It was a chilly winter evening on the twentieth of February eighteen thirty eight, as the Alsop family were just getting ready for bed. The elderly mister and Missus Orsop lived with their three daughters on bar Binder Lane in old Ford, a small village clustered around the River Lee on the northeast outskirts of London. A man of above average means, mister Orsop's family cottage was larger than most in old Ford, protected by a high wall and front
gate which was locked every night. Burglaries were not uncommon in the area, and footpads Highway robbers that operated on foot sometimes lurked on the quiet country lanes after dark, ready to pounce on unsuspecting travelers. With the notion of a professional police force only a fledgling idea at the time, country dwellers tended to stay at home after nightfall. Knights in the main were reassuringly quiet, save for the occasional
hooting of an owl or scream of a fox. So it startled the whole family when the bell on their front gate began to jangle violently just after a quarter to nine Inside the cottage, eighteen year old Jane also looked uncertainly at her parents and two sisters, Sarah, the oldest, busy looking after their parents, insisted that Jane take care of it. Jane waited for a moment in the ensuing silence,
hoping the caller might leave them alone. Then the bell rang out again, even louder, this time, throwing a shawl around her shoulders. Jane unbolted the door and stepped out into the misty night. From there, she could just make out the figure of a tall man standing outside their front gate in the lane. As she drew closer to him, she could see he was enveloped in a large cloak and wearing what appeared to be some sort of headgear. The man was exceptionally tall. Jane looked back to the
cottage and then back to the man. Can I help you, she asked. I'm a policeman, said the man tersely. For God's sake, bring me a light. We've caught spring Hill Jack here in the lane. The name startled her. She knew of it well, but had thought it was merely an urban myth, all those tales of a ghostly figure said to be able to leap ten feet in the air that was supposedly terrorizing londoners. Just wait a moment, said Jane, feeling a shiver of fear as she hurried
back to the cottage with trembling fingers. She gathered a candle holder and candle and raced back outside, where the man was still waiting for her by the gate. Hurriedly, Jane made her way down to the strangely tall man and handed over the candle, straining her neck for a glimpse of the fabled jack. But the man didn't run off to confront him as she expected. Instead, in one's swirling motion, he swept off his cloak and held the
lighted candle in front of his chest. Jane let out a piercing, involuntary scream at the sight now revealed in the candle's flickering glow. The man's face was hideous, with eyes that seemed to blaze like burning coal. He wasn't wearing a hat, as she first thought, but some kind
of peculiar helmet while underneath his cloak. She saw then that his body seemed to be encased in a strange, tightly fitting white oil skin garment, like a sailor might wear or slaughter house worker, perhaps, as Jane put it in her terrifying account that she gave to the local council the following day. The man then rushed toward her, spewing blue and white fire from his mouth right into her face. Before she could run away, he seized her by her dress and neck and pinned her head under
one arm. Then he began viciously tearing at her clothes and hair, shrieking repeatedly in terror. Jane struggled in his grasp, and somehow she fought him off, managing to pull away. In that moment, she saw with unbridled horror that where the man's fingers should have been were long, sharp metal talons instead. The man or whatever he was, attempted to grab Jane again, tearing at the skirts of her dress
as she bolted towards the front door. Just as she reached for the handle, the fiend caught up with her again on the doorstep. As she screamed for help, the man clawed at her again, pulling out several clumps of hair as he did so. Jane's two sisters, hearing her screams, rushed to the door to help, but Mary, the youngest,
was too overcome with fright to do anything. Finally, Sarah, Jane's older sister, managed to drag her out of her assailant's clutches and back inside the cottage, slamming the door shut behind them. The sisters tumbled to the floor in a blind panic, while the attacker continued to beat on the door, so much so that they thought he might break it down. As Jane and Sarah screamed for the man to go away, the elderly mister and missus Alsop
went upstairs to try and see what was happening. Seeing the terrifying look of the man from above, the pair wrenched open an upstairs window and shouted into the night for someone to help them. A quarter of a mile away, at the John Bull Public House, the orsops cries were heard by a group of men who set off immediately to investigate, but by the time they made it to the Orsop's cottage the attack appeared to be over. Inside the house, they found a deeply distressed Jane being tended
to by her family. Her dress was torn to ribbons, her face, neck and shoulders covered in deep scratches, and several large clumps of hair had been pulled from her head spring hill Jack, it seemed, was not an urban myth. After You're listening to Unexplained and I'm Richard McLean Smith. Most countries and cultures have their own version of a bogey man, and pre Victorian Britain was no different. Many
of them given the epithet of Jack. In rural British folklore, Jack in the Green, as it was sometimes called, was just one name for the nature sprites and mischief makers known as Puck or the green Man. In the Welsh borders, Jack o' kent was a legendary figure who'd supposedly once made a pact with the devil. At the turn of the nineteenth century in Britain, the Industrial Revolution and a new era of technological development was in full swing as
people migrated from the country into the cities. These migrants brought their rural folklore and stories of the supernatural with them. As people attempted to make sense of the brave new world emerging around them, they casually populated it with strange phenomena and sinister figures. Around eighteen o three and eighteen o four, stories started to circulate of ghosts haunting the
lonely lanes in the countryside. Around London. These pale figures, often clad in what appeared to be a white shroud, were said to stalk and attack lone pedestrians, especially women, after dark. In Hammersmith, on the western fringes of London, a ghostly figure was said to have assaulted a woman while she was walking past the chapel one winter evening. According to contemporary accounts, the specter grasped the woman in its arms, causing her to faint. The woman was said
to have died from shock two days later. Two men were walking through that chapel's churchyard sometime around nine p m. When something stood up from behind a gravestone and grabbed one of them by the throat. The man was violently turned around as if to face it, only to find that there was nothing there. Yet, when he struck out with his fist, he felt something in the emptiness in front of him. It was like punching through the material
of a large coat. He said. It was all enough to convince one man named Francis Smith to begin nightly patrols in the area armed with a gun. Late one night in January eighteen o four, Smith was pacing the streets alone when he suddenly spotted a ghostly white figure approaching. Damn you, Who are you and what are you? Damn you? I'll shoe u jew, he said, then took aim and fired.
The white figure collapsed instantly to the ground. Moments later, a deeply distraught Smith found himself standing over the body of Thomas Millwood, a bricklayer, walking home from work in his traditional white clothes. Francis Smith was initially sentenced to death for the crime, but later had his sentence reduced to a year's hard labor on account of the fact that Smith was thought to have truly believed that Millward was a ghost and therefore less culpable for his murder.
A man did actually come forward admitting to being the so called Hammersmith ghost. Shoemaker John Graham, claimed that he began parading round the streets in a white sheet to try and scare an apprentice of his. However, sightings of a ghostly white figure stalking the streets of London persisted
for the next twenty years. Between eighteen twenty four and eighteen twenty six, in the countryside surrounding London and Hampshire in South England, something else appeared to have emerged, known as the Southampton Ghost, since the story originated in Southampton on the English south coast. It was said to be skeleetally thin and over ten feet tall. Newspaper reports of this character mentioned that the specter was also able to
jump very high. An account in the Northampton Mercury on the twenty first of January eighteen twenty six described that a person had been spotted nightly in Southampton wearing some kind of mask. The ghoulish figure had been fired at without effect due to apparently being enveloped in steel armor. They were also said to wear a pair of spring boots, which enabled them to vault over a ten feet wall.
One witness apparently gave chase, and though they couldn't quite catch them, got close enough to report the specter was a tall man wearing a dark coat with shiny metal buttons. In early September eighteen thirty seven, local newspapers in the counties surrounding London began to report a series of attacks perpetrated by what was variously described as an imp, a bear, a devil, a ghostly white bull, or simply a ghost
clothed in white, sometimes wearing chain mail or armor. Over the next two months, the mysterious figure was said to have made attacks in a total of two dozen villages to the south and the west of London, most of them on women, and the specter's behavior had become more violent.
On the eleventh of October, Polly Adams, a tavern worker from black Heath, was attacked by a so called devil like gentleman at Blackheath Fair, who tore off her blouse and scratched her stomach with its claws before escaping by leaping over a fence. A little later that month, a domestic servant was set upon while walking across Clapham Common. The assailant ripped at her clothes and touched her body
with cold claws. She recounted some local residents had rushed to her aid, but the attacker was nowhere to be found. The following day, occupants of a carriage witnessed a man jumping into the road in front of them, causing their driver to swerve and the carriage to crash. The man jumped away over a nine foot wall, emitting a maniacal
laughter as he went. One foggy night during the last week of December in eighteen thirty seven, a carpenter named mister Jones was walking home along Cutthroat Lane in Ileworth, West London, when he claimed to have been attacked by a figure dressed in armor and wearing red shoes. Jones said that when he fought back, two more ghosts, as he called them, joined in the attack, leaving him badly
beaten and its clothes torn to shreds. The gothic atmosphere of London streets, bathed in swirling fog and illuminated by pockets of light from gas slaps, which only served to emphasize the darkness around them, was the perfect place for the attacks and fertile ground for the fearful imaginings of the public. When the London newspapers began to print reports of what was initially called the Suburban Ghost, they were first skeptical, describing the sightings condescendingly as the sort of
rumours that inevitably circulate among servant girls. But after the ghost was said to have made an appearance at Hampton Court Palace, former home of King Henry the Eighth, the press came up with another name for it, spring heeled Jack. However, both local newspaper reporters and the police were struggling to find hard evidence that might lead to a genuine suspect or an arrest, but as many newspapers of the time conceded,
something was caused the panic. Several favored the rumour that a gang of aristocrats were carrying out the attacks for a bet. This rumor seemed to be substantiated when an anonymous resident of Peckham in South London wrote to the Lord Mayor of London stating that a man from the higher ranks of life, as he put it, laid a wager with a mischievous and full hardy companion that he would visit many of the villages near London in three
different disguises, a ghost, a bear, and a devil. The man continued, the wager has been accepted, and the unmanly villain has already succeeded in depriving seven women of their senses. The Lord Mayor was unconvinced, saying that the letter writer had merely been frightened by burglars and wanted retribution. Several vigilante groups disagreed, however, including one led by none other
than the then seventy year old Duke of Wellington. Despite having once led an army that defeated Napoleon, he failed to accost the culprits. There's no record as to whether the aristocratic wager was won, or even existed for that matter. Nonetheless, the attacks continued unabated in and around London throughout early eighteen thirty eight and on into February, the same month that eighteen year old Jane Olsop was attacked outside her
home in old Ford. About the same time, a mile to the west, a man in a cloak wrapped on the door of a house in Turner Street and asked to speak to the owner, mister Ashworth. But before the servant boy who answered the door could fetch his master, the caller threw back his cloak and revealed a sinister of his liage and bizarre costume underneath. The frightened boy screamed so loudly that the cloaked figure ran off, but not before the boy noticed one intriguing detail on the cloak,
an elaborate letter w embroidered on its hem. For some, this w was a vital clue which sparked an entirely new rumor centered around an Irish nobleman known as the Marquis of Waterfort or alternatively as the Mad Marquis. Henry Beresfort was never supposed to have been the third Marquis of Waterfort. Born in eighteen eleven, he was a second son and should have slowly marched down the family order of succession as his older brother George, married and had
heirs of his own. But in eighteen twenty four, George contracted an inflammation of the bowels and died two days later at the age of fourteen. Two years after that, Henry's father died, and so Henry inherited the family title and all its money at the age of just fifteen. His first few years as a marquis was spent in private school. Then came the revelry, Young and most likely bereft at the death of his older brother, followed soon
after by his father. At a time of fairly strict gender roles, he was without any male parental guidance and mind blowingly wealthy. The debauchery started almost immediately after. Somewhat less than gentlemanly behavior on a trip to the U s A With supposedly well to do friends, the Marquess of Waterford began to make headlines back in England for all the wrong reasons. In the late eighteen thirties, his name came to be so anonymous with brutal jokes, vandalism,
and misogyny. This was a man of whom, it was said, would do anything for a bet. In eighteen thirty six, on one occasion, the Marquess of Waterford smashed several windows. On another he offered strangers money to fight him, and another time got into an altercation with a man on horseback when he demanded that he ignore the gate keeper on a toll road and pay him the money instead.
But that was just a warm up. In April the following year, the Marquis went to the races with a group of friends, after which began another night of debauchery. They smashed the shutters of a toll gate, stole some red paint, then walked to a nearby pub called the Old White Swan. The Marquis was hoisted onto the shoulders of his friends, where he proceeded to paint the Swan red.
The group continued overturning caravans, throwing signs into a canal, smashing lamps, and wrenching off door knockers, all while spreading red paint in their wake. An escapade that is thought to be the origin of the phrase to paint the town red. The group were arrested and subsequently appeared before the local magistrate wearing bare skin coats and large cravats. Henry Beresford, the Marquis of Waterford, is known to have been present in the London area by the time the
first apparent attacks by spring hiel Jack took place. Had he been spending his leisure time developing and indulging in bizarre and elaborate pranks. Was he aided in a betted by friends constructing some sort of apparatus that resulted in spring heeled boots. Did he practice fire breathing techniques in order to increase the unnatural appearance of its character. It's quite possible that he wasn't the only member of so
called high society acting up. Many members of the aristocracy had the time, resources, and inclination to create convincing ghostly appearances, then used their money and influence to avoid prosecution. Within just a few days of the attack on Jane Alsop, toward the end of February in eighteen thirty seven, Spring Heeled Jack struck again. Eighteen year old Lucy Scales and her sister were waylaid as they returned home from a visit to their brother, one of many butchers that operated
in the Lmehouse area of London's Docklands. In the freezing misty night. With a little light to guide their way, the pair turned into the narrow, twisting passage of Green Dragon Alley. There they spotted a thin cloaked stranger standing a little further down the alleyway, As the young women later recalled, when they approached the man, he suddenly threw open his cloak, displaying a strange lamp thing strapped to his chest, and blew flames from his mouth straight into
Lucy's face. Screaming in horror, Lucy fell to the ground, temporarily blinded and in severe pain. She later described her attacker as tall and thin and looking gentlemanly. She said also that he wore a large cloak and what she described as some kind of head dress much like a bonnet. There were no other witnesses to the assault. After Lucy scales Is apparent attack, she was examined by a surgeon. Her report made no mention of her having sustained any burns.
When Jane Alsop was examined after the incident in old Ford. The report compiled by the police surgeon who conducted it also failed to mention anything about burns, So where did the alleged flames come from. Fire breathing involves spitting a jet of flammable liquid into a blazing torch. For performers using it in the carnival and circus trade, it's typically the most dangerous part of their act. Things can go
badly wrong, especially if the feat is performed outdoors. In his autobiography Memoirs of a Sword Swallower, the twentieth century carnival artist Dan Mannix describes how one night, early on in his career, he watched as America's leading fire eater at the time, prepared for his act. Holding a flaming torch well away from his body. The performer took a mouthful from a glass of petrol and stood waiting for
the breeze to die down. Then a small trickle of petrol accidentally leaked from the corner of the performer's mouth, and an errant spark from the torch, blown by a sudden gust of wind, leapt through the air, igniting the petrol. There was a blinding flash of light as flame o'ed the grate as he was known, erupted in flames, his whole face on fire at the sinister Spring Heeled Jack.
Whoever or whatever they were, employed something similar. Either way, there are no substantiated reports of him breathing fire after the attack on Lucy Scales. By this time all of London was aware of spring Heeled Jack, and imitators seemed to be cropping up in his wake. In early eighteen thirty eight, a smartly dressed man called in at the White Lion Pub in vere Street and coolly told the landlady that he was spring Heeled Jack. He pulled out a club and aimed a vicious strike at the woman,
who managed to dodge the blow just in time. In March, two tall men in black cloaks, their faces smeared with okra, terrified a boy in Westmoreland Muse, while a youth named Daniel Granville was caught in Kentish Town wearing a mask with blue glazed paper at the mouth to simulate Jack's fiery breath. Meanwhile, a man named James Painter was fined
four pounds for his exploits in the Kilburn area. Where he assaulted women while wearing a fake beard and a sheet all In all, the many sightings of supposed ghosts and tall men lurking in alleyways, though terrifying for the public,
were rarely taken seriously by city officials. But the assault on Jane Allsop was different, partly because the Allsops were a family of significant means, but also because of the testimony that Jane made at the Lambeth Street Police Office the day after the attack, along with a surgeon's description of her injuries, which was printed in many London newspapers. On the second of March eighteen thirty eight, the national newspaper The Times ran the story under the heading the
late Outrage at old Ford. It prompted two investigations, the first conducted by the recently established London Metropolitan Police. The second was overseen by the much revered officer James Lee. Lee was employed by the Lambeth Street Police Office to investigate cases that came before the local court. Reputed to have been the best detective in London during the eighteen thirties,
Lee had a decade of investigative experience. He was perhaps best known for the part he played in solving one of the most sensational British crimes of the early eighteen hundreds, the murder at the Red Barn. Though many doubted Jane Lsop's account of her terrifying encounter, John Lee had no doubt she was telling the truth. In fact, the same day that Jane, along with her father and older sister, gave evidence of the attack to the Lambeth Street Magistrate,
Lee was already beginning his investigation. He was determined to catch the attacker. But can you even catch a ghost? You've been listening to Unexplained Season seven, episode five, Jumping Jack's Part one of two. The second and final part will be released next Friday, September fifteenth. This episode was written by Diane Hope and produced by Richard McLain smith. Unexplained is an Avy Club Productions podcast created by Richard
McClain smith. All other elements of the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me Richard McClain smith. Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories never before featured on the show, is now available to buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to get in touch with any thought or
ideas regarding the stories you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach us online through Twitter at Unexplained Pod and Facebook at Facebook dot com, Forward slash Unexplained Podcast