9. The Wharton State Forest Deaths of 1980
The Wharton State Forest is smack dab in the middle of the Pine Barrens, and it contains the Batsto Village, which has been intact since the 1700’s. In 1980, the chief forest ranger named Alan MacFarlane was called out to a South Jersey farm near the Wharton State Forest. The entire pack of the farmer’s pigs had been brutally slaughtered in the middle of the night. The back of each pig’s head had been eaten, as if something perched on their backs and ate their brains. Their backs were scratched, but whatever killed the pigs left the rest of the body alone, and moved on to the next animal in the pack.
This type of attack is not normal behavior for many of the local animals. In all of his years of experience, Chief MacFarlane had never seen anything like it. The sight was horrifying, to say the least. The mystery has never been solved. Locals believe that the only possible explanation to this case is that the Jersey Devil must have done it.