The Dover Demon

Every writer, researcher and historian follows in the footsteps of those experts who have delved into their chosen topic before. In writing this series, I have drawn on the works of Linda Godfrey (the Beast of Bray Road), and John Keel (the Mothman). Today, another pioneering scholar of the bizarre makes his debut in this series: the founder of the International Cryptoozology Museum, Loren Coleman!

All research in this story will be drawn/directly quoted from his notes and Walter Webb's (at the time, the director of Boston's Science Museum planetarium) original field report on this week's subject, as reprinted in Coleman's book Mysterious America. We will be examining one of his best known forays into the field, an event that took place from April 21-22 in 1977: the Dover Demon.

Mr. Coleman first took up the hunt on May 1st, and Webb would join him on the 17th, along with Joseph Nyman (MUFON/APRO) and Ed Fogg of Foxboro. They would wrap up their investigation in August, after examining every aspect of the events, and verifying that the witnesses were not known pranksters or liars. The first person to see the Demon was 17 year old William "Bill" Bartlett.

He and his friends Andy Brodie and Mike Mazzocca were driving north on Farm Street at around 10:30 pm on the 21st. As Bill scanned the roads around him from around the wheel, the highbeams illuminated a small figure carefully picking its' way along a wall on the left.

At first, Bill assumed it was just a cat or dog. But as he got close enough, he realized this was no animal he'd ever seen before. Whatever it was, it had long fingers molded around the rocks, a watermelon shaped head, and eyes that glowed orange in the light, with no other discernable features in the face. The creature was 3 1/2-4 feet tall, with peach skin, and lacked any hair.

Bill was so spooked by the sighting that he took off, and asked his companions if they had seen the Demon as well. They said no, and when Bartlett described what he had seen, they insisted he go back so they could see it as well. Although he initially refused, Mike and Andy eventually carried the argument. But the creature was nowhere in sight when they returned.

When questioned later, the other teens said that Bill was genuinely shaken up. Upon making it home, the Bartlett parents confirmed this, and stated their son was not the kind of person to make up stories. At his friends' urging, Bill made a sketch of the creature.

The next sighting would occur around midnight, about a mile north of the Bartlett encounter. John Baxter (15) left his girlfriend's house to walk up Millers Hill Road in hopes of hitching a ride home. About half an hour into his trip, he spotted a small figure.

John believed that it was a kid he knew, M.G. Bouchard, and called out to him. Getting no response, he started to walk towards the silhouette, as it drew near Baxter as well. When they were about 15-25 feet away from one another, the being stopped, prompting John to stop as well, and try to speak to the other passerby again.

Instead, the Demon bolted for the nearby woods, heading down a shallow ravine, and sprinting up the other side in seconds. Concerned that this was still M.G. or a little kid, John followed it, stopping before he reached the bottom of the gully's slope. He could now make out the being on the other side, outlined against a field.

It was leaning on a tree with its' fingers wrapped around the trunk, and its' feet once again molded around a rock. Baxter's description does not differ from Bartlett's except in the choices of words about the shape of the head (figure eight vs. watermelon).

After a few minutes of the staredown, John realized that he was alone, in dark woods, after midnight, with an unknown animal/entity, that seemed to be ready to pounce. So he wisely beat feet out of the forest, and was picked up at an intersection by a couple. Like Bartlett before him, upon reaching the safety of his home, John drew what he had seen.

To go back to Bill for a moment, (the two boys would not hear of each other's sightings until the 26th), he told another classmate, Will Taintor about his sighting on the 22nd. That evening, Will was driving Abby Brabham home around midnight along Springdale Avenue.

While Will would claim to have briefly seen something as well, it was Abby, who was unaware of the other encounters, that got a clear look at the Dover Demon. Again, she gave the same description, with one difference-green eyes instead of orange. Abby asked Will to get out of there.

A few miles down the road, he recalled Bill talking about his sighting, and began to press Abby for more details. This would be the last time anyone reported seeing the Dover Demon. So what was it?

A hoax was ruled out by the investigators. As stated above, the teens were not known to play practical jokes or lie, and all of them were genuinely frightened following their sightings. Other theories are that it was extraterrestrial, some sort of escaped diseased monkey (although no one ever claimed one was missing), or other sick animal.

And then there's the baby moose with vines in its' hooves theory. Coleman's book goes into more detail then I want to get into here (because it's an absurd theory), so I'm just going to briefly list off the reasons why that's not the case.

1) Moose are not hairless, with orange/green glowing eyes

2) They are not found in that part of the state

3) Even a baby moose is not small enough to match the description, let alone a yearling one driven off from its' mother for a new baby, as this theory alleges (nor are calves born in April)

4) Moose are not nocturnal

5) Most importantly, they are also not bipedal animals

I included this theory only to make a larger point. Skepticism is important. 9 times out of 10, there is a reasonable explanation for strange events. But distorting the facts of a case to sell a narrative makes whatever side is doing it look ridiculous, and makes it easier for more rational people to dismiss either genuinely weird phenomenon or solidly realistic reasons out of hand.

Ok, rant over. There is one more suspect (which is also where I tend to lean on this matter): the mannegishi. Coming from the legends of the Cree people, these beings ""are little people with round heads and no noses who live with with only one purpose: to play jokes on travelers. The little creatures have long spidery legs, arms with six-fingered hands, and live between rocks in the rapids.""

Fun fact about all of these sightings, not only did they occur near water, Bill and Abby believed that was where it came from. And the 50 years of speculation over just what the creature was sounds like the sort of thing a prankster would enjoy. Long live the Dover Demon! May it come crawling back into the spotlight once again to baffle a new generation once more.

Sources:

Mysterious America

Images:

Choisez, Jessica. Mysterious America book cover. 26 April 2025. Author's personal collection.

By William Bartlett - Original publication: William BartlettImmediate source 1: http://www.cryptopia.us/site/2010/03/dover-demon-massachusetts-usa/Immediate source 2: http://www.theironskeptic.com/articles/dover/dover.htm, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57993494