Who Made the Devil’s Footprints?

For the residents of Devon who lived close to the River Exe, February 8, 1855, was a chilly and snowy winter night. The area was blanketed in a heavy layer of snow when they woke up in the morning, but there was something else that aroused a great deal of curiosity, worry, and even panic. Many of the superstitious inhabitants quickly attributed the trails of marks in the snow that resembled cloven hooves to the devil.

According to The Times, a bipedal species, not a quadruped, left the traces, which appeared to have walked through walls and haystacks, over rooftops, and even across a river. Badgers and a kangaroo that escaped from a private zoo were two potential offenders. A alternative account said that the traces were actually made by the hoof prints of an experimental balloon that had been released from the Davenport Dockyard and had wandered over the landscape. But we are still unable to come to a firm conclusion.