In September 1837 in London, Jack attacked three women in the dark of the night. One of the victims, Polly Adams, reportedly had her dress torn off which allowed Jack to scratch at her stomach with his "iron clad" fingers - apparently a reference to long claws. The victims later described Jack as a tall, thin and powerful man who wore a dark cloak, glowing red or orange eyes, and the ability to spit blue flames.
Attacks continued and London's Lord Mayor, Sir John Cowan, declared Spring-Heeled Jack a menace in January 1838. A vigilante group soon formed to capture Jack, but he was able to escape all attempts. Supposedly he was able to escape by making great leaps of up to 25 or 30 feet at a time!
On Wednesday, February 18, 18 year-old Lucy Scales and her sister Margaret were returning home after visiting their brother. Lucy was slightly ahead of her sister and, when she passed the entrance to an alley, a figure leaped on her from out of the darkness, breathing filre into her face, and then bounding away in great, springing leaps. Lucy collapsed to the ground in a seizure.
Two days later, on the 20th of February, Jane Alsop responded to a violent ringing of the doorbell of her parents' home. Just outside the door was an extremely excited man who identified himself as a policeman and said "For God's sake bring me a light for we have caught Spring-heeled Jack in the lane!"
Jane brought a candle and handed it to the policman who suddenly threw off his cloak. Under this garment, he was dressed very strangely indeed! He had on a large helmet and a skin-tight, white suit that appeared to be oilskin. His eyes were red and protruding as he glared at Jane and began to vomit blue and white flames in her face!
Jane was temporarily blinded, and Jack grabbed her with "talon like fingers" and tore her dress, raking and scratching her skin in the process.
Naturally, Jane was screaming her head off and her two sisters came running, grabbed her away from the fiend, and slammed the door in his face.
A week later Jack tried the same trick, but the intended victim must have heard about the first incident and was on guard. Jack fled and a witness said that he was wearing an ornate crest with a gold filigree "W" on his clothing.
Jack's appearances became less frequent and spread out over a larger area for a time, until 1843, when a new wave of terror began. He appeared then in Northamptonshire, Hampshire and East Anglia.
In 1845 Jack was seen in a "low rent district" immortalized by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist, where he cornered a 13 year-old prostitute and breathed fire into her face and threw her into a ditch where she drowned. Thus, Jack went beyond terrorizing people into being a murderer.
There were isolated reports of Spring-heeled Jack over the next 27 years, but most of them were iffy in terms of being poorly witnessed, but in November of 1872, London was in a state of commotion again over the "Peckham Ghost" which was commented on in the Newspapers as being "as mysterious and alarming as Spring-heeled Jack had been to the previous generation."
In 1877 Jack supposedly appeared again at Aldershot Barracks in March, and the figure was shot at on one occasion by a soldier, but seemed to be impervious to bullets.
Ten years later, in 1887, Jack supposedly frightened several young ladies in Cheshire by rushing into a room where they were assembled. He swept the knick-knacks off the mantle and then ran right out. This appearance was said to be a hoax and due to a wager by the sons of several well-known men that one of them should impersonate the original Jack in a convincing way.
There were many theories about who might have been going around masquerading as this strange creature who could leap enormous distances and breathe fire and who had eyes like glowing coals, but no satisfactory explanation has ever been put forward. No one was ever caught, no one was ever positively identified, even with vigilante committees on the prowl bent on capturing Jack at various times. There were numerous sightings of the "Spring-heeled" figure leaping and bounding away, but no explanation for this has ever been given either.
