Devil's Footprints — Mysterious Trail of Cloven Hoofprints Crosses All of Devon Overnight

On the morning of February 8-9, 1855, residents of Devon, England awoke to find a trail of hoof-like prints in the snow that stretched approximately 100 miles in a single night. What made the tracks inexplicable was not just their distance, but their behavior — the trail crossed rooftops, scaled haystacks, navigated drainpipes, passed through 14-inch-wide drain pipes, and continued uninterrupted through walls and across bodies of water. The prints, spaced about eight inches apart in a single-file pattern, measured approximately 1.5 to 2.5 inches wide and 3 inches long. The symmetrical U-shaped or hoof-like impressions suggested to many observers a cloven hoof — and in the religiously conservative Victorian era, this immediately evoked associations with the Devil. Reverend Henry Reddaway, Vicar of Dawlish, circulated a letter to local parishes collecting accounts and descriptions of the tracks. The Times of London published a story about the phenomenon. Charles Dickens and other notable Victorians commented on the case. Many theories have been proposed over 170 years: a kangaroo or other escaped exotic animal, a chain dragged by a balloon, a badger or other mammal whose tracks were distorted by snow melt, a wood mouse moving in single file, or a hoax. None satisfactorily explains how a continuous trail of identical prints traveled 100 miles in a single night crossing all manner of obstacles. The Devon footprints remain one of Victorian England's most enduring mysteries.