| The
winter of 1885 was exceptionally strict for the
sudovest of England, region usually visited from
at all rigid climates nothing. The morning of
8 February, Mr. Albert Brailsford, preside of
the school of a small village in the Devon, was
approached the window of the drawing-room in order
to see if in the night was snowed. Of blow, its
attention had been attracted from a line of prints
- or better, goat tracks - than was developed
along the road that lead to the village. From
the first moment normal prints of a shod horse
would have been said, but better to observe it
was understood that it could not be, from the
moment that were perfectly disposed along an only
perfectly straight line, like if the legs of the
animal had been put one in front of the other.
Single leg had been a horse must have had one
on which hopping. If instead the mysterious creature
it possessed two legs, proceeded with great attention,
as a equilibrista on a stiff thread. But that
that still more was curious, consisted in the
fact that the prints, not longer than 10 cm, toed
be distant between they only 16 cm. Finally, they
turned out clearest, like if they had been obtained
dipping in the snow one heated iron shape. The
prevailed curiosity and the citizens followed
the tracks until the end of the distance, that
it went to finish against a wall of mattoni. But
the surprise was not ended. The prints in fact
resumed al.di.là.della wall just, without
but that coltre of snow the accumulatasi on the
high part of the wall it turned out in some treaded
on way. Then the prints caught up a grain sheaf,
in order to find again itself beyond, without
that, also in this case, the passage of some heavy
body was noticed. And it was not still enough.
They passed under a bush of rose thorn and over
some roofs. Insomma, was like if some equilibrista
joker it had been amused during the night to construct
a rompicapo for the poor villici. The hypothesis
of a giocherellone came but endured discarded.
The tracks seemed not to never end. They came
some still found to several kilometers of distance
from the periphery of the country, along the campaign
of the Devon. They seemed to proceed in disordinato
and erratic way in order to go to touch some other
small cities and villages. If it were be a matter
indeed of a equilibrista joker, must have made
one beautiful faticaccia in order to cover more
than 50 km in ices of the night and means to the
fresh and high snow. For more it must have also
a sure haste, inasmuch as the prints stopped sovente
on limiting of the doors, but in order to invert
the direction and only to head newly elsewhere.
To a sure point, they had valicato the matting
of the Exe river. However, to of, it is worth
to say to Exmouth, if of it they did not meet
more, like if the mysterious one to be were returned
on its passes. Obviously, in all that route, some
logic did not exist, was like a made distance.
In sure points, the prints of "horse"
' introduced one crack in means, making to think
next to one broken hoof. We are in flood was victorian
and nobody between the peasants of those places
doubted of the existence of the devil. To this
thought someone had imbracciato a doppietta and
it had been put to hunting. The night all closed
the house doors accurately, holding the guns to
hand capacity, to flank of the bed. It wanted
a week to us that before the news came brought
back from newspapers. The first one to tell it
was the Londoner "Times" 16 February
1855, adding that they had been the many peasants
to find the mysterious traces in the courtyards
of their houses. The day after was touched to
the "Plymouth Gazette", which brought
back the idea of a priest who suggested to be
a matter itself of a canguro, forgetting that
the canguro it has clawed legs. Hypothesis contested
and contrasted from that one, sure more reasonable,
introduced on the "Flying Post" that
indicated in a bird the probable cause of the
mysterious distance of tracks. Theory immediately
taken apart from an other article appeared on
"Illustrated London News" in which it
made to observe that some bird fortified of hooves
does not exist to the world shoes to you! In adding,
the feature writer signaled that, also having
passed beyond five innevate months in the extended
ones of Canada, it never it was not capitato to
observe similar prints. 3 March, on "Illustrated
the London News" the great naturalist and
anatomist Richard Owen sentenziava that the scientific
analysis of the prints spoke in favor of a rate.
That night, evidently, some rates had been ridestati
from the winter sleep and were escapes from the
lairs to the food search. Reasonable hypothesis,
sin that Owen did not explain in order which outlandish
reason all those rates had decided to go hunting
hopping on one single leg. An other witness, a
doctor, together revealed to a colleague "to
have engaged little hours nell’approfondito
study of the intrinsic peculiarities of those
particular prints" (in victorian times did
not try one which sure satisfaction in using languages
many pomposi in order to arrive not to assert
null). It declared that "as a result of meticulous
observations it had been possible to place in
prominence that the print of the mysterious hoof
was constituted from sure ascrivibili fingers
and plant to a some animal", in the fattispecie
otter be a matter itself of one. An other reporter
still, than was signed with the pseudonym of "Ornither",
said that it was be a matter sure of the tracks
left behind of himself from a otarda, from the
moment that the external fingers turned out rounded
off. An other gentiluomo of Sudbury declared that
recently in its zone it had noticed some large
rapes scorrazzare in the potato fields. The prints
left from the large rats were of all the similar
ones to those mysterious ones, than newspapers
already they christened "prints of the devil".
The rapes, hopping in means to the snow and landing
to every leap on the entire body had left those
signs, for combination similar to prints of hooves
of animals. A Scottish correspondent spoke about
lepre or moffetta, to zonzo to food hunting. The
stravaganza and the difference of all these explanations,
therefore stralunale and absurd, were justified
with the objective difficulty to find one answer
to the mystery. The less comprehensible issue
- that one that defied every hypothesis, was in
the singular disposition of the prints, one in
row all’ other following a straight line,
like if they had been left from an endowed animal
of one single leg. Without to forget, then, the
additional complication to understand as the strange
one to be had been able to cover in those conditions,
to the cold and of night, beyond 50 km. Perhaps
the more reasonable hypothesis came proposed from
Geoffrey Household, which in 1985 it has published
a book in which all are collections the testimonies
tied to this mysterious case. Here possible, the
logical one, explanation of the facts: “sono
inclined to perhaps think that that night from
the center of the military port of Devonport has
been raised, as a result of some disguido, a sounding
balloon. Free from the moorings, it has been able
to fly over the zone without some control. From
the object they hung two bags hung to of ropes.
They have been these weights to leave the prints
and this explains also as never they have been
some found pure on the roofs of the houses...
Greater Carter, a man of the place, has said me
that the grandfather to the age worked just to
the base of Devonport and that once had told to
it of the football, whose "accidental escape"
had provoked damages to garden, greenhouses, barns,
windows a po' ovunque in the zone. To the end
the travel had finished falling near Honiton.”
Draft senz' other of an important information
that it could explain the dynamics of that succeeded.
But, also giving it for good, there is at least
still a detail that not quadrant. If from a glance
on a geographic cartina to the series of prints,
famous immediately that they make wide, indecipherable
turns between the centers of Topsham and Exmouth.
A sounding balloon "would have behaved"
in a way much disordinato? It would not have,
instead, followed a long distance a straight line,
in the direction of the prevailing wind, than
that night, recorded saying for, it blew from
east? The problem was, like already has been said,
the serious delay with which the mass medium they
took to be interested of the problem. In the meantime,
in fact, the greater part of the salienti elements
of the case already had been alters to you. As
an example, it would have been interesting to
know if the fallen snow that night had been the
first snow of that February of 1885. That year
the winter had been particularly rigid and it
is not from excluding that many small become ill
like rapes, rabbits and rates had interrupted
the letargo in order to exit anzitempo from the
lairs to food hunting. A letter sended to the
newspaper "Plymouth Gazette" dated 17
February begins with these words: "the night
of 8 thursdays February has been characterized
from an intense one snowed, which it has made
followed rain and a strong wind from east, and
one rigid brinata the morning". Sure, the
night in turn for the zone there were many small
animals to food hunting. But only the friday morning,
on the new and fresh snow cape, had been possible
to observe the prints. These, beyond all, could
have been rimarcate from the rain that had ulteriorly
dug in the snowy mantle, in order to make solid
the brinata morning for the strong one. This,
as an example, would explain the impression well
that many observatories had of prints like "impresse
violently" in the snow. But if the land already
were covered of snow before the night of 8 February,
here that then also this reasonable theory must
be abandoned. Quand' also was given for valid,
is not comprised as never some prints have been
found again on the top of the walls, the sheaves,
the roofs... Insomma, a beautiful puzzle. A mystery
that, after many years, continues to remain unsolved. |
