Dover Demon

Bill Bartlett's original sketch of the Dover Demon

The Dover Demon is a cryptid reportedly sighted on April 21–22, 1977, in Dover, Massachusetts, a town approximately 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Boston.

Sightings

On April 21, 1977, 17-year-old William "Bill" Bartlett reported seeing a creature while driving along Farm Street in Dover, Massachusetts. He described it as approximately 4 feet (1.2 m) tall, with glowing orange eyes and a watermelon-shaped head lacking a visible nose or mouth. According to Bartlett, the creature was perched on top of a broken stone wall. That same evening, 15-year-old John Baxter reported seeing a similar creature on Miller Hill Road. The following night, another 15-year-old, Abby Brabham, claimed to have encountered the creature on Springdale Avenue.[1]

The three teenagers each produced sketches of the alleged creature. Bartlett accompanied his drawing with the statement, "I, Bill Bartlett, swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this creature."[1] A local news report noted that the locations of the alleged sightings, when plotted on a map, formed a straight line extending for more than 2 miles [3.2 km].[1] The sightings did not become public until the first half of May.[2] At the time, a local investigator of unexplained phenomenon noted similarities between the reported creature and those described during the Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter of 1955.[2] Although none of the witnesses reported seeing a UFO, the sightings were investigated by the Mutual UFO Network and other associated organizations.[3]

Possible explanations

A snowy owl, carrying prey

Some explanations have proposed that the creature may have been a foal or a moose calf.[1][4] Skeptic Joe Nickell suggested that a snowy owl could account for the reported sightings.[a] He speculated that the owl's plumage may have reflected the yellow headlights of older automobiles, producing the peach-colored appearance described by Bartlett. Furthermore, the creature's reported "long spindly arms" and fingers could have been the partially extended wings and splayed feathers at the wingtips of a snowy owl.[5]

Police told the Associated Press that the creatures described by the teenagers were "probably nothing more than a school vacation hoax."[6] Skeptic Ben Radford has suggested that popular culture may have influenced the sightings, noting that 1977 saw the release of Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.[4]

In 2009, the Dover Demon was featured in an episode of the American horror television series Lost Tapes, which aired on Animal Planet.[7]

The Dover Demon appears as a character in the American comic book series Proof, which features various other cryptids. In the comic, it is a creature able to see into the future. It appears in another similar comic book series called The Perhapanauts.[8][9] The Dover Demon also made brief appearances in the comic books The Pound: Ghouls Night Out and Hack/Slash: Entry Wound.[10] A Dover Demon also appears in the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court.[11]

The manga and anime series Dandadan features an alien character called a Dover Demon. Its appearance is significantly different from the original sightings, being a bipedal crustacean-like alien with the ability to transform into a stronger form resembling a mantis shrimp.[12]

Notes

  1. ↑ One proposed explanation of the aforementioned Kelly–Hopkinsville encounter is a great horned owl.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Sullivan, Mark (29 October 2006). "Decades later, the Dover Demon still haunts". The Boston Globe. Archived from the original on February 26, 2007. Retrieved 7 March 2014 – via Boston.com.
  2. 1 2 "'Creature' reports worry Dover police chief". Holyoke Transcript-Telegram. Holyoke, Massachusetts. AP. May 16, 1977. p. 1. Retrieved October 15, 2023 – via newspapers.com.
  3. ↑ "What exactly was the 'Dover Demon?'". Milford Daily News. May 8, 2005. Retrieved October 15, 2023.
  4. 1 2 Radford, Benjamin (January 2023). "Deconstructing the Dover Demon". Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 47, no. 1. Center for Inquiry. Retrieved 30 June 2023 – via skepticalinquirer.org.
  5. ↑ Nickell, Joe (July 2023). "Identifying the Enigmatic 'Dover Demon'". Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 47, no. 4. Center for Inquiry. Retrieved 30 June 2023 – via skepticalinquirer.org.
  6. ↑ "Teeners report 'creature'". Bangor Daily News. AP. 16 May 1977. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
  7. ↑ "Lost Tapes" Dover Demon (TV Episode 2009) at IMDb 
  8. ↑ The Perhapanauts #1, (April 1, 2008)
  9. ↑ The Perhapanauts: Second Chances #3, 4 (December 1, 2006-January 1, 2007)
  10. ↑ "Dover Demon (Character)". Comic Vine.
  11. ↑ "Chapter 83: Page 4". Gunnerkrigg Court Archives.
  12. ↑ Dandadan Volume 4
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.