Legend of the Dover Demon


As generations come and go, folklore combines with further sightings to propel urban myth and its monsters into our collective histories. However this is not true with the Dover Demon. Three sightings in the late '70's are all it took to make this “animal,” legend, though the creature has not been seen since.

On April 21st, 1977, at 10 o' clock in the evening. Young teenage Dover resident, Bill Bartlett was driving along Farm Street in his with two of his friends, Mike Mazzocca and Andy Brodie, all three only seventeen. It was spring break and they were out for a night on the town, but something strange happened that evening that Bartlett would never forget – probably because local media and fans of the unexplained just wont let him.

“I do remember it was around ten o' clock at night, My friends and I were out hunting around looking for people to hang out with – you know, looking for the party. We couldn't find anybody, so we were heading back toward Sherborn. I'm driving Farm Street, and I see something ahead on a stone wall. I wasn't really sure if it as a cat or dog. My headlights were hitting this thing, and the eyes were glowing – just like when your headlights hit the eyes of an animal, they glow. These eyes were glowing bright orange. I didn't think that was so unusual, but when I got closer, I got a real good look at what this thing was, and it turned towards me and I saw these spindly-like hands grabbing onto the rock. And I still didn't believe what I was seeing... I was like... what the heck is that? it looked like one of those kids who are from Biafra, with the distended bellies and the long spindly arms and the big eyes, except it was very pale, really gaunt, and its cheekbones were sunken in – you really couldn't see the features of its face. It wasn't any creature that I've ever seen from around here, I could judge the size of the creature and I knew that this was larger than a raccoon and definitely larger than a fox. This was a good-sized creature. And its hands... I've seen raccoon's paws up close – they're small – and this creature had large hands. And it wasn't large like the size of an adult human; it was large like a kid with long fingers. And the eyes... I don't know if human eyes glow in the headlights but I've never seen it.” - Bill Bartlett

When he returned home Bartlett immediately sat down drew what he had seen. Sadly for the painter before years of academic training and practice this drawing may be his most famous work to date. He told his parents what had happened, but aside from the two friends who had been in the car with him, no one knew what he was describing. 

Around midnight that same evening, fifteen-year-old John Baxter had just left his girlfriend's house. He was walking home along Millers Hill Road – just over a mile from Bartlett's sighting on farm street – he spotted a strange creature. It was lurking near the side of the road, about one hundred feet away from him at that moment.

Initially, Baxter thought it was a kid from the neighborhood, but as he walked closer, he saw that it was neither the right size nor proportions for a kid. By the time he was twenty or thirty feet away from the creature, it scurried off into the woods and up a small hill. Baxter said he could only hear the thing as it plodded through the leaves and underbrush. But when this strange creature stopped, it wrapped its spindly toes over a rock and its spindly fingers around a tree. This is where John Baxter got his best look at the biped. About an hour after the encounter, Baxter also drew the creature that he had seen. He described the head as a figure-eight shape on its side with very large eyes.



On Friday, April 22 of the same year, there was one last sighting again around midnight – only twenty-six hours after Bartlett's experience. Fifteen-year-old Abby Brabham was being driven home to Sherborn by her friend Will Taintor. They were driving along Springdale Ave., Just two miles from the Bartlett sighting. Brabham saw the headlights illuminate an apelike creature with glowing green eyes perched on the side of the road. Will Taintor didn't get a as good a look at the creature, but later he described something about as big as a goat or a large dog.

Bartlett, Baxter, and Brabham were aware of each others existence before April 22, but they didn't even consider themselves as acquaintances. Once a few people in town heard about the incident, word quickly spread. Within days, eminent cryptozoological researcher Loren Coleman began his interview and investigation. After speaking with the witnesses and interviewing the parents, friends, and teachers of Bartlett, and Baxter, Coleman determined that the accounts were genuine. It was then that Coleman coined the term “Dover Demon”.

There have been many supernatural descriptions slapped on this thing back in 1977. The wittnesses themselves may have their theories but they haven't reached any conclusions. Over three decades later, the Dover Demon lives on through the accounts of these only witnesses. In 2006, paranormal investigator and author Brad Steiger polled various researchers internationally to determine the top-ten list of real monsters, and the Dover Demon came in at number 10.

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