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Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Cryptic Cocktail Party, a show where we have a few drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive into the unknown. I'm your host Dave and today I am joined by Nicholas Einzman. I am not joined by Luke today. Luke is actually, he's currently being a pinball wizard at a pinball tournament because apparently he's pro now or something. But yeah, I'm joined by Nicholas Einzman. He, what'd you think of the new intro music bud?
What in the Tim Burton was that? What was that? You know what it felt like? It felt like I was playing Sonic Adventure Battle 2. And I was in the evil chow part of Chow Garden. It's Halloween. Put it back. It's Halloween. We're having fun here. It's quality content, which before we were recording, I said to you, if Cryptic Cocktail is about anything at all, it is quality content. It's quality content. It's wholesome content. That was a fun intro. No? Listen, it's your podcast. It's your pig.
It's your farm. Hey man, any time you can get a jaunty tune with a theremin over it, fucking sign me up bud. I'm all about it. You know, Christmas is coming up. Yeah. And? You might get a theremin. Dude, if I got a theremin, dude, I'd get divorced off the amount of annoyance that my wife would have to deal with if I had a theremin. What would happen is if I specifically bought you, Dave Prescott, a theremin, it would end up in my house because you would use it for a week.
Allie would kill you and she would drop it off by herself. Yeah, probably. So then I would own a theremin, which means you'd come over more. It would get donated real quick. And yeah, I don't know, do theremins. The one and only time I ever played a theremin was when my buddy Jan, we were, I was, I was doing merch for his band and we were on tour and we were in Seattle and we went to some like, I don't know, it was like a music museum or something like that.
And they had just a room where you could play instruments and me and him fucked around with the theremin for probably a good two and a half hours. I still have no idea how to play it. I don't even know if you can, like it's wild, but it's a fun instrument. It's a fun doodad. A little, yeah, a little doodad. Little deed-a-dood. Yeah. But anyways, how you doing, bud? You're looking good.
I'm feeling good, Dave. I'm, the YouTube channel's coming back, which got a whole new camera set up, which I'm very excited about. Yeah. Yeah. Filmed a good amount last night, but I'm excited for this week's episode. So what is this? It's like a prank show, right? Oh yeah. It's, it's, it's a prank show about luxury watches. It's a super fun time. Oh shit. Well, I'm glad you're joining us today.
Um, I, I, when I started the Jersey Devil series, you came to mind first about doing it and cause you spent a lot of time in the Pine Barrens and- I'll be there next weekend. Yeah. So I feel like this is right up your alley. You know, you probably know more about the Jersey Devil than either Luke or I do. Like a lot of the stuff that I'm learning while researching it, I'm learning for the first time. You look like you got something real important to say.
Well, I mean like- You know, this is an audio platform. No one can see what you're doing. Listen, I'm a few glasses of this delicious sheep dit sheep, sheep dip blended malted scotch. First of all, sheep dip sounds disgusting. And it's- Actually you've had it before and you liked it. Did I? Christmas. I'm not a Scotch guy. Yeah, maybe. I was probably already hammered though. Oh, absolutely. Christmas Eve at Nick Eintzeman's house is always a ridiculous time.
That was the one with Papa Eintzeman, right? Yeah, my dad was there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your house smelled like fish for so long. Because I cooked a lot of fish. So gross. Anyways, but yeah, so Jersey Devil, you know, you probably know more about it than anyone I know. Yeah. So the Pine Barrens in general are a super bizarre place, right? I mean, there's just, there's so many different cryptids that are running around and like different, like, you know, ghost tales that are being thrown around.
But obviously the most notorious is the Leeds Devil, aka, you know, good old Jersey Devil. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, because we went over some like, I guess like the ghost of Captain Kidd is said to haunt the woods. There's like the the devil dog or the hell hound that's in there. And then I read something about like a blue hole. It's just a blue hole. Yeah, so the the blue hole is interesting. For ours, I know of like some people that have seen the quote unquote seen the blue hole.
I mean, it's a real place, right? Isn't it? Yeah, it's it's a legitimate it's a what it's just a sinkhole. It's a sinkhole that turned into like a swimming hole. Yeah. But I feel like because I've become friends with the pine rats, as they call themselves, okay, this is not even making this. I know I 100 percent believe you. Everyone has like some form of Jersey Devil story or something weird that has happened to them in the pines.
Yeah. Well, good thing you brought that up, because this episode last episode, you went over like the different origin stories of the Jersey Devil. And for anyone listening who's jumping in to episode two and didn't bother with the origin stories, here's kind of like a brief, a brief rundown of what it is. So Mother Leeds cursed an innocent baby. Innocent baby turns into a nightmarish homunculus nightmare homunculus murders everyone and then fucks off up the chimney into the woods. Right.
Yeah. And it's the most believed or most accepted story. We did cover some of the other origin stories, but they were kind of like unimaginative. They were just basically the same story with like a few minor details changed, like a little twist and turns. Yeah. Like instead of it being birthed and then turning into the devil, there was one where she just gave straight up birth to like a five foot tall Jersey Devil.
There was one where instead of like it escaping immediately into the woods, she kind of held, like kept it inside away from everyone for a few years. And then it went insane and killed her and then fucked off into the woods. There was one story that I did like, and it was the one where they said that Mother Leeds was just like a woman who lived in Leeds County Jersey or something like that. And she fell in love with a British soldier.
And since it was, since this was like around the time of like the Revolutionary War, they did the whole town just put a curse on her. And when they gave birth, they gave birth to the devil. So that one is cool. And then the last one we covered, I think was Mother Leeds was a witch and just said that she straight up fucked the devil and gave birth to the Jersey Devil, which is pretty fucking metal if you ask me. Yeah. I mean, it fits that part of Jersey.
Yeah. There's not a lot going on out there. No. And I bet the devil is a very genuine, like generous lover. I mean, listen, you're, you're coming out right off the bat, you're in the Pineburns, which is actually the nation's capital of blueberries. So he's probably feeding Mama Leeds blueberries as he's, you know, yeah, flicking her blueberry. I mean, I just think you think about the devil's like the king of like, what's that word I'm looking for?
Like hedonism and like all like, he's like the king of like lust and seduction. I bet he fucks like a pro dude. Well, yeah, he's got all the blueberries around him too. He's, you know, he's whining and dieting. Blueberry wine. Blueberry wine. All right. So more scotch. So like I said, in this episode, I thought we would, we'd go over some of the more famous sightings of the Jersey Devil. And then you can, if you have any you want to add in like after or in, but just let me know.
But we're going to go over the ones that have happened over the years with one involving the relative of a very important historical figure. So one thing I found when trying to research like cryptid sighting stories is that and not just with this one, but like any cryptid in general is that if, if anything happened, if any occurrences happened after 1970, they're the most boring fucking mundane stories I've ever heard in my entire life. It's like, yeah, yeah.
I saw the Chupacabra out here in Topeka, Kansas. He was rummaging through my bins. So I said, go on get, and then it just left. And that's like 80% of all cryptid sightings post 1970. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to cover any of those because they're fucking boring, but their boringness does kind of, some of them does lend credence to the story just because of how boring they are. Like who would make that up?
Like who's Yeah. It's like, who's saying that the Jersey Devil is, you know, cutting someone's lawn, you know, like they stole someone's John Deere and they're, you know, cleaning out the backyard. I mean, we've all seen that happen though. So it is what it is. I mean, I live in equally one of the worst neighborhoods in Philadelphia and I see that shit all the time. It's the Jersey Devil just riding through. Oh yeah. Riding lawn mowers through.
Just takes my John, my imaginary John Deere out of my backyard. You're cruising down. Your eight by eight backyard. He's just got a riding lawn mower. My neighbors hate me. So with that, you want to, you want, you're ready to dive into some sightings? Always. You probably know, cause I really only have two sighting stories, but one of them occurs through like, it's like a bunch of occurrences that happen throughout the span of a week.
So really I only have two stories, not, but anyway, so as we covered in episode one, the Jersey Devil was birthed into existence in 1735 before killing his family and then escaping into the Jersey Pine Barrens. So the Devil has been seen sporadically throughout the 18th and 19th century with town folks and out of towners alike claiming to have caught a glimpse of the winged beast.
People also claim to hear haunting whales coming from the pines, as well as reports of livestock and even some family pets being slaughtered by an unknown entity that some would say was the Jersey Devil. So in one week in 1909, January 16th through the 23rd to be exact, if you're, if you're a big dates person, you know, I am a pretty big dates guy. Something changed and the Jersey Devil was pretty much out in full force.
Started out small reports of cloven tracks in the snow started coming in from all over the Delaware Valley and the tracks weren't just seen like walking across the ground. They were seen going over and under fences through yards and roads and even across rooftops. And these reports, reports weren't just like isolated to the rural areas. Reports were coming in from larger cities like Camden, Philadelphia, that kind of stuff.
So it really branched out from where it originally says that his like home is, I guess. Right. Well, I think that they really quickly stop you right there. People don't like don't grasp how big the pine barons are. Like the pine barons go from kind of like North Jersey down to past Philly, which is very, if you were to look at in a map, Jersey, South Jersey, like it is huge. So he just kind of does whatever he's got. Rambling. He's got free rein, man.
He can do whatever he wants and I'm not going to speak. This big old wings. They don't. They stop for nothing. Cash, grass or ass. You know what I mean? No, of course, this being the very early 1900s, people were obviously panicked that an actual devil baby was free from the confines of the barons and just roaming the city streets all willy nilly. So us Americans, we do what we do best when there's something going on that questions our worldview. Nick, can you guess what that is?
Oh, I'm assuming they joined a mob. They formed armed posses to try and hunt down the devil and pump that bastard full of lead. Cold hard American steel. I mean, what better way to do it than fill it up with Pennsylvania steel? You know what I mean? Exactly. And just to like illustrate to you, Nick, how widespread and real this panic was in lower New Jersey and Philadelphia, schools had to close early due to poor attendance or just straight up shut down.
And because people were leaving, they were like pulling their kids out to go 45 minutes east into the pines. No, they were they were trying to stay inside and hunker down. So that way the Jersey Devil wouldn't eat them. Yeah. Lumber mills in the pines were forced to close because workers refused to travel through the woods just to go to work. They were really afraid of the Jersey Devil, which is wild. Pine Barrens, no joke. The Pine Barrens is no joke.
Now. So the devil was then spotted in Camden, New Jersey, and then again in Bristol, Pennsylvania, where I work where you used to work. Yeah. And in both cases, the police were dispatched and immediately just started unloading clips at this thing. Just fucking do we know where in Bristol? I don't know. It didn't say it just said Bristol. Oh, man. But Bristol's not that big.
No. So like the Main Street, it's probably right on that bridge or right on that that overlook looking into the water over the river. It's probably right around there. Now, a few days later, it was spotted in Hayden Heights. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. Hayden, Haddon, whatever. Yeah. In Heights, where it attracted a trolley car full of people before taking off. Then it reappeared in West Collingswood on someone's roof.
Firefighters came and tried to blast it off the roof with their hoses. That is the most so funnily enough, that's where I was most of today. It was in Collingswood. Yeah. And I don't know if you've ever been over there, but it is a small New Jersey in town that is trapped in the 1950s. And that is the most Collingswood thing I've ever heard. There's something on my roof with the devil. They have a they have an ice cream parlor like slash diner called the Pop Shop.
And it looks like it has 1950s systematic racism. Yeah. But at the same time, that sounds like a fucking vibe and I want to go. Oh, I'm down to go anytime. I had a BLT there this morning. It was incredible. Oh, a BLT this morning. Yeah. What was like 11 o'clock? Yeah. I mean, I guess technically that's just toast with bacon. That's breakfast. Yeah, there's tomato on it. Yeah, that's fine. Whatever. It's a breakfast sandwich. No. So the devil obviously didn't like being attacked by a fire hose.
So it swooped, swooped, swooped, swooped down and attacked the firefighters before just getting out of there. Then the final incident that I could find during this devil's week long rampage again occurred in Camden when an older woman went outside to see the Jersey devil trying to eat her dog. Listen, you can only feed on pine rats for for so long. A good variety is, you know, to quickly hop back to your to your trolley story.
I've actually read a few different accounts where that trolley was attacked by the Jersey devil. It was attacked by and then there was a second trolley that I read was near there too. And I witnessed it or it got attacked also. Which is insane. Like you really don't hear outside of, you know, Sasquatch or Sasquatch throwing rocks at people. Yeah. Like these big notable cryptids really attack like taking the offense outside of Mothman. But I think he was genuinely just trying to warn people.
Yeah. But also to attack a group like not even like an individual, but to like attack a trolley car full of people. That's fucking wild, dude. Jersey gives no fucks. True. It's very true. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting because that week there was so much going on. There was so many different news outlets covering it. Yeah. There wasn't even just like a New Jersey and Philly thing. Like it was going all the way up to New York.
I don't know if you guys touched on like the fact that Ben Franklin was like fighting one of the lead sons for like a month and a half about that. No, we did not cover anything about that. That was a whole thing. The historical like Ben Franklin probably just wanted to fuck it. Let's be real. I mean, Ben Franklin probably did. He probably did. But yeah, so that's the that's the story of the Devil's Rampage that happened in 1909. Do that one week in January.
And like you said, there is a lot there. There are more like sightings and stuff happening. But these were the most like notable ones that like people actually were either attacked or they attacked it or police were involved. You know what I mean? Like, but yeah, it's a whole thing. And I think the cool thing for us, too, is like, obviously, it's no secret. David and I live both live in Philly about three blocks away from each other. Yeah, it's very nice. It's very nice.
But like the Philadelphia Zoo threw like a bounty on this thing. Oh, yeah. And there was I don't remember. It was either like five grand or like ten grand. But like back in the 1900s, that's your family's your entire family is set for life. Oh, yeah. But then also there was that like that fucking Penny Museum or whatever that claimed to have the real Jersey Devil just locked up. Yeah, it was like a five and dime museum. I think it was on Arch Street.
And they like I don't remember if he got a kangaroo or he got something and he like painted it and then put like fake wings on it. And he had some like kid typical South Philly kid just like prodding this thing to get it to like move and shit. Dude, free shows were so fucking wild back then. They tried getting away with that now, dude. They fucking the shit. So that would go on with. Oh, yeah. Different groups would just be it wouldn't last. But this would be a freak show.
Now would be what unites everybody. That's true. You let your freak in defense. Let your freak flag fly. Yeah, I do that. I can't say that. But I'm glad you brought up Ben Franklin. You want to know why? Oh, I'm assuming you're going to bring up another historical figure that is tied. Kind of the Jersey Devil. So softly tied. So the next story that I have for you comes from royalty. Can you get do you know? You know the story? I do know who you're talking about.
Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte and once the proud king of Spain before being forced to abdicate his throne in 1813 because he did a piss poor job of defending Spain from England during the Peninsular Wars, was forced into exile. I mean, listen, the Bonaparte's just shouldn't have been shouldn't have been leaders ever. Not one of historian.
But you know, so so in his exile, he settled in on 800 800 acres of land in Bordentown, New Jersey, located right in the middle of New York and Philadelphia. Now he chose this spot because at the time New York and Philadelphia were the two biggest seaports and he was able to keep up to date with the latest goings on in Spain and France. Now homeboy, even though he was no longer a king, doesn't mean he didn't ball out of control like one, Nick. OK, of course he did.
He built a massive mansion with landscaping, fountains, parkland, the whole nine yards. He even hosted parties there with like the likes of John Adams and Daniel Webster. Homeboy partied with the fucking dictionary guy. That's kind of awesome. And Sam Adams brother, so you know that beer was good. Yeah, maybe. I don't know. What does John Adams got to do? He didn't do any of that shit. Now, you probably you probably got the friends and family discount. No, none of this is relevant to the story.
I just needed to pad some of the story with a little bit of like words. So I added all that in. But it's just a little history lesson. And I thought that'd be good for everyone listening so that way they could say they actually like learned something real on the show that wasn't about the folkloric monster. Yeah. I mean, the cool part about that is like Joseph Vargaard was like a very revered hunter. Right.
Like people knew him as like the like if Napoleon didn't get France, you know, the idea was that Joseph was going to take over and that we would have the course of history would have changed. But obviously, Napoleon got France. But Joseph was like a very avid hunter. And the story goes that he was like hunting and he heard something, homie. And then he went on like, oh, don't get ahead of yourself, bro. I'm telling the story now.
I wasn't sure you said that you were just trying to give a spice lesson. Well, spice history lesson. So Joseph Bonaparte was hunting alone on a snowy afternoon deep in the woods as he's trekking his way through the forest. He comes across some odd looking tracks. Joseph described the tracks as looking like a two footed donkey with one foot being slightly larger than the other.
So he followed the tracks for some time before they just like abruptly stopped in the snow as if whatever he was hunting just either flew away or simply vanished. Now, as X King Bonaparte sat and stared at the tracks trying to figure out what kind of animal they could possibly be from, he heard a strange hissing noise coming from right behind him. Joseph slowly turned around and found himself face to face with a very large, very horse faced wing creature.
The frozen place due to what I can only assume is what I am calling load bearing terror. That's what you call it when you're so afraid that you just shit your pants. So I mean, I've been there. So the dude, the two just kind of sat there staring at each other for a bit. Neither one of them moving in my head.
They're doing that thing where they're really close face to face and they both keep kind of like glancing down at each other's lips as if they're going to kiss as if they're going to start making out. Yeah. So that's what happened. The creature hissed at him one last time, flapped its wings and then just took off into the woods. I have a feeling he clapped them Jersey cheeks. Probably.
Upon returning later that evening, Joseph recounted the story to a friend who informed them that he just came like face to face with the Jersey devil. Bonaparte loved the story of the Jersey devil and his origin story so much that he like, like you said, he made it a point to try and track it down every single time he went out hunting. But sadly he never did see it again and things in Europe around this time started to settle down.
So he returned to be with his wife in Italy, but he never forgot the devil. I'm sure the devil forgot him though, because Bonaparte really didn't do much to impress him. I mean, it was also the devil. I mean, he had other things too. Yeah. And I don't know if like Joseph was so afraid or like what, but dude was hunting. He had a gun. Why didn't he try and fucking shoot it? I'm sure he did. I mean, I think the problem is like the same thing that we deal with with every cryptid story, right?
Someone shoots it and misses. True. Or it just doesn't affect them at all. Right. Yeah. But, but yeah, those are, those are a couple of the couple sighting stories of the Jersey devil and that's all I got. I didn't don't have much more than that. Where are you at Nick? What are you thinking? I mean, listen, like I know plenty of people who were born and raised in the pines and you know, I would say at least five out of 10 or five out of eight have a Jersey devil story.
That's a, that's a pretty big ratio. Right. Like, so there's something going on out there. I mean, I haven't seen the, you know, the old, the old JD, I wish that I've seen the JD, but like I've had weird stuff happen with my brother while we were camping out there a few times. So, you know, do I want to believe? Absolutely, but like something, something regardless is going on out there. I don't know if I believe in the Jersey devil specifically.
Do I believe that there's probably shit in the pines that like is fucking around and fucking shit up? Yeah, I do. Big time. Big time. Cause Luke had a good story on our last episode about how he was camping and then he kept hearing someone walking around his tent, but he couldn't see anyone. And then when he went outside, he saw like there was footprints circling his tent, but they were bigger than his. He couldn't see anything when you, like, you know what I mean?
Like, so there is something there. I don't know if I believe in the Jersey devil though. So Jordan and I, yeah. I mean, that's the thing too is like these stories at this point are, you know, some of them are just under 200 years old.
Yeah. And back then people, you know, were known for embellishing, especially since back then a lot of the stories were word to like word of mouth and then it would get, it would get just embellished over time and time and time before it was actually ever eventually written down. Yeah. And I think right now what we're dealing with is there's so many generations of stories, right? Like my friend John like grew up in the Pine Barrens and he's, he's pretty straight shooter, right?
He's not like doesn't drink, doesn't smoke. He just does his own thing. Works for SEPTA. So you know, the city of Philadelphia trusts him to drive, you know, a bus. They trust anyone to do that though. True. But he hasn't crashed one yet. That's my knowledge. That's valid. My knowledge. But like he has a pretty wild story that like him and his friends were like out camping and like something like crashed into their tent and they couldn't get out quick enough to see what it was.
And they just ran off, right? And there was no deer tracks. There was no bear tracks, like nothing along those lines. And then Jordan and I were camping last April and it was so much like we didn't think it was the Jersey Devil, but there was some weird shit going on and kept hearing things all throughout the woods. Like I camp out there all the time. Like I have a pretty good idea of what deer sounds like.
What like, you know, you know, you know what the wilderness in your immediate area should sound like. It's 45 minutes, you know, door to camp. And we just kept hearing like weird stuff and like trees were getting slammed all over. And then the next morning we like, we're seeing all these weird lights. Not that it was like an alien light, but there's like weird shit going on. Yeah. It is also really early. It's, it's, you know, it's swamp gas. Oh, it's, I mean, we were right on a swamp.
All of it's swamp. It's all swamp gas. Any weird thing you saw? Swamp gas, bud. Clearly. But I mean, there's something going on in the pines. It's such a large area that they're, you know, for miles, you're really not seeing anybody. Yeah, it is, it is a big enough area where like it could sustain something, but it has also to be a breeding population. I mean, the Jersey devil technically is like, what's the word? A demon is like parent. Yeah. It's paranormal or whatever you want to call it.
So I guess you don't need that. But at the same time, like, come on, man, get out of town. I get it. I get it. I mean, listen, I think that this area of the nation is so old. Yeah. I'm not saying it doesn't exist. I'm just saying that it's going to take more for me to believe and I believe in a lot of weird fucking shit, man. I mean, listen, I still think that we you and I go out there with one of my portable recorders and we just record an episode.
And it's a bonus just sitting out in the pines drinking some Miller lattes. Also, I don't know if you can hear this right now, but you live semi close to me. Do you know about the the makeshift parades that go on? Yeah. There's one going on by my house right now and I can hear it. My door shut. The mattress is in front of the door and it's it's still loud. This morning we went to Urban Jungle that like a place in South Philly.
Yeah. We went there this morning and we fucking as we were parking, we had to go turn down a street. There's just a just a parade. And I don't know if it was like a Polish thing or what, but it's like just like polka and brass music. Oh, it's Oktoberfest. You know, no, I don't. But this sounded like fucking like it almost sounded more like a like those New Orleans like funeral type things. It was kind of like that. I don't know. Anyways, Nick, thank you so much for coming on.
Man, I appreciate it. Is there anything you want to plug before we? I mean, if you want to hear about someone nerd that on watches, go follow us on YouTube at a limited time LLC or follow me on Instagram at Neo Vintage dot Nick and I'll teach you about some watches. Hell yeah, but so, yeah, go follow whatever he just said on YouTube. And if you feel I'm waits for no man, if you're if you're feeling wily, you can follow us on Instagram at Crypto Cocktail. Follow us on Twitter at Crypto Cocktail.
Tick tock is Crypto Cocktail party. And then one more thing, since it's spooky and weird October month, we're going to be I'm going to be trying to put out a little midweek episodes about things that are less cryptid related and more witchy, spooky ghosts, kind of things like that, or maybe just even more folkloric stuff, kind of like this episode, you know, just just fun little stuff. So keep an ear out for that. But yeah, Nick, you want to say bye to everyone?
Well, Dave, thanks again for having me on the show. And we'll we'll have to meet up in person and I don't know, have a beer. Yeah, we'll do that, bud. Fantastic. Bye. It one of my favorite. Thank you. you