Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, aliens, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, government conspiracies, cults, ghosts, EVPs, myths, ancient artifacts, religion, strange facts, odd sightings or just the plain unexplainable.

The mental imagery of a creature called the Dover Demon may be one of a horned, scaly biped surrounded in flames and looking quite sinister. This description, however, seems to be more suited to Courtney Love than the actual Dover Demon itself. No, the Demon is actually described as being about four feet tall with a watermelon shaped, noseless and mouthless head. It was sighted three times in 1977, and people still be trippin’ about it today.

Wikipedia has a good opening paragraph for the topic at hand:

“The Dover Demon was first sighted at night by three seventeen-year-olds who were driving through the Dover area when the car’s headlights illuminated it. Bill Bartlett, the driver, reported that he saw what he thought at first was a dog or a cat, but upon closer inspection realized that it was a bizarre, unearthly-looking creature crawling along a stone wall on Farm Street.

“Bartlett continued to watch the creature, and he reported it to have a disproportionately large, watermelon-shaped head and illuminated orange eyes, like glass marbles. It had long, thin arms and legs with slender fingers, which it used to grasp onto the pavement. It was hairless and had rough, flesh-toned skin, described as tan and sandpaper-like. The creature’s appearance was very plain, with no nose or ears, and no mouth was seen.”

Later that day, and then again the day following, the creature was seen again. One of the newer sightings was made by John Baxter, a kid who encountered the creature on foot. It seems to have run away from him, and then inexplicably just stood near a tree at a safe distance.

The third sighting was by two young people in a car. All descriptions are roughly the same except for the eye colour, and they all happened within about a mile of each other.

One cause of grief to all the people who reported an encounter is that they were all teenagers. Skeptics found things easy to brush off as an immature conspiracy of sorts. We haven’t seen any reports that say all the witnesses knew each other, but again, they all did seem to live in pretty close proximity (we refer you, again, to the fact that all sightings were within a mile).

Another interesting paranormal anecdote lies within the book Dover Farms, which is an account of local area history. It’s a passive description of one man’s encounter with a different kind of demon – the king of demons, in fact:

‘‘In early times this road went around by the picturesque Polka rock [an area very close to the Dover sightings] which was called for a man by that name, of whom it is remembered, that amid the superstitions of the age he thought he saw his Satanic Majesty as he was riding on horseback by this secluded spot.”

It seems that not much of a description was given for the horse-back demon, so it’s impossible to say whether or not the encounter was with the same beast. One thing worth mentioning is that the 1977 Massachusetts police chief who looked into the Dover Demon case has mentioned that he personally knew all the young witnesses, and that they were all good kids.

Could good kids make crap up? No – never. That’s never been done. Still though – thirty-some-odd years later and the involved parties – now full fledged adults, obviously – haven’t changed their story. That’s gotta be good for something.