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The Devil's Footprints was a phenomenon that occurred during February 1855 around the Exe Estuary in east and south Devon, England.

After a heavy snowfall, trails of hoof-like marks appeared overnight in the snow covering a total distance of some 40 to 100 miles (60 to 160 km). The footprints were so called because some persons suggested that they were the tracks of Satan and made comparisons to a cloven hoof. Many theories have been made to explain the incident, and some aspects of its veracity have also been questioned.

On the night of 8–9 February 1855 and one or two later nights, after a heavy snowfall, a series of hoof-like marks appeared in the snow. These footprints, most of which measured about 4 inches (10 cm) long, 3 inches (7.6 cm) across, between 8 and 16 inches (20 and 41 cm) apart and mostly in a single file, were reported from more than 30 locations across Devon and a couple in Dorset. Footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls which lay in the footprints' path as well as leading up to and exiting drain pipes as small as 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter. On the following morning the inhabitants of the above towns were surprised at discovering the footmarks of some strange and mysterious animal endowed with the power of ubiquity, as the footprints were to be seen in all kinds of unaccountable places – on the tops of houses and narrow walls, in gardens and court-yards, enclosed by high walls and pailings, as well in open fields. Busk, in an article published in Notes and Queries during 1890, stated that footprints also appeared further afield, as far south as Totnes and Torquay, and that there were other reports of the prints as far away as Weymouth (Dorset) and even Lincolnshire.

Musgrove, the vicar of Withycombe Raleigh, the draft of a letter to The Illustrated London News marked 'not for publication' and several apparent tracings of the footprints. Mike Dash collated the available primary and secondary source material into a paper entitled The Devil's Hoofmarks: Source Material on the Great Devon Mystery of 1855 which was published in Fortean Studies during 1994.

Another reason for scepticism, as Joe Nickell indicates, is that the eye-witness descriptions of the footprints varied from person to person. In his Fortean Studies article, Mike Dash concluded that there was no one source for the "hoofmarks": some of the tracks were probably hoaxes, some were made by "common quadrupeds" such as donkeys and ponies, and some by wood mice (see below).

Author Geoffrey Household suggested that "an experimental balloon" released by mistake from Devonport Dockyard had left the mysterious tracks by trailing two shackles on the end of its mooring ropes.

Dash stated that the theory that the Devon prints were made by rodents was originally proposed as long ago as March 1855, in The Illustrated London News.

In a letter to the Illustrated London News during 1855, Rev.

In a letter to the editor of the Illustrated London News published 3 March 1855, Richard Owen stated the theory that the footprints were from a badger, arguing the animal was "the only plantigrade quadruped we have in this island" and it "leaves a footprint larger than would be supposed from its size". The number of footprints, he suggested, was indicative of the activity of several animals because "it is improbable that one badger only should have been awake and hungry" and added that the animal was "a stealthy prowler and most active and enduring in search of food".

Reports of similar anomalous, obstacle-unheeded footprints exist from other parts of the world, although none is of such a scale.

Jersey Devil – the appearance during January 1909 of similar mysterious footprints in New Jersey, USA

Quick Facts

• The footprints were so called because some persons suggested that they were the tracks of Satan and made comparisons to a cloven hoof.
• After a heavy snowfall, trails of hoof-like marks appeared overnight in the snow covering a total distance of some 40 to 100 miles (60 to 160 km).
• Footprints appeared on the tops of snow-covered roofs and high walls which lay in the footprints' path as well as leading up to and exiting drain pipes as small as 4 inches (10 cm) in diameter.
• Mike Dash collated the available primary and secondary source material into a paper entitled The Devil's Hoofmarks: Source Material on the Great Devon Mystery of 1855 which was published in Fortean Studies during 1994.
• Musgrove, the vicar of Withycombe Raleigh, the draft of a letter to The Illustrated London News marked 'not for publication' and several apparent tracings of the footprints.

Source material: Wikipedia - "Devil's Footprints". Adapted and summarized for DiscoverScroll. Original contributors are credited through the linked Wikipedia article. Read original on Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes were made from the original.