The Van Meter Visitor is a winged cryptid reported in Van Meter, Iowa, during a five-night series of encounters in late September and early October 1903, making it one of the earliest and most thoroughly documented monster sightings in the American Midwest.
Also Known As: Van Meter Monster Classification: Winged humanoid / cryptid First Reported: September 29, 1903 Location: Van Meter, Dallas County, Iowa Primary Sources: Des Moines Daily News (October 1903); The New York World (October 5, 1903) Notable Research: The Van Meter Visitor: A True and Mysterious Encounter with the Unknown by Chad Lewis, Noah Voss, and Kevin Lee Nelson (On The Road Publications, 2013)
Description
Witnesses across multiple nights described a creature that stood roughly eight to nine feet tall with a heavily built body and enormous bat-like wings made of smooth, leathery material. The most distinctive feature was a blunt, horn-like protrusion on its forehead that emitted an intensely bright light, capable of illuminating nearby buildings and temporarily blinding those it faced. The creature also produced a powerful, nauseating odor that overwhelmed at least one witness. Its eyes were described as glowing, and its movement on the ground was said to resemble a kangaroo, moving in leaps while using its wings for balance. Reports consistently noted that the creature left three-toed tracks far larger than any known Iowa animal.
Sighting History
Night One: September 29, 1903
Around 1 a.m., U.G. Griffith, a local implement dealer, was driving into town when he spotted what appeared to be an electric searchlight moving across the rooftop of Maher and Grigg’s store on Main Street. Van Meter had no electric lighting at the time. When he approached for a closer look, the light vanished, then reappeared on a building across the street before disappearing entirely. Griffith told his story the next morning and was met with widespread disbelief.
Night Two: September 30, 1903
Just before 12:27 a.m., Dr. A.C. Alcott was jolted awake in his office by a blinding light shining directly through his window. He grabbed his gun and went outside. What he encountered stopped him cold: a tall, half-human, half-animal figure with enormous bat-like wings and a blunt horn in the center of its forehead, from which the light was emanating. Alcott fired five shots at the creature at close range. It showed no sign of being struck and vanished into the night.
Night Three: October 1, 1903
Bank cashier Clarence Dunn, aware of the previous reports but still suspecting human burglars, stationed himself inside the bank with a loaded repeating shotgun. Around 1 a.m. he heard a strangling noise outside, then was hit in the face with a flash of blinding light through the bank window. He made out a large form behind the light and fired his shotgun through the plate glass. The creature disappeared. The following morning, enormous three-toed prints were found pressed deep into the soft earth outside the bank. Dunn made plaster casts of them. No casts are known to survive today.
Night Four: October 2, 1903
Hardware merchant O.V. White was asleep above his store on Main Street when a rasping sound woke him. Looking out his window, he saw the creature perched on the crossbar of a telephone pole across the street. He raised his gun and fired. The shot was immediately followed by an overpowering, noxious odor that overwhelmed him and caused him to stagger back, temporarily stupefied. The creature gave off no light during this encounter, which witnesses noted as a departure from previous nights.
The commotion woke White’s neighbor, local merchant Sidney Gregg, who opened his front door and looked down Main Street. He saw the creature still atop the telephone pole, estimating it at eight feet tall with a large beak, bat-like wings, and four legs. He watched it descend the pole using its beak the way a parrot navigates a perch, drop to the ground, and begin moving in a kangaroo-like gait, leaping forward while using its wings for balance. When an inbound train passed nearby, the creature startled and made off toward the old coal mine at the edge of town.
Night Five: October 3, 1903
For several days, miners had reported eerie sounds rising from the abandoned coal mine, described by the Des Moines Daily News as sounding like “Satan and a regiment of imps were coming forth for battle.” Brick plant foreman J.L. Platt investigated the mine shortly after midnight and witnessed the creature fly out of the shaft. A second, smaller creature followed behind it. Platt assembled a large armed posse. The group waited at the mine entrance through the night and opened fire when both creatures returned at dawn. The volley had no effect. The creatures descended back into the shaft, and the entrance was sealed with heavy planks. No further sightings were reported that season.
Physical Evidence
The most cited physical evidence from the 1903 events consists of three-toed footprints discovered near the abandoned mine and at multiple sighting locations. Each track showed three distinct, elongated toes inconsistent with any local wildlife, and were large enough that townsmen made plaster casts for preservation. No casts are known to survive today.
The strong sulfuric odor reported by multiple witnesses has been noted by researchers as potentially consistent with natural gas venting from the old coal mine, though that alone would not account for the physical descriptions or behavior of the creature.
Notable Witnesses
All principal witnesses in 1903 were described by contemporary newspaper accounts as respected community figures. They included an implement dealer, a medical doctor, a bank cashier, a hardware merchant, and the town’s school principal. What distinguishes this case from many cryptid reports is that these were individuals whose social standing would have been damaged, not enhanced, by reporting encounters with a monster. Each put their name to their account anyway.
Skeptical Explanations
Several conventional explanations have been proposed over the decades. Some researchers suggest witnesses may have seen a large bird or bat that appeared monstrous in poor lighting. Owls or great blue herons can look dramatically different when startled or seen from below, and the horn reported by witnesses could have been a beak or prominent feather crest.
A deliberate hoax is another possibility that has been examined seriously. Rural towns in 1903 were not immune to pranks and tall tales, and skeptics point to the lack of surviving physical evidence as a significant gap. However, researchers who have studied the case closely tend to find the hoax theory unsatisfying, given the number of independent witnesses willing to attach their names publicly.
Mass hysteria remains a frequently cited explanation. In a tight-knit community where news spread fast, initial reports could have primed subsequent witnesses to interpret ordinary stimuli in extraordinary ways. The sulfuric odor may have come from natural gas near the mine. Neither explanation fully accounts for the consistent physical descriptions across multiple independent observers.
The prehistoric animal theory continues to circulate in cryptozoological circles. Some researchers have proposed the creature may have been a surviving descendant of pterosaurs or similar prehistoric fliers, a hypothesis that remains unsupported by any biological evidence but one that the case’s unusual details continue to invite.
Comparisons to Other Cryptids
The Van Meter Visitor is most commonly compared to the Mothman of Point Pleasant, West Virginia, first reported in 1966. Both cases involve a large winged figure with glowing features, multiple credible witnesses, and a cluster of sightings over a short period before the creature disappears entirely. The Jersey Devil of the New Jersey Pine Barrens offers another point of comparison, with overlapping physical descriptors including bat-like wings and a bipedal form. Some researchers have also drawn connections to Thunderbird legends held by various Indigenous peoples of North America, which describe enormous leathery flying creatures with tremendous wingspans.
Research and Publications
Researchers Chad Lewis and Noah Voss, along with illustrator Kevin Lee Nelson, published The Van Meter Visitor: A True and Mysterious Encounter with the Unknown in 2013 through On The Road Publications, with a foreword by paranormal author Brad Steiger. The book drew on original newspaper records from the Des Moines Daily News and The New York World, field research in Van Meter, and interviews with local historians. It remains the most comprehensive examination of the case to date.
Cultural Legacy and Modern Sightings
Van Meter has hosted the annual Van Meter Visitor Festival since 2013. The event draws cryptid enthusiasts, paranormal researchers, and curious visitors each September, and includes guided walking tours of the original sighting locations, lectures by researchers, art exhibits, and reenactments of the 1903 encounters.
Sporadic modern sightings have kept the legend active. In the 1980s, a man reported seeing a giant bat-like creature near the abandoned mine, with no prior knowledge of the town’s history. In 2006, a local pastor described seeing what he called a dragon in the sky, and only after searching online realized the description matched the Van Meter Visitor. A cluster of sightings near Winterset, Iowa in the early 2020s drew renewed attention to the region.
Chad Lewis, who co-authored the definitive book on the case, has noted that even many Van Meter residents who do not believe the original story still embrace it as a genuine piece of their community’s history.
See Also
- Mothman — West Virginia winged humanoid, 1966
- Thunderbird — Indigenous North American flying cryptid tradition
- Jersey Devil — New Jersey Pine Barrens winged cryptid