The Van Meter Visitor: Cryptid, Alien, or Folklore?

In the fall of 1903, the small town of Van Meter, Iowa, was terrorized by reports of a winged creature unlike anything seen before. Described as part bat, part man, with a horn that cast a blinding beam of light and a foul sulfur stench, the entity defied explanation.

Respected townsfolk—teachers, businessmen, even the town doctor—swore they saw it. Rifles had no effect, and the being always escaped into the night. The mystery climaxed when witnesses claimed to see two of the creatures emerge from an abandoned mine before vanishing forever.

Was the Van Meter Visitor a cryptid from the depths, an extraterrestrial passing through, or mass hysteria born of fear and shadows?

Join The Nocturnal Archives as we uncover the forgotten legend of the Van Meter Visitor—one of America’s strangest cryptid encounters.