VAN METER VISITOR....a winged creature with a glowing horn that caused terror...110 years ago
Over a series of nights in the fall of 1903, several respected and prominent men of Van Meter reported a half human, half animal with enormous, smooth bat wings flying about. It let off a powerful stench and scared the daylights out of them because it moved at speeds never seen before. And it shot a blinding light from its horned head.
Shots were fired each time, first by implement dealer U.G. Griffith as it flew across building tops. The monster shrug*ged them off like a minor nuisance. The next night the town doctor and bank cashier Peter Dunn separately saw the creature and opened fire. Dunn even took a plaster cast of the “great three-toed tracks.”
The following night, O.V. White, reportedly a dead-eye with a gun, was awakened from his slumber in his quarters above the hardware store and shot at the creature that was perching atop a telephone pole. This awakened Sidney Gregg, who had been sleeping in his store nearby. Gregg said the monster hopped like a kangaroo. Even the local high school teacher saw it and deemed it some sort of antediluvian monster.
... J.L. Platt Jr. heard a noise down by the abandoned coal mine.
...
The monster appeared, joined by a smaller version. In a brilliant light they sailed away, only to return in the morning where the men had gathered “to rid the earth of them” with their firepower heard far and wide.
“The reception they received would have sunk the Spanish fleet, but aside from unearthly noise and peculiar odor they did not seem to mind it, but slowly descended the shaft of the old mine.”
Never to be seen again.
(Excerpt) Read more at deathraywish.wordpress.com ...
Also here with LOTS of photos:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2319503/The-unsolved-mystery-Van-Meter-Visitor—winged-creature-glowing-horn-caused-terror-Iowa-town-110-years-ago.html
Over a series of nights in the fall of 1903, several respected and prominent men of Van Meter reported a half human, half animal with enormous, smooth bat wings flying about. It let off a powerful stench and scared the daylights out of them because it moved at speeds never seen before. And it shot a blinding light from its horned head.
Shots were fired each time, first by implement dealer U.G. Griffith as it flew across building tops. The monster shrug*ged them off like a minor nuisance. The next night the town doctor and bank cashier Peter Dunn separately saw the creature and opened fire. Dunn even took a plaster cast of the “great three-toed tracks.”
The following night, O.V. White, reportedly a dead-eye with a gun, was awakened from his slumber in his quarters above the hardware store and shot at the creature that was perching atop a telephone pole. This awakened Sidney Gregg, who had been sleeping in his store nearby. Gregg said the monster hopped like a kangaroo. Even the local high school teacher saw it and deemed it some sort of antediluvian monster.
... J.L. Platt Jr. heard a noise down by the abandoned coal mine.
...
The monster appeared, joined by a smaller version. In a brilliant light they sailed away, only to return in the morning where the men had gathered “to rid the earth of them” with their firepower heard far and wide.
“The reception they received would have sunk the Spanish fleet, but aside from unearthly noise and peculiar odor they did not seem to mind it, but slowly descended the shaft of the old mine.”
Never to be seen again.
(Excerpt) Read more at deathraywish.wordpress.com ...
Also here with LOTS of photos:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2319503/The-unsolved-mystery-Van-Meter-Visitor—winged-creature-glowing-horn-caused-terror-Iowa-town-110-years-ago.html
