Oddly Intriguing: The Dover Demon
Posted by: Loren Coleman on April 26th, 2012
“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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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.
Wish I could attend. Sounds FUN! =)
Given the topic I think an earlier post of mine with revisions is worthy of posting.
It certainly could have been just a teenage hoax. The Thetis Lake and original Puerto Rican Chupacabras sightings have both been recently linked to Sci-fi movies, so why not the Dover Demon? “Close Encounters” wasn’t released until six months after the Dover sightings, but small child-sized aliens with large heads didn’t exactly start then. “Invasion of the Saucermen” in 1957 and the list goes on and on. And
certainly the drawings by “witnesses” look more like aliens than natural world animals.
But if it wasn’t a hoax, then to my mind the most likely candidate for the Dover Demon is an escaped monkey. The general overall appearance and behavior described fit. And only in the Baxter sighting is the creature observed moving. And the gait is never described. Dover is a wealthy suburb of Boston and only 16 miles away from the center of the city. Greater Boston has always been a major center for medical and biological research where monkeys are used extensively. Understand, all three claimed encounters happened at night, so to match the physical desciptions, the best candidates I would submit are the Barbary ape or Japanese macaque. Anyway, if it wasn’t a hoax
what is more likely? An escaped exotic monkey from some affluent household or a completely unknown animal lurking 16 miles from downtown Boston?
Anyway, I just took the time to refer to Loren’s revised “Mysterios America” and found that scene measurement reinactments were made from the two sightings from moving vehicles. The duration of the sightings was set at five seconds (one witness actually claimed it lasted 30-45 seconds). Occupants of the first car stated they were going about 40mph or 45mph, the second sighting 40mph. Both sightings were at night, headlights centered on the road. Just examine the very first sighting. It began when Bill Bartlett says he thought he saw “a dog or cat creeping along a low wall of loose stones.” The “reinactments” determined the car passed about 20 feet from where the creature was sighted. Huh? Just do the math and conservatively make it 40mph. Excuse me, but even Sherlock Holmes in a 1970’s VW Bug with the brights full blast in a neighborhood with zero streetlights isn’t going to notice any small creature 20 feet off the road at the length of a football field. Doesn’t mean Bartlett didn’t see something. Just maybe not exactly as described.
Please understand I’m just an armchair amateur like most of us here.
Hey, the Dover Demon is a great mystery. It’s just that I personally don’t think any unknown animal has anything to do with what really occurred.
Just how is he intending to EAT that burger without a mouth?? @_@