Topic: Van Meter Visitor

In 1903, the town of Van Meter, Iowa, was reportedly plagued by a winged gargoyle-like creature that emitted an overpowering, putrid stench. Local residents, including the town doctor, engaged the entity with shotguns before it allegedly retreated into an abandoned mineshaft. The case remains a classic example of high strangeness that defies easy categorization as either a biological cryptid or a standard UFO encounter.

Chad Lewis details the 1903 case of the Van Meter Visitor, a giant winged creature with a glowing horn that terrorized a small Iowa town. Witnesses reported the beast emerged from an abandoned coal mine and possessed the ability to emit a blinding light and an odor that caused amnesia. Lewis suggests the abrupt end to newspaper coverage in 1903 points to an early cover-up of a situation involving technology and phenomena typically associated with modern UFO abductions.