Episode 197 - The Devil's Footprints of 1855

On the morning of February 9, 1855, residents across Devon, England awoke to a baffling sight. Strange hoof-like footprints stretched through fresh snow for miles, appearing in dozens of towns and villages. According to contemporary reports, the tracks crossed walls, rooftops, frozen rivers, and other obstacles, fueling rumors that the Devil himself had walked the countryside overnight.

Nearly 200 years later, the Devil's Footprints remain one of history's most enduring unsolved mysteries.

Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.

Transcript

Strange Hoofprints Appear Overnight

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour Podcast. My name is Abby Branker. I'm sitting here with Alan Codan.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

On the morning of February 9th, 1855, in Devon, England, locals woke to find strange tracks in the freshly fallen snow.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Is that uncommon?

SPEAKER_00 0:40

Well, there was something about these tracks that were different than usual.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

It was a dog.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

So Devon in 1855 was largely rural. It was made up of small villages, farms, and market towns scattered across the countryside. The region was no stranger to harsh winter weather, but the snowfall that arrived that night, the night of February 8th, was significant enough to leave a fresh, unbroken blanket of snow. The tracks that were found were traced across fields, gardens, and village lanes, and ran a single line of unusual hoof-like impressions. At first, people assumed the tracks belonged to some kind of animal.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Like a moose.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

But that's where things get strange. The tracks appeared in more than thirty locations across Devon. They formed a single file line and measured roughly four inches long and about an inch and a half or two and a half inches wide, depending on the report. Witnesses estimated the trail of prints extended between forty and one hundred miles. The tracks seemed to ignore natural and man-made barriers, passing directly over houses, rivers, haystacks, and walls. The footprints appeared on snow-covered rooftops and atop tall walls, and some reported that they entered and emerged from drain pipes that were barely four inches across. Some believed the tracks belonged to the devil himself. Today we are talking about the strange incident of the devil's footprints of 1855.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

I'm confused.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Why are you confused?

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Uh why would they think it was the devil? Why he does he have very little feet?

SPEAKER_00 2:18

Well, they were normal si they were they were actually tracks that would be, I think, somewhat bigger than normal animal tracks, like fox tracks or something. These were bigger.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

But it's he's got a a s size four foot.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Four inch foot.

SPEAKER_01 2:32

Like your shoe size correlates to like the number of inches of how long your foot is.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah, but the hoof is the whole foot, you know?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

The hoof.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

The hoof.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

Yeah, you know lots about hooves.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Ooh, that's true. We do like to watch a lot of Nate the Hoof guy.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

He's great.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

He's great. No, I think the what's felt unnerving and out of place to these people is that A, there was this this track, right? These tracks that were single file tracks. And there's a bunch of um diagrams I'll show you that they drew at the time that ran somewhere between 40 to 100 miles across different areas of Devon. So it's almost like waking up in the morning and like, you know, what animal is traveling a hundred miles, what singular animal overnight? Um, you know, just in the time between the snow when the snow stopped falling. And they seemed to travel over places that were impossible. Like it would just go, the tracks would lead right up to a house and then over the roof of the house, and then along the other side of the house, as if it's something just like jumped on top of the house, or through this like very small drain pipe that a normal person couldn't fit or a normal animal couldn't fit through, or on top of garden walls. Like it was not like they were like, oh, there's some tracks in the backyard. Like there was A, a hundred miles of tracks, and B, tracks that nobody really identified as, oh, we know exactly what that animal is. And then C, the tracks ran all over the place, like through things they shouldn't possibly have been able to get through on top of roofs, on top of high places. So that's why these tracks are special tracks.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

This was what year?

SPEAKER_00 4:00

1855 in England.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

1855. Okay. Who measured the overall length of the prints?

SPEAKER_00 4:07

So we're gonna get into it. There's some diagrams, like I said, that people kind of sketched up to show here. Let me let me find one to bring you into the fold here.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Well, uh, so while you're looking that up, I'm just thinking about this. Because, you know, there's no satellite imagery. They can't do it after the fact. They have to measure this. I see. Okay, I mean, yeah, it looks like uh hoof prints. They have to do all their measurements before anybody like walks around and ruins the prints, you know? Or, you know, before the snow melts or just you know, the the the tracks get spoiled. So somebody had to go around town and

How Anyone Measured A 100-Mile Trail

SPEAKER_01 4:45

then report back to the mayor and be like, yeah, uh, I measured it, it was 100 miles.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

No, and so the the length, the distance of it, I'll say, is estimated. That's why the range is 40 to 100 miles. But essentially they put they there are all these reports that came in from all these different parts of you know, areas of of this locality, and so they've pieced it together. But let's get into a I feel like you're there you have a lot of logistics questions.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

I s I sure do.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

So let's get into a little bit deeper, but first let's talk about our sources. A mental floss article by Stacy Conrad, The Ongoing Mystery of the Devil's Footprints, a Discovery Global Geopark article on the Devil's Footprints, and a discovery article, The Mystery of the Devil's Footprints, and there's a few firsthand sources that we will cite as we go. The Devil's footprints were reported in a period of rapid change in Britain, when railways were expanding, photography was increasingly used, and scientific explanations were becoming more prominent. At the same time, rural areas such as Devon still retained strong folk traditions that influenced how unusual events were interpreted. What's interesting to me about this topic and topics like this is less about whether or not we believe it was the devil, right? I think most people would say it probably wasn't the devil.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

I I think I would say it's probably not the devil.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

But it to me, what's interesting, especially through the lens of this podcast, is to look at how people and why people are reacting to something the way that they are at that time. And what's really interesting about this specific case is that it's at this like kind of um fork in the road moment for Europe, right? Where you have industry, you have science, you have all these things that are coming in, but there's still this lingering uh superstition and you know way to explain the world through religion or through, you know, other things beyond science. It's like kind of like this melding moment. And so I think that's gonna be really interesting to keep in mind as we talk through the rest of the history.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Well, sure. It comes at a time that's pre-internet and they have no memes.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah, and like to me, it feels interest sure, but to me it feels like somewhat similar to like the spring-heeled Jack, or even this is older, but the celestial lights over Nuremberg, which we talked about more recently, because there are some sources that we have, and again, we're gonna read a little bit of something, but it just makes it more interesting because you get that firsthand perspective or even a secondhand perspective of why people are trying to explain this through superstition or the supernatural instead of through, you know, natural and scientific ways.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

I bet they just went down to the pub or the church or wherever they all gather. Somebody says, I found all the hoof prints, and I'm pretty sure it's the devil. And someone says, Oh yeah, I found uh hoof prints too, it must be the devil. Uh, and then just it spreads like wildfire. This is this is the old-timey equivalent of a TikTok video.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Of uh, did you know that if you find hoof prints, it means that the devil walked around your land?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Well, what's interesting about this is that it wasn't just so certainly spread locally, right? Word of mouth, like exactly what you're saying, but it also spread rapidly, not just across England, but across the world. Newspapers in Australia were reprinting reports just a few months later. So on May 26, 1855, Bell's Life in Sydney reprinted an account from the Weekly Dispatch, which had first reported on the story in its February 18th issue. So here we go. Let's get into them the mindset of the time. Quote: The superstitious go so far as to believe that they are the marks of Satan himself, and that

Newspapers Fuel Fear And Folklore

SPEAKER_00 8:30

great excitement has been produced among all classes, may be judged from the fact that the subject has been descanted on from the pulpit. It appears on Thursday last night there was a very heavy snowfall in the neighborhood of Exeter in 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 courtyards, enclosed by high walls and palings, as well as in open fields. Jumping ahead a little, the impressions of the foot closely resembled that of a donkey's shoe. It does look like a horse shoe when you look at the um the drawings, and measured from an inch and a half to, in some instances, two and a half inches across. Here and there it appeared as if cloven, but in the generality of the steps, the shoe was continuous, and from the snow in the center remaining entire, merely showing the outer crest of the foot, it must have been concave. End quote.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Okay, so basically uh like horseshoe prints.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

Exactly. That's exactly what it looks like.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Okay, I already have my theory.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

Okay, tell us.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

Is it time?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Tell us now, and then when we get to theories, we'll all laugh at you.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Okay, um, you remember that guy? Uh this is a once again, this is a very half-baked story, uh, because I don't remember all of my facts, but there was uh some guy for decades that was walking around a beach um like at night with like these wooden boards strapped to his feet uh that made it look like it was like the world's largest sea turtle or something. And for decades, scientists were like trying to find this turtle. I think it was a turtle, because it would like break all records for like biggest turtle ever, but they could never find it. Uh obviously they weren't trying all that hard, but you know, this was this was a goal. Uh and it wasn't until the guy was like very, very late in life that he like came clean that this was effectively a practical joke of of him walking around planting these tracks on this beach.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

So you think it's somebody wearing like horseshoes under their shoes?

SPEAKER_01 10:41

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

How are they getting on tops of roofs and into locked back gardens?

SPEAKER_01 10:45

How would they get there anyways? They had to build those things. People live there.

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Yeah, but they this person doesn't have a ladder or key to this house. If there's a ladder, we would have seen that in the snow.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

I don't think it's one person doing it.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

You think it's a huge, massive hoax?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

I think it's one person did it, and then there's a bunch of copycats.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

Everyone It all happened in one night. Every happened every night. It happened in one night.

SPEAKER_01 11:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

So you think how would there be copycats?

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Word of mouth. Hey, did you have a bunch of devil prints? Oh yeah, I I had a bunch of devil prints. Do you want can we come look at them? Yeah, give me like an hour.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

I think your understanding of how people communicated and how they all have to get together at church. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

So they have time.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

They don't call each other.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Fabi, let's see what day of the week this was. It was a Thursday.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Thursday. Where do people gather on can you Google where do people gather on Thursdays in the 1800s?

SPEAKER_00 11:42

In 1855, people gathered for community, news, and socializing, primarily in taverns, general stores, markets, and meeting houses. Does not specify Thursdays.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Okay, so all those things exist on Thursdays. They probably all got together, had some pints, and then decided they're gonna put some uh hoof prints everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

I'm seeing a lot of holes in that, but that's okay. To each our own. To a modern audience, it might seem like quite a leap to look at a strange set of footprints and conclude that Satan himself had walked across the English countryside.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

I think that's fair.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

But to understand why so many people entertained that possibility, we have to understand the world they lived in. Rural communities in England and around Europe at the time, like those in Devon, were still deeply rooted in centuries of folklore and the Christian belief. For many people, the devil wasn't just a symbolic figure. Remember, this is only 160 years after the English Civil War, not that long after the last witch trials, and long before modern forensic science. These communities still lived in a world where folklore wasn't entertainment, it was how they explained to everyday life. No, starring Jennifer Aniston as Rachel. The devil was considered a real and active force capable of tempting, deceiving, and even physically manifesting in the world. Sermons frequently warned about Satan's influence, and stories of supernatural encounters had been passed down for generations.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Okay, but why would the devil walk around that much land? It seems so inefficient.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

You know, the devil likes to get some fresh air too.

SPEAKER_01 13:22

Yeah, but he could just dif to fly on his big bat wings. Made of the skin of sinners.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yeah, he wants to get his steps in though.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Okay, so this was to fill the Fitbit.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Sorry, that he was trying to close his rings.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 13:37

That's the nine circles of hell.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

I mean, I don't know. I think it's also interesting. I think when people are like, oh man, that's the the devil. It's like typically they're either assuming that their neighbors or they feel some guilt for something, or assuming that their neighbors maybe did something wrong to attract, you know. So I think that's like an interesting piece of this that's a little bit missing in in the history and the firsthand sources that we have. Like usually when people are like, oh, witch or devil, it's like because they think that person, you know, either they don't like them, they're an outsider, they want their land, you know, there's there's like a reason.

SPEAKER_01 14:12

That person wore a blue ribbon in their hair.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Devil. I have to say, I've been watching Widow's Bay on Apple, and in the first episode, my favorite line, I really like it. I really like the series. Um they there's like this is not a spoiler at all, but there's like a little moment we're at there at the the Town Historic Society, Historical Society, and she's like, Oh, look at our witch, our witch um trial exhibit. Like, we're so proud of it. We caught them and we burned them.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

You do you do like that line.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

I think it's delightful. Okay. So legends of ghostly black dogs, fairy paths, witches, and omens still circulated throughout the English countryside at this time. The line between folklore and everyday life was far blurrier than it is today. It's also important to remember that people weren't immediately crying devil. Contemporary newspapers show that many tried to find an ordinary explanation first. But the more unusual the reports became, especially the claims that the tracks crossed rooftops, high walls, and frozen rivers without interruption, the harder they became to explain. For some, the supernatural simply filled the gaps where reason seemed to fall short, just as all urban legends tend to do. Considering how famous the incident became, it's surprising how little original evidence survives today.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

It's in freshly it's fresh snow. Like it's not gonna survive.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah, but just more turn in terms of um written testimonial. They couldn't even write. They could write. They could read and read nor write. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

In this country, oh over half are still illiterate.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

This is in England. Is that true? The home of Oxford.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

What is the illiteracy rate in the US?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

21%.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

21%.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Additionally, around 54 of American adults read below a sixth grade level. That's really a bummer.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

I think that's where I was getting my my half statistic.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

That that's kind of horrifying.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah, this was a bit of a much of what historians know comes from a collection of documents that resurfaced nearly a century later after a 1950 article in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association asked readers to share any surviving information about the mystery. The search uncovered a collection of papers belonging to Henry Thomas Ellicombe, who served as the vicar of Cleist St. George during the 1850s. Included were letters from fellow clergymen, a draft letter intended for the illustrated London News marked not for publication, and traced sketches of the mysterious hoof prints themselves. In 1994, historian Mike Dash gathered virtually every surviving primary and secondary source

Did One Trail Ever Exist

SPEAKER_00 16:55

into a study called The Devil's Hoofmarks, source material on the Great Devon Mystery of 1855. Even today, it's considered one of the most complete collections of evidence surrounding the case. In order to understand why the footprints caused such a stir in the first place, it's important to understand the setting. One of the biggest challenges in explaining the devil's footprints is that historians aren't even convinced there's a single trail to explain. Although newspapers claimed the tracks stretched anywhere from 40 to 100 miles, no one person actually followed the entire route.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Aha!

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Modern researchers point out that the reports came from dozens of different witnesses, often describing different shapes, sizes, and distances between the prints.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

Okay. Mystery solved. This wasn't the devil, it was Santa.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

Well, it kind of feels like Santa. It's in February, but it kind of feels like that. Like you wake up and you're like, oh my god, something happened. Rain beer. Something happened last night. That has led some historians, including Mike Dash, to suggest that the famous trail was really a collection of separate incidents that newspapers combined into one extraordinary story. Aha! Dash argued that some of the tracks were probably hoaxes, while others were likely made by perfectly ordinary

Animals Hoaxes And Copycats

SPEAKER_00 18:10

animals whose footprints had been distorted by melting snow or unusual weather conditions. If that's the case, then the famous 100 mile trail may have never existed, even if many individual footprints did. But let's suspend disbelief for a minute and talk through some of the other possibilities.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

This is my specialty.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Many of the leading theories involve animals. One of the earliest came from the renowned naturalist Richard Owen, who believed badgers were the most likely culprit.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Badgers?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

He argued that badgers leave surprisingly large prints for their size, and are stealthy nocturnal animals capable of covering long distances while searching for food. Badgers.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

But badgers are famous for their giant hooves.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Maybe they're not famous for them, but this guy who's a naturalist knows about Abby.

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Badgers don't have hooves.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

He I think he's saying that they got like distorted with the melting snow a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

It's pr Yeah, they're they're they're like little feet. They have normal like little feet.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

They got paws. They got paws, yeah. Yeah. Very different than hooves.

SPEAKER_00 19:15

Mike Dash revisited another Victorian theory involving wood mice. This one I think is one of the strongest ones. When mice bound or jump through fresh snow, their hind feet often land ahead of their front feet, creating an imprint that can resemble a tiny cloven hoof. Let me get you a picture, Alan.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Okay. I mean, yeah. It looks like rabbit tracks. Yeah, I mean, I sure this is plausible. This does coincide with the great field mouse marathon of 1855. So there you have it. You know, they did they did also find thousands of field mice with uh little numbers pinned to them.

SPEAKER_00 19:54

An article published just weeks after the incident in the Illustrated London News even included diagrams showing how rodent tracks could produce hoof-shaped impressions under certain snow conditions. One rumor claimed that two kangaroos had escaped from a private menagerie near Sidmouth and were responsible for the mysterious tracks.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

I think this is the most plausible.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

The story gained enough traction that it was mentioned in contemporary newspapers. But the Reverend G. M. Musgrove later admitted he never truly believed it happened at all.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

I was really hoping his name was going to be G. M. Muskrat. Instead, he It's a Scooby-Doo situation. Yeah, it was He's trying to scare people away from the town so that he can build his shopping mall or something.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

That's right. Instead, he intentionally repeated the rumor because many of his parishioners had become convinced the devil himself had walked across Devon. If people were willing to blame a kangaroo instead of Satan, he considered that an improvement.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

This is imagining. Hear me out. What if it was a kangaroo? Huh?

SPEAKER_00 21:04

I mean, it the kangaroo might be the most because they can jump.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

I don't think kangaroos do great in the snow.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yeah, but that's why they're running.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

They're trying to get 100 miles.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

They're trying to get free. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

Look at kangaroo tracks. It looks very different.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

Just looks like human feet, kind of.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

Kangaroos are crazy animals.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Yeah, I know. I'm scared of them.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Why?

SPEAKER_00 21:24

Have you seen them like beat up people and each other? They're like super jacked. Have you seen like kangaroos fighting?

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah. And I don't like that.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

And they they disembowel with their little little talons on their bottom feet.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah, I r I am too afraid of them.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

And they choke out dogs and drag them into the water.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Yeah. It's horrible.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

It's kind of wild.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

Yeah. They're very violent.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

I did hug a kangaroo.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Why? If you had the opportunity, would you I know, but I mean what was the situation?

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Uh I was there with a kangaroo.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Where?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Someone said you can hug him, and so I hugged the kangaroo.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

He hugged you back?

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Yeah, he's a he was like a hugging kangaroo.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Where were you?

SPEAKER_01 22:01

This is in Australia.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

You're at a zoo?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Uh, it was a kangaroo. I I guess it was a zoo, but like it was just kangaroos there. Sorry, no, that's not true. They had kangaroos and they had emus.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

It's like when we went to the wolf reserve.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Yeah, but that was to like to rehabilitate them and put them into the wild, but like that's great. Kangaroos in Australia are like deer. They are absolutely everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

It's it's actually somewhere between deer and squirrels. They are all over the place. Which, like, normally you picture the foreign land, you know, uh with all these exotic animals, and like that doesn't actually exist. But in Australia, they're yes, they are. Kangaroos are everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah, I have no interest in ever going to Australia, and I say that with all the love to all of my Aussie friends, but I'm so afraid of the wildlife in Australia, it really, really scares me.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

I mean, all you have to do is stay in the cities and you're okay. It's just when you kind of get into the output.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

But I have a friend who's Australian, and she said that even in Sydney, her parents, they have these massive spiders, and I'm just not interested. Sure. Just not

Runaway Balloon And Other Odd Theories

SPEAKER_00 23:05

interested. It just freaks me out. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 23:07

But fewer kangaroos in Sydney.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Okay. Well, that's good. It's something.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

You still see them along the highways.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

Years after the incident, author Gregory Household proposed that the mis These names. Proposed that the mysterious prince may have been created by an experimental balloon that accidentally broke free from the Devonport dockyard.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

I'm sorry, what?

SPEAKER_00 23:29

According to a story passed down through a local family, the balloon, like a military balloon, had been tethered with ropes ending in heavy metal shackles. As it drifted across the countryside, those shackles supposedly skipped and bounced across the snow, leaving behind a trail of evenly spaced impressions. The same account even claimed the military quietly covered up the accident because the runaway balloon damaged greenhouses, conservatories, and windows before finally coming down near Honaton. But there are obvious problems with this theory. If a balloon were dragging ropes and metal shackles behind it for dozens of miles, it's difficult to imagine them not snagging on trees, fences, or buildings long before completing the journey. The theory also doesn't explain why witnesses described the impressions as distinct hoof prints rather than random marks left by swinging metal.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

Seems plausible. You know, if it was maybe not just like a bobbing balloon, but more of like a military derrible driven by the devil, then he could kind of pilot it around and do put the put the little prints wherever he wants.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

That's true. That's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

A derrible piloted by the devil with a bunch of ropes to leave hoof prints on roofs.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Listen, I think in my heart of hearts that it's a combination, as always, right? Like I think maybe because people probably didn't go up to their roofs and like inspect these with a magnifying glass, maybe the weather balloon did skim across some roofs, and there was some strange footprints from, you know, the mice or whatever it is on the ground. And so when people all woke up that morning and they saw, like, oh my god, this looks like you know, I think it could be multiple things happened to happen in the same night.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Okay, so it's like half Santa, half the devil, with a mixture of just random hoof prints, right? That's my theory. We've reinvented crampus.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Santa's not part of it for me. Again, it's February. It's not we're not in Christmas time.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

But yeah, what no, like going across up and down drain pipes across rooftops, he sees you when you're sleeping. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

It's pretty spooky. And that's really where the mystery still stands today. Nearly every theory can explain one part of the story, whether it's the shape of the prints, their appearance on rooftops, or the sheer number of reports. But none can comfortably explain every detail recorded in the newspapers of 1855 if you believe in those reports. Whether the devil's footprints were made by mice, badgers, an escaped military balloon, or a series of unrelated animal tracks, or something we'll never fully understand, the story has endured for nearly

Why Urban Legends Outlive Evidence

SPEAKER_00 26:15

175 years. What's more interesting about this story than the tracks and why we're talking about it, is again how people responded when confronted with something they can't immediately explain. And again, just to kind of reiterate why I think this is such a fun place and time to look at, because some people initially were like, okay, yeah, these are the tracks I think it is. And other people were like, it's the devil. And it's just like a wonderful historic intersection of, you know, different beliefs kind of like melding in one time. In many ways, the devil's footprints may be one of Britain's original urban legends. A strange event was witnessed by real people, amplified through newspapers, reshaped as it spread from town to town, and gradually transformed into something larger than life.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

Like Candyman.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

That's right. Every retelling added a little more mystery, a little more certainty, and a little more fear. We've seen this pattern before. It's the same process that gives us tales like Springheel Jack, Phantom Clowns, The Mothman, the Black Eyed Children, and Countless Haunted Roads and Disappearing Hitchikers.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Don't forget about ghost trains.

SPEAKER_00 27:22

I never would. One of my favorite urban legends. A kernel of truth becomes wrapped in rumor, folklore, and speculation until it's almost impossible to separate history from legend. And maybe that's why the devil's footprints continue to fascinate us. Not because they prove the supernatural, certainly, but because they remind us that people have always tried to make sense of the unknown. Sometimes we reach for science, sometimes we reach for folklore, and sometimes all that's left behind are a few mysterious footprints in the snow and a story that keeps emerging.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

I think all these stories are so interesting. Like, you know, it it's the epitome of like slow news day, uh, where it's just like we we had some footsteps on our roof. Oh, I had some footsteps in my yard. Let's all get together and figure out which devil it was.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Yeah, yeah. And there's some, I mean, I there's not like a uh I cannot falsely claim that this is a huge horror trope, but there are some film interpretations.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Really?

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yes, there are. There is a 2016 film called The Devil's Footprints. Some of these are, of course, um top tier. Like documentary, right? There's actually a segment of a show with George Decay that talks that talks about it. Fiction that was inspired by it, so not like, you know, documentary. We have Dark Was the Night from 2014, which was a film that was very loosely inspired by the Devin Footprints. Seven Footprints to Satan from 1929.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Seven Footprints to Satan.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Wow, that's a great title.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Yeah. And then there's some that are like similar, right? The the devil's uh the Jersey Devil from 1909, which um is just kind of like similar in its folklore. But let's look at uh Seven Footprints to Satan. Okay, it has almost seven out of ten, which I feel like for a movie from 1929 is not bad. Before a planned African expedition, a man's fiance worries that her father that her father's guest plans to steal one of his rubies. The couple is kidnapped and held prisoner at a mysterious, creepy house. Strange things are afoot at a at Satan's house.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Oh my stars.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Stars Thalmat Todd. So maybe we'll have to give that one a watch.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Sounds too scary.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Well, Alan, that is all I have for you on the devil's footprints or the Devon footprints of 1855. I know this one is a little bit, you know, of a hardcracking news. Yeah, it's a little bit like light, perhaps, but um I've just been on this urban legend kick this summer, and this felt like something that kept coming up in different like, you know, research that I was doing. And so, you know, worth spending a little bit of time rounding it out.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

I think if you write this up into your sub stack, this is what's really gonna win you the Pulitzer.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

You think so? Yeah. Okay,

Final Takeaways And Sign-Off

SPEAKER_00 30:15

we get to work on that.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

Please do. Just could start conducting interviews of people who were there.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

Okay, fabulous. As always, thank you all so much for being here and putting up with us. We appreciate you. Stay spooky, stay safe. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.