A photo purporting to show the Jersey Devil taken in Atlantic City is going viral across the Internet. Taken by Dave Black, the photo shows what appears to be a winged goat flying across the screen.
It has the Internet abuzz, and most haven’t even taken the photo seriously. Not surprising, given that it doesn’t look particularly convincing whatsoever. But many have asked for a debunk nonetheless, which is actually rather difficult to do given the poor quality of the photo.
Submitted to “Paranormal Corner” and later picked up by some local media outlets and then national media outlets, the photo has spread far and wide across the Internet, and we’re not sure why, though Halloween probably has something to do with it. The photo has gone through little sceptical scrutiny from those who the photo was initially reported to – well, nothing beyond “are you telling the truth?” any way.
Black has claimed the photo isn’t photoshopped, and to his credit it doesn’t appear to be. The photo came up clean in when we evaluated it. But of course this is not to say the photo actually shows the Jersey Devil.
Perhaps the best – and only – real sign that the photo isn’t real is the fact that the wings appear just as blurred as the rest of the photo. Black claimed that he took the photo on his cellphone as it flew away
Then it spread out leathery wings and flew off over the golf course…Either my mind is playing tricks on me or I just saw the Jersey Devil,
However, given that the entire photo has a good degree of blur throughout, it is clear the shutter speed of the camera was not particularly quick, possibly compensating for poor lighting. This would result in any quick motion becoming even more blurred. The wings would have had to be moving very rapidly considering the animal in the picture was apparently taking off. However they appear just as blurred as the rest of the photo, which tells us that they were in fact stationary when the photo was taken. Since an animal cannot take off with stationary wings, we can deduce it to be a fake.
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Many have speculated that the animal is a goat with wings attached. Given that the stance of the animal appears to be in a standing position, we’ll go with the theory that this is just a stuffed toy of some kind being thrown or suspended in front of the camera.
As for the video claiming to capture the Jersey Devil flying, that is a laughable hoax, and not worthy of a debunk here! We have to have some kind of standards!