STATE FILE · NJ
Cryptids of New Jersey
What cryptids are in New Jersey? The best-known are Jersey Devil and Bigfoot.
New Jersey owns one of America’s most famous monsters. The Jersey Devil – a winged, hoofed, horse- or goat-headed creature with a piercing shriek – is said to haunt the Pine Barrens, more than a million acres of sandy pine and oak forest, cedar swamps and tea-colored streams across the southern half of the state. According to the best-known version, it was born in 1735 as the thirteenth child of “Mother Leeds” at Leeds Point and flew off up the chimney. Historians link the tale to colonial-era feuds involving the Leeds family, whose almanacs angered Quaker neighbors.
Cryptids reported in New Jersey
FLYING · 1735
Jersey Devil
Pine Barrens, southern New Jersey
A winged, hoofed devil said to have been born to “Mother Leeds” in the Pine Barrens, and the star of a week of panic across South Jersey in January 1909.
REGIONAL LEGEND
HOMINID · 1958
Bigfoot
Pacific Northwest forests, reported across North America
North America’s most famous cryptid: a huge, hairy, upright ape-like being reported from the Pacific Northwest to Florida since the 1958 “Bigfoot” tracks.
WIDELY REPORTEDThe legends of New Jersey
The legend exploded in January 1909, when over roughly a week newspapers reported tracks in the snow, attacks on livestock and sightings by hundreds of people across South Jersey and around Philadelphia; schools and mills reportedly closed. Skeptics see a classic media-fueled panic, helped along by hoaxes, sandhill cranes, owls and the eerie calls of foxes. The creature has since become a state icon: the NHL’s New Jersey Devils took their name from it in 1982, and the long-running Weird NJ magazine helped make Pine Barrens legend-tripping a pastime.
Enthusiasts head to Wharton State Forest, historic Batsto Village and the backroads around Leeds Point in Galloway Township, where the legend began. Northern New Jersey has a different flavor: Bigfoot reports from the forested ridges of Sussex and Passaic counties, near High Point and the Delaware Water Gap.
Hotspots
The largest single tract of the Pine Barrens and the heart of Jersey Devil country.
Traditional birthplace of the Jersey Devil in 1735.
Restored iron-making village in the Pinelands, a starting point for exploring the legend’s landscape.
Forested ridges of northwestern New Jersey with recurring Bigfoot reports.
Sightings timeline
- 1951Gibbstown boys’ sighting Jersey Devil
A group of boys reported seeing a monster matching the Jersey Devil’s description, briefly reviving the scare in Gloucester County.
- 1960Mays Landing tracks and a $10,000 reward Jersey Devil
Strange tracks and shrieks near Mays Landing were blamed on the Devil, and Camden merchants offered $10,000 for its capture, promising to build it a private zoo. The reward was never claimed.
Latest from New Jersey
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Videos
ARCHIVE.ORG3:07
Patterson–Gimlin film (unedited)
Roger Patterson and Bob GimlinThe original 1967 Bluff Creek footage – the most famous and most debated minute in Bigfoot history. Marked public domain on archive.org.
ARCHIVE.ORG4:59
The Film That Made Bigfoot A Star
Oregon Public BroadcastingOPB’s short documentary on how the Patterson–Gimlin film turned a regional legend into a global icon – and the hoax claims around it.
▶ VIDEO
Sts’ailes Sasquatch Days in Harrison Hot Springs
Tourism Harrison River ValleyShows the festival celebrating the Sts’ailes people’s Sásq’ets, the being behind the word “Sasquatch” (no archive.org equivalent).