April 26, 2012

Oddly Intriguing: The Dover Demon

“The first thing I do when people come in to the museum is ask them if they know what cryptozoology is,” ~ Loren Coleman, as quoted in the Portland Press Herald

The Thursday, April 26, 2012, Portland Press Herald’s GO Section highlights this Saturday’s Obscura Day event.

The piece is entitled Off Beat: Oddly intriguing
Maine marks Obscura Day with a lecture on the so-called ‘Dover Demon’ at the Cryptozoology Museum in Portland
by Ray Routhier.

Routhier begins his article this way….

Saturday is Obscura Day, a time to celebrate weird places around the world.

So Atlas Obscura, an online guide to weird places, set out to pick the weirdest places they could find to highlight on that day.

In Maine, they picked only one — the International Cryptozoology Museum on Avon Street in Portland. To mark the occasion, museum founder Loren Coleman will be giving a lecture on his investigations into the so-called “Dover Demon” in Dover, Mass., 35 years ago.

Read more here.

Besides looking at the actual sightings, we shall be examining the cultural impact during the last 35 years of the Dover Demon.


The Dover Demon haunts The Perhapanauts, co-created by Todd Dezago, who will be a special guest at Saturday’s special evening.
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Details:

OBSCURA DAY
WHEN: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday
WHERE: International Cryptozoology Museum, 11 Avon St., Portland
HOW MUCH: $7 ($5 ages 12 and under) from 11 a.m. to 3:45 p.m.; $13 for lecture and special events from 4 to 7 p.m.
INFO: obscuraday.com; cryptozoologymuseum.com
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Since my investigation and naming of the “Dover Demon,” it has become a part of the consciousness of the shadowy world between cryptozoology and Forteana.

Many artists have decided to share their vision of what the Dover Demon looked like:


Andy (Mongoose) Finkle’s Dover Demon.


The Dover Demon by Aquilian Ranger.


Dover Demon stealing a hamburger by Liam Richardson.

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Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

Filed under Breaking News, Cryptomundo Exclusive, Cryptotourism, CryptoZoo News, Dover Demon, Eyewitness Accounts, Pop Culture