Spring Heeled Jack – The Devil? A Clever Hoax? Or A Lone Alien In 19th Century England?
Initially, reports of who became known as “Spring Heeled Jack”, a tall, frightening figure spotted on Barnes Common in London, England were dismissed as absolute nonsense and purely figments of people’s imagination.
That began to change though in February 1838, when twenty-five-year-old Jane Alsop heard a knock on her family's front door one evening and proceeded to answer it. A figure stood on her doorstep – so tall that Alsop had to crane her neck and hold her candle up high so that she could glimpse its face. When she did, she wished she hadn’t. As this stranger grabbed at her, her terrified screams brought her family to the front door, who barely managed to drag Alsop safely back inside the house.
Alsop would tell the police that the stranger had originally stated he was a policeman and had worn a cape much the same as the police wore. Furthermore, he seemed to smile gleefully when fear had spread over her face. She would recall, “His face was hideous. His eyes were like balls of fire and he vomited blue and white flames that temporarily blinded me. His hands were like claws and he was icy cold!”
Perhaps most remarkable, was that she also stated quite clearly that he wore what looked like a “fishbowl on his head!” and he had on a “tight-fitting costume that felt like oilskin!”
Her description somewhat matched that of other sightings of various people who had also described a very similar creature on Barnes Common and by Clapham churchyard.
That began to change though in February 1838, when twenty-five-year-old Jane Alsop heard a knock on her family's front door one evening and proceeded to answer it. A figure stood on her doorstep – so tall that Alsop had to crane her neck and hold her candle up high so that she could glimpse its face. When she did, she wished she hadn’t. As this stranger grabbed at her, her terrified screams brought her family to the front door, who barely managed to drag Alsop safely back inside the house.
Alsop would tell the police that the stranger had originally stated he was a policeman and had worn a cape much the same as the police wore. Furthermore, he seemed to smile gleefully when fear had spread over her face. She would recall, “His face was hideous. His eyes were like balls of fire and he vomited blue and white flames that temporarily blinded me. His hands were like claws and he was icy cold!”
Perhaps most remarkable, was that she also stated quite clearly that he wore what looked like a “fishbowl on his head!” and he had on a “tight-fitting costume that felt like oilskin!”
Her description somewhat matched that of other sightings of various people who had also described a very similar creature on Barnes Common and by Clapham churchyard.
Spring Heeled Jack - A Demon? An Alien? Or a clever hoax?
Terror On The Commons!
In fact, in September 1837 on Barnes Common, as a businessman who had been at his office working late was walking home, a figure suddenly seemed to leap from behind the cemetery railings as if it had “been propelled from a springboard” and landed in front of him. The figure had what seemed to be “glowing eyes and pointed ears” and was terrifying enough to make the businessman flee the Common.
The following evening at the same place near the cemetery railings, the creature appeared again, this time in front three young ladies. While two of them managed to get away, the third was caught in the demonic creature’s grip – she was later found unconscious with her clothes ripped at the scene of the assault, but otherwise unharmed.
Around a month later at Cut-Throat Lane in Clapham Common, there was another sighting of the mysterious creature. A servant, Mary Stevens, was heading back to her employers at Lavender Hill after visiting her parents near Battersea, when out of nowhere leapt a tall, dark man who wrapped his large arms around her. The figure then kissed Stevens on the face and “fondled her breasts” laughing hysterically as he did. Stevens let out a scream and the figure released her from his grip and vanished as quickly as he had appeared.
Despite the sightings that were becoming more and more well known around the boroughs, following an unsuccessful search of the area, Stevens’ account was put down to an overactive imagination. However, the following night at more or less the same spot the mysterious dark figure again leapt from the shadows out of nowhere, this time into the path of an oncoming horse and carriage whose horses, startled, bolted and caused the carriage to crash.
Witnesses watched in amazement as the figure then “defied the laws of gravity” and leapt over a nine-foot wall and out of sight. However, in the churchyard near the wall, the menace had left two clear footprints in the moist soil. Upon closer inspection, there were strange “impressions” in the footprints that seemed to suggest that the figure had some kind of “apparatus” on his feet. However, no moulds were made of the impressions and the rain soon washed them away.
The following evening at the same place near the cemetery railings, the creature appeared again, this time in front three young ladies. While two of them managed to get away, the third was caught in the demonic creature’s grip – she was later found unconscious with her clothes ripped at the scene of the assault, but otherwise unharmed.
Around a month later at Cut-Throat Lane in Clapham Common, there was another sighting of the mysterious creature. A servant, Mary Stevens, was heading back to her employers at Lavender Hill after visiting her parents near Battersea, when out of nowhere leapt a tall, dark man who wrapped his large arms around her. The figure then kissed Stevens on the face and “fondled her breasts” laughing hysterically as he did. Stevens let out a scream and the figure released her from his grip and vanished as quickly as he had appeared.
Despite the sightings that were becoming more and more well known around the boroughs, following an unsuccessful search of the area, Stevens’ account was put down to an overactive imagination. However, the following night at more or less the same spot the mysterious dark figure again leapt from the shadows out of nowhere, this time into the path of an oncoming horse and carriage whose horses, startled, bolted and caused the carriage to crash.
Witnesses watched in amazement as the figure then “defied the laws of gravity” and leapt over a nine-foot wall and out of sight. However, in the churchyard near the wall, the menace had left two clear footprints in the moist soil. Upon closer inspection, there were strange “impressions” in the footprints that seemed to suggest that the figure had some kind of “apparatus” on his feet. However, no moulds were made of the impressions and the rain soon washed them away.
Just one of the newspaper reports of Spring Heeled Jack
London's "Public Enemy Number One!"
In February 1838, the night before the aforementioned encounter of Jane Alsop, eighteen year old Lucy Scales when walking home with her younger sister late in the evening, had a tall figure leap out in front of her who “shot out blue flames from his mouth” into her face, blinding her and causing her to collapse. The figure leapt on to a rooftop and disappeared.
The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Jim Cowel, officially recognized the menace that was now known as “Spring Heeled Jack” and he was labeled public enemy number one by the newspapers of the time.
The Duke Of Wellington famous from the Battle Of Waterloo even came out of retirement at seventy years of age in an effort to hunt down the menace. Despite apparently getting into some “cat-and-mouse” chases with Jack, he could not apprehend him and soon had to admit defeat.
Perhaps the most bizarre of the incidents supposedly attributed to Spring Heeled Jack was that of the winter of 1855, which was an especially brutal one in England that year. On February 8th the headmaster of Topsham School in Devon, Albert Brailsford, awoke to find that it had snowed heavily during the night. He was surprised and intrigued to see though, what looked to be “hoof prints” in the freshly fallen blanket of white.
At first glance Brailsford assumed the hoof prints were those of a horse until upon closer inspection he realized there appeared to be only two legs. Further concentration showed that the prints were in a straight line as if whoever had made them had “hopped” along. Each print was also only eight inches apart and themselves were only four inches in size. Each was very precise, with each print deeply impressed into the snow, as if branded into it by something hot.
It wasn’t long before a healthy swell of Topsham’s residents were following the prints in an effort to discover who had made them and where they had been going. They came to a halt when the footprints stopped at a large wall. The snow on top of the wall was undisturbed but they discovered that the prints carried on the other side of the wall – as if the creature had leapt over the wall completely.
This was witnessed again with giant stacks of hay that had apparently been leapt over and with large bushes that were in the creature’s path. The prints were even seen on the roofs of some of the houses, appearing to show that whoever had made the impressions in the snow had been jumping along the town’s rooftops in the night as they slept.
They followed the prints for mile after mile, their journey seeming erratic and random, and at times it appeared that the wanderer had back-tracked on themselves.
It was noticed that some of the prints looked to be cloven, and in Victorian England, this was enough to convince many that The Devil himself was wandering around the Devon countryside. Shotguns were loaded and pitchforks were at the ready. As night fell, people locked their doors and those that did sleep did so with their weapon of choice in their hand.
The Lord Mayor of London, Sir Jim Cowel, officially recognized the menace that was now known as “Spring Heeled Jack” and he was labeled public enemy number one by the newspapers of the time.
The Duke Of Wellington famous from the Battle Of Waterloo even came out of retirement at seventy years of age in an effort to hunt down the menace. Despite apparently getting into some “cat-and-mouse” chases with Jack, he could not apprehend him and soon had to admit defeat.
Perhaps the most bizarre of the incidents supposedly attributed to Spring Heeled Jack was that of the winter of 1855, which was an especially brutal one in England that year. On February 8th the headmaster of Topsham School in Devon, Albert Brailsford, awoke to find that it had snowed heavily during the night. He was surprised and intrigued to see though, what looked to be “hoof prints” in the freshly fallen blanket of white.
At first glance Brailsford assumed the hoof prints were those of a horse until upon closer inspection he realized there appeared to be only two legs. Further concentration showed that the prints were in a straight line as if whoever had made them had “hopped” along. Each print was also only eight inches apart and themselves were only four inches in size. Each was very precise, with each print deeply impressed into the snow, as if branded into it by something hot.
It wasn’t long before a healthy swell of Topsham’s residents were following the prints in an effort to discover who had made them and where they had been going. They came to a halt when the footprints stopped at a large wall. The snow on top of the wall was undisturbed but they discovered that the prints carried on the other side of the wall – as if the creature had leapt over the wall completely.
This was witnessed again with giant stacks of hay that had apparently been leapt over and with large bushes that were in the creature’s path. The prints were even seen on the roofs of some of the houses, appearing to show that whoever had made the impressions in the snow had been jumping along the town’s rooftops in the night as they slept.
They followed the prints for mile after mile, their journey seeming erratic and random, and at times it appeared that the wanderer had back-tracked on themselves.
It was noticed that some of the prints looked to be cloven, and in Victorian England, this was enough to convince many that The Devil himself was wandering around the Devon countryside. Shotguns were loaded and pitchforks were at the ready. As night fell, people locked their doors and those that did sleep did so with their weapon of choice in their hand.
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A typical example of how Spring Heeled Jack was portrayed in the newspapers at the time.
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Sightings Continue Into The Twentieth Century!
It was another week before the story made the newspapers, but when The Times did print an account of the strange prints in the snow, many theories flooded in as to what they could be – most stating that they belonged to one animal or another and none of which proved satisfactory. One particular theory by writer Geoffrey Household was that the prints could have been made with an experimental balloon of sorts. Years later in the United States, there were ample sightings of technologically advanced airships that some claimed were “new experimental” designs. You can read a little about that here.
The interesting thing here is that whoever made the prints appeared to have the means to leap over high obstacles, much like the sightings of 1838.
The figure appeared again in 1877 near a military outpost in Aldershot and when it did not halt when ordered to do so was shot at by two soldiers on guard duty. Despite the shots coming at almost point blank range, no blood spilled from the creature’s body and he simply bounded away from the base, seemingly unhurt. According to the report of the incident in the London Morning Post, “The intruder was no ordinary mortal….if indeed he is mortal at all!”
Four months later in Newport, scared residents opened fire on what appeared to be “Jack” when they managed to corner him on a rooftop, but he again escaped unhurt to safety. Shortly after, a similar incident occurred in Lincolnshire.
Even as far as 1904 Jack was witnessed in the Everton district of Liverpool by hundreds of people as he “leapt from rooftop to rooftop” covering up to thirty meters in one jump. This went on for around fifteen minutes before he leapt high into the air and disappeared behind a row of terraced houses.
He wasn’t seen again until 1920 when in Warrington’s Horsemarket Street, a man witnessed a figure dressed in a “white radiant costume” leaping from the path to the rooftops repeatedly before finally jumping over the Central Railway Station and out of sight.
The last recorded sighting of Spring Heeled Jack was in Monmouth in Wales in 1948 – a hundred years after the first sightings. He was witnessed to be jumping back and forth across a lake before vanishing and has not been seen since.
Years later in 1969 when the world watched Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the Moon, those who had studied Spring Heeled Jack noticed something rather strange about the way Armstrong moved around on the Moon’s surface. He “sprung” and could leap into the air with minimal effort, almost bouncing along the surface in great strides – much in the same way that countless witnesses reported how Jack had moved and jumped over walls.
Could Spring Heeled Jack have been an alien whose body reacted differently to the gravity on Earth than the rest of us, much as Armstrong’s had on the Moon? Would this account for the “fishbowl” helmet and the “oily tight suit” that he wore? If this is the case, was he abandoned here on Earth? There didn’t appear to be any (what we would now describe as) UFO sightings around the time of the incidents. If he was an alien being, what was his purpose to the incidents other than seemingly for his or her’s own amusement?
Does this also explain some of Jack’s strange behavior – the hysterical laughing and the fondling of ladies breasts? Could it be that the Earth’s air and it’s make-up was not well suited for them? It is known for example that even when mountain climbers are at certain heights, their brain begins to essentially “malfunction” and can lead to strange decisions being made, sometimes fatal.
The glowing eyes could also suggest that the alien was more suited to a darker atmosphere and so was only witnessed late at night as the nocturnal setting suited it more. And the white and blue flames that reportedly “blinded” the people who saw Jack close up could have been a technical device that did exactly that, temporarily blinded. There were no reports of any actual burns on any of Jack’s “victims.” Maybe the device was just to stun and so allowing him to make his escape while the person came to their senses.
If he was a lone alien on our planet (and that might explain how sightings of him stretched to over one hundred years), was he left here on purpose? Did he crash land here? And was he rescued or did he ultimately die on (what was to him) an alien world?
Or was Jack just a mortal man? Someone who had secret, new technology and also happened to have a fascination with fondling ladies breasts and scaring them for his own pleasure?
Or, as was thought at the time by the many, was he a demon or even The Devil himself?
Check out the short video below for a little further viewing.
[Marcus Lowth November 2015]
The interesting thing here is that whoever made the prints appeared to have the means to leap over high obstacles, much like the sightings of 1838.
The figure appeared again in 1877 near a military outpost in Aldershot and when it did not halt when ordered to do so was shot at by two soldiers on guard duty. Despite the shots coming at almost point blank range, no blood spilled from the creature’s body and he simply bounded away from the base, seemingly unhurt. According to the report of the incident in the London Morning Post, “The intruder was no ordinary mortal….if indeed he is mortal at all!”
Four months later in Newport, scared residents opened fire on what appeared to be “Jack” when they managed to corner him on a rooftop, but he again escaped unhurt to safety. Shortly after, a similar incident occurred in Lincolnshire.
Even as far as 1904 Jack was witnessed in the Everton district of Liverpool by hundreds of people as he “leapt from rooftop to rooftop” covering up to thirty meters in one jump. This went on for around fifteen minutes before he leapt high into the air and disappeared behind a row of terraced houses.
He wasn’t seen again until 1920 when in Warrington’s Horsemarket Street, a man witnessed a figure dressed in a “white radiant costume” leaping from the path to the rooftops repeatedly before finally jumping over the Central Railway Station and out of sight.
The last recorded sighting of Spring Heeled Jack was in Monmouth in Wales in 1948 – a hundred years after the first sightings. He was witnessed to be jumping back and forth across a lake before vanishing and has not been seen since.
Years later in 1969 when the world watched Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the Moon, those who had studied Spring Heeled Jack noticed something rather strange about the way Armstrong moved around on the Moon’s surface. He “sprung” and could leap into the air with minimal effort, almost bouncing along the surface in great strides – much in the same way that countless witnesses reported how Jack had moved and jumped over walls.
Could Spring Heeled Jack have been an alien whose body reacted differently to the gravity on Earth than the rest of us, much as Armstrong’s had on the Moon? Would this account for the “fishbowl” helmet and the “oily tight suit” that he wore? If this is the case, was he abandoned here on Earth? There didn’t appear to be any (what we would now describe as) UFO sightings around the time of the incidents. If he was an alien being, what was his purpose to the incidents other than seemingly for his or her’s own amusement?
Does this also explain some of Jack’s strange behavior – the hysterical laughing and the fondling of ladies breasts? Could it be that the Earth’s air and it’s make-up was not well suited for them? It is known for example that even when mountain climbers are at certain heights, their brain begins to essentially “malfunction” and can lead to strange decisions being made, sometimes fatal.
The glowing eyes could also suggest that the alien was more suited to a darker atmosphere and so was only witnessed late at night as the nocturnal setting suited it more. And the white and blue flames that reportedly “blinded” the people who saw Jack close up could have been a technical device that did exactly that, temporarily blinded. There were no reports of any actual burns on any of Jack’s “victims.” Maybe the device was just to stun and so allowing him to make his escape while the person came to their senses.
If he was a lone alien on our planet (and that might explain how sightings of him stretched to over one hundred years), was he left here on purpose? Did he crash land here? And was he rescued or did he ultimately die on (what was to him) an alien world?
Or was Jack just a mortal man? Someone who had secret, new technology and also happened to have a fascination with fondling ladies breasts and scaring them for his own pleasure?
Or, as was thought at the time by the many, was he a demon or even The Devil himself?
Check out the short video below for a little further viewing.
[Marcus Lowth November 2015]
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