The Dover Demon

Late on the night of April 21, 1977, a 17-year-old driving with friends through Dover, Massachusetts, said his headlights caught a strange figure crawling along a low stone wall beside the road. Only he saw it clearly. He drew a sketch of it soon afterward, and that drawing became the creature's defining image.

Later the same night, a 15-year-old walking home on another road in town reported a similar small figure that ran ahead of him and clung to a tree near a gully.

The following night, a teenage couple driving near Springdale Avenue reported a creature matching the same description in their headlights.

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman interviewed the witnesses within days, gave the creature its name, and brought the case wider attention. No sighting since has matched the 1977 reports in detail.

• Three to four feet tall.
• A very large head, often described as watermelon- or egg-shaped, on a thin neck.
• Large, round eyes that seemed to glow in the headlights. One witness said orange, another green.
• No visible nose, ears, or mouth reported.
• Long, spindly arms and legs with long fingers.
• Hairless skin described as peach or tan and rough-textured.

Skeptics have suggested a young animal, such as a foal or a moose calf, seen in poor light from a moving car. Others suspect a prank, though no hoax was ever shown.

The sightings came from separate witnesses on separate roads, who say they did not compare stories beforehand.