The Claim
The Devil walked over 100 miles across Devon, England in 1855
I know what you’re thinking from the claim, and that’s no he didn’t. But this is one of these stories that was apparently witnessed by hundreds of people and even featured in some of the local papers at the time.
Between the 8th and 9th of February, 1855, a heavy snowfall fell throughout the night, but in the morning people came outside to see what appeared to be hoof like tracks, mostly in a single file pattern made by something that didn’t seem restricted by physics.
Finding hoof marks in snow wasn’t anything unusual at the time, but these marks travelled in straight lines and gentle curves going across anything they came to. Hoof marks were found on the roofs of houses, the tops of walls and barns and pretty much anywhere the path led.
The length of the marks also ran for quite a distance, with most claims being anywhere between 40 and 100 miles. The phenomenon was seen by hundreds, if not thousands of people who apparently bore witness to the impossibly located hoof marks, and several papers published articles about the event, the following is from one such paper:
“It appears on Thursday night last, there was a very heavy snowfall in the neighbourhood of Exeter and the South of Devon. On the following morning the inhabitants of the above towns were surprised at discovering the footmarks of some strange and mysterious animal endowed with the power of ubiquity, as the footprints were to be seen in all kinds of unaccountable places – on the tops of houses and narrow walls, in gardens and court-yards, enclosed by high walls and pailings, as well in open fields.”
Even though many people said they saw the marks, there is understandably no evidence to back up this story, but at the time cameras were rare and it wouldn’t have taken long for the tracks to melt away or get covered up by more snow.
The only other reported incident of this phenomenon come from 15 years earlier when The Times newspaper published the following article:
Among the high mountains of that elevated district where Glenorchy, Glenlyon and Glenochay are contiguous, there have been met with several times, during this and also the former winter, upon the snow, the tracks of an animal seemingly unknown at present in Scotland. The print of the foot in every respect is an exact resemblance of that of a foal of considerable size, with this small difference perhaps, that the sole seems a little longer or not so round; but, as no one has had the good fortune as yet to have obtained a glimpse of this creature, nothing more can be said of its shape or dimensions; only it has been remarked, from the depth to which the feet sunk in the snow, that it must be a beast of considerable size; it has been observed also, that its walk is not like that of the generality of quadrupeds, but that it is more like the bounding or limping of a hare when not scared or pursued. It is not in one locality only that its tracks have been met with, but through a range of at least twelve miles…
— The Times, 14 March 1840, p. 1.
As for an explanation there’s some pretty wild answers, including a weather balloon dragging a chain or rope, badgers, hopping mice, Aliens and even a kangaroo. There are many who seriously doubt the incident happened in the first place, claiming it would be impossible for someone at the time to travel 100 miles in a single day across the same path as the footprints apparently took. But since there’s no evidence and its impossible to ever know if they were there and what caused them, we can only ask, Could that be true?
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