Dover Demon

Dover Demon

A sketch of the Demon's most common description.
Creature
Grouping	Cryptid Extraterrestrial
Data
First reported	April 21, 1977
Country	United States
Region	Dover, Massachusetts

The Dover Demon is an alleged cryptozoological creature sighted on three separate occasions during a 25-hour period in the town of Dover, Massachusetts on April 21 and April 22, 1977. It has remained a subject of interest for cryptozoologists ever since then. Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman was the initial investigator and the individual who named the creature the Dover Demon; it was disseminated by the press, and the name stuck. Coleman quickly assembled and brought into the inquiry three other investigators: Joseph Nyman, Ed Fogg, and Walter Webb. All were well-known ufological researchers in eastern Massachusetts, with Webb being the assistant director of the Hayden Planetarium at Boston's Science Museum. Coleman did not feel he was necessarily dealing with a ufological phenomenon, but he wanted to have seasoned investigators with good interviewing skills to do a comprehensive examination of the eyewitnesses and their families, as well as law enforcement, educational, and community members.

History

The Dover Demon was first sighted at night by three seventeen-year-old boys who were driving through the Massachusetts area when the car's headlights illuminated it. Bill Bartlett, the driver, reported that he saw what he thought at first was a dog or a cat, but upon closer inspection realized that it was a bizarre, unearthly-looking creature crawling along a stone wall on Farm Street.

Bartlett continued to watch the creature, and he reported it to have a disproportionately large, watermelon-shaped head and illuminated orange eyes, like glass marbles. It had long, thin arms and legs with slender fingers, which it used to grasp onto the pavement. It was hairless and had rough, flesh-toned skin, described as tan and sandpaper-like. The creature's appearance was very plain, with no nose or ears, and no mouth was seen. The witness drawings portray its head as having a skull shape, forming the contour of a circle on top with a more elliptical ending projecting down to include where the nose and mouth would be.

Other witnesses have claimed the creature had green eyes and seemingly smooth, chalky gray toned skin, three feet tall, and made a bloodcurdling noise, similar to a hawk's screech combined with a snake's hiss. But all witnesses say it had no ears, mouth, nose, or known sex.

The creature was sighted again an hour later, by John Baxter, 15, and Pete Mitchell, 13, as they were walking home. He said it was bipedal and ended up running into a gully and standing next to a tree. The next day, Abby Brabham, 15, and Will Traintor, 18, driving down Springdale Avenue, claimed to have seen a similar-looking creature from Traintor's car, on the side of the road. Brabham's description matched Bartlett's and Baxter's descriptions, except this time the cryptid had illuminated green eyes. She approximated its height as "about the size of a goat". Investigators attempted to shake up Ms. Brabham by noting she said it had green eyes reflected by car headlights, while Bartlett mentioned orange eyes were reflected back to him by his automobile's lights. Ms. Brabham was steadfast in her description.

Bartlett, Baxter, Brabham, and Traintor all drew sketches of the monstrous sight shortly after their sightings. On the piece of paper that includes Bartlett's sketch, he wrote "I, Bill Bartlett, swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this creature."

The widespread interest in the Dover Demon has resulted in it being an oft-discussed cryptid in popular culture, and having Japanese figurines of the creature being developed for cryptobuffs in Japan and North America.

Possible identity

The Dover Demon is currently a classic cryptid, with a variety of theories abounding as to what it was or is. Early ufologists first promoted speculation that the creature was an alien or some sort of mutant hybrid, perhaps one created as a result of a human experiment and escaped.^{[citation needed]} Others theorize that it is really a being from another dimension, accidentally transferred into our world through a dimensional warp.^{[citation needed]} When the Dover Demon was the subject of a Lost Tapes episode, Loren Coleman said "this is one of those situations where I'm most definitely secure in saying I don't know what this is" and "It's almost as if the Dover Demon popped in to our reality and popped out". The creature has been speculated by various ufologists that the Dover Demon was a Grey, due to its similar appearance.^{[citation needed]} One zoological answer that has been proposed is that it was a newborn moose. One skeptic wrote that the description of the creature's head matched that of a baby moose. Among several shortcomings of the moose explanation is that the descriptions of the Dover Demon clearly discerned fingers, while all moose, being artiodactyls, have only hooves.^{[citation needed]} Loren Coleman disputes this theory, stating that at the time of year of the sightings, yearling moose are much larger, and no moose records exist for eastern Massachusetts for the spring of 1977. Coleman additionally points out that all the witnesses had separate experiences, did not talk to each other before investigators interviewed them, and did not necessarily agree on exact descriptive details of the sighting.^{[citation needed]} No conclusive evidence has been found for the existence of the Dover Demon.

The Dover Demon bears similarity to the Mannegishi creature, which is native to the mythology of the Cree Indians in Canada.^{[citation needed]} Coleman also notes that cryptozoologist Mark A. Hall links the Dover Demon to other sightings of aquatic beings from around the world, often lumped under the moniker "merbeings". It is also suggested to be a Backoo, a mythical spirit creature from Caribbean legends due to similarities in the body structures.

During the spate of American sightings in Dover in 1977, all the witnesses were teenagers. This has been pointed out often in analyses of the Dover Demon sighting phenomenon. Writers with a new-age or spiritual bent often write of it as a poltergeist-type being, something with a strong field of spiritual energy that naturally connects it with the young.^{[citation needed]} This reflects a recurring theme from the annals of cryptozoology, this being one of many entities whose sightings all befell witnesses from the same age group. An unfortunate comparison is made to the Owlman incidents, but skeptics rightfully point to the Owlman episodes having elements of pagan prankishness in evidence in those British events. In reality, sorting for age groups and other demographics elements can be found underlying any witness series.^{[citation needed]}

Because all the witnesses were teenagers, many believe it to be a hoax, and suspect that a group of high school classmates were collaborating to make up the story.^{[citation needed]}

Major reference

• Loren Coleman, Mysterious America: The Revised Edition (NY: Paraview, 2001, ISBN 1-931044-05-8)

External links

• The Dover Demon Still Haunts (Boston Globe)