0:00

Way back in 1977, four teenagers from a high school in

0:02

the Eastern United States all reported back in

0:04

1977, four teenagers from

0:06

a high school in the eastern

0:08

United States all reported seeing

0:11

a mysterious non -human being late

0:13

at night, something nobody else

0:15

in their community had ever reported

0:17

seeing, and something nobody had seen

0:19

before or since. Must

0:21

we be forced to accept their

0:23

account as a literal unerring

0:25

claim? Or is it justified

0:27

for us to open our minds

0:29

to other potential explanations? The

0:32

Dover Demon is up right now on

0:35

Skeptoid. to

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You're listening to Skeptoid. I'm

1:57

Brian Dunning from skeptoid.com. The

2:00

Legend of the Dover Demon. Welcome

2:04

Welcome to the show that separates

2:06

fact from fiction, science from pseudoscience,

2:08

real history from fake history, and

2:10

helps us all make better life

2:12

decisions by knowing what's real and

2:14

what's not. Come back with us

2:16

now to 1977, when everything was

2:18

just a little bit more awesome. And

2:23

of course, the cryptids. Nowhere

2:25

were the groovy cryptids better exemplified

2:27

than in Dover, Massachusetts, a

2:29

suburb of Boston. In three separate

2:31

incidents, all late at night

2:33

and spanning only 24 hours, four

2:35

teenagers all reported seeing the

2:37

same bizarre, unknown creature while they

2:39

were either walking or driving

2:42

in the rural community. It was

2:44

like some kind of alien

2:46

monster, small but with a giant

2:48

head and tiny, thin body. In

2:51

each case, it vanished and was

2:53

never seen again, except in the

2:55

memories of the teens and in

2:57

the annals of urban legendary. What

2:59

could it have been? We

3:03

are here today to do our

3:05

best to answer that question. We have

3:07

no physical evidence that anything happened

3:09

at all. Just the testimony of these

3:11

four young people. So let's

3:13

take a closer look at what they

3:15

said happened. Dover

3:18

is about a half -hour commute

3:20

from Boston and is populated

3:22

mainly by Massachusetts' most wealthy.

3:24

It is, in fact, Massachusetts'

3:26

wealthiest town, with a tiny

3:28

population of only 5 ,000

3:30

back in 1977 and hardly

3:33

any larger today. The

3:35

estates and the homes are both,

3:37

by and large, large. It

3:39

is beautiful and green and rural.

3:41

But for high school students, it

3:43

was not a place of dazzling social

3:45

opportunities. The students would have had

3:47

to find their own amusements. Late

3:51

on the nights of April 21st

3:53

and 22nd, 1977. Four

3:56

students from Dover -Sherborn High

3:58

School. total enrollment just under

4:00

500. All shared an

4:02

incredible experience, but in

4:04

three apparently unconnected incidents.

4:07

Their ages ranged from 15 to 18. The

4:11

first came when Bill Bartlett, 17,

4:13

was rolling in his sweet Volkswagen

4:15

with some friends. Suddenly he saw,

4:17

though nobody else in the car

4:19

did, a bizarre creature on the

4:21

side of the road, short, but

4:23

with a huge head, white or

4:25

peach in color, big eyes, no

4:27

other facial features, and a very

4:29

thin neck and limbs. Two

4:32

hours later, John Baxter, 15.

4:35

was walking home when he encountered a

4:37

silhouette walking toward him. He called out

4:39

and the creature ran away across a

4:42

ditch and John then caught his first

4:44

good look at it. It had a

4:46

huge double -lobed head like a peanut and

4:48

skinny arms and legs with long fingers

4:50

that seemed to wrap around and mold

4:52

to the tree it held and to

4:54

the rocks it stood upon. The

4:57

next night, also late, 18

5:00

-year -old Will Tainter was driving

5:02

his girlfriend Abby Brabham 15,

5:04

home. She spotted a

5:06

creature in the road, monkey -like, but with

5:08

a huge oblong head. The

5:10

smooth -skinned creature tan in color, its

5:12

eyes shining back brightly in the

5:14

headlights. Will caught only a passing

5:16

glance as they drove. The entire

5:18

sighting lasted only a few seconds.

5:22

Bartlett, today a professional artist

5:24

and Baxter, both drew sketches

5:26

of what they saw and they

5:29

were strikingly similar. A small

5:31

thin creature with a huge double

5:33

-lobed head, tiny body and shockingly

5:35

skinny neck and limbs and

5:37

no features on its face except

5:39

glowing eyes reflecting the headlights. The

5:43

Dover Demon is one of those cases

5:45

that's really hard to solve to anyone

5:48

actually trying to solve it. The alleged

5:50

creature made only one appearance in history,

5:52

to only a few people in just

5:54

that one 24 -hour span. Nobody

5:56

ever reported anything like it

5:58

before or since. It only

6:00

appeared to four teenagers. All

6:02

of whom knew each other and attended the

6:04

same very small high school. It

6:07

didn't appear to any adults or anyone

6:09

else on those streets at the

6:11

same time, despite three alleged appearances

6:13

at three different locations. There

6:15

simply wasn't any data,

6:18

except for four verbal, unevidenced

6:20

accounts. Normally, I

6:22

I would simply ignore a story

6:24

like this on the principle of Hitchens'

6:26

razor. What can be asserted

6:28

without evidence can be dismissed

6:30

without evidence. But

6:33

But is Skeptoid, and since the urban

6:35

legend exists, we know there are

6:37

lessons to be learned in how

6:39

to skeptically approach the claims and

6:41

in understanding how and why the

6:44

urban legend exists. Let's

6:47

look at the possibilities. If there

6:49

was a strange creature, there

6:51

are two possibilities. Number

6:54

one, a small population, perhaps

6:56

just one of this undiscovered

6:58

creature, roughly as described, is

7:01

or was real, and actually

7:03

did make the appearances to

7:05

the teens. Or, number two,

7:08

someone hoaxed the teens with some kind

7:10

of costume or puppet. perhaps

7:12

even one of the four of them. if

7:15

there was no strange creature. There

7:18

are also two possibilities. Number

7:20

Number one, the teens all misidentified a

7:22

normal animal or person. As

7:25

we know, this is by far the most

7:27

common explanation for mysterious sightings of all kinds.

7:30

Or number two, the

7:32

made it up and lied about it. So,

7:36

now let's do our thing and go

7:38

through each of these four possibilities to

7:40

see where each is strong and

7:42

where it's weak. Number

7:45

Number one, the the creature was genuinely

7:47

a strange unknown entity. This

7:50

should be the last possibility

7:53

to be considered. It's where Occam's

7:55

Razor comes in, the explanation requiring

7:57

the fewest new assumptions should

7:59

be prefer - word. None of the

8:01

other three explanations require any

8:03

new assumptions at all. Hoaxes

8:05

happen every day. People misidentify

8:07

things every day. People lie

8:09

about stuff every day. But

8:11

an unknown strange entity is

8:13

a gigantic new assumption about

8:15

the world. To

8:18

see just how gigantic it

8:20

would be, we can consider the

8:22

creature's anatomically implausible nature. This

8:24

explanation would be correct only if

8:26

the teen's description of it

8:28

was infallible and faultless. So we're

8:30

talking about a creature with

8:32

an enormous head which would be

8:34

quite heavy, supported by a

8:36

neck and limbs that would be,

8:38

according to the drawings, totally

8:40

inadequate to support its weight. It

8:43

had no evident nose, mouth or

8:45

ears, thus no way to breathe. It

8:47

was naked at night when the

8:50

average temperature there on that date hovers

8:52

just above freezing, 3 degrees Celsius

8:54

or 38 degrees Fahrenheit. Its

8:56

other distinctive features are also

8:58

unknown among full -time bipeds.

9:01

There's nothing like it in

9:03

the whole taxonomic catalogue. There's

9:06

also the matter that it was

9:08

only seen during this one 24

9:10

-hour period. If it lived in

9:12

the vicinity, it would have been

9:14

spotted many other times as well.

9:17

There simply aren't any examples of

9:19

actual creatures living among humans that

9:21

have only ever been seen once.

9:23

And it's just not plausible. So

9:25

in just about every way, this

9:27

is not an acceptable explanation. Hey

9:33

everyone, quick break from the show

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10:33

Number two, someone hoaxed the

10:35

teens. Of

10:38

course this happens. It could

10:40

have been anyone, or it could have been one of

10:42

the four making up their own experience and then

10:44

trying to scare their friends with some kind of costume

10:46

or puppet. Well, it

10:48

couldn't have been a costume because small size

10:50

and twig -like limbs were well outside the

10:52

range of what any human could have

10:54

fit into. Could it it

10:56

been some kind of puppet,

10:58

marionette, or radio -controlled audio-animatronic? Well,

11:01

sure it could have. But

11:03

so, it was pretty elaborate and effective. Wouldn't

11:06

a hoaxer made something so elaborate want to

11:09

use it more than just on these

11:11

few kids just this one time? In

11:15

a 2023 article

11:17

for Skeptical Inquirer magazine, author Ben Radford,

11:20

who popped a tire on one of

11:22

our vans on the Skeptoid Valley adventure, Noted

11:24

that the police concluded the whole

11:26

episode was, quote, nothing

11:28

more than a school vacation hoax.

11:31

and that, quote, though many locals

11:33

vouched for the teen's credibility,

11:36

several, did not. I

11:39

agree that a hoax is a a

11:41

possibility. I I just don't think

11:43

it's a very likely one, unless all

11:45

four were in on the hoax and there

11:48

was never any elaborate puppet creature. Number

11:52

three, the teens misidentified a

11:54

normal animal or person. It's

11:57

possible for one person to see an every day.

12:00

animal person from pretty close up

12:02

and misidentify it so radically

12:04

as a large -headed alien -like

12:06

creature with very thin limbs. but

12:09

it's much less likely for four people

12:11

to all do so. So

12:13

while it's true that honest accounts

12:16

for many reports of strange

12:18

sightings. I think it's pretty unlikely in

12:20

this case. Yet,

12:23

misidentification of an ordinary animal

12:25

is what investigator and

12:27

author Joe went with, also

12:30

writing in Skeptical Inquirer and also

12:32

in 2023. He

12:34

was satisfied that the Dover was

12:36

simply a male snowy owl. The

12:39

and shape of the whole owl

12:41

are generally a good match for

12:43

the reported double-lobed head lacking any

12:46

nose or mouth. The The eye

12:48

would be compatible with the reports, and

12:50

if its wings were extended a bit

12:52

they could be mistaken for long spindly arms

12:54

with long fingers at the end. The

12:58

identification is a bit troublesome

13:00

for me. Not only because

13:02

Joe's a respected friend of mine,

13:04

and because just episodes I also

13:07

disagreed with his identification for the Gloucester

13:09

serpent, but mainly

13:11

because it's not logical. Yes,

13:14

granted, a a person might look at a

13:16

snowy owl in the right conditions and

13:18

they could think they're seeing something that looks

13:20

like what these teens drew. But

13:22

it happened to four people in

13:24

town in just 24 hours, it

13:26

must be a very compelling illusion.

13:30

Yet Yet the never fooled anyone

13:32

ever, before or since. For

13:36

this reason, I don't find the

13:38

misidentification explanation to be a good

13:40

fit for this case. which

13:42

is unusual because it's often a perfect

13:44

fit for many cases of strange sightings.

13:48

And this brings us to number

13:50

four, the lied about

13:52

it. This

13:54

is the only one of the

13:57

possible explanations that has no weaknesses.

14:00

There's no evidence that anything happened at all.

14:02

Again, quoting Radford, Despite

14:05

police searches and participation

14:07

of four researchers from

14:09

five different UFO and Fortean organizations,

14:12

including cryptozoologist Lauren Coleman,

14:15

no evidence was ever found. Eyewitnesses

14:17

were interviewed, measurements were

14:20

taken, and reenactments were done. The

14:22

fact that the Dover demon was

14:24

a one -off sighting, reported by three

14:26

friends in just over one day hurts

14:29

credibility as well. No

14:31

one else in the town reported seeing anything

14:33

strange and nearby animals were

14:35

reported to be acting normally. Some

14:39

authors have noted that the year of

14:41

the event, 1977, that Close was

14:43

the same year that close encounters of the

14:45

kind was released and that the creature

14:47

drawn and described by the teens was a suspiciously

14:50

close match for the alien creatures

14:52

in that film. The

14:55

teens could have been inspired by it and cooked

14:57

up a little scheme to pretend to have seen

14:59

one. one. I discount this

15:01

as the movie was released

15:03

a full eight after the

15:05

Dover Demon Just

15:08

to be clear, I'm not calling

15:11

the kids liars. Nothing unusual

15:13

having happened is simply our null

15:15

hypothesis, our assumption in

15:17

the lack of any compelling evidence

15:19

to the contrary. The

15:21

alternatives all range from illogical

15:24

to completely implausible. So

15:26

unless the Dover makes a a reappearance

15:29

and leaves us some empirical

15:31

evidence of his existence, this

15:33

one remains. an uninteresting

15:35

and almost certainly false.

15:38

campfire story. We

15:41

continue with more on my disagreement

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