[JERSEY DEVIL PART 1] is the thirty-eighth file of the Princeton Tapes, and the fifth file on Tape 3, which was found by Rabbit #061 (Discord user DixieWolf) in Box #7 on 31 December 2018.
Transcript[]
Vince: Hey, Roger!
Roger: Hey, Vinny, how you doin’?
Vince: Good, good. Y’know, I- I’ve lived in this town for a while, but I’ve never actually stepped foot on the campus.
Roger: Well, I mean, why- if you didn’t have any reason to, why would you? [He laughs.] It’s like, oh, okay, I’ll- gonna pay a visit to the college campus, just for- just to spend an afternoon.
Vince: Um...Does it ever bother you that this is like, a medieval castle?
Roger: Uuuuuhm...I kinda like it, honestly. Um-
Vince: Huh.
Roger: Y-you know, it’s a good aesthetic. So yeah, do you wanna...do you wanna step in here real quick, to-
Vince: Yeah, yeah, sure.
Roger: You said you had something to talk about, so-
Vince: Yeah, let me just- take a seat here, um, so, should I just spill my story and you can kinda pick apart what makes sense and what doesn’t?
Roger: Go for it, I can keep up, trust me.
Vince: Alright, okay. Alright, so I’m gonna skip the part about the lights, because I already told you about the lights the other day. Ah, but before that, so, maybe a month or two before the lights, ok, so the whole reason that I was even thinking about looking into the lights was because, same road, different night,
Roger: Okay.
Vince: I’m driving home, from- from one of my meetings, and-
Roger: Meetings?
Vince: [He sighs] Yeah, I don’t- I- we’ll get into that later, but-
Roger: Fair enough.
Vince: I have like a weekly meeting-
Roger: Yeah, I understand.
Vince: Okay? Thank you, I appreciate it.
Roger: Weekly meetings of a club you may not necessarily want to talk to the- details, I-I get it, I get it, I get it.
Vince: Awesome, okay. So, it happened every Tuesday, so I know it was a Tuesday, both nights were Tuesday. I’m driving home, look out my driver’s-side window, and I see an animal, and I’m like, “Oh, okay”, I kinda look back, eyes-on-the-road sorta situation, and I look back again, and it’s still there. And I’m going 45 miles an hour, and this thing is keeping up on the side of the road, like, matching my speed, not breaking forward, not slowing down, right next to my car.
Roger: Okay…
Vince: So I’m like, freaking out, because first of all, fast animals are- are scary to begin with, cuz I don’t want it...anywhere near me-
[Roger laughs.]
Vince: But it looks like..like, a naked dog? Like, a dog that someone shaved all the fur off of, and then starved.
Roger: Vivid.
Vince: Yeah, uh...I just can’t get that image out of my mind, between that and the lights, does that sound like anything to you?
Roger: I mean...Dogs can’t run that fast, horses can, obviously, and you know, maybe like a...like a...I- I mean, honestly, it kinda sounds- Are you familiar with the Jersey Devil at all?
Vince: I’m not.
Roger: Really?
Vince: No, definitely nothing that leads to- like, I’ve heard of the Jersey Devil but I don’t know much about it.
Roger: Alright, um, well, it’s, uh- Honestly, it’s kinda weird that it’s that far north, because in all the stories I’ve heard it’s a little further south, from where you’re talking about.
Vince: South, as in...Alabama, Florida-
Roger: Yeah, sure, the Jersey-Alabama Devil, no, no, no, it’s in the- you know, like in Pine Barrens, that kinda area, um, yeah, it’s- it’s- it’s um, so, according to the- the stories that have been passed down, um, uh, it looks kind of- like you said, kind of starved and, you know, hairless...Did the thing that you saw have hooves, because most of the people that say that they saw the Jersey Devil say it might have had some kind of hooves, something like that.
Vince: It might have, but it was going so fast, I mean it was kinda low to the ground, so if it did, I don’t know.
Roger: Okay, so lemme- I’m trying to remember cuz ah, it’s- I’m not the one that’s been covering the Jersey Devil in our zine so I’m trying to remember, I believe it is uh, so, main characteristics, uh, it has- has hooves, obviously, like I said, like a horse, uh, same with its head, it’s either a horse, or maybe a goat depending on who you ask, um, uh, wings, uh, hairless, like you said-
Vince: Oh, oh, wait wait wait wait wait- wings?
Roger: Uh- Yeah.
Vince: Yeah, uh...No, this thing definitely didn’t have wings.
Roger: Well, it can tuck them in, too, y’know, to the side of its body, you know, kind of like a…like a, like a like, a- you know, an ostrich or something, you know, it’s got wings, but it can- it can hold them in real close, and sort of run along the ground, like I said, and- plus, you’d be surprised how many people say that they’ve seen, y’know, someone or something keeping pace with their car, like maybe if it’s late at night or something, running alongside, I’ll usually- a lot of the stories say that it’s a person, um, but sometimes it’s some other kind of creature-type thing, but… I-it’s, it’s kinda sounds-
Vince: The Jersey Devil?
Roger: Not necessarily, but this particular one, it kinda sounds like the Jersey Devil to me, just from what you’ve said.
Vince: Kay… [He sighs.] Alright, so if we wanted to find out more about the Jersey Devil, we- well, since you said you’re not the expert on it, who do you think we could talk to?
Roger: Well, so, down in Pine Barrens, there...there’s still a bunch of old villages down there, cuz you know those colonial era vill-villages that have still managed to survive by one way or another, um, and, k- y’know, kinda like Salem, I guess, uh, so, y’know, there’s people down there, um, since that’s where the stories kind of originate, so there’s, they’ve got, well, sort of like historical societies and people that are really into preserving the- the legends, that kind of thing, and you know, they’ve got, they’ve got like uh, you know, like park tours and speakers and uh, y’know all that kind of stuff, so we might be able to ask somebody down there if you wanna- if you wanna make a little road trip.
Vince: You know what, yeah, so- so they have people down there who are gonna like, know about this stuff, they’re gonna know like- not just about all the history- they’re gonna be able to talk about the Jersey Devil.
Roger: I mean, that-
Vince: And give us-
Roger: That’s where the stories come from, so I imagine they would know better than anybody else.
Vince: Okay- Okay, yeah, um, do you know how to get there?
Roger: Uh, I certainly do, if you want to uh, w-if you- you might wanna uh, partner up for a little trip, perhaps.
Vince: Sure- I can- Sure, absolutely, yeah!
Roger: Okay, so let’s- let’s plan this out this weekend?
Vince: Sure, absolutely.
Roger: Looking- I-I’ve been wanting to go down there for a while to maybe include another feature, so this would be a good time to uh, y’know, kill two birds with one stone or whatever. Um-
Vince: Perfect, alright, so okay, yes, uh, so I will call you, I’m gonna go home and see what I have to get done before this weekend, but let’s...let’s do it.
Roger: Love it, love it.
Vince: Awesome. Alright, I will get back to you again, um, I’m just gonna keep calling the same number you gave me, right?
Roger: Perfect, I’ll be around, I will be around.
Vince: Alright, alright, catch you soon.
Roger: Alright.
[Ends.]
External links[]
- YouTube Video compilation of the Tape 3 audio files.