Dover Demon

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Bill Bartlett's original sketch of the Dover Demon.

The Dover Demon is a creature reportedly sighted in the town of Dover, Massachusetts on April 21 and April 22, 1977. [1]

Sightings[]

17-year-old William "Bill" Bartlett claimed that while driving on April 21, 1977, he saw a large-eyed creature "with tendril-like fingers" and glowing eyes on top of a broken stone wall on Farm Street in Dover, Massachusetts. 15-year-old John Baxter reported seeing a similar creature on Miller Hill Road the same evening. Another 15-year-old, Abby Brabham, claimed to have seen the creature the following night on Springdale Avenue.[1]

The teenagers all drew sketches of the alleged creature. Bartlett wrote on his sketch, "I, Bill Bartlett, swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this creature." According to the Boston Globe, "the locations of the sightings, plotted on a map, lay in a straight line over 2 miles".[1]

Some suggested that the creature may have been a foal or a moose calf.[1] Police told the Associated Press that creatures reported by the teenagers "were probably nothing more than a school vacation hoax."[2]

In popular culture[]

In 2009, The Dover Demon was featured in an episode of the American horror television series Lost Tapes, which aired on Animal Planet.[3]

The Dover Demon appears as a character in the American comic book series Proof, which features various other creatures of cryptozoology. In the comic, it is a creature able to see into the future. It appears in another similar comic book series called The Perhapanauts.[4][5] The Dover Demon would further make brief appearances in the comic books The Pound: Ghouls Night Out, and Hack/Slash: Entry Wound.[6]

A Dover Demon also appears in the webcomic Gunnerkrigg Court.[7]

The Dover Demon also has its own book, written by Hunter Shea

About William Barlett[]

William Bartlett is a successful artist who lives with his family in Needham. Every October, he starts receiving letters from people who want to talk to him about something other than art — podcasters, websites, and even high school kids. They want to question 61-year-old Bartlett about what he claims he observed in Dover on April 21, 1977. "What I saw, it did happen,” said Bartlett. “I don't know what it is, but I still saw it. It wasn’t a hoax. It was 10 seconds while driving a car and I still remember it. To this day, it’s still perplexing. Whatever it was, it was strange looking. At the time, I come home and I did a drawing of it and showed it to my parents,” said Bartlett. “Somehow, word got around and someone told Loren Coleman, the cryptozoologist. It wasn’t even that good of a sketch.”

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ a b c d Sullivan, Mark (October 29, 2006). "Decades later, the Dover Demon still haunts". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 7 March 2014.
  2. ^ "Teeners report 'creature'". Bangor Daily News. May 16, 1977. Retrieved 10 March 2014.
  3. ^ "Lost Tapes" Dover Demon (TV Episode 2009) at IMDb
  4. ^ The Perhapanauts #1, (April 1, 2008)
  5. ^ The Perhapanauts: Second Chances #3, 4 (December 1, 2006-January 1, 2007)
  6. ^ "Dover Demon (Character)" Comic Vine
  7. ^ https://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2551
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