Mannegishi/Dover Demon

Happy Mondo Missy Monday!

Thanks for checking out a brand new 2020 edition of May Mythical Beasts, from The Missy Show.  We're still your premiere source for fun and informative pet topics, (even though in the month of May, our blog posts will focus on mythical beasts--but pet posts will still continue in our Facebook group).  And speaking of mythical beasts, today's post consists of possibly two separate beasts--or they could be one and the same:

The Mannegishi and The Dover Demon.  

Could sightings of the Dover Demon be the same creature that the Cree people of Eastern Canada referred to as the Mannegishi?  Before we explore this topic, let's first lay some groundwork for how this/these creatures look, where they were commonly sighted and some other background.  Today's information is courtesy of MysteriousUniverse.org.

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/11/ancient-native-mystery-beasts-and-the-dover-demon/

Original sketch of The Dover Demon by Bill Bartlett

Among the many myths and legends of the proud Cree people of eastern Canada are some that stand out as especially intriguing, and one of these is the creatures known as the Mannegishi. These beings are traditionally described as being small humanoids covered in gray, rough skin, standing around only 3 or 4 feet in height, with extremely long, thin arms topped with 12 fingers, and large, bulbous heads with large glowing eyes, without hair and with no discernible nose, and although always naked they display no sexual organs, making them rather androgynous. 

The Mannegishi are said to be mischievous tricksters prone to playing pranks on human beings, and while this is typically harmless fun, they are also told of having the treacherous habit of hiding in rocks by the river to capsize canoes. At first glance it seems as if these entities must be purely mythical constructs, but the Cree always saw them as not spirits or magical beings, but rather a very real, matter-of-fact feature of the landscape. Add to this some very odd sightings of creatures that seem to fit the description of the Mannegishi and there has been some talk in cryptozoological circles that there may be more to these creatures than just old Native legends.

By far the sightings most linked to the legend of the Mannegishi occurred over a period of several days in April of 1977 in the vicinity of Dover, Massachusetts. The string of sightings kicked off on April 21, 1977, with the first and perhaps the most well-known account of what would go on to become known as “The Dover Demon.” On this evening three teenagers by the names of Bill Bartlett, Mike Mazzocca, and Andy Brodie were driving along a darkened road called Farm Street at approximately 10:30 PM when Bartlett noticed some movement atop a rock wall. He didn’t think much of it at first, assuming that it was just a cat or some other animal, but when he glanced in its direction and the glow of the headlights illuminated it more fully he could soon see it was anything but.

Bartlett would claim that he had seen a crouched over hairless humanoid form with an oversized, oval head and huge, lidless eyes that were bright orange and had a glassy sheen to them. Its arms were described as being incredibly long, spindly, tipped with long fingers, and it had a “body shaped like a baby.” Its skin was described as pinkish in color and with a texture “like wet sandpaper.” The outlandish creature apparently stared right at him before slinking off into the night without a sound. When the startled and scared Bartlett told his friends about it, it turned out they had not seen it, and they went back to look for the odd creature but it was gone. Bartlett would later sketch the creature he had seen, and this drawing has become perhaps the most iconic image of the Dover Demon.

Bartlett would swear by his account, and it seems that he wasn’t lying because that very same evening there would be another sighting of what seems to have been the same creature by a totally unrelated witness. At 12:30 AM, just two hours after Bartlett’s sighting, 15-year-old John Baxter was walking along Miller’s High Road on his way home from his girlfriend’s house, and as he did he noticed a short figure walking down the road towards him. Baxter allegedly called out to it, thinking it was a person, perhaps a boy who lived nearby, but there was no response. As it approached, Baxter could see that there was something off about the figure, as it was only 3 feet high and seemed to have long, inhumanly thin arms and legs. He picked up his pace to get a better look, and that was when the creature leapt off the road to go running onto some rocks with incredible speed, where it stood leaning against a tree to stare at him. It was described as having a large oval head, two saucer-shaped eyes, and a body that looked like that of a scrawny monkey. Afraid that the creature might be dangerous, Baxter vacated the area as fast as he could. He too would draw a picture of what he had seen, and it looks amazingly similar to Bartlett’s own representation.

The very next evening the strange entity would rear its head again. On this occasion, a Will Taintor and Abby Brabham were driving along Springdale Avenue, on their way to Brabham’s house late at night. The drive was fairly uneventful until in the light of the headlights Brabham claimed to have seen a thin, hairless humanoid creature reminiscent of a monkey down on all fours, with a large head and green glowing eyes, and no apparent ears, nose, or mouth. The sighting was very brief, but Brabham was sure that it was no known animal, and her own sketch of it would bear an uncanny resemblance to those of the other witnesses.

At the time, these surreal reports made the news, and there was a minor panic surrounding it all, and although there were some who thought it was a hoax, none of the separate witnesses knew each other, nor had heard of each other’s reports when they had their own disparate sightings, and all of them sketched pretty much the same thing. Famed cryptozoologist Loren Coleman, who actually interviewed the witnesses and is indeed the one to coin the word “Dover Demon,” said that he was convinced that they were telling the truth, or at least they believed they were. Although sightings after that are rare there have been other accounts of what seems to be perhaps the same thing. One such report comes from as recently as 2004, from a witness named Evan Walsh, of Dover Massachusetts, who claims that he was driving home from a friend’s house at around 11:00 PM when he had his bizarre encounter, of which he says:

As I turned onto Woodland Rd. off of Rte. 16 I was shocked and startled by 3 black crows that flew right in front of my windshield, pretty odd for 11:00. I composed myself and continued driving. I took back roads to Bridge St. in Sherborn to get to Farm St. in Dover. After I went around the hairpin turn (anyone from the area knows the turn) and began to go over the bridge to cross the Charles River I noticed a dark shadowy object move swiftly from the woods to the center of the road where it stopped. It turned its large round head towards me slowly and glared at me with giant round eyes about the size of tennis balls. It stood on 4 legs and was completely hairless. It had no tail either and was the size of a huge dog i.e. Great Dane but much stockier. It had triangle shaped ears and a snickered snout that reminded me of some drawings I have seen in history books on the devil. I came to a stop and starred it down for a good 5 seconds before it slowly turned its head and swiftly disappeared into the woods to my right. I have no idea what it was but I do know it was not a dog or coyote or anything I have ever seen before.

Be sure to read about the rest of the encounters at the Mysterious Universe link right above this article.

So what do you think about the Dover Demon/Mannegishi?  Are they one and the same creature?  And whether they are or not, do you believe these sightings were hoaxes?  And if the sightings were real, just what are these creatures?  I believe these people saw what they said they saw.  Now what exactly what this being was, that they saw, no one can say.  Is this creature extra dimensional, extraterrestrial, or some undiscovered animal?

What do you guys think?

Well, that's it for now.  I'll see you guys back here next Monday for another May Mythical Beast post.  

Until then,

This is your host, J,

signing off....