Status: Unverified — police at the time suggested a school-vacation hoax; skeptics suggest a misidentified animal such as a foal or a snowy owl.
About the pin: Pinned in the middle of Dover; reports were along roads about two miles apart.
Credit: “Di (they-them)” / Wikimedia Commons · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source
On April 21, 1977, a 17-year-old driving on Farm Street in Dover, Massachusetts, reported seeing a figure about four feet tall perched on a broken stone wall. It had a watermelon-shaped head, glowing orange eyes and no visible nose or mouth. That same evening a 15-year-old reported something similar on Miller Hill Road, and the next night another 15-year-old reported an encounter on Springdale Avenue.
Each of the three teenagers drew a sketch, and a local news report noted that the three locations, when plotted, formed a straight line more than two miles long. The sightings became public in May. Police told the Associated Press that the descriptions were probably a school-vacation hoax.
Skeptics have suggested a foal, a moose calf or a snowy owl, and others point to 1977's science-fiction films. The skeptic Brian Dunning argues none of these explains four independent sightings in 24 hours, and the answer is still open.
Sources: Wikipedia: Dover Demon
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