Dover Demon

The Dover Demon is the name given to a small, large-headed humanoid reported around Dover, Massachusetts, on April 21 and 22, 1977. Several teenagers described brief nighttime glimpses of a thin, hairless figure with luminous eyes. Investigators interviewed the witnesses soon afterward, but no photograph, track, or physical specimen was recovered.

Loren Coleman popularized the name after investigating the reports. Police initially considered a school-vacation prank. Later skeptical analysis proposed a young moose or another animal glimpsed under poor conditions; that explanation, like the cryptid claim, cannot now be demonstrated.

Illustrations tend to standardize the witnesses’ differing eye colors and proportions into one alien-like design. Later comics, novels, and collectibles build a character from a short and uncertain cluster of sightings.

• Joseph Nyman and others, Investigation Into the Reports of an Unknown Creature Seen in Dover, Massachusetts April 21–22, 1977, January 28, 1978.
• Joe Nickell, “Identifying the Enigmatic ‘Dover Demon,’” Skeptical Inquirer, July/August 2023.