FIELD FILE · DOVER-DEMONHUMANOIDLOCAL LEGEND
Dover Demon
Also known as The Demon of Dover
A small, hairless figure with a melon-shaped head and glowing eyes that three teenagers reported in Dover, Massachusetts, over two nights in April 1977.
Dover is a quiet, wooded, well-to-do town about 15 miles southwest of Boston – an unlikely home for one of America’s strangest monster stories. On the night of April 21, 1977, during school vacation week, 17-year-old Bill Bartlett was driving along winding Farm Street with two friends at about 10:30 p.m. when his headlights caught a small figure clambering along a broken stone wall. He said it had a huge, watermelon-shaped head, large glowing orange eyes, thin limbs with long fingers wrapped around the stones, and peach-colored, hairless skin with a rough texture. His friends were talking and missed it.
Bartlett went home and drew what he had seen. A couple of hours later, around 12:30 a.m., 15-year-old John Baxter was walking home near Miller Hill Road, about a mile away, when he saw a small figure with an oversized head approaching. When he stepped toward it, it scuttled into the woods, where he said he saw it standing by a stream, its long fingers gripping a tree. His drawing closely matched Bartlett’s.
The next night, 15-year-old Abby Brabham was being driven home along Springdale Avenue by 18-year-old Will Taintor when she saw a crouching figure by a bridge, with a large featureless head and eyes that she said glowed green. Taintor glimpsed it briefly. That was the last sighting. Researcher Loren Coleman soon interviewed the teenagers, gave the creature its memorable name, and later featured it in his book Mysterious America; the story became public, and reached the Boston papers, in May 1977.
What makes the case enduring is its simplicity: a handful of sober-sounding witnesses, matching sketches, a 26-hour window and then nothing more. Bartlett, who became a professional painter, has never retracted his account, though he says he does not know what he saw. Police at the time suggested a vacation-week hoax; skeptics have proposed a young moose or a foal. Dover has come to adopt the creature as a slightly bemused local mascot.
- Type
- Humanoid
- Status
- Local legend
- First reported
- 1977
- Best-known location
- Farm Street and Springdale Avenue, Dover, Massachusetts
- Also called
- The Demon of Dover
- Reported in
- Massachusetts
What witnesses describe
About three to four feet tall and thin, with an enormous melon- or watermelon-shaped head, large round eyes that glowed orange (or green, in one report), no visible nose, mouth or ears, long spindly arms and legs, and long fingers. The skin was hairless and peach- or tan-colored, with a rough, sandpaper-like texture.
Where and when it’s seen
Stone walls, woods and roadside brooks in the rural lanes of Dover, Massachusetts; all reports came at night over two consecutive days in April 1977.
Notable sightings
- April 21, 1977Bill Bartlett on Farm Street Farm Street, Dover
Around 10:30 p.m., Bartlett saw a big-headed, orange-eyed figure creeping along a stone wall in his headlights. He sketched it that night and signed the drawing.
- April 22, 1977 (after midnight)John Baxter near Miller Hill Road Miller Hill Road, Dover
Walking home around 12:30 a.m., Baxter followed a small figure into the woods and saw it clinging to a tree by a brook. His independent sketch resembled Bartlett’s.
- April 22, 1977 (night)Abby Brabham and Will Taintor Springdale Avenue, Dover
Riding home around midnight, Brabham saw a crouched creature with a large head and glowing eyes by a bridge. It was the last reported sighting.
- May 1977The story hits the Boston papers Boston, Massachusetts
The sightings became public in the first half of May, and Boston-area newspapers and the Associated Press carried the story to a wider audience.
What could explain it?
- Some writers have suggested a young moose calf, whose large head and eye placement could fit the sketches; others proposed a foal.
- Skeptic Joe Nickell suggested a snowy owl, with headlights making its plumage look peach-colored and its partly spread wings resembling thin arms.
- Police at the time called it probably a school-vacation hoax, though none of the witnesses ever admitted to one.
- Brief nighttime glimpses in headlights, the excitement of teenagers comparing notes, and the late-1970s UFO craze could all have shaped the descriptions.
Legend, culture and tourism
Loren Coleman’s naming of the “Dover Demon” turned a local oddity into a cult favorite of cryptozoology. The Dover Historical Society sold T-shirts with Bartlett’s sketch and the slogan “Dover Demon, do you believe?”, the creature appeared on Animal Planet’s Lost Tapes in 2009, and it pops up in comics and in the anime Dandadan. Journalists still call Bartlett every April and Halloween.
Where it’s reported
Dover Demon in the news
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Sources
First published · Updated
