B.S.Watch: It's Not a Devil, It's Just Friend Owl

    Welcome one and all to B.S.Watch, another segment that I hope to update semi-regularly. As you can probably gather from the segment name, this is where I'll be sharing with you some of the worst, thinnest, most laughable attempts by government agencies, scientists, and just plain ol' skeptics to explain away strange sightings, paranormal phenomenon, and cryptid creatures like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. Now, of course everyone has a right to their own opinion, and I think some healthy skepticism is a good thing; even I don't believe in everything (Goatman of Pope Lick, I'm looking at you. Or, well, I would be, if I thought for a second you were real, which I don't.). These posts will not be about plausible, rational debunkings of the stranger aspects of this world. No, these posts will be about those proposed explanations that insult the intelligence of everyone they're being spoon-fed to, allowing me to mercilessly mock the ones putting that crap forth just as they seem to enjoy mocking us through what they expect us to believe. I refuse to just sit down, swallow these ridiculous theories, and shut up, and so should you. So for my first post, I thought I might start with a local legend where I'm from, for centuries now the terror of New Jersey (is a Pauly D reference too cliched at this point?): The Jersey Devil. Or, as some would have you believe, Dear Old Friend Owl.
    Witness: "I just saw it!!! I just saw it!!! It was standing only three feet away from me!!! It had the head of a horse, a kangaroo-like body, hooves like a goat's for its feet, little horns on its head, a long forked tail, and, oh yeah, giant bat wings!!!"
    Professional skeptic: "Calm down bro it was probably just a great horned owl."

 

Well, now the confusion is understandable.

    Okay, so an owl has talons, and the tufts on its head might be mistaken for horns (hence the name). And it can be found in the Pine Barrens, where most Devil sightings take place, and yes, if you didn't know what the hell it was and all of a sudden it flew shrieking at you, talons extended and eyes glowing, the panic might cause you to remember slightly more devil-like and less owlish. If you had also been consuming some of the potent local applejack, that, too, might influence your perception of the encounter. So yeah, it's entirely possible that a few sightings of the Devil over the years have actually been spurred by misidentifications of this bird (though a sandhill crane has also been put forth as a possible candidate and, again, may fit some but not all of the sightings), but to say that the Devil is this bird consistently misidentified is just plain insulting. 

    First of all, "Adult great horned owls range in length from 43 to 64 cm (17 to 25 in), with an average of 55 cm (22 in), and possess a wingspan of 91 to 153 cm (3 ft 0 in to 5 ft 0 in), with an average of 122 cm (48 in). Females are somewhat larger than males." (Wikipedia) The Jersey Devil's reported height has varied throughout years of sightings, sometimes reported as around three feet in height but many times closer to six, so unless some radiation has leaked into the cranberry bogs that we don't know about and is producing mutated horned owls of amazing size, the general sizes of these two creatures doesn't match up so neatly. 

    Secondly, the Jersey Devil is routinely seen not just by drunks, hoaxers, or newbies wandering around in the woods for the first time who have never seen an owl outside a Harry Potter movie, but by seasoned hunters, trackers, and Pine Barrens residents who have lived there for generations and damn well know what a horned owl looks like. To insult their intelligence by telling them that they don't know what they saw or are misidentifying a creature that they're familiar with is, well, insulting. Would these skeptics walk into an architect's office and tell him he didn't know what a T-square looks like, or go up to a horse breeder and tell him that he couldn't tell a stallion from a fence post? Even professionals can make mistakes, but to dismiss sightings that have been up close and personal with the Beast of the Pine Barrens, not just a sighting at night from far across a wooded stretch of land, is just plain irresponsible.

    Thirdly, the animal described does not match the attributes of a great horned owl. Tufts that might be horns, talons; those they might share, but cloven hooves for feet? Huge, leathery, bat-like (as opposed to feathered) wings? A long, forked tail? A horse's or goat's head? These are specific, reoccurring identifiers in the many, admittedly varied, descriptions of the Jersey Devil since the first sightings started in the 1700s; I, for one, have never seen an owl that shared any of these qualities, and if one were one day to be found I suspect it would warrant a ranking on the "freaks of the world" list itself. It's one thing to suggest a creature like the sandhill crane, which is taller, more aggressive, has a bill that, I suppose, could be mistaken for a long face, and has a wider wingspan, but even that stretches the limit of credibility--again, yes, mistakes can be made and I'm sure often have been, but when the Jersey Devil is being described by somebody who got a good, long, clear look at it, whether while it was flying overhead or stealing a freshly baked pie off a Pine Barrens windowsill, and an animal is suggested that doesn't match the description much at all, pushing for skepticism at that point seems faintly ridiculous. Rather than simply admit that "No, I have no idea what the heck you just saw, Mrs. Reed, but we'll do our best to figure it out," hard-core debunkers and skeptics prefer to push a laughably thin "rational" narrative that isn't all that rational at all, once you get right down to it, and makes them, rather than the witnesses they're trying to discredit, seem the foolish ones. Guys, it's all right to admit you don't know every once and a while. Saying that it might just be a creature science has yet to recognize is a heck of a lot better than clinging to the explanation that it's an owl or a crane when it's clearly none of the above at least some of the time. But they'll never say that, because they're right and we're wrong and they know what they're talking about and we don't. Um, last time I checked that isn't how science is supposed to work... 

    I could go on for pages about this, but I feel like I've gotten my point across pretty well for the time being, so now, if you'll excuse me, I have a pie that I have to put out on the windowsill--I'll let you know if our good friend the Jersey Devil Mr. Owl shows up for a piece.