference Mr. Muster goes to the zoo. That's a book. I don't think anyone has ever read ever. I don't know what that is. I have no idea. Yeah. Not me either.

Like the Cal Worthington Ford jingle. Yes. I wish that everybody lived in Southern California so that I could tell them to go see Cal and they would know what I'm talking about. But no one does. Even though it's been 11 at Toyota of Orange. Alex, I wouldn't have got 11. Yeah, that's doubly worse because not only are we the only two people on the podcast from this area that are going to hear this. We also are old enough to be listening to the fucking actual FM radio to catch that ad.

Fair enough. Or a medium where you can hear like, Mike. Dumb. Yeah. I'm sure FM radio is still pretty popular for people who drive. No. No, it's not. It's dead.

It's dying. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure there's people who do listen to it, but between not listening to the radio and fucking, what's that other shit called? XM? Serious. Oh, yeah. Serious XM. Serious XM used to be two things and now they're one thing.

Yes. Serious and then XM then became serious XM. Here's the thing. I use that service and unabashedly love it. Did it just come in your car and you never canceled it? Yes. Absolutely. I'm pretty sure that's every single person.

It isn't because I have not used the radio radio in five years. Maybe. Yeah. I'm stuck somewhere. I listen to MPR sometimes, so that's it. I get MPR on my series XM bra. Right. Right.

Right. I'm not even going to lie. I still listen to the my old Boston home station pop the pop music when I get in the car through I heart radio app. There you go. I need my taste of home. But you're not listening to the radio to rest. You're not listening to the things you can just tune into. You're not picking up.

No, no, no. The Morse code station. It's a good one. Yeah. It's a classic one. You throw on the in the on the radio and you go get your Duncan. Did I try to crack it trying to find blue and figure out what it is they're trying to tell me. Yeah.

No. Listen, there's only one Duncan near me and it's awful. It's awful. I think some people might say to that that all of them are pretty. I agree with you. Coffee is not good, but like in terms of even Duncan standard, it is a step below. But you know, speaking of a step above. That's what people need to do.

If they want to go to patreon.com slash shilluminati pod, you have to step above the rest of the Internet, because that's what our Patreon site is. It's really one of the better sites out there. It's one of my favorite websites, mostly because it's one of the only ones that sends me huge amounts of money every month. But I love that you guys go there and I love that you support us because it because it means that we get to do this. You know what I mean?

And we get to do this every week. What do you mean? What are you talking about? This is, I'm just chatting with my friends. The listeners. Right. Right. Right.

Right. You know what I mean? I'm just letting that happen, man. I'm just enjoying whatever. I just want to tell you about all the great benefits that are available on that website that you can sign up for at various levels. You know what I mean? There's art.

There's the minisodes. I mean, what is there to even say about those? You know what I mean? Right. The minisodes. I mean. I know. They're great.

You know. Yeah. They're great. Right. After this and let me, I'm not going to tell you guys, I'm not going to tell you guys exactly what it's about. But I want to, I want to see if I can. Mine's good.

Mine's good. Today. I got a good story today. You got a good story. Well, look, I don't, I'm not going to tell you exactly what my shit is, but I am going to. I'm trying to pull Alex. I'm trying to pull us out of the source code and it's not working, but it's a PNG of a

a PNG of a reptilian, and I really want you guys to see I'm so excited. I can't wait PNG of a reptilian. That's my favorite part. Cannot wait. Is there some way that I can just drop an image in this chat? In Zoom? Oh, no fucking idea. Zoom chat doesn't support images. Are we is this real?

Guys, it does not. At the time, 2021. Come on, Zoom. What am I paying you 15 bucks a month for? This was Discord, Zoom. If this was Skype, Zoom. This is Microsoft Skype. What the hell are we doing here? Can you believe we use that service for as long as we did?

Yeah, is this the old man podcast? I remember all that shit. Oh, hey, everyone. Remember Seth's Barilla? Who guys remember before they had a thin PS3 and it was just a fat PS3? Remember when the PS3 used to play PS2? I do. I had a little.

Remember that? Oh, do you remember the old Taco Bell menu? Oh, remember that? Oh, all right, grandpa. It's time to talk about pizza. Oh, remember the chili cheese burrito? No, we haven't had that in Southern California 30 years. Oh, my.

All right, let's pull you into the actual the world of what we're doing. See, today actually initially was going to be a lighter hearted episode. It is a cryptid episode as may have come to your knowledge. When I called it change that. Well, when I started doing research and I grabbed the book I wanted to read for it, everything changed. I learned a lot more about it.

It's going to be one part. It's not going to be a multipartner. But we're today. We're talking about something we should have talked about already, but we haven't none other than the Jersey Devil. Oh, my God. We really haven't talked about the Jersey Devil. We have not in this depth.

No. Wow. And I'm going to cite my main source today. It's a simply book called The Secret History of the Jersey Devil. Now, this book is extremely useful because it truly dives into where the Jersey Devil came from, which is what we're going to talk about. But it is so boring and so dry and so hard to get through. What? So just if you're going to get it,

be ready because it's presented like a lecture, man. It's rough. Listen, I'm just I'm not going to lie to you. If you there are people who read along with us, I want you to know this is not like a Harold Schecter book. What is the name of this book? It's called The Secret History of the Jersey Devil. It seems like it would be like just based on the title. I'd be yoked to read that.

Yeah, like you would think. Yeah. But it is written like a lecture. It is. And if you want the subtitle, it's the subtitle to the book is how Quakers, Huxters and Benjamin Franklin created a monster. Well, there's your problem. You found a book with a subtitle. Books are always like three books.

It offers Brian Regal and Frank J. Esposito. If you guys have any interest in grabbing it. However, getting a hardcover is like super expensive. So grab paperback or Kindle if you can. Regardless, that's what we're talking about today. The Jersey Devil, the story of the Jersey Devil is a longstanding American tradition in the world of horror and cryptids having persisted in some form or another for close to 300 years.

The Jersey Devil hasn't always been known by that name, though. Besides the Jersey Devil, it's had a couple of weird ones after some deep internet research, including the Gwink. And not now. If you look up the Gwink, you're going to get. Yeah, you're going to think twink sounding. It's the according to the Urban Dictionary. It is the the female version of a twink.

In case you're curious, I just looked up a Gwink. Yes, it is a girl twink, according to the dictionary. It sounds like some type of pale, sort of like long nose, long fingered guy with greasy hair who wears like a like a domino mask. That would sound like he has like two big teeth coming out. It looks like they're supposed to come out of his mouth, but he's a cartoon.

So it's coming out of his nose, like the bottom of his nose. Just do like rabbit teeth. He's the Gwink. That's what he sounds like. What does the Gwink sound like? I'm the Gwink, you bitch. That's what he says. That's his catchphrase. Two other definitions, I think, fit with that, Alex.

There's, first off, a gamer twink is a Gwink. Oh, all right. No couple of those. A horny wink is a Gwink, as in, dude, I think she Gwinked at me. I don't want anybody to say Gwink. I don't want the word to come out of anyone's mouth, dude. That last one caught me.

The Gwink sounds like somebody. Yo, she Gwinked, dude. Yo, that Gwinked. That Gwink, Gwinked. You could double up the meanings. An urban legend that my grandma believed in. Like, I don't know what that is. I hate the word the Gwink.

You can actually, Mathis, you're right. You can be a gaming twink, girl twink, who Gwinks. You can be a Gwink, Gwink, who Gwinks. Love it. Yes, I love it. Amazing. That's like, that's like Gwink, Gwink. Like, it's like Gwink with like three eyes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Gwink. All right. Well, other than the Gwink and a couple other names other than the Jersey Devil, including the Wazzle Bug and the Hoodle Doodle Bird. Oh, that's us. That's you guys. Yeah, you're a bunch of Jersey Devils out there. Let me, can I just say all of these sound like

they were from the days of vaudeville? Like, I don't know what the Hoodle Doodle Bird. That sounds like some shit that like, you know, like somebody in a suit that has like, that looks like a parachute. It's going to be like, yeah, yeah, that's in that Hoodle Doodle Bird. Like, it really, it's about, you know, it's not quite, it's a little older than that in like terms of how people would talk about it.

But the Hoodle Doodle Bird is also compared to the Rijeka of Croatia, which is a film. It's like a cockatrice looking creature, more or less, which it does fit certain descriptions of the Jersey Devil, which we'll get to a little later. But the other other than Wazzle Bug and Hoodle Doodle Bird and all that other nonsense, it's mostly known as either the Jersey Devil or quite simply the Leeds Devil.

And the Jersey Devil's origin story will certainly explain to why and I'm going to read kind of like one of the most well-known stories as to how this creature came about. Legend has it that in 1735, a Pines resident known as Mother Leeds found herself pregnant for the thirteenth time. It is important to note, it is important to note at this time too, that the Leeds are the names of the earliest New Jersey settlers and a ton of Leeds families actually can still be

found through New Jersey today. They're still commonly throughout the state. The thirteenth child. Yes, thirteenth child. How would you feel if you were about to have your thirteenth child? What? First off, terrible. I'd be like, how does I have 12 already? Decade of like, I mean, it's a lot.

I don't even know how they're giving birth to them, but here they are. No. All right. Hey, shout out to gamers out there. If you played the game in description, I now get the reference in the game. Oh, did I just put a puzzle piece together for you that I didn't even know? I didn't play the description yet. There is, there is a card called the thirteenth child. And there you go.

Something happens to that child on a certain turn. And now I get it. Did he get a sick grade? Did he get a sick PS one game made about him that I've never played? But I can remember the ad like it was printed yesterday. I do not know what you're talking about. The Jersey Devil game. The Jersey Devil game. It existed.

I didn't know that. That's crazy. That's why that's who I'm imagining right now. He kind of looks like he could be the Gwink too. Love it. For poor mother leads now on her thirteenth child, she was not living a wealthy lifestyle by any means. Her husband, her husband was a drunkard who made few efforts to provide for his wife and her his 12 children,

reaching the point of absolute exasperation upon learning of their thirteenth child. The mother raised her hands to the heavens and proclaimed, let this one be a devil mother needs because she was sick of having babies. She was sick of having baby. And dude, again, thirteenth kid, you really have to now raise your thirteenth child, the thirteenth toddler phase,

the thirteenth elementary school phase, the thirteenth teenage phase. And so at the end, so at the end of all that, she was like, I want this one to be even worse than all the rest. I mean, OK, you have a point, I guess. All right, I don't I don't I don't know why she wouldn't do that. But she just frustrated and maybe just mad that her her husband was drunk on a night of pure anger. Did you know that the Jersey Devil from the game has a nemesis called Dr.

Narf? It did not. Well, maybe maybe he'll pop up in the real story. Yeah, maybe I have a feeling I have a feeling he won't. But we'll see. Pretty sure I don't know about the dinosaurs or the mutated vegetables. But yeah, I don't know about those either. If you've ever had to deal with a plumbing problem, you may have felt the pain of realizing you don't know any plumbers.

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and use them up to five times in one transaction. Check our app for details. Smith's fresh for everyone. Continue on mother leads a few months later, finally went into labor on a tumultuous stormy night, no longer mindful of the curse she had uttered previously regarding her unborn child. Her children and husband huddled together in one room of their leads point home while local midwives gathered to deliver the baby in another. By all accounts, the birth went routinely

and the thirteenth leads child was a seemingly normal baby boy. But within minutes, mother leads, unholy wish of months ago, began to come to fruition. The baby started to change and metamorphosized right before her very eyes. Within moments, it transformed from a beautiful newborn baby into a hideous creature unlike anything the world had ever seen. The wailing infant began to began growing at an incredible rate. It sprouted horns from atop its head and talon like claws like instantly grew

like it became an adult. Instantly within minutes, within minutes is all happened. Claws tore through the baby's fingertips, leathery bat wings unfurled from its back and hair and feathers sprouted all over the child's body. Hi, mom. Yeah, right. Oh, puberty is rough on this one. Thirteenth child problems. Oh, geez. Its eyes began glowing bright as they grew larger in the monsters,

gnarled in snarling face and the creature savagely attacked its own mother. Killing her then turned its attention to the rest of the horrified onlookers who witnessed its tempestuous transformation. It flew at them, clawing and biting, voicing unearthly shrieks the entire time. It tore midwives limb from limb, maiming some and killing others. I know it's very violent. I didn't know what their job was. It was your fault that I'm in this world, die. The monsters then knocked down the door to the next room

where its own father and siblings cowered in fear and attacked them all, killing as many as it could. Those who survived to tell the tale, then watched in horror as the rotten beast sprinted to the chimney and flew up it, destroying it on the way and leaving a pile of rubble in its wake. The creature then made its escape into the darkness and desolation of the pine barrens where it has lived ever since. To this day, the creature known, known

varyingly as the leads in the Jersey Devil claims the pine barrens as its own home and terrorizes any who are unfortunate enough to encounter it. That's the basic generalized story of of the how the leads devil came. That's his origin story. That's like his origin story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In the 18th and 19th century, the Jersey Devil was spotted sporadically throughout the Pine Barren region, frightening local residents.

And any of those brave enough to traverse the the vast undeveloped expanses of New Jersey's southern reaches. Unearthly whales were often reported emanating from the dark forests and swampy bogs and the slaughter of domesticated animals would invariably be attributed to the Phantom of the Pines, the Jersey Devil. Over the years, the legend of the Leeds Devil grew, occasionally even overstepping the boundaries of its rural pine barrens haunt to terrorize local towns and cities.

The one short spurt of time sticks out amongst most. The most infamous of these incidences occurred during the week of January 16th through January 23rd in 1909. Early in the week, reports started emerging from all across the Delaware Valley that strange tracks were being found in the snow. The mysterious footprints went over and under fences, through fields and backyards and across the rooftops of houses. They were even reported in large cities of Camden and Philadelphia.

Panic immediately began to spread and posseys formed in more than one town. Fear and intrigue grew even greater when it was reported that bloodhounds refused to follow the unidentified creature's trail in Hamilton. Schools closed or suffered low attendance through lower New Jersey and in Philadelphia. Mills and the Pine Barrens were forced to close when workers refused to leave their homes and travel through the woods to get to their jobs. Eyewitnesses spotted the beast in Camden and in Bristol, Pennsylvania, and in both cities police fired on it but did not manage to bring it down.

A few days later, it reappeared in Camden, attacking a late night meeting of a social club and then flew away. Earlier that day, it had appeared in Haddon Heights, terrorizing a trolley car full of passengers before also flying away. I imagine just kind of landed and clawed away at it and then just took off. What the fuck? This is claimed that it looked like a large flying kangaroo. Another trolley car full of people saw it in Burlington

when it scurried across the tracks in front of their car. In West Collingswood, it appeared on the roof of a house and was described as an ostrich-like creature. Firemen turned their hose upon it, but it attacked them and then flew away. The entire week, people reported that their livestock, particularly their chickens, were being slaughtered. Did it have bad wings? They don't specify the kinds of wings that they saw on it.

Simply that it looked like a flying kangaroo. Like, I'm just saying like a flying kangaroo. I've seen a million pictures of the Jersey Devil. Sure, sure. Now, we're not counting the purple Bat Boy cartoon character from the video game. Of course. The only one I've ever seen looks almost like he's got like a goat head, bat wings, like a little body.

One guy says ostrich and one guy says kangaroo. And I just kind of think I'm just thinking to myself, like, what the fuck are they talking about? Yeah, we're going to get to whether these are actually true or not. Obviously, later. But there's a few more of these that happen in the week. The the the Marauding cryptid later reappeared later in the week in Camden, where a local woman found the beast attempting to eat her dog.

She then grabbed her broomstick, ran over and smacked it, and it flew away. Yeah, apparently some woman in 1909 saw the thing trying to devour her dog. Now, I don't know how common giant birds of prey were back then, but hawks and stuff. People don't realize how big those things are. So this giant bird came to kill a tiny dog. I wouldn't necessarily be surprised, especially back then in like 1909, where a lot of land is still open farmland and stuff. Yeah, it's like just like on it's like wild animal wilderness.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. While there was there has not been another week to match the frequency, fervor and intensity of the January 1909 rampage, numerous sightings of the Jersey devil have continued to be reported to this day. The tale of the devil has spread beyond the pine barons and has been embraced by all of New Jersey, even to the point where has been where it has been largely commercialized. The devil is portrayed in toys on t-shirts and even the subject of his own feature film. Most famously, the devil has lent its name to New Jersey's obvious NHL ta hockey team,

the Jersey devils. There are still many, however, who believe that the Jersey devil is very real and very dangerous. There has been a constant stream of reports over the years of devil encounters. Most often people report finding strange, unidentifiable tracks in the sandy soil and desolate areas of the pine barons. Some reports claim that they are footprints of a strange bird. Others say they closely resemble hoof prints, although whatever it is walks on just two legs. There have even been a substantial amount of reports that describe the tracks as being

cloven, a well-sighted description of the feet hooves of a more famous devil-satan creature. While less frequent, there are still occasional reports of people who see more than just tracks and manage to catch a glimpse of the Jersey devil himself. He is most commonly described as having the body of a kangaroo, the head of a dog, the face of a horse, large, leathery wings, antlers similar to those of a deer, a forked reptilian tail, and intimidating claws. What a chimerical creature. Yeah, he's wild.

He's like a magic card. Yeah. Yes. Oh, he's such a cool magic card. While some New Jersey people embrace their devil as nothing more than a quaint figment of our collective imagination, a source of unification and pride and a unique and important piece of New Jersey folk culture others see it, others see it as a very real creature and a threat to their safety. Still, others who have sworn they did not believe in the existence of the Jersey devil have had their minds changed after spending just one moonlit night in the pine barons.

There, where a ghostly mist drifts across the cedar swamps in the unearthly cry of some unseen creature can be heard piercing the stillness of the dark forest. Few disbelievers can be found. Whether it's deep in the pine barons or deep in our collective unconscious, one thing is certain, the New Jersey devil still lurks in New Jersey and most likely always will. Now, that's kind of the package of the New Jersey devil, right? That these these stories, this amazing week of encounters that happened in 1909, what he looks like the very violent origin story of the Jersey devil himself. But if you begin to dig a little bit, questions start before we dig. Yeah, before we dig. What what year would you say the origin

of the Jersey devil would be the true? Oh, the true origin of the Jersey devil is in the mid 19 1730s. But 1909 is the like the flat. Is that yes. But he had happened. He he was born in the 1730s. Is there any good old timey things for the Jersey devil besides 1909? We're not not super. No, not really. The older timey. We're going to dig into this super old timey stuff as like the bulk of this episode moving forward. OK, all right. So now, whether you obviously believe or not in the Jersey devil, its origin story is mostly irrelevant as the Jersey devil has thoroughly buried himself already into US history, mythology, and most importantly, pop culture. You might be thinking

of the obvious choice with the New Jersey hockey team. But my mind wandered into the land of the musical. The boss himself, Bruce Springsteen, has a song about the Jersey devil called A Night With the Jersey Devil. Have you have you heard this song, boys? No, I imagine I can only give you a brief taste of what it sounds like, but I don't want to get copyrighted. So it's like five seconds or less. But you can Google the song if you want. Oh, oh, isn't it like five seconds or under is fair use? You're eight. Yeah, oh, eight or so. Hang on. Tell me if you can hear this. I know the listeners will be able to hear it. Here we go. Did you hear that? It sounded like a Tom Waits song at the beginning.

But then your noise canceler got it here. It's weird. The weirdest part about it is that it's Bruce Springsteen from 2008, which is like that. It's that extremely old. The whole time. It's that same beat the whole time that old timey, like bluesy, rocky kind of feel. And he's just kind of he's basically talking about him turning into the Jersey devil, where he's drinking people's bloods over the course of like 16 days and all this other stuff. Very, very bizarre. But the Jersey devil is everywhere. You can see him pretty much anywhere you want. Apparently, there's a game made on it. And I didn't even know about it. For something so ingrained in our culture, you'd expect a given

version of the tale to be definitive. But the story of how the Jersey devil came to be has a surprising amount of variety. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Sorry. It's like, yeah, you're like saying all these different like big stories, even from that one flap. And it's like some people saw bird feet. Some people saw cloven hooves. Some people saw horse hooves. It's like, you know, when it's so like, you know, something that really scares me is like when there's a UFO sighting and 10 people stories who don't know each other are all the same. But this is like, I mean, I guess this comes down to it being a thing like sneaking around in the woods. But like still, yeah, it's weird. Like even his origin story has so much variety. And like,

we're going to go over a few of them, not like in great detail, like we did above, but I'm going to quickly go through some of them here. But it has to be said before we do that that the most disappointing source of all time for the Jersey devil was New Jersey, like official New Jersey itself on their website. You'd expect at least maybe some links or maybe something page. That's a page more about New Jersey than the devil. Let's be real. He like he has a small buried part of the New Jersey dot gov website. When I was doing research, I came across it. And this is all it says, quote, on a dark and stormy night in 1735, something terrible happened in the pine barrens near Leeds Point. The thunder howled and the

wind roared outside inside a small house. Mother Leeds was giving birth to her 13th baby. No one knew for sure exactly what happened, but people had ideas. And then this is a couple quotes of people ideas. Leeds said she wanted the baby to be the devil, or the baby was born with a tail, wings and hooves and flew up the chimney. The baby looked normal, but then it changed. That night, the Jersey devil was born. This is one of the most popular stories about how the Jersey devil was born. But there are many others. But that's it. That's all the New Jersey website has on it. It's like a brief mini paragraph and a couple of quotes. Very disappointing state of New Jersey. Please do better. Damn. A different story says that a town put a curse on a young girl

who fell in love with a British soldier during the Revolutionary War. When she gave birth, that child was a cursed. The cursed child was the Jersey devil. Is this the reboot? What the fuck? How the fuck was another origin story for him? It's like it's another weird like curse. That's a totally different story. Yeah. I guess there's still the 13th thing in there, though. Yeah, I guess that's true. It's still a cursed child. I mean, it's not the 13th, right? But it's still like a cursed child. Yep. A majority of the stories, however, are pretty straightforward, only deferring in minor areas like the exact look of the creature, the way it escaped, or even if it killed anybody. They mostly say that after it was born, it quickly became the

Jersey devil and then flew away out a window chimney door. It didn't seem to matter too much. One story, though, speaks that the lead's devil lived with the family until it was four years old before it brutally murdered his parents and flew off into the Pine Barrens where it now lives. Oh, that was terrible force. I get it, dude. Yeah, you got to be careful of those toddler years. Yeah, man. You never know when a child is just going to merge and murder you. Yep. In yet another story, the child did immediately fly away but killed nobody and over time would occasionally return to the familial home over the years where the family would feed him before he would fly away again. He just got hungry, so he'd like roll back and be like, I need some of that good stew.

And mama would be like, I got it for you, baby. Here you go. And then just hiss and fly off after had a full belly. Fuck you, by the way. And then it's the leathery wings flap and off he goes. I don't understand why she would make him the devil. I like the other story more because it makes more sense. The super violent one? No, just the idea of like two lovers creating the like, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah. The US colonist and the British soldier. Yeah, I do not understand the 13th child thing. I get that it would suck to have 13 children. I get that 13 is a bad number. Why would she curse her own child? I mean, yeah, I don't know. Here's another weird story we're going to talk about here in a second. In yet another, the child flew away. Oh, yeah, I already

did that one. One of my favorite ones, though, is the version of the Jersey Devil's origin. Isn't the result of a mother cursing her child, but the devil himself nice as a sort of bizarre, righteous punishment for the town ended up cursing them for treating their local minister slash priest poorly. Now, my question is why the devil would care about the town doing such a thing? I don't know. But in that in that particular version, the devil cursed the town and the child, the next child born ended up being the Jersey Devil. Again, this is it all, it all goes back that everything that happens with the devil I have questions about because like, if you're bad, if you're like evil and you go to hell, what would it be like? Awesome job. Right? Am I crazy?

I'm right there with this is exactly the same thing. You'd be like, you've done your unholy mission, my child. Right? What are you saying? Like, it doesn't make any sense. The devil be like, welcome to hell, beers in the back, bro. Like, it doesn't make sense to me. That's all. Generally, generally, it doesn't really matter what the actual lore behind the Jersey Devil is nowadays, but it simply shows that the tale of the Jersey Devil was constantly being taken, shaped, molded to fit certain narratives, helping to keep him relevant as the years moved on. The stories are seemingly endless, with some only having minor variations and others having large ones. And while the stories are all well and good, every story has to start somewhere.

And the source of the Jersey Devil is a very interesting one, as it's essentially the result of a 1700s YouTube drama dispute between a family, their religion, and none other than Benjamin Franklin. Do you remember the old YouTube first front page? Remember that? You remember when the videos were square? Oh my God, yeah, bring me back. You're bringing me back. Sometime, sorry, sometime in the early, like 18th century, late 17th century, Daniel Leeds was a Quaker living a quaint life in a small town called Leeds Point by the Delaware River. So everybody was just like, it was like the McPoyles. They're just like, it's like, we're from Leeds. Kind of everywhere, big family. We live in Leeds Point, we're the Leeds, and you're also

the Leeds, and we're the Leeds from down the way. That's how it started. Leeds Point was mostly, at this point in the story, a town full of boat captains, since it was near the Delaware River, and the river was an easy access point out to the sea. How whimsical. I'm just picturing that dude from Tintin. So good, dude. Daniel Leeds, though, was not a sea captain. He was an author. He was a pariah. He wasn't cranking out, but even if though he was an author, I had a burp. We'll let it that out. Or we won't, and I'll forget. It's either one. Daniel Leeds was not a captain. He was an author. He was cranking out. He wasn't cranking out the next great small town novel, though.

The man was known for two things, pamphlets and almanacs. For those who might not know what an almanac is, you don't, yeah, I know, kind of at that point where people might not know what almanacs are. An almanac provides data on like the rising and setting times of the sun and moon, the phases of the moon, positions of planets, schedules of high and low tides, and a register of collectic festivals. It's got a lot of farming information as well in there. It's kind of like a catchall of like a bunch of useful information, way more useful in the olden days than it is nowadays by like a long shot. It's cheap four by four season. Make your next adventure epic, and hurry in now for great deals. Now well qualified returning FCA Leeds get a low mileage

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As our lineup gets larger, your footprint gets smaller. Get the juice on Toyota.com. Juice? Yep. Juice. Toyota. Let's go places. But these books, extremely useful for a colonist and a farmer at the time for future planning, Leeds Almanacs were slightly different. Leeds was the equivalent of at the time an astrology girl. And his almanacs and pamphlets were chock full of astrology stuff. He was mega into it. You might be saying to yourself, hang on a second, he's a Quaker. Was this allowed? And you're kind of right, sort of. You see, Quakers, once they'd found out about Leeds Almanacs and the astrology loving ways that he was printing, quickly, they quickly

and openly denounced him. They said that astrology is the same as witchcraft and that he should cease immediately. Astrology is the same, I guess. Because there's tarot card readings. I guess people were not reasonable at that time. I don't know what I'm doing. We're very close to the witch trials having just kind of happened. It's the same exact vibe. Yep. The funny thing is, though, that behind the scenes, after their long days of preaching and speaking against such things, the Quakers would often get together in their secretive little dens and start reading each other's charts and doing a secretive Quaker. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's not a great like little term. I love that. It's like adults on TikTok.

They're just like, TikTok's stupid. I would never get a TikTok when they're in their bed. Like, yeah, ex literally exactly. Leeds just wasn't the only difference to them and Leeds was Leeds just wasn't worried about sharing all this info publicly because for Leeds, once everyone saw his masterful work, he was convinced that the Quakers were going to embrace it with open arms and that he'd be recognized for the work he'd done. And because he wasn't a Puritan, Leeds wasn't burned at the stake for all of this. Leeds was still hurt that his own religion was disowning him and disowning all the work that he'd done up to this point, however. And if Leeds had one thing at his disposal, it was a working printing press. So angry and frustrated, Leeds

did what any early 18th century angry person would do and printed out pamphlets, decrying and insulting the Quaker religion. Now they were officially feuding. You know, what's funny is that pamphlet feuds were an actual thing in a common form for entertainment at this time. Yeah. So this was not, you know, strange. Oh, no, let me jump in here really quickly. Just to start, we're gonna go further into this. Twitter. I think you're gonna like this episode. Twitter is not new. There was no history. It is not. People have been shit talking each other on the internet, except there was no internet. It was just in real life. But they did it through like, across cities via pamphlets. I wrote pamphlet and distributed it. And it's weak. I love you,

my friend. You're like, how dare you? I shall write another pamphlet back. Yeah, same thing. Wait, we're gonna get into it in a minute. In a way, it's in a way, it's comforting. Like, in a way, it's depressing. In a way, it's like, hey, we're not going insane. We've always been this stupid. And we did everything that we did somehow. You have to like have a printing press. You have to earn it. You have to be like, I distributed it amongst the community. You have to do a lot of work to get it out. Reading this book, because you're gonna see why the tone of this thing changed. What I thought was just gonna be another cryptid episode, ended up being a weird history episode. It's great. So he printed out this pamphlet,

decrying and insulting the Quaker religion. And after a brief back and forth, Leeds ended up pulling out the big guns. Pamphlets were clearly no longer enough. So Leeds wrote a book, which would begin the long fight between himself and the Quakers. And you can get this book, a reprinting of this book on Amazon right now, if you want to. The book was titled, News of a Strumpet Cohabitating in the Wilderness, or a Brief Abstract of the Spiritual and Carnal Hordoms in Adulteries of the Quakers. Hell, yes. That's a good-ass title. Isn't that so good? Strumpet is a word we do not use enough anymore. That's like an onion article.

Like you don't even read the book. You just like he put it out so you get the story from the title. Dude, wait till you hear the next one. All right. This is all happening right now. This is all happening right around 1699 and 1700, because this is when Daniel was around, 1700 and 1701. The book title is pretty self-explanatory, I think, in what this thing was all about. And unsurprisingly, the book caught the eye of a particular member of the religion, a man by the name of Carol Pussy. Nice. Hey, man. P-U-S-E-Y. P-U-S-S-Y? Is that what you said? No, P-U-S-E-Y. Okay. Well, that's... Maybe it's Pucey? Pucey's good. P-U-S-E-Y. P-U-S-E-Y. It's like Reese's PCs. It's just a slight difference.

Well, Carol was very upset on behalf of the religion, his personal beliefs, feeling like he was getting attacked. He was angered at the contents of the book and that a once member of their religion now looks to cast doubt on them in the public eye. So he decided to return fire with a book of his very own. This book is best known as Daniel Leeds, Justly Rebuked. However, that is not its full title. That's a wussy title. That's a better title than its full title, because unfortunately the full title is not great and I don't think it holds a candle to Daniel Leeds' title. Here it is. Daniel Leeds, Justly Rebuked for abusing William Penn in his folly and falsehoods contained in his printed challenges to Caleb Pucey made manifest with some remarks

also by way of Rebuked on the author of the book called News of a Stumpid. And then in parentheses, five lines of Psalms. Here's the problem. He did not use Stumpid nearly early enough for me to be in. You wait till the end. You gotta drop your Stumpid early. I'll copy paste the title in case you didn't quite get it. The reason it's so wack is because it's such a weak move. It's like the Microsoft store of reply books. He's like, we have the same thing. It's just ours is about like, no. He basically went through the process of printing a book in the 1700s just so he could know you someone. This book I could not find an actual copy of. And the only way I was able to find and I

copy pasted the title is I had to go into Evan's early American imprint collection at University of Michigan.edu. Good old Evan. It's great. And deep in there, they have it. And this was printed. This was printed in 1702. So the previous book would have been printed in 1701. So his rebuttal book was printed in 1702, printed in Philadelphia. So they're feuding from across cities, like across state lines. It's so phenomenal. I fucking love it. That was the name of his book, which of course, Agdon leads to respond. And so he responded with a second book, way more simply titled, simply called The Rebuker Rebuked. See, this guy is way better. Yeah. He's a master at his work. He's been writing for a long time.

This guy was on one channel back in the very, very early days. That's awesome. Way back when. In the 1700s. And thus began with the people at the time considered a pamphlet fight. This was also, as I said, rather common back then, thanks to the printing press now being a lot more widespread, people could crank out the garbage and people ate it up. It was like the main form of entertainment. Did they just take them and put them between their fingers like Wolverine and then they just paper cut each other once there's another? Yeah, they just, it's painful and annoying. These things literally were like shitposting to rile up one another. And one of my favorite

examples brought up in the book that I read for this is the example of a feud between two people at the time and one of them ended up printing out an image of the other person he was feuding with laying down in a boat with what I can really only describe as with a saggy titted Satan in full squatty potty mode over his face, taking an insane shit into his open mouth. Fuck yeah. Yes, that is amazing. That book was worth reading even just for that. How did we get to hear from the Jersey Devil? I don't know what. We are going to connect. We are going to connect, trust me. Just in case though. Into his mouth. Good. Literally shitting into his mouth. In case everybody

needed a reminder that people really have not changed at all. Oh, man. Leeds though, back to being with Leeds was fighting an uphill battle, though he may have been correct in that the people of the Quaker religion do indeed practice astrology and the like. His unique position within town made it really easy for the Quakers and Pucey in particular to drag his name through the dirt and mud. Daniel Leeds at the time on top of being an author was also working for a governor that was not particularly liked by the village and why you might ask because he was a royalist and these were tense times for being a royalist on American soil. This made it really easy for Pucey to drag Daniel Leeds name through the mud, as I said earlier, but none of this stopped

Leeds and he would continue his work for another 13 years until he stepped down and retired in 1713 where his son Titan Leeds would take over. Daniel and his son Titan. Amazing. Who's he fucking Elon Musk? What the fuck is that? Titan. And with it being nearly two decades later, astrology had become massively popular and over that time the Leeds almanac had become one of, if not the most popular almanac on the market. That's like right now. That's like the same people are really into this right now. Yeah, it is. It's true. Proving to Daniel Leeds that he was indeed correct. However, at the year of it becoming famous, like I said, two decades after he retired was the 1730s and Daniel ended up dying in 1720. But Titan Leeds had taken over and he was quite

good at his job. And that almanac was popular until someone else had their eyes on the almanac market with their upcoming book. Oh, poor Richard's almanac. Damn, my boy. By none other than Benjamin Franklin. Ben, you know what? Shout to Ben. The greatest founder of this nation, Philander and horse Smith, the original Big Lebowski. Really? Wait till you see what he does here. He is cruel but hilarious. He was a troll. He's the Teddy Roosevelt the fucking. Benjamin Franklin was a troll. He would have been an internet troll this day and age. No question. He'd be the Gale Simone of his day. Yeah. And who else stood in Benjamin Franklin's way to the top of the almanac charts? Then Titan Leeds. Moreover, Benjamin Franklin thought all thought that all astrology

and occult stuff was crazy nonsense. And he wasn't even that fond of religion in general. So in his first issue of the poor Richard's almanac, Franklin would use that astrology to attack the man on his way to success. Titan Leeds. So how did he go about it? Well, Franklin wrote a satirical article in his almanac pretending to use astrology to predict the death of Titan Leeds in the following October, October 17th to be precise, teasing that whoever purchased his almanac that they'd have to buy the next issue to see if his prediction came true. And of course, it didn't. But that didn't stop Benjamin Franklin from posting an obituary for Titan Leeds in his almanac anyway. He did a year long bit about this guy dying. Amazing. Would you call that an

attack on Titan? Oh, it's so good. Well, nothing changes in politics anymore. Dude. This obviously all this fake news obviously riled up Leeds. And so Leeds posted in his almanac that Franklin was clearly wrong and he was very much still alive, wherein Franklin responded that that was totally impossible and that the written response was clearly coming from Titan Leeds now deceased in upset spirit. We have Alex, we've been to the pub where they were like, when they were hanging out in Boston with those like revolutionary boys. So you know, he was like in one of those or he was like in Philadelphia, just like sitting in a tavern somewhere, writing up like cackling to his old ass self, just like, oh my God. That is unbelievable.

Just saying something is true. That's not. And he's like, no. And then it's Benjamin Franklin. So it's like, yeah, what are you gonna do? It's not Ben. Ben wouldn't lie. Obviously, it was more in the almanac than just that that got people really like enjoying his almanac. He gave incredible amounts of useful information. But one thing people really enjoyed were like, the fancy and nice quotes that he filled his books with. People just found them fun to read and enjoyable little excerpts like like, what's his name? The guy from SNL. I can't remember his name. The guy who reads all the little the little stories. Jack Handy. There we go. Yes. Yeah, people really loved that. But don't think the trolling stopped for an instant there.

This went on for literal years. And for years, Franklin targeted Titan Leeds, his largest wall to success, referring to Titan Leeds as a ghost every single time that he referenced him or Titan Leeds responded to him in the opposing almanac, which only pissed off Leeds more, which egged on Franklin with him saying things like, quote, Titan Leeds would never post such an ungentlemanly reply. So his ghost must clearly be in control of his publications. Just like every time they publish in these almanacs. Oh, I don't know, man. I have no idea. I mean, it's fine. It's a year, obviously. But like, yeah, or once a year. But they are they are doing it in a way that this is all hype. This is like dropping an album.

Right. Yeah, it's like an almanac. Yeah, it's like a farmer's almanac. Farmers are keeping the country afloat at this point. And so, oh, yeah, this is 100 percent them just being like, you'll drop in the hottest mixtape of 1787. Let's go. It's it's literally like me arguing with a teenager on Twitter, like exactly. It literally is. Oh, my God, it is. And everybody knew Leeds Franklin's main target at this point over the course of years. And Benjamin Franklin had a very particular insult that he liked to call a lot of people, but he very commonly used against Leeds. And that was simply calling them a devil. And this are you kidding me? And this led to most people calling Titan Leeds. But what else? A devil, the Leeds devil. So it's not actually named

after the area. It's actually just named after this one shithead who all kind of coalesced and people hated Leeds. Remember, Leeds was working for a royalist on top of it and constantly fighting against somebody who was very openly trolling him, which never makes you look good. It was just a downhill fight for Titan at this point. He got f***ed, dude. I know. Titan AE, dude, he's done. And it's not over yet. And in 1738, Titan Leeds finally passed away. And Benjamin Franklin congratulated the spirit in his almanac for finally moving on and letting go of all those troublesome postures making. Damn. So what the f***? Okay, I got to look this up. In death, he was just making fun of Titan Leeds. Titan Leeds. Okay, hold on. Just a second. I metaphorically

spinning on his grave after years of claiming he was dead already. So Titan Leeds was 39 years old when he died, right? No, he might have been in his forties or fifties, I think. It says that he lived from 1699 to 1730. Yeah, 39. Okay, so there you go. Yeah, 39. So he's 39 years old. Benjamin Franklin was born in 1706. So he's younger than him. This is a f***ing yes. He was literally, it was literally you fighting with somebody. So wait a minute. So the poor Richard's almanac, 1706. So he's like, Benjamin Franklin is like my age right now trolling this guy who's like slightly older than me. And the guy died. Yeah, he would be in his early thirties. Benjamin's in his early thirties at this point. Very early thirties. That is f***ing insane.

Yeah, and he's just trolling the s*** out of him the whole time. This is who Benjamin Franklin f***ing was though. If you don't know historical Benjamin Franklin outside of what the school tells you, this is who Ben Franklin was. He was a s*** stirrer. He had sex. He went to France. Dude, you look at Benjamin Franklin and he had his dick in somebody. He was f***ing everybody all the time. Just to give you an example of who Ben Franklin was, there's a book, I'm just going to put it out there for everyone if you want to just side story read, called Mark Proudly Writings of Benjamin Franklin You Never Read in School. Dude was a world-class troll. What's up everybody? I'm Mike Wilson with

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color choice shrubs in the white containers and plant them in your yard. They've all been trialed and tested for your success. Proven winners, color choice. A better landscape starts with a better shrub. I love it. I f***ing love it. I want to see, I want to see because it's a shame that the only picture, like when I think of this man, I think of like the soggy man. Yeah, yeah. Kind of looks like George Washington. He kind of has like hat hair, if you know the picture that I'm talking about. And he has got like a big bald head. What did he look like when he was 30 years old? Because this dude lived till almost 1800, I think. Like he was from 17, I think like 1790 something. Like the dude when he was, God, I don't even know how old he was. 16, 17,

did the silence do good letters. He literally pretended to be a 40 year old woman and wrote in like as an old lady in this time, dude was 16. He was having a good ass time. He was, he didn't give a s***. If there was a time machine, like I would love to just see what his vibe was. I would love to just go. You would have been a good time to drink with him. The founding fathers were a bunch of drunk f***s who just drank and kind of came up with this idea at a bar. The only reason everyone's, well, like you could literally go to that bar. Yeah. Like these people were not these, like they were geniuses in their own right, but they were also like kind of bros. You know what I mean? A bunch of frantic people. The only reason that everybody today isn't just a filthy drunk is because we

invented other crappy s*** to do also. Yeah. Yeah. Pretty much. That's unbelievable. So other than the devil insult, there's other things that help connect this and kind of flesh out why this birth, this folklore. Titan Leeds died in 1738. And at the top of the episode, what year did I say that he would, the Jersey devil supposedly born? 1730. 1735. Right around the same exact time. Did it kill him? Did this, did Ben Franklin kill them? I'm not a go in there, unfortunately. That's like the X-Files episode about it. Yeah. The other thing that helps connect it is the Leeds family crest itself. Their family crest was an image featuring three monstrous figures with claws, wings, and sitting at the top of the

shield, none other than the cockatrice. And through that, an ancient drama channel feud, never ending insults and petty pamphlets with just the right amount of 1700 slang, the Jersey devil was born into American mythology. So it's just a roast of his f***ing seal? Yeah. He was just a roast. And everybody hated him because he was kind of a cockass. Yeah. It was just a roast. And it was a roast because his father worked for the governor. It was just bad news all the way around. And then with years passing, easy. And, you know, being in the 1700s and 1800s, stories kick up, things get created. And then the story of the Jersey devil kind of got born. That is unbelievable. I am stunned that that is there. I'm trying my

hardest to find a picture of young Ben Ben Franklin. There's like a statue. The only one I've seen is the statue. And there's this one where he's like in blue, but he looks like a f***ing monopoly illustration. So it's useless. It's not done well. Like, yeah. But I guess that's what happens when you get famous at a certain age. Then you get the drawings made of you, but you're perpetually old forever. The issue with people learning about this is that this information is very boring to learn and find. It's not out there readily. So it doesn't stop people from encountering what they believe is the Jersey devil in the deep woods of Jersey. So let's wrap this episode up with some creepy and spooky potential Jersey devil encounters that happened more closer to our time than their time.

So I'll read one. I've got three stories, three encounters. I'll start with one and I'll send over via Twitter the other two. So I'll read it and then I'll copy paste. This one's called driving by the devil in the pale moonlight. This story is by a woman, by the way, a name of Mary Ritzer Christensen. She saw Batman in the 1980s. And by the way, I found a picture of young Ben Franklin, but I think it's a little too young. All right, I'll take a look at that in a minute. I don't know what the hell that is. I don't know. That's a little bit weird. Now that's the Jersey devil. That is. All right. This haunted has haunted me since it happened in 1972. I was a senior at what was then Glassboro State College. I had heard about the Jersey devil when I came to

South Jersey, but being from North Jersey, a different world, I thought I was far too sophisticated to believe in such humbuggery. One winter night. I love that way. It's a great term. One winter night I was driving to Glassboro from Blackwood on Green Tree Road. At the time the road was flanked by orchards and farms. There were a few houses and there was hardly any development. I was completely sober and awake when I caught a glimpse of something in my rearview mirror. Curious as to what it could have been, I slowed down to take a gander. It was dark out, but moon lit enough that I had no trouble at all discerning the upright figure of a creature crossing the road from one side to the other, roughly 25 feet behind my car. I thought you were going to say tall and I was going to be like,

oh, yeah, that would have been nuts. The figure stood taller than a man by far and had thick haunches similar to a goats supporting its nearly human looking torso and huge woolly head. It moved heavily and didn't seem at all disturbed by me being there. I didn't linger long enough to see much more. I hit the gas and flew to mansion park apartments in the borough. So petrified was I that I slept the night the rest of the night in the car, unwilling to get out in the same darkness that it introduced me to the Jersey Devil. Never again from that day on have I ridden on the Green Tree Road day or night that I haven't gotten the heebie-jeebies just thinking about that winter night so long ago. Yikes. So that's the first one. You know, again,

another different description of what the body looked like. This time she said it was a near human body. It's very quintessentially like running into a thing on the road in the 70s story. Yeah. It's like every game of the next story in Twitter, by the way. Oh, in Twitter. Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah, because I don't think it's going to fit in the zoom. I think it's going to be one of those things that seems like no thanks. Yeah, I got you. You'd take it and then Jesse can take the last one, which is super short. Best for last. Field trips to the Jersey Devil's turf is the name of this one. As a native of Cape May County, I've had the typical rite of passage trip to the Pine Barrens, the legendary home of the Jersey Devil. This Jersey girl went to Cape

May County Technical High School, which sponsored trips to the Pine Barrens for good grades in certain classes. I was one of the fortunate students to go three times during my four-year career at CMCT. Each time I went on this trip, my canoe, which I didn't know about the canoe part, my canoe was followed by a heavy-footed thing, which each step I heard branches snap under its feet. And in parentheses, they write hooves. I like that they just kind of gas maybe hooves. There's no real reason. Just because they know what's up. Yeah. Every 10 minutes or so, I could hear the deep beastly growls that to this very day give me the creeps. Being in a canoe and on a class trip didn't afford me much opportunity to flee in terror, so I stuck it out for three years.

Every year, it was the same. So three years in a row, the same exact experience. During my sophomore year, I was pretty confident about my canoeing skills, so I didn't look over my shoulder much. I went canoeing with a friend of mine when we came across a bag that had been torn open and gone through. Around it were prints on the ground that looked something like a horse's hoof, only bigger than I heard it, the cry that still haunts my dreams. Part human, part beast, and full of anger, pregnant with pure hate. I love that it's pregnant with pure hate. I love it too, because it could be the 13th child. So, you know, like, you know, it's like a good little thing. I nearly flipped the canoe. We left, leaving whatever it was out there behind, or so I thought.

It seemed to follow us. Every time we stopped or paused, it got closer to the river. We pushed on. Then worse came to worse as we tipped the canoe. I heard the thing running behind us, and I thought for sure we were dead. Then we rided our canoe and got into it as fast as humanly possible. We made it out to safety, sun fried to a crisp, missing all of our valuables and most of our clothes, but never happier to be on shore. We packed up our bus and left. As we were leaving, I rested my head on the window and saw a little cottage. I looked at it until the bus was about to pass it and saw a woman. She looked back at me and I could see her skin was torn and bleeding. After the bus passed, she vanished, scared me so badly I wouldn't go into the woods for a year.

Kelly. There it is. That's the second one. That's like a great creepy, like, see your skin was torn and bleeding. That's fascinating. The last part is ten times more fucked up than the thing following you in the woods. It follows you in the woods. You know what I mean? I've been followed by crows for like a whole walk before. You know what I mean? They just follow me around. That's really creepy, but a woman that's like it's like it's like a detail that makes it feel like you're like dreaming or something. You know what I mean? Like you're like you had this experience and then you like see this like fucked up like the thing where you like wake up from a dream and then you're still holding the like bloody piece of fabric that's in your

pocket or whatever. Really creepy. Yeah, it's very weird. All right. One more to go Jesse. It's a short one. All right. The Devil on Route 9. Let me tell you of a sighting of the Jersey Devil. I was driving up Route 9 in Bayville at around 10 p.m. There were two cars in front of me and we were traveling at about 35 miles per hour. To the right of Route 9 is a mini mall type building with woods behind it. To the right is all woods. All of a sudden I saw this big thing running across Route 9. It looked like one of those classic pictures of the Jersey Devil. It had no tail, no fur, its rib showed, and it had a long odd head with short ears that laid flat. It looked almost 10 feet tall. I noticed it because the first car stepped on its brakes

as did the second car. When I looked ahead, I saw this thing galloping across Route 9 and straight into the woods. I was not really scared because it didn't register yet. I stopped to mail something to the mailbox or in the mailbox, about 300 feet from the main road, and I saw a child's shirt, shorts, and one sneaker lying on the ground. Oh, what? That's probably more across the conservatory. Oh my God. Yeah. I mailed my letter, ran into my car, and laid rubber all the way home. Oh my God. I would have been like, I would call the cops. I was certain that I had seen the Jersey Devil. No one believes me. They say it was a deer. I've never seen a deer that big, that fast, or that weird looking in my life.

What is really creepy is that the other two people driving in front of me stepped on their brakes, so they must have seen it too. Whoa. That one's got some assumptions tossed in there and a potential kidnapping ignored. I mean, it seems like it went from a zero to 60 because you got freaked out because you saw some clothes. Yeah, that's kind of how it comes across for sure. But that's it, boys. That's going to end our little adventure into the root of where the Jersey Devil comes from. I love that this guy has a reputation. I love that. I can't remember who it was. I think it was the Hopkinsville Goblin. I can't remember where the vibe is that people believe in this motherfucker. It's not like Bigfoot or something where most people are like,

it's Bigfoot. He smokes weed and he's hilarious. The Jack Slinks, Bigfoot, I think is how most people think of Bigfoot. But with the Jersey Devil, most people that I've talked to who live in New Jersey are like, no, there's something out there, dude. I don't know what it is, but there's something. It's like one of those. It's like the Appalachian stuff on TikTok where they're like, if you hear something calling your name, don't follow it. That type of shit. I don't know. Now you know, though. Now anytime it brings it up, you can be like, no, it's born out of drama. Dude, that Ben Franklin story is so good. And I love that the dude's name is Titan. That's like a Wes Anderson movie or something. I love that. It's really cool. It's awesome.

That's it for us today, though, gentlemen and listeners. Thank you guys for joining us. We're off to go do a mini-soad where Jesse and Alex both have something real good, apparently. I mean, so it's more shitty, funny, weird than it is good. If we're saying that's good to me, dude. I'm going to label that as good. I got a lot of stuff to say. Yeah. Thank you guys for listening. We'll be back next week. Feel free to follow us on all of our socials. We're over at Twitter. We're over at Instagram. I think that's it, actually. So thanks for that. And we'll see you guys next week with a brand new episode. Goodbye. Goodbye. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night enjoying ourselves.

I needed to go to the bathroom, so I stepped back inside. And after a few moments, I hear my wife go, holy shit, get out of here. So I quickly dash back outside. She's looking up at the sky in the fall. I look up too, and there's a perfect line of dozen lights traveling across the sky.