The Dover Demon is a creature that was reportedly seen on April 21–22, 1977, in Dover, Massachusetts, a town located about 15 miles (24 km) southwest of downtown Boston.
Sightings
On April 21, 1977, 17-year-old William "Bill" Bartlett said he saw a creature while driving on Farm Street in Dover, Massachusetts. The creature, he described, was about 4 feet tall, had glowing orange eyes, and had a head shaped like a watermelon with no nose or mouth. It was standing on top of a broken stone wall. Later that same evening, 15-year-old John Baxter reported seeing a similar creature on Miller Hill Road. The next night, another 15-year-old, Abby Brabham, said she saw the same kind of creature on Springdale Avenue.
Each teenager made a drawing of the creature. On his sketch, Bartlett wrote, "I, Bill Bartlett, swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this creature." A local news report stated that the places where the sightings happened, when marked on a map, formed a straight line over 2 miles (3.2 km). The sightings were not shared with the public until the first half of May. At that time, a local person who studies unexplained events noted that the creatures looked similar to those seen in the Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter of 1955. Although none of the witnesses saw a UFO, the sightings were also looked into by the Mutual UFO Network and other groups.
Possible explanations
It has been suggested that the creature may have been a foal or a moose calf.
Skeptic Joe Nickell thinks the creature was likely a snowy owl, based on its size and feathers, which would look like the yellow headlights of older cars, as described by Bartlett as peach-colored. Also, the "long spindly arms" and fingers of the supposed creature could be the partially opened wings and the spread-out feathers at the wingtips of a snowy owl.
Police told the Associated Press that the creatures reported by the teenagers "were probably nothing more than a school vacation hoax." Skeptic Ben Radford has suggested the sighting may have been affected by the pop culture of the time, as 1977 was the year Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind were released.
In popular culture
In 2009, the Dover Demon was shown in an episode of the American horror television series Lost Tapes, which was broadcast on Animal Planet.
The Dover Demon is a character in the American comic book series Proof, which includes other creatures. In this comic, it is described as a creature that can see into the future. It also appears in another similar comic book series called The Perhapanauts. The Dover Demon makes short appearances in the comic books The Pound: Ghouls Night Out and Hack/Slash: Entry Wound. A Dover Demon is also featured in the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court.
The manga and anime series Dandadan includes an alien character named a Dover Demon. This character looks very different from the original sightings. It is described as a two-legged, crab-like alien that can change into a stronger form resembling a mantis shrimp.