THE LEGEND On the morning of February 8, 1855, the townsfolk of Devon, England, awakened to find a series of hoof-like marks in freshly fallen snow. The U-shaped tracks, measuring four inches long by two and three-quarter inches wide, continued throughout the countryside for over a hundred miles. Though veering at various points, the footprints, for the most part, followed a straight path, traversing over houses, rivers, haystacks—even through stone walls—as though no barrier could stop them. Word of the prints traveled quickly and it soon became apparent that the phenomenon was widespread. It was also discovered that the spacing between the tracks—eight and one-half inches—was consistent wherever they were measured, and the way in which they were set out, one in front of the other, seemed to indicate a biped creature rather than an animal walking on four legs. Panic and paranoia ran rampant through the area, and armed with pitchforks and clubs, some of the townspeople set out to track down the beast responsible. Various newspapers, including The Times of London, covered the story extensively, and as a result, numerous theories soon evolved, the more bizarre being that Satan himself was roaming the countryside in search of sinners. Other theories consisted of an escaped kangaroo from a private zoo and an experimental balloon trailing two shackles. Many different animals were suggested as the cause, but none would have been capable of covering so large a distance overnight. It has also been suggested that the footprints were merely a case of mass hysteria caused by the sighting of various animal tracks made by different animals and lumping them all together as one. Still, this hardly explains how someone would be able to track the course of the lines for over one hundred miles in the course of a single day, while throughout the night and even during the day many animals roam about creating new tracks and disrupting old ones. No plausible explanation has ever been offered to explain the Devon phenomenon, and to this day, the devil's footprints remain an intriguing mystery. SOURCES MysteryMag Mysterious Britain Wekipedia  About The Devil's Footprints  Excerpt  Prequel  Upcoming Novels