The Devil Monkey of Danville, New Hampshire

The other day I was poking around the Web and found references to something called the Danville Devil Monkey. I love that name, don't you? Devil Monkey. Devil Monkey. It makes me want to scream: DEVIL MONKEY!!!

Almost as good as its name is the fact that the Devil Monkey appeared in Danville, New Hampshire. Danville is a classic small New England town. There are some old farmhouses, a couple of churches, and it runs by town meeting. The town's website is promoting a fund-raising spaghetti dinner for the local Boy Scouts. Danville is like someplace from a Thornton Wilder play. So obviously it's where the Devil Monkey would appear.

DEVIL MONKEY!!

The Danville monkey was first seen on August 21 by fire chief David Kimball when the creature leapt into the road in front of his truck. It jumped back into the woods, but Kimball was stunned by what he saw. What was a large monkey doing in southern New Hampshire?

“It jumped out of the trees,” Kimball said. “As soon as he hit the ground, he took a giant leap and went back where he came from. The first thought I had was: That’s nothing that’s native to here.” (Seacoast Online, September 14, 2001, "Residents Can't Stop Monkeying Around") 

Kimball consulted with the town librarian to determine what type of simian he saw. Kimball's best guess was that he saw a Humboldt's wooly monkey. Wooly monkeys are indigenous to the Amazon, not New England, so he was naturally puzzled by what he saw.

Several other Danville residents saw the animal in August and September that year. Scott Velleca saw the animal briefly in his backyard, while his wife Jen heard strange screeching noises coming from the woods. "It was a noise that didn't belong in my woods," she said. (Seacoast Online, September 14, 2001, "Residents Can't Stop Monkeying Around").

A local boy told his mother that peanut butter cookies he left in his treehouse disappeared. She at first thought her son was talking about an imaginary playmate, but after she learned about the monkey sightings she realized his story was probably true. Had the monkey taken the cookies?

A wooly monkey

Locals assumed the monkey was an escaped pet. It is illegal to own a Humboldt's wooly monkey as a pet and the owners (if they existed) never stepped forward. The town mobilized to capture the animal before the weather turned monkey-killingly cold. Denise Laratonda, Danville's animal control officer, partnered with the Humane Society to lure the monkey with female monkey urine. It did not work. Other Danville residents strung up bananas and oranges to lure the monkey into the open. Hunters with tranquilizer darts stood by the ready. A local DJ even dressed up a like a gorilla to entice the monkey.

Nothing worked. The Danville monkey remained elusive, something that was briefly seen, frequently heard, and impossible to catch. The story gained national media attention and Laratonda was scheduled to appear on NBC's Today Show to discuss the renegade simian. The September 11 terrorist attacks occurred before her appearance and the media turned its attention to more pressing matters.

The monkey continued to haunt Danville through September but then disappeared. Did it die? Was it recaptured by its mysterious owners? No one knew.

The creature reappeared eleven years later, when Haverhill, Massachusetts resident Michelle Andino saw a strange animal in her parents' Danville backyard. Andino was out cooking steaks on the grill when she heard the family's dogs barking. She assumed they had seen a deer, and was shocked instead when see saw something climbing a tree:

But what caught her eye was an animal at least two feet long with a 'white bottom' and dark brown over the rest of its body. She doesn't think it had a tail.

'It was really hugging the tree. It was climbing up like a human being,' she said. (Union Leader, September 26, 2012, "In Danville: Hey Hey It's A Monkey?") 

Andino's family had not lived in Danville in 2001, and she was surprised to learn that another monkey had been seen several years earlier. An animal control officer didn't find any signs of the creature.

As far as I know that was the last sighting of Danville's Devil Monkey. Maybe it will show up again in another few years to bewilder the town's citizens.

Did you notice there really isn't anything devilish about the Danville monkey? Maybe it was a little impish to steal a small boy's cookies but that certainly wasn't Satanic. The people who saw it didn't seem particularly frightened. Puzzled, amused, and intrigued but not necessarily scared. No one called it the Devil Monkey at the time, but it seems to have gained that nickname on the Internet in recent years.

There is a cryptid called the Devil Monkey that has been seen in other parts of the country. Devil Monkeys are reputed to be vicious and attack livestock, much like a chupacabra might. This video from Animal Planet gives a spooky overview of the Devil Monkey:


Personally, I don't think the Danville monkey was one of these terrifying monsters, but I could be wrong. Still, there is a tendency in American culture for anomalous things to get classified as scary and evil but sometimes strange things are just strange. Not every unusual animal is a deadly monster.

I also think it's interesting that so many people assumed in 2001 that the monkey had escaped from unknown owners. This is a common trope in stories about cryptids. Giant cats, apelike wild men, and other creatures are explained away as escaped circus animals or exotic pets. It sounds like a reasonable explanation, but the animals' owners almost never show up. If you ran a zoo or circus wouldn't you want to recapture one of your valuable missing animals?

What was the Danville monkey if it wasn't a ravenous Devil Monkey or an escaped pet? Sadly I don't have a better explanation. But I do know that if you're missing some peanut butter cookies you might want to look high up in the trees for an elusive simian with a sweet tooth.