4. Other people thought that Spring Heeled Jack was a Madman – or an Alien!
The crimes committed by Spring Heeled Jack were so bizarre that many people believed the perpetrator – or some of the imitators, at least- were insane. Many years after Jack made his final appearance on the rooftops of Liverpool, another version of this particular appearance of Spring Heeled Jack emerged. In this version, Jack was not merely leaping from roof to roof and showing off to passers-by. Instead, he was a mentally ill man fleeing the police.
The 1967 newspaper article explained that the individual in question was a man suffering from religious mania. As he leaped across the rooftops he was supposed to have been heard to cry, “My wife is the devil.” This story may have been twentieth-century society’s attempt to retrospectively lend the concept of Spring Heeled Jack a more rational explanation. How accurate it is of the multitude of ‘Jacks’ who sprang up over the years is debatable.
Another, less rational twentieth-century explanation of Spring Heeled Jack is that he was neither a human or supernatural being but a creature from another world. From the 1950’s onwards, theorists have suggested that Spring Heeled Jack could have been a humanoid alien, stranded on earth, therefore offering an explanation for his odd clothes, features, abilities- and the fact he kept appearing over a long period.
“It is significant that a high proportion of those who saw him was convinced that he was not of this world, but either a spirit or a visitor from some distant planet,” said British Radio presenter Valentine Dyall in Everyman Magazine in 1954. This article prompted a response from Inman Race of Sheffield who suggested that Jack’s alien origins explained why he could jump so high. “A Being, reared on a planet where gravity was far greater than on earth would be able to leap colossal distances on THIS planet.‘ he maintained.