Episode 330 - The Van Meter Visitor: Iowa’s Winged Cryptid

In 1903, the quiet coal town of Van Meter, Iowa was shaken by a terrifying series of sightings that would become one of the strangest cryptid encounters in American folklore. It started with a beam of light — not from the sky, but from a glowing horn attached to a massive, winged creature. Then came the sulfuric stench, the shrieks in the night, and the bullets that didn’t work. For five nights, the townspeople watched in fear as a mysterious beast (or two?) soared through the skies, undeterred by shotgun blasts and town patrols. This is the legend of the Van Meter Visitor, a creature described as part-gargoyle, part-dragon, part-unicorn, and 100% nightmare fuel that the entire town tried — and failed — to take down. Plus, we’ll cover modern-day sightings, a plaster footprint, psychological and paranormal theories, and a festival held each year to commemorate this mysterious visitor. Was it a time-traveling pterodactyl, an alien reconnaissance scout, or something ancient released from the mine? One thing’s for sure: whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t just a bat. from the mine? One thing’s for sure: whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t just a bat. Watch the video version here. Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at [email protected] New Episodes are released every Sunday at 12am PST/3am EST (the witching hour, of course). Corinne and Sabrina hand select a couple of paranormal encounters from our inbox to read in each episode, from demons, to cryptids, to aliens, to creepy kids... the list goes on and on. If you have a story of your own that you'd like us to share on an upcoming episode, we invite you to email them to us! If you enjoy our show, please consider joining our Patreon, rating and reviewing on iTunes & Spotify and following us on social media! Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Discord. Edited and produced by Jaimi Ryan, original music by Arms Akimbo! Disclaimer: the use of white sage and smudging is a closed practice. If you’re looking to cleanse your space, here are some great alternatives! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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• 0:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  and a personalized results review to track your health year after year. To learn more about Prenuvo and get $300 off your whole body MRI, go to prenuvo.com/tgog and use code TGOG. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O.com/tgog. Terms and conditions apply. Receive $300 off Prenuvo whole body scans and executive and comprehensive memberships through January 31st. For full details, visit Prenuvo's website to read their terms and conditions and privacy notice. Prenuvo gifted me a whole body scan. A Prenuvo scan is a screening service, not diagnostic. Diagnosis and treatment are determined by your healthcare provider.

• 1:17Speaker 01

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• 1:47Corinne Vien?

  It started with a light. Not a flicker, not a glow, a beam, blinding, unrelenting, cutting through the dark like a lighthouse in a sea of cornfields. And then came the sound. Wings. Massive, but unnatural. And a smell like sulfur and decay that leaked throughout the town.

• 2:09Corinne Vien?

  Van Meter, Iowa, 1903. A quiet, cold town that experienced one of the most terrifying encounters. So terrifying that by the end of one week, the residents would barricade their doors, arm themselves, and fire bullets into the night at something that they just couldn't quite explain. Something that couldn't be killed. Some called it a monster. Some said it was from another world. But everyone agreed to call it one thing. The Van Meter Visitor.

• 3:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Hello.

• 3:02Corinne Vien?

  Sup, howdy doody.

• 3:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Howdy doody. This is Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 3:05Corinne Vien?

  Two Girls, One Ghost.

• 3:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And we are your ghostesses. That is Corinne.

• 3:10Corinne Vien?

  Hello.

• 3:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I am Sabrina. And we're color-coordinated right now.

• 3:15Corinne Vien?

  We're, yeah, the green and black.

• 3:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And we match our curtains.

• 3:19Corinne Vien?

  Our setting. I didn't tell you this because you weren't able to join Camp Fire Stories last week, but I told everyone else this. My Grammy, who passed, has had so many signs to everyone.

• 3:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, you had told me that that morning.

• 3:33Corinne Vien?

  The butterfly stuff.

• 3:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, is there more?

• 3:35Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 3:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Literally in that day, there was more?

• 3:37Corinne Vien?

  Yes. So at the time of her death.

• 3:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 3:41Corinne Vien?

  So my dad and two of his siblings were all with my Grammy when she passed. But the three spouses of the three siblings who were together all woke up at the exact same time, which was the exact same time as my Grammy's death. And then my brother was flying home that day to Houston.

• 3:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 4:00Corinne Vien?

  His plane was super delayed. There were a bunch of thunderstorms, just weird weather stuff. So he didn't get in until much, much later than he was supposed to. And when he was on the plane. He smelled, and this wasn't, my Grammy hadn't passed yet. It was like maybe an hour before she did. He smelled the massage bar, which is like an extremely specific smell. It's the lush massage bar with like the, what's it called, like coffee beans or whatever in it that my mom brought. She would bring it like to my Grammy and massage her every time she saw her.

• 4:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So it's like a smell associated with your Grammy?

• 4:31Corinne Vien?

  Yes. And my brother was on the plane and just suddenly got the smell. And it's like, I've never just smelled that smell out and about. Like, it's a very specific smell. People don't wear it as like a perfume. It's not, doesn't exist as a body wash or anything. Like, it's so specific and he'd been on the plane and then just suddenly got the smell of this.

• 4:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I mean, we talked about this two episodes ago now, episode three twenty eight, when you had first told us about your Grammy's passing. But her spirit had made herself known before she passed away to multiple people and now clearly multiple times.

• 5:05Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, we're just waiting to.

• 5:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Have you had anything else?

• 5:08Corinne Vien?

  No, just the, the footsteps and the door opening.

• 5:14Corinne Vien?

  We'll see what happens. Cause she, yeah.

• 5:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Grammy is being.

• 5:17Corinne Vien?

  Grammy's been active.

• 5:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 5:19Corinne Vien?

  But I mean, all those things happened like leading up to when she passed and I don't think there's been anything since. So I wonder if it was just all her, you know, like making her rounds to people. I'm not sure, but it's wild. Cause it's like, it's so many people experiencing stuff.

• 5:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's amazing. I mean, the smell thing is so, cause I can relate to that because I smell my grandma randomly. And it's such a specific smell.

• 5:45Corinne Vien?

  Coffee and cigarettes, right?

• 5:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Coffee, cigarettes and Listerine. It's the three of them.

• 5:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And I'll be like sitting in my backyard when I get a whiff of it. I'll be sitting in my living room with all the windows closed. I'll get a whiff of it. Like,

• 5:58Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, and that combo.

• 6:00Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  In such random places. Yeah.

• 6:02Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 6:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's wild.

• 6:03Corinne Vien?

  It is wild.

• 6:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, what do you have for us today? Where are you taking us? What journey are we going on?

• 6:09Corinne Vien?

  We are going on a journey to Iowa.

• 6:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No hate to Iowa.

• 6:16Corinne Vien?

  Isn't Iowa the corn state? Shout out corn. I love corn.

• 6:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I think, I started doing this because I had braces. But how do you eat your corn? We need to talk about this. I now cannot eat it without cutting it off the cob.

• 6:30Corinne Vien?

  Same, because it's all up in and I can't get it out.

• 6:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I feel like I can enjoy it. I enjoy it so much more when it's pre-cut. And there's nothing better than cutting it perfectly that it stays kind of in the...

• 6:42Corinne Vien?

  And honestly, I feel like it almost has like more juice and you can get more like butter and stuff around it when it's cut. Yeah, I'm not a nibble on the cob person anymore.

• 6:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, okay. Thanks braces. One thing to think, well, and my teeth, my nice teeth. Thank you.

• 6:56Corinne Vien?

  My shiny teeth and me. Fairly odd parents, anyone? Okay.

• 7:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My brain went to brace face because of braces. Did you ever watch Brace Face?

• 7:05Corinne Vien?

  No.

• 7:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't think it was that long lasting, but I had braces at the same time, so...

• 7:09Corinne Vien?

  I gotta look at this. Oh, I did watch Brace Face.

• 7:13Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Did you ever wear braces?

• 7:14Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I did.

• 7:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  How long?

• 7:16Corinne Vien?

  Two years. My teeth have since shifted, but like, whatever.

• 7:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They look great.

• 7:20Corinne Vien?

  It's fine. I have a little space. I will always have that little space.

• 7:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I used to have the biggest gap tooth. I mean, I had braces for seven years. Like, literally, I had such a big...

• 7:29Corinne Vien?

  Seven years?

• 7:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My gap was so big that my canine teeth, the adult teeth, like my baby teeth wouldn't fall out because the adult teeth started growing inwards up on the roof of my mouth. I literally had to have surgery to connect one of my, they pulled my baby teeth. I had the amount of dental work I've had.

• 7:46Corinne Vien?

  Oh, my god.

• 7:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Bless my parents. But they literally had to pull my baby teeth, hoping that my adult teeth would like find their way back. One of them did. The other one, I had to get surgery to go into the roof of my mouth, connect the tooth to a chain, connect the chain to my braces, and slowly over time, they like pulled it down into its space.

• 8:07Corinne Vien?

  Were you just like in constant pain?

• 8:09Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 8:10Corinne Vien?

  Jesus.

• 8:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But now look at me.

• 8:12Corinne Vien?

  That's like the most intense thing I've heard, connecting your tooth to a chain up in your gum to drag it back down.

• 8:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Dental work is archaic.

• 8:19Corinne Vien?

  No, I've got more space in my mouth than the teeth can, I can fit my whole fist in my mouth, so...

• 8:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Let's see. Perform.

• 8:27Corinne Vien?

  I don't want to do the whole thing.

• 8:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You're so close.

• 8:30Corinne Vien?

  I know, I can do the whole thing.

• 8:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Let me see.

• 8:33Corinne Vien?

  I feel like this is inappropriate. That's exactly why I stopped. Jamie, I think we should put like a little ghost emoji over our faces as we do that. Yeah, please, let's not actually show anyone that. Okay, to the ghost story. It all begins on an autumn night. September 29th, 1903, U.G. Griffith, a well-known and well-respected local businessman. He is jolted awake in the dead of night because he sees something. A bright light. It is so bright, just shining through his windows, waking him up. Are we talking aliens? No. Okay, I'll let you finish. Sorry, I gotta exit. It is a light like he has never seen before. It completely floods his bedroom windows. It overtakes his whole room. It's stark, it's unblinking, the source of it completely unknown.

• 9:16Corinne Vien?

  So instinctively, he grabs a shotgun, as you do in 1903 Iowa. He runs outside, his heart is pounding. He's about to find whoever is doing this, shining this giant spotlight into his home, and probably be pretty aggressive towards them. Yeah. He's right as a store owner, who he lives above his store. So he's thinking that his home is being burglarized, his store is being burglarized. So he's ready to be like, get away from my store, like, don't take anything, scram. Right. I've got a gun, whatever. That's, that's how I picture him. Scary, yeah. Yeah, scary. So he was ready, probably in his underwear, to yell at some hooligans. But what he sees next will haunt him forever. There, looming in the shadows, is a figure.

• 10:01Corinne Vien?

  No, not a figure. It's a creature. It stands upright like a man, but it is not human. It has a huge wingspan. It's nearly eight feet tall, its body muscular, hunched, almost like a gargoyle. And these bat-like wings are unfurled behind its back, casting this giant shadow. A glowing horn is protruding from its head. Like a unicorn? Yes, and that is what is creating this like beacon of light, this like searchlight. It's casting this powerful, sweeping beam of light into the darkness, which is what went into his windows and woke this man up. And so U.G. Griffith is watching this thing, completely terrified, gripping onto his gun.

• 10:45Corinne Vien?

  And the creature moves slowly, deliberately.

• 10:50Corinne Vien?

  Eerily confident.

• 10:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, yeah, we have a glowing unicorn horn, of course. The confidence is endless.

• 10:57Corinne Vien?

  Right? It's like dragon-like. It's big. It's almost like a pterodactyl-looking creature, but it has this glowing horn. Griffith then takes his gun, fires once, fires twice. The gunshots echoing down Main Street, but the creature doesn't flinch. It merely turns its head,

• 11:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Ah.

• 11:15Corinne Vien?

  looks at him with glinting eyes and then vanishes into the night at an impossible speed.

• 11:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, so it's a combination of a unicorn, a gargoyle, and Mothman.

• 11:25Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. And it really does look like a pterodactyl.

• 11:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wow.

• 11:30Corinne Vien?

  It's weird. So Griffith is not quiet about this encounter. He starts telling people. And at first, the townsfolk are like, okay, like, what happened to you? Did you bonk your head last night?

• 11:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, especially if this is a Main Street, like it's called Main Street. I would imagine there are a lot of people who live on this block and no one else saw it.

• 11:48Corinne Vien?

  Right, exactly. And if it has this like giant search beam of light, you would think more people would wake up. And I don't know how many people lived above their shops, but like it was the middle of the night in a shopping area. But I would say more people would have.

• 12:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 12:02Corinne Vien?

  People are like, Griffith, you must have just imagined this. And he's like, no, no, no, I swear I saw this. People are like, it's a trick of light. It's a bad dream. Something's happening to you, Griffith.

• 12:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Without anyone else to back him up, it's, should we be concerned about him?

• 12:17Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 12:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 12:18Corinne Vien?

  And he was like, well, just you wait, because I bet this thing will be back. Skepticism of the townsfolk quickly turns to fear when that very evening, a strange bluish glow begins to pulse through the windows of another person's home. Dr. Alcott, the town's beloved physician, he would have the next terrifying encounter.

• 12:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Of the doctor.

• 12:41Corinne Vien?

  Right, yeah. Like, you didn't want to believe in the shopkeeper? Well, guess what? Now your doctor is experiencing this. So Alcott steps outside. He's curious, but he's cautious. I don't know if he had heard the rumors yet about what this other man Griffith had experienced, but he's immediately overwhelmed by this sulfuric, disgusting stench. And it's actually the same stench that Griffith had previously told people about, also experiencing when he was outside. Some people would later say that this stench is like mind-erasing, like you're supposed to forget your experiences. Very like Men in Black, but it is this like deeply disgusting odor like rotten eggs.

• 13:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Which also is associated with demonic entities or dark entities.

• 13:27Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, this creature from the underworld.

• 13:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Whatever this is, it's not.

• 13:31Corinne Vien?

  No, and this thing smells like it's rotting. And Griffith is a physician. He is familiar, I'm sure, with a lot of weird funky smells.

• 13:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 13:40Corinne Vien?

  So his eyes are drawn upward and there it is, towering, winged, glowing.

• 13:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Oh, it's up? It's like not on the ground?

• 13:50Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, it's often like perched on roofs, rooftops. So he raises his pistol, because everyone has a gun in this town at this time. He raises his pistol and he fires five shots directly at it, intending to kill it. The bullets strike.

• 14:03Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Crack its neck again and go, "Ha, ha, ha, nice try."

• 14:07Corinne Vien?

  Basically, five shots strike this beast, but no damage, no blood, no pain. But a sound that did not belong of this world screeched out of this creature. The beast was now angered and the monster lifted itself into the sky. With thunderous flaps of its wings, it disappeared once more into the night.

• 14:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm like flipping through my rolodex of cryptids because this has so many similar traits to so many we've heard of.

• 14:37Corinne Vien?

  The glowing horn is what throws it.

• 14:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 14:40Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 14:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And what does it want?

• 14:44Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, I don't really know. We're not gonna get answers as to what it wants, unfortunately.

• 14:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But the way that like bullets don't strike it or damage it does make me think that cryptids like travel through dimensions.

• 14:57Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, it also makes me think, okay, so like thinking about like the, when people say like they see pterodactyls or thunderbirds, like all these sort of like

• 15:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 15:05Corinne Vien?

  prehistoric, is this paranormal or is this like somehow these dinosaurs just existing? It also makes me wonder just about like the skin of a dinosaur and like the thickness of it.

• 15:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 15:15Corinne Vien?

  Would our modern day bullets actually penetrate it enough to do any damage?

• 15:21Corinne Vien?

  Like, I don't know what their skin was like.

• 15:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I think they would. A bullet? Think about the speed.

• 15:26Corinne Vien?

  I don't know. I'm trying to think.

• 15:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Their skin's not like armor.

• 15:29Corinne Vien?

  I have questions for the dinosaurs. Not you chickens, the other ones, ones before you. So this is in Van Meter, Iowa, and now the entire town is awake, terrified, trembling in fear, completely trusting that there is now a beast in the town.

• 15:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Why do I so badly, like, my brain won't stop thinking this, but you know the game like Murderer? Or One Night Ultimate, One Night Werewolf? Where the town goes to sleep, like, you all get like a role. You're a towns person, you're the cop, you're the doctor.

• 16:03Corinne Vien?

  It's where you like put your head down and like someone gets like a scratch on there.

• 16:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's similar, of the same vein, but like you get a role and they paint a whole story. It's like, everyone goes to sleep. It's a peaceful night in the town of Van Meter, Iowa. And then like the narrator's like, murderer, wake up. And they point to the person they want to murder.

• 16:25Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 16:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And then murderer goes to sleep and then the doctor wakes up. Who do you want to save? They point to someone.

• 16:31Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 16:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Then they go to sleep and then the cop wakes up. And it's like, who do you want to like ask if it's this person? Like, say you were the murderer and I pointed to you as the cop. At sleepovers, at school.

• 16:42Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 16:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Recently.

• 16:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  You can't really pay by yourself, but I just keep feeling like this town is that town.

• 16:50Corinne Vien?

  I love that you're thinking of that because this whole time I was researching this, I was thinking of midnight mass.

• 16:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Very similar.

• 16:57Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 16:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Murderer is literally, um, what's the show? The Scottish guy, they're all like staying in the castle.

• 17:05Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 17:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Traitors. It's literally, it's literally the show Traitors. Murderer is the show Traitors.

• 17:09Corinne Vien?

  Okay, well, yeah, like this is, this is freaking out the town and yeah, it does feel, um, well, I guess the good thing with this is that there are no like suspects. It's just, there's a creature. So like no one's pointing fingers at each other.

• 17:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And no one's dying, right?

• 17:23Corinne Vien?

  No one's dying.

• 17:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No one's being murdered.

• 17:25Corinne Vien?

  It's just really, but people are trying to murder this thing.

• 17:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 17:27Corinne Vien?

  That's for sure. So the town's laughter turns into whispered prayers, doors are barred, children are kept inside. Every able-bodied man is now armed and people are taking shifts, patrolling the town, patrolling the neighborhoods, trying to look to the skies and figure out where this beast is and what it might want. The third night, the creature returns again.

• 17:50Corinne Vien?

  And this time, it's to the town bank. Clarence Dunn, a local banker, is sleeping inside the bank with a shotgun in hand. Not because he was prepared for the beast, but because he was thinking in all the mayhem that would happen, potentially someone might try to take advantage of it, break into the bank. So he was, he was armed for potential burglars to protect the bank. Around 1 a.m., a strange noise wakes Clarence. A scraping sound, like claws against the brick. The air is thick and the stench of rotting sulfur emanates through the building. He turns to the window and there it is, the creature, the horned beast.

• 18:35Corinne Vien?

  Desperate, Dunn also fires shots at this creature.

• 18:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Does he go outside to fire shots?

• 18:41Corinne Vien?

  I think it might have been through the window. I have no idea.

• 18:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Geez. Now people are really gonna rob the bank.

• 18:45Corinne Vien?

  Oh, right. So he fires multiple rounds and it's a very foggy night. The bullets disappear, the creature disappears, vanishes into the shadows, into the fog, and Clarence has no idea where it is. But upon going outside and trying to investigate like where it was near the window, he finds a footprint. It is 18 inches long and it has three toes. And he took a cast of this.

• 19:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Do we have a photo?

• 19:13Corinne Vien?

  We do have a, we have a photo. It's in a museum.

• 19:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What year was all of this happening?

• 19:18Corinne Vien?

  1903.

• 19:19Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  This isn't like that long ago.

• 19:21Corinne Vien?

  It's really hard to see in this photo, but like, because there's like other bricks and stuff near it. And that's really the only like evidence left behind through this whole story, like physical evidence.

• 19:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Well, this whole story feels fake because it's like on the first night, on the second night, on the third night. And it's each night, one person individually is seeing this thing.

• 19:41Corinne Vien?

  You're thinking, oh my God, everyone should be panicked. Everyone should be rallying together, but individuals are experiencing things and it feels too like, okay, what's going on? Is this like, just, and I'll talk about this in a little bit, but just like mass hysteria almost. Like what's, what's going on in this town?

• 19:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  If one person says it, is this now creating the experience for everyone else that's experiencing it?

• 20:02Corinne Vien?

  Right. Or it's like, sometimes I think of that one listener story that we received where it was like her aunt or something was so convinced that there was this like demon or like beast on top of the house and then figured out that it was turkeys.

• 20:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We read this recently.

• 20:16Corinne Vien?

  Okay, so now we have a print from Clarence Dunn's experience on the third night.

• 20:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Uh huh. I'm so excited. I'm getting my whole body MRI scan from Prenewvo in a couple of weeks.

• 20:28Corinne Vien?

  It's honestly so important. It's like one of those things where getting older and aging has provided me so many anxieties about like what's going on.

• 20:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

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• 21:09Corinne Vien?

  To learn more about Prenewvo and get $300 off your whole body MRI, go to prenewvo.com/tgog and use code TGOG. That's P-R-E-N-U-V-O.com/tgog. Terms and conditions apply.

• 21:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Receive $300 off Prenewvo whole body scans and executive and comprehensive memberships through January 31st. For full details, visit Prenewvo's website to read their terms and conditions and privacy notice. Prenewvo gifted me a whole body scan. A Prenewvo scan is a screening service, not diagnostic. Diagnosis and treatment are determined by your healthcare provider.

• 21:40Speaker 01

  Progressive's Accident Response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's Accident Response. Learn more at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. Coverage subject to policy terms and conditions.

• 22:10Corinne Vien?

  Another person, a well-known hardware store owner, Ovi White, has a similar experience. He is awakened by this intense light and this terrifying pressure on his chest. So he steps onto his balcony and he sees perched on his neighbor's roof, not a turkey, but this creature, this beast, this visitor, as people call it. Right. It has massive wings that are folded behind its back and the glowing horn is scanning the town like a lighthouse, like it's searching for something. What is it looking for? Because clearly it wants something if it's revisiting the same town, especially the same street over and over night after night. It's very weird.

• 22:53Corinne Vien?

  So now this is the fourth time this creature is shot at because apparently everyone who sees it has a gun. So the creature, while it's perched on the neighbor's home, Ovi White fires at the creature, basically almost like point blank, like he's very close because it's on this neighbor's roof. So this is maybe one of the closest shots compared to some of the others, aside from Clarence Dunn, who saw it right outside the bank's window. So the creature screeches like it was hit, but it doesn't fall. It takes flight, its wings flapping, and it disappears again into the silence of the night. But by this point, it is clear there is something in this town and it is not just a figment of people's imagination.

• 23:35Corinne Vien?

  It is real and seemingly it cannot be harmed. And it's confusing as heck. Mm-hmm. So if you're watching on YouTube, there's a picture that I'm including, which is like an artist depiction of the town and what happened. And I actually love it because it's, this was like a mining town, which I'll go into in a little bit, but it like shows everybody like in uproar and like beasts flying over the mine and I just love it. Oh, my gosh. I love it because it looks like a real photo. It does. With added elements. And it also reminds me of like a movie still from like Yeah. 1996, right? Like this feels like we'd be watching this movie. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so this is when the rumors really began to spread through the town. Some say this thing was a demon.

• 24:20Corinne Vien?

  It was summoned through dark rituals. Maybe the land itself was cursed. Perhaps the mining work unearthed something.

• 24:29Corinne Vien?

  Others claim that it's an alien from beyond the stars and it's here on some sort of mission and searching for something like you said. Other people are blaming it on the mining operations, saying that it's disturbed some sort of ecosystem underground that we're not aware of.

• 24:43Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I believe that.

• 24:44Corinne Vien?

  And that there is these creatures now that are have access to above ground that maybe lived in like the deep caves cavernous.

• 24:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Especially if it's bat like.

• 24:54Corinne Vien?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it has this glowing horn. Good for seeing in dark underground caves.

• 24:59Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, maybe it can't see at all. Maybe it's just like complete like light sonar, like some sort of weird thing. Maybe its eyeballs can't actually spot. Yeah. Who knows?

• 25:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So interesting.

• 25:08Corinne Vien?

  But the light is the thing that's tripping everyone up. No one can explain what the hell this like giant, bright, flashing, horned like searchlight on top of this beast's head is.

• 25:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 25:20Corinne Vien?

  It does remind me of that, the one fish, the angler fish, that they have the like light in front of them too.

• 25:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Poor angler fish.

• 25:26Corinne Vien?

  So some swear that this is actually just a ghost of an ancient being disturbed from its slumber in the coal mines. Others say that there's a secret government experiment that's happening and that has now been exposed with the coal mine activity.

• 25:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We love a secret government experiment.

• 25:42Corinne Vien?

  Love that. Uh, some people have even blamed time travelers or like shifts in, like someone did something and it like shifted the way time exists. And basically, no one knows what's going on.

• 25:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Every theory is possible.

• 25:56Corinne Vien?

  Every theory is possible. So the town is ablaze with theory and speculation, but one thing is certain, there's something, a beast and Van Meter Iowa. That's about all they know for certain.

• 26:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm also curious, like, how large is this town? Because I'm imagining a very small town and this is just so befuddling.

• 26:16Corinne Vien?

  I think that's pretty accurate.

• 26:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it's also like the topic of conversation, of every conversation.

• 26:20Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. Okay. So the final night, the climax of the horror.

• 26:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  The fifth night.

• 26:25Corinne Vien?

  Witnesses claim not one, but two creatures are now emerging from the abandoned coal mine on the town's edge.

• 26:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It has a baby or a partner.

• 26:34Corinne Vien?

  Maybe it was looking for the baby or the partner.

• 26:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Wait. Okay. That's why it's the last night.

• 26:39Corinne Vien?

  Searching.

• 26:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 26:40Corinne Vien?

  Well, oh.

• 26:43Corinne Vien?

  So these two beasts, their horns glowing in the darkness, their bodies covered in this dark leathery skin, their wings fast, silent, flapping through the night, leaving behind the smell of rotten eggs wherever they fly. Poor guys. So a group of townsmen then gather near the mine's entrance. They are armed with every weapon they could muster, and they wait in the shadows for these beings to emerge once more, because this is kind of like the site, like this one part of the mine that people aren't working in, that's like seemingly abandoned. Perhaps this is where these beasts are living. This is where Sure. They lie. They come back every night, emerging from the mineshaft. So people gather there. The air is heavy.

• 27:26Corinne Vien?

  Anxiety is just palpable. And then, a flash of light. The sulfuric stench. A shriek so loud, it could break a window. The men opened fire, shotguns, rifles, all of them armed, just at these two creatures. And the barrage of bullets are just echoing through the valley. The whole neighborhood, the whole town, I'm sure, was awake, waiting for this beast and hearing this battle. I'm also just so glad no one got hurt by a stray bullet. That's true. If people were just willy-nilly, shooting at these things. Boom, boom, yeah. But again, no blood, no wounds. The creatures, unbothered, retreat calmly into the mine.

• 28:08Corinne Vien?

  And just like that, it was kind of over. But in order to make sure that there wasn't going to be another night of these beasts returning, the town decided to act quickly and seal the mine, the entrance buried beneath rock and rubble. Official records may note of strange occurrences, but over time, the story then kind of faded, became a bit of folklore in the town, and all of the physical evidence disappeared, except for the footprint. But the memory did not, the lore did not. Yeah, how could you forget that? And to this day, people in Van Meter still talk about that week. There's actually a festival, too, that they have. I love a good festival. Generations later, families pass down the stories of this Van Meter visitor. Is that what it's called?

• 28:53Corinne Vien?

  The Van Meter Visitor, yep, in 1903, which is like such a, for a giant beast, basically, like a dragon to come visit your town, be like, oh, it's our visitor. But they were terrified of it.

• 29:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It's better than like the killer, because it didn't kill anyone.

• 29:09Corinne Vien?

  It didn't kill anyone.

• 29:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, well, now I'm also thinking, like, what if these glowing horns are also a bit of like a drill? If they do live in the caves, that they can use them to like tunnel through these.

• 29:20Corinne Vien?

  Oh, interesting.

• 29:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Through the underground.

• 29:22Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, like, I wonder if there's a lot of heat.

• 29:24Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 29:24Corinne Vien?

  Too, like, if they can kind of like melt rock or something.

• 29:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I love them.

• 29:29Corinne Vien?

  They harmed no one. They were minding their own business. We were trying to harm them.

• 29:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, we're the villains.

• 29:33Corinne Vien?

  We are in this story for sure, and most skeptics have chalked it up to mass hysteria, basically saying like, this is something that happens time and time again. We have talked about some of the things like the dancing plague and just like other instances where people get really riled up and they get into a story and then suddenly, unexplained, everybody is experiencing the same thing and can't quite get.

• 29:57Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Differentiate what's reality and what's not.

• 29:58Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 29:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I, hot take, um, think we're due for a dancing plague.

• 30:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sue me. I said it.

• 30:09Corinne Vien?

  I, I hope it happens. Actually, I, I take that back, because now that I'm thinking about the actual dancing plague and the people who died from like exhaustion and dehydration because they couldn't stop dancing, I don't hope it happens, but I do agree with you that maybe there should just be like a universal, worldwide timed dance break.

• 30:26Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Like, I almost want there to be a little bit of hysteria in it where like, all of a sudden, everyone in the world drops everything and just starts dancing. And cannot stop until we realize how silly we've been about everything. I said it. It's out there.

• 30:44Corinne Vien?

  It's out there.

• 30:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Manifest it.

• 30:45Corinne Vien?

  Manifest it. People have talked mass hysteria. People have been just wondering if this was a hoax made up to like, I don't know why, but I guess like garner attention for the town, but essentially, people have no idea what happened. The beasts were sealed in the cave. People, sometimes still today, say that they hear the beating of the wings soaring through the darkness of the sky. People have also.

• 31:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Through the sky.

• 31:09Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. People have smelled that same sulfuric rot. And to truly understand how the fear overtook Van Meter, I did write a little bit about like the era and what was going on in the town of Van Meter in 1903.

• 31:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 31:21Corinne Vien?

  So this was kind of like what you're saying, it's a small town, or you're picturing it as a small town, and it was. It was a town where everyone knew everyone. Tight-knit group of people who were like farmers, laborers, coal miners, families. It was just west of Des Moines, Iowa, if anyone knows Des Moines. And there were a lot of wooden storefronts that lined Main Street, but it wasn't like this giant shopping metropolis. It was like a pretty modest little downtown. You know, people were

• 31:48Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sounds like it's a mining town.

• 31:49Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. This feels kind of like, almost like a Wild West town in my mind.

• 31:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So, and you probably don't have the answers for this, but I just am so curious if the economy of this town is primarily coal mining, and then they've sealed the mines because of these beasts. Do all the coal miners just lose their job? Like, what happens?

• 32:10Corinne Vien?

  I don't really know.

• 32:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 32:12Corinne Vien?

  I guess I don't have enough information if like the coal mine that they, because they were talking about the coal mine being abandoned, but like it wasn't at this time. So I'm curious if the coal mine that they thought was where the creatures were was like

• 32:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A separate one?

• 32:24Corinne Vien?

  Separate, like they had already moved on and were working in a different area.

• 32:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 32:28Corinne Vien?

  But like still, wouldn't you be terrified of going down and

• 32:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And encountering?

• 32:32Corinne Vien?

  Into the darkness. Right.

• 32:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 32:35Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, so it was a lot of blue collar workers. There were hardware stores, grocery stores, a horse track. But really, like, it was very small, I guess.

• 32:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 32:46Corinne Vien?

  So the coal mines were Van Meter's beating heart. Every morning before dawn, people would wake up and they would descend into the darkness at the shafts just outside of the edge of town. And it was very, as we know, very grueling and dangerous work. They had a lot of deaths just because of, you know, like the risks of cave-ins were not uncommon. But there were also these rumors of strange noises that would echo through the chambers, little whispers of something weird down in the mine shaft. And some of the miners sometimes dismissed this with a shake of the head and a nervous laugh. And this is where I wrote a stupid joke. It's a reference. It's a movie reference.

• 33:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay.

• 33:27Corinne Vien?

  I think I'm getting the black lung pop.

• 33:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was literally just thinking about Zoolander. As you were talking about the conditions of the mines, I was literally in my head, yeah, well, we have all seen Zoolander, we know.

• 33:37Corinne Vien?

  Right.

• 33:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So, apropos.

• 33:40Corinne Vien?

  There we go. Well, I'm glad I said it out loud now, because otherwise I would have just gone over it. So on the surface of the town, electricity was scarce. They did a lot of like oil lamps in their windows and stuff. So this like bright light of this creature was just like complete, yeah, it was so shocking. It so stuck out.

• 33:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 33:58Corinne Vien?

  Um, medical understanding of mental health was very rudimentary at this time. The line between superstition and science was all blurred. And rural towns like Van Meter were very tight knit and they were very deeply religious too. So something like this is like, what the hell?

• 34:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 34:12Corinne Vien?

  And I'm actually shocked that they weren't immediately saying like, this is a demon from the underworld. They were really questioning like what this thing could be. And I think maybe it's because they were, it wasn't just like one person saw it and the rumors were ablaze. Many people were saying it and it like was a real.

• 34:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 34:29Corinne Vien?

  Like it was so confusing that they couldn't just simply say like, oh, well, it's, it must be this.

• 34:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 34:35Corinne Vien?

  Especially because it has the glowing horn. Again, it goes back to the glowing horn. People were like, what's that? We've never heard about that.

• 34:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Makes me think of a drawing a kid would have made.

• 34:43Corinne Vien?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:44Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it came to life.

• 34:45Corinne Vien?

  Right. So people are having a really hard time kind of like dissecting these experiences with logic.

• 34:50Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Sure.

• 34:51Corinne Vien?

  So the rumors spread like wildfire and the beasts were trapped in the cave, I guess, sealed away in the cave. Today, the Van Meter visitor lives on. Each September, the town hosts a festival commemorating the week that they went face to face with these, they say A-Beasts, but there were two in the end. So like these two creatures.

• 35:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I just like, do people dress up as the beast?

• 35:15Corinne Vien?

  Oh, I don't know. Let me look.

• 35:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because if not, I volunteer. I will do that.

• 35:19Corinne Vien?

  I like honestly didn't even look into the festival that much.

• 35:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What year, what day is it this year? Let's see.

• 35:25Corinne Vien?

  Oh, interesting. Okay. Wait, I'm looking at the flyer from last year. And they had a talk on exploring the possible connection between cryptids and allegedly extinct animals, another talk on the evolution of lore, evolving face of cryptids.

• 35:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We would have fun here.

• 35:41Corinne Vien?

  We would. Why are there no, I feel like we're missing photos of this festival. People need to upload them.

• 35:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  What about their Facebook group? I think this year it's on September 27th. Okay, there's pictures of people eating food.

• 35:54Corinne Vien?

  Oh, there's a Bigfoot casting, cast? What am I, I don't know what I'm saying.

• 35:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Anyway, it's an open casting call for Bigfoot.

• 36:03Corinne Vien?

  Okay, so yeah, they host a festival, locals and tourists will gather for lectures, guided walks. There's also, I don't know if they still do this, but I know that previously there had been a nighttime excursion where you can go to basically like the outskirts of town to where the mine was closed.

• 36:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, there's a picture on the Facebook group with like a group of people like walking along a street. And I was like, what's this? But they must be walking the path.

• 36:25Corinne Vien?

  They must be. Yes. Okay. So that's great if they still do it. And so while most people believe that the Van Meter Visitor vanished in 1903, others are not so sure. In fact, there have been actually a handful of modern sightings that suggest that these creatures were not just banished to the cave, that the ceiling of the cave did nothing. Perhaps they found another exit.

• 36:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I hope it didn't do any, I hope it didn't trap them in there.

• 36:51Corinne Vien?

  Right. They did nothing to anyone.

• 36:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 36:54Corinne Vien?

  They spent a week out there.

• 36:56Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it was searching for some.

• 36:59Corinne Vien?

  They were searching for something.

• 36:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Presumably their, their offspring, their partner, their sibling, their.

• 37:04Corinne Vien?

  Why can't they just sort through the sky? Let them be.

• 37:07Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Let them be.

• 37:08Corinne Vien?

  Rest in beast.

• 37:10Corinne Vien?

  So this was not an isolated account, this 1903 sighting, because back in 1980 or the 1980s, there was a man who just moved to the area, had never heard the lore of this creature, which I believe that because like you and I have been doing this podcast for.

• 37:28Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  How long? Eight years?

• 37:29Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 37:29Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And we've never heard of it?

• 37:31Corinne Vien?

  And we're like deep in the cryptid lore. So I believe this guy. And he'd never heard the lore. He just moved there and he claimed to come face to face with this creature that had a five foot wingspan and was gliding silently above the old mine entrance.

• 37:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Did it have a glowing horn?

• 37:50Corinne Vien?

  I don't know. He didn't say that. He didn't say anything about a glowing horn. But then, in the early 2000s, a Van Meter family who was driving home late one night caught a glimpse of this massive figure perched roadside. And their headlights caught it, and the creature turned its head, looked at them, and then was gone. Again, no mention of a light. So maybe it can turn it on and off. It's not just like something that's always glowing. In 2006, a pastor was driving through the area, and he looks up to the sky and is just aghast when he sees this giant creature. And I think it's like daytime, and he has no clue what he's seeing. He thinks it's a dragon. So when he goes home, he Googles Iowa dragon. And then this is when he learns about the visitor.

• 38:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I'm shook.

• 38:34Corinne Vien?

  And then in 2017, another man claimed to see it as well hovering above the tree line. And this time, there was the really bright light. There was no sound. And he was like, I do not know what I saw. All I can say for certain is that this definitely was not a plane.

• 38:49Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It also just makes me so interested in why some cryptids are regional. Like, why do they only appear in Van Meter, Iowa? Why do the Jersey Devil only appear in like the Pine Barrens?

• 39:02Corinne Vien?

  Well, but maybe they don't. Maybe the Jersey Devil and

• 39:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  the Van Meter visitor are related?

• 39:09Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, or even like I'm thinking about like when people say that they see pterodactyls in like the Bridgewater Triangle in Massachusetts. It's like, why can't they all be the same or very similar? But it's just we get very rare glimpses of them because they don't they're not supposed to exist like up here. And then sometimes

• 39:27Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Okay, here's my creative brains logic story that is happening in Van Meter in 1903. We got Mama Visitor, who they live in the mines. She has a baby. They're, you know, she teaches her baby the ways.

• 39:44Corinne Vien?

  Baby learns to fly.

• 39:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Baby learns to fly, and baby knows the rules. Never leave the mines, never go where the people go.

• 39:51Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, we live in the caves.

• 39:53Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But the curiosity is just killing him, and he has to just check it out. And he gets so scared and startled by something that he goes into hiding. And so Mama now for five nights is looking for her child and finally finds them on the fifth night.

• 40:11Corinne Vien?

  And that's when they see them flying together and then going back into the cave. That's sweet.

• 40:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  At least they weren't trapped back in the cave without the second.

• 40:19Corinne Vien?

  Yeah, without each other. I mean, the fact is, they didn't harm anybody again.

• 40:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 40:26Corinne Vien?

  If you want to consider someone waking up because there was a bright light that just like scanned their window super fast, then sure, but like lightning does the same thing.

• 40:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 40:36Corinne Vien?

  In 2020, just an hour north of Van Meter, near Boone, Iowa, there was a local resident who also had a bizarre encounter. They were walking near the woods when they heard and described a massive whoosh, this forceful gust of wind. And then they saw right after that, as they're like looking to the sound and looking up in the sky, this huge flying creature, like something, overhead, had huge massive wings and like blocked out the sky. It was so giant. So this is an hour north. So you were just saying like, why aren't these things, why are they just like right here? But this might not just be in this one town. It's just like-

• 41:10Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A little visit, a trip.

• 41:12Corinne Vien?

  Just sometimes you get to see something. Some say it was a trick of the light. Others believe the town's mining history stirred up something dark and ancient, something that never really left, or maybe something that always existed before us. They don't know, but what we do know is, over a century later, we are still celebrating and wondering about the Van Meter visitor.

• 41:32Speaker 01

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• 42:03Speaker 04

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• 42:33Corinne Vien?

  Experts in psychology have said that this is textbook mass hysteria. But we say no, because why would? You're wrong. Why would people who are so respected in their community all give basically matching stories? Like matching? The stories are different, but like the identification of the creature is the same.

• 42:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 42:52Corinne Vien?

  Why would they try to fabricate something so outlandish? They wouldn't, there is a beast there, or at least there was. So paranormal theorists meanwhile, say that this is part of a broader pattern. And it's very similar to what you were saying in the beginning, Mothman of Point Pleasant, and the Flatwoods Monster of West Virginia. Those are like the two comparisons. I'm bringing in the Bridgewater Triangle, because I think that the pterodactyls-

• 43:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Have we covered the Flatwoods Monster? Or is it in our Excel to cover? I think I have it as something to cover, so that's interesting.

• 43:20Corinne Vien?

  Okay, you should cover it soon, so we can do like comparisons. So these entities appear during moments of change, uncertainty, or geological disturbances. And people say that like with the, the growth of the town and the mining and all of that, perhaps this is something, a reason for these creatures to appear. What they mean, we do not know.

• 43:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  A warning, a, yeah, omen of some kind.

• 43:44Corinne Vien?

  People have wondered if there's a portal that has somehow opened up there. I guess the answer is we don't know. But today Van Meter celebrates its strange history. And outside of the festival, if you are curious to learn more, there is an entire book that was written, The Van Meter Visitor by Chad Lewis, Kevin Lee Nelson, and Noah Voss, that goes into a very like comprehensive investigation. I think they include a lot of like real life accounts from people of more modern times. And there's also newspaper articles, like original newspaper articles, which if you've been watching on YouTube, I included one screenshot from one of them, that you can find if you go online into the archives at the Des Moines Daily News and the Des Moines Register. So, there you go.

• 44:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So cool. Cryptid stories are so hard, because it's like, there is no more information.

• 44:35Corinne Vien?

  And yeah, we don't, like, how can we theorize?

• 44:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. It's just, it's fascinating. I'm rooting for you, Van Meter Visitor. Big fan of your work. And go off, King.

• 44:49Corinne Vien?

  Dance break.

• 44:51Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And that's when we drop all our things and fall into a dance hysteria. Wow. I have a listener story, not of the van meter visitor and not necessarily from Iowa either. But it is from our listener Haley and it is called, "The Time I Saw a Possible Cryptid, Nightly Screams and the Bones in the Woods."

• 45:14Corinne Vien?

  Oh, the bones in the woods.

• 45:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I was drawn in. I was hooked.

• 45:17Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 45:18Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And this is Appalachia adjacent. So again, I was hooked. Hello, ghouls. My name is Haley She-Dae. I've recently gotten into your podcast and when I saw you were doing episodes on Appalachia, I was immediately drawn in because I have lived my entire life in the Appalachian region. To start this off, I lived in and around the woods my entire life and I have grown up hearing weird noises and seeing things that have been brushed off. And as I grew up, I eventually fell into the Appalachian rabbit hole and learned about all the spooky things that happen out there. The cryptids, the legends, the whole nine. Now, I've lived in small towns mostly, so of course I've heard a few things from the locals that I pretty much ignored because why would I believe some old person rattling off some crazy warning about the things in the woods?

• 46:01Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But now I know. I have to heed those warnings. Okay, so a while back, when I was just starting middle school, my family had moved further into Southern Virginia at the heart of the Appalachian region. We were living in a small but comfortable house on the foot of the biggest mountain in the area, where our only closest neighbors were our landlord, who lived a mile behind us, and a woman and her family who lived on a ranch in front of us. But her house was on top of a hill with a whole row of trees and a field, plus a horse stable blocking our view of them. So, safe to say, we were pretty secluded. Everywhere around our house were the woods. Our backyard was just a porch that extended into a little garden. Up a hill, we had a fire pit, and then behind that began the tree line.

• 46:46Corinne Vien?

  Sounds really nice, but I'm nervous the whole time because it's like, it's an email that was sent to us. So, things are gonna go awry.

• 46:54Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. It was one morning at around 6:30 a.m., late fall, so it was early in the morning. The sun was barely up. My two sisters were upstairs in the house asleep. My mom was at work and my dad was at the store, if I recall correctly. So, I was at the end of the fairly small driveway, waiting for my bus to take me to school. And as someone with ADHD, for the life of me, I cannot stay still. So, I was swaying side to side, had my earbuds in. And then I got this feeling like I was being watched. But I also have severe anxiety. So at first I just brushed it off, thinking I was paranoid. Because again, it was still kind of dark. It's a dreary fall morning. I had just woken up a bit ago. And I'm surrounded by woods. So of course, I'm writing it off. This is a creepy environment. But that feeling just wouldn't stop.

• 47:37Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And you know that feeling of the hair on your neck standing up and your thoughts are racing, trying to convince yourself it's fine and you don't have to turn around because it's all in your head. But you can't shake the feeling and your stomach is full of dread. Well, yeah, that's what I was feeling. I was trying to focus on my music. But as I swayed back and forth, that feeling kept building up. I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't. And I felt my body want to turn to look. I couldn't resist it. I turned to my right and there I saw it. Behind the tree line, behind my house, was a pale figure.

• 48:08Corinne Vien?

  Ooh. Now I immediately think of flesh pedestrians.

• 48:12Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And it wasn't humanoid in any way.

• 48:15Corinne Vien?

  Oh.

• 48:15Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It was pale gray with long gangly limbs. I imagine if it happened to stand up, it would have been taller than any grown pine tree. And it wasn't just standing there.

• 48:27Corinne Vien?

  Oh, I got chills. This is giant.

• 48:30Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, it was slowly crawling towards me like a predator stalking its prey.

• 48:36Corinne Vien?

  But like, why even crawl? If you're that massive, you can just basically reach out and grab ya.

• 48:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Because it's creepier. It was almost grotesque, watching it crawl with its long limbs, its joints bent in all the wrong ways. Its body skinny with its ribs showing like a starved man. It is very flesh pedestrian.

• 48:54Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 48:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I stood there for a moment, frozen in fear and shock as I watched it. And then I did what any sensible person would do in that situation and ran all the way back to my house and quickly locked the door behind me. However, if you've learned any of the rules about Appalachia, it is said that if you find that you notice you are being stalked by one of the many creatures in the woods, you should never run. Because you don't want to alert it to either your presence or the fact that you're aware of its presence. But I was panicking and I was like, well, I don't really want to be killed. So I ran inside. And after taking a breather, I got my phone out and I texted my family group chat recounting what I had seen, asking when my dad was going to get back. And if he could take me to school instead of me going back outside waiting for the bus. My parents didn't believe me, though. So when my dad got back, he laughed at me and said he would not take me to school,

• 49:38Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  but he would sit on the porch and watch me wait for the bus. That was the first and last time I saw that figure. And while I'm glad it was for the next couple of years that we lived there, I couldn't shake the feeling of being watched every time I went outside. Now, for my second story, kind of short, but it takes place at the same house. For the first few nights after we had moved in, all was good. We were just shaking off the adrenaline from moving into a new place and finally settling in. But of course, just as we got comfortable, that's when the woods decided to not let us rest. It was late at night and my sleep schedule was basically non-existent, along with both of my sisters. So they were both in their shared room talking and I was downstairs getting a late snack. I don't know what time it was exactly, but I do know for a fact that all of the neighbors around us were definitely asleep.

• 50:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Keep in mind, they're also really far away from their neighbors. As I was finishing my snack and throwing the remaining trash away, I heard it. A scream coming from the woods behind our house. This scream lasted about five seconds. It was coming from the woods behind our house and lasted roughly five seconds. I paused, quickly finished what I was doing and ran upstairs because the kitchen had two windows on the wall that faced the woods. And I did not want to catch a glimpse of whatever or whoever was making that noise. It sounded human, not just a spook scream, but like a, I'm getting attacked type of scream. However, as someone who's lived in the woods all of my life, I also know that while sounding like a human, it very well could have been a fox or a mountain lion. But mountain lion screams are deeper and I've heard them before.

• 51:08Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So I went to bed, spooked. But the next morning, as I barged into my sister's room, because I, as the sibling, have the right to do so, noticed that they were talking about a scream that they heard the other night. So I was like, did you guys hear that scream last night too? And they both said, yes, they had. We've all heard it. And I don't know if my parents have, but it was very unsettling. It's also unsettling because it's not the first or the last time we've heard it. For the full three and a half years that we lived in this house, we would hear these high pitched screams coming from the woods at night, almost always around 11:00 PM to 3:00 AM. Not every night. Sometimes we wouldn't hear it for weeks and then it would be back. And it was constant enough that we were always spooked at night.

• 51:49Corinne Vien?

  And like if they, they know the sounds of the wildlife.

• 51:52Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 51:53Corinne Vien?

  Like you know, if it's the mountain lion or the coyotes or whatever, an owl.

• 51:59Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  It also, I'm glad that it happened more than once because you also know it's not just a human being attacked.

• 52:04Corinne Vien?

  I had that thought too.

• 52:05Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 52:06Corinne Vien?

  Cause at first I was like, well, what if that's the noise that a human makes in like complete fear and terror of like a beast attacking them, like some sort of like this giant gangly creature.

• 52:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know. For my last story, which isn't my personal experience, but it's something both of my sisters uncovered. So in the summer, we were clearing out our backyard. And while I opted to stay as far away from the woods as possible and not go in them, because I always have felt uneasy about the woods in that house. My sisters decided to go explore the area. I don't know why, but I'm imagining her sisters are twins.

• 52:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They share a room and Haley just seems like the older sister who's just like barging in, runs the house.

• 52:44Corinne Vien?

  Or is that younger sister behavior?

• 52:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I don't know. I guess it could be either. Haley, let us know. That's the biggest mystery. Okay. So Haley says their sisters went to explore. So they went past the garden, up the hill to the tree line in the back, and started walking along a little path that they had found while the rest of us were inside. You know, cooling off, doing whatever. And they stumbled upon a little break in the pathway. On this pathway, they discovered bones. At first they thought maybe deer bones. They found a part of a rib. But as they looked closer and started uncovering more, they found a part of a finger, a leg bone. And my middle sister picked up what was part of a femur bone, still attached to a part of a hip bone, and asked our oldest sister while waving it around, what's this? So your right youngest sister.

• 53:30Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 53:31Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  My oldest sister saw it and immediately told her to put it down. And upon closer inspection, these bones did not appear to be animal but human. They did not find a full skeleton. And after my sisters put the bones down, they made their way back to the house. And for some reason, did not call the police, no forensics. And honestly, I get not wanting to deal with it, but there were literal human remains on our property.

• 53:52Corinne Vien?

  I wonder if they could tell at all. I mean, obviously like conditions and that's why body forms exist. Like it's, you need a forensic specialist to tell you how long a body has been there. But it does make me wonder if, if they did, if like it would sync up to any of the times that they had a lot of that like screeching activity.

• 54:11Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or the screams like a residual haunting.

• 54:17Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Haley says, closing notes, all of these incidents happened at the same house. This house was built in the late 50s to 60s. And while living there, there had been other several spooky occurrences. But these are the ones that really fit into the Appalachian category. While living there, my sisters and I have all come to the conclusion that yes, the house and the property around it are definitely haunted. The vibes are very unsettling and we never want to go back. While I'm glad I have experiences to share.

• 54:40Corinne Vien?

  I know.

• 54:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Make it like a haunted Airbnb. I don't think they live there anymore.

• 54:44Corinne Vien?

  Shoot.

• 54:45Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  While I'm glad.

• 54:45Corinne Vien?

  Good, good for you.

• 54:46Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. While I'm glad I have experiences to share with you, I would never want to live there again or have others have those nightmares. My theory is that maybe what I saw, the creature was a flesh walker, a windy boy, or some other creepy crawly spirit. Anyway, thank you for reading my stories. And if this does happen to be featured in an episode, thank you for sharing your thoughts on them. Love you girls and the podcast. See you on the other side, Haley.

• 55:10Corinne Vien?

  I mean, for sure, flesh pedestrian sounding, just like even, even the screams could very much be that.

• 55:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right.

• 55:16Corinne Vien?

  It is confusing though, because this thing was so huge. Like the fact that it could be like taller than a grown pine tree.

• 55:23Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  I guess I don't know the.

• 55:24Corinne Vien?

  What kind of pine?

• 55:25Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, I don't know the height, but I am just picturing it probably even seemed larger because of how skinny and gangly the limbs were.

• 55:34Corinne Vien?

  Right, yeah, all like folded up.

• 55:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah, the way it just like.

• 55:38Corinne Vien?

  So.

• 55:40Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  So creepy.

• 55:41Corinne Vien?

  Creeping towards her as she's waiting for the bus. You know what's interesting? It's like, we've never actually heard, and maybe this is because those people are no longer here to tell the story. But like, it always ends with something with these types of creatures like trying to like stalking.

• 55:58Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But never completing.

• 55:59Corinne Vien?

  Like no one's like, we've never heard of like being face to face, like breathing at same breath, touching it.

• 56:06Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Right. I feel like the closest story we've gotten was when we did the indigenous episode encounters and we read the Raven Mocker story.

• 56:15Corinne Vien?

  Hmm.

• 56:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Cause but even that, it's probably the closest someone's been to an entity like that.

• 56:21Corinne Vien?

  Yeah.

• 56:22Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But they're still at a distance.

• 56:24Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. And I can't remember if we read it on our podcast or if it was like another podcast I was listening to, but I remember another one where like someone encountered that and started sprinting out of the woods, which is like what you're not supposed to do.

• 56:35Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah.

• 56:35Corinne Vien?

  Or no, I think they got to the the clearing of the woods and then started sprinting through the, did we read this?

• 56:41Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  No, I don't, I don't know this.

• 56:43Corinne Vien?

  Someone, I think they were like walking their dog. Maybe it was on TikTok. They were like walking their dog and they they're like, or whatever, like hi. And then knew that they weren't supposed to look, but looked and it was this sort of like classic flesh pedestrian looking creature. And they just like head down swiftly, but tried to like calmly walk to the forest edge. And then there was like a big field clearing to get to their parents' house. And they just sprint to the house and then they closed the door. I think they're like grandparent or like, I don't remember the story, but one of the relatives is there and they look back and the creature is at the forest edge, like watching and waiting.

• 57:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Maybe we did read this. I feel like we've just read or heard so many similar to this. I want to say the reason we haven't heard face to face encounters is because those people can't share those stories anymore.

• 57:32Corinne Vien?

  They're now missing people.

• 57:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  They're screaming in the woods. Oh, I had, I I meant to look this up. So I was driving home from New Jersey late. So my brother proposed to his girlfriend, yay, my new sister, Charlotte, and I was gonna stay the night in New Jersey in the drive back Sunday morning, but I was just like, I'm just gonna get, I'm just getting on the road and drive home. So I drove probably from like nine PM to one AM. At nine twenty-three PM, and I remember this specifically, I was driving on fifteen, like highway fifteen through Connecticut. I like voice noted myself after this happened because I was like, I want to look up if anything happened. But I was passing, I want

• 58:16Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  to say like Fairfield, Connecticut, one of those exits. And from my right to my left, I saw this like glowing, bright ball of light like fly through the sky. And I was like, am I seeing things?

• 58:31Corinne Vien?

  A comet, a fireball.

• 58:32Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Was it a comet, a fireball? And I meant to look it up, but I forgot.

• 58:37Corinne Vien?

  Oh, you, yeah, you need to.

• 58:39Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  But I like literally, I was like, I'm curious because like if it is a comet, there probably is some record of it.

• 58:44Corinne Vien?

  Right. Or it's like, remember, I had told you the story about how when I was walking Wrinkles when years and years ago, and we saw like a giant ball of fire going through the sky and had like a huge tail.

• 58:55Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  That's how.

• 58:56Corinne Vien?

  It seemed like the world asteroid and Wrinkles like looked up at me like, oh shit. And then I looked it up. When we were starting this podcast, I went back and looked it up. And there was like one blog that had existed with like one other person who mentioned this giant fireball and like nowhere else, like not on any sort of like space and whatever. Like people who are supposed to look and chronicle what's going on in the sky.

• 59:21Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  We're all supposed to chronicle our fireball experiences because it really did feel like a fireball. Or like, I've seen so many meteor showers in my life, but it was so much bigger. It was.

• 59:32Corinne Vien?

  Yeah. It feels like what the dinosaurs saw.

• 59:34Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Yeah. Anyway, well, this was fun. See you at the Van Meter Festival.

• 59:38Corinne Vien?

  I forgot what we were talking about in this episode. I was like, what did we cover?

• 59:42Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And we won't see you in the woods of Appalachia.

• 59:46Corinne Vien?

  No, my god.

• 59:47Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Or will we? Because that does sound fun. If you have any encounters with the glowing unicorn pterodactyl of Van Meter, Iowa, if you have any paranormal encounters at all, if you just want to let us know how you eat your corn, please email us at two girls, one goes podcast at gmail dot com. If you're a team hysteria dancing plague, say woo woo in the comments.

• 1:00:13Corinne Vien?

  Woo woo.

• 1:00:14Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  Say drop it low, low.

• 1:00:18Corinne Vien?

  Shebang, shebang.

• 1:00:20Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  In the comments. Join us on Patreon for episodes one week early and ad free and bonus content and campfire stories and book club and so many more exciting things.

• 1:00:30Corinne Vien?

  Shout out to Jamie Ryan, who edits and produces our podcast. Thank you, Jamie.

• 1:00:33Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  And thank you to all of you. We love you.

• 1:00:35Corinne Vien?

  And we will.

• 1:00:36Sabrina Deana-Roga?

  See you on the other side.

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