April 21

The Dover Demon

Bartlett's drawing via The Iron Skeptic

There were three teenagers on this date in 1977 that I have either admiration or sympathy for. If admiration, it's because they pulled off a clever and harmless hoax that still endures almost 40 years later. But if they really saw what they claimed they did, few would have believed them, especially since, as teenagers, their stories would automatically have drawn suspicion. In that case, they have my sympathy.

It began when 17 year old William Bartlett down Farm Street in Dover, Massachusetts, at 10:30 pm. He saw some movement along the top of a broken stone wall, but it wasn't until the headlights fully revealed the creature that he realized it was something he had never seen before. "It scared me to death," he was reported saying. "I couldn't go back and see it." It was the first glimpse of what would come to be known as the Dover Demon.

Later that same evening 15 year old John Baxter reported seeing the same or similar creature in the woods off Miller Hill Road. At first he thought it might have been a child, but when he obtained a closer look he fled the woods in a panic.

John Baxter with his drawing

The third sighting wasn't until the following even when Abby Brabham, also 15, saw the thing sitting upright on Springdale Avenue. When plotted on a map the sightings formed a line two miles long.

The police interviewed all three teenagers, who described the thing, as well as producing drawings. They described something three and a half feet tall with an egg-shaped head with no ears, about the same size and shape as it's body, long thin limbs with tendril like fingers, and glowing (or reflective) orange eyes. The accounts given by all three jibed, with the exception that Brabham stated the eyes were green.

Police searched the area, but found nothing, claiming initially that the whole thing was "probably nothing more than a school vacation hoax." Police chief Carl Sheridan wasn't so sure, however. 

"The only thing that worries me is the story of Bill Bartlett," he said, calling the teenager "an outstanding artist and a reliable witness."

Some people thought the kids might have seen and misidentified a newborn moose, and if you compare the pictures of a moose calf with the creature drawings, it becomes apparent that the general body shape is not too far off. But a moose wouldn't have long tendril like fingers, and moose have prominent ears.

Whatever the thing was, it was never seen again after that night.