Bel, Charley, Brian, Beata, Ed and I all met up in Leeds Point. We knew from the start that this trip would be somewhat different than all the rest - this time we were accompanied by New Jersey historian Michael Launay, who had expressed interest in our organization and wanted a "tour" of the Leeds Point area. We knew his input would definitely be helpful to our research.

We first took Michael through the normal parts of town, including a stop at CVS to get Hi-8 tapes for the video camera. We visited some of the area cemeteries and shared some of our finds with Michael. Then we decided we'd take him to the real finds.

Throughout our years of research, we have been able to locate several possible sites where houses (or at least some type of man-made structure) once stood. We were hoping that Michael might be able to shed some light on these locations and give us a little more insight as to when they could have existed. Our first location was one of the original ditches discovered back in 1999. Upon first glance, Michael agreed that a structure had once stood on the area, but was slightly skeptical when it came to how old it may have been. Once we took a few steps back, Michael realized that the trees surrounding the ditch were quite large, and had to have grown in long after the structure had crumbled, indicating that the structure was probably at least a century or two old. We surveyed the area for a while longer, showing Michael some of the artifacts that we had discovered during our past hunts in that area. It was more of a history lesson than a Jersey Devil hunt at this point!

It was hard to hear any noises out there. The weather was bad, and the wind was whipping through the trees. Most of the eerie noises we heard were creaking trees, but at times it was hard to tell where the noise's source was. It started raining, so we decided to head out of that area and check out another one of our past finds while the rain was still somewhat light (local forecasters were even warning of a possible hail storm). We headed out to a different area of Leeds Point, where Charley and Heather had come across another house foundation during their research. This foundation (shown in Hunt #17) is a little more obvious than the previous location, due to the fact that it still has several walls still standing. Michael took one look at the large stones buried into the wall of dirt, and immediately reassured us that this place was "very old". We decided to do a little more scouring of this area, since we have visited the foundation several times but have not fully familiarized ourselves with the surrounding woods. This is where it started to get more interesting...

One of the first few things we found was a large patch of trees that were all completely knocked over. There was evidence of a fire in this area, but we weren't able to determine how long it had been since the fire took place. Beata located a tree that had obviously been struck by lightning. Meanwhile, the prints started showing up. They were everywhere. Most of these prints were probably deer tracks - but none of them were clear enough to make a good judgement.

Then the strange equipment failure began again. Brian's camera battery died, which was not too strange since it was warning him and we had inadvertently left the extra back at the vehicles. My digital camera batteries finally died as well, but that too was something I knew was coming. The strange thing was when I replaced the batteries. Charley handed me a fresh package of batteries, and I loaded them into the camera. It worked for about 2 or 3 more shots, and then the camera began telling me to change the batteries again. I know they drain power quickly, but come on... that was too fast. We have also had strange experiences happen with our radios and cellphones out in that area in the past. I don't know what it means, but at the very least it's getting annoying because we keep going through batteries like water!

So we continued on. The further in we got, the darker the trees were. The prints were everywhere, but most of which were too sloppy to define. The ground was also starting to get wet due to the drizzling rain. At one point, I found two tracks side by side. They appeared hooflike. We searched the area to find the rest of the prints, but these were the only two we found in that area of that size and shape. The two looked as if something had jumped (from where, who knows?) and the prints were where it landed. We couldn't find any more evidence of that particular track, but we did find a similar set of two tracks in another area later on in the hunt.

The rain started getting harder and harder, and we were all getting waterlogged, so we decided to wrap it up before the huge downpour hit. On our way out of the woods, Beata discovered a bone. Well, part of a bone. It had been chewed on one end and was beginning to hollow out. Beata, Ed, and Mary (our resident biology/animal experts) will be attempting to identify the bone shortly.

After a great dinner at JD's Pub, Michael Launay said goodbye, thanking us for the experience. He said he'd be in touch in the future, and we're hoping we can convince him to come with us again.

Well, that's our story for Hunt #21. Questions? Comments? E-mail us at [email protected]. Want to join us? Click here for the online application!