This chain of bizarre events began in the quiet and secluded small town of Van Meter, Iowa (USA) in 1903, when a local resident, Griffith, was walking on his way home after midnight on September 29th after another exhausting day at work.
As he approached his house, he noticed a strange point of light, like a spotlight, emanating from the top of a nearby building. He lived most of his life in this place and realized that he saw something unusual, which should not be there.
Griffith's curiosity was so strong that, abandoning dreams of hot food and a soft bed, he decided to watch the fire, thinking that it could be robbers. But when he approached the house, the light flew across the street to the roof of another house, so it clearly could not be a person. Even for the most dexterous robber, this would be unrealistic.
Even more puzzled, Griffith tried to understand what he was seeing, while the light disappeared and there was complete darkness around. The next day, Griffith told his friend and other people about what he had seen, and they believed him, since he was considered an honest fellow and was a respected member of society.
Even more interesting events followed. In the early morning hours of September 30, the city doctor, Dr. Alcott, was awakened by a shrill beam of light that shone directly into his face from a window. The startled doctor jumped up, woke up, and ran out into the street to see what was happening. He brought a weapon with him, just in case.
There, on the street, he collided nose to nose with a tall humanoid figure with wings like a bat. But the most bizarre part of his body was a single horn on his head, which was the source of this bright light.
Seeing the "demon", the doctor immediately began to shoot at him with a gun. He fired at least five times and was confident he had hit, but none of the shots seemed to cause any damage to the creature. It still stood in its place in the darkness and illuminated everything around with a bright horn. It didn’t look at all alarmed or frightened by the appearance of the person.
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Then the doctor allegedly ran to himself and locked the doors, and then the creature left. When the man later told other people about this, they also believed him, since he was also a respected person in the city. But no one could understand what kind of creature it was. Soon, rumors spread throughout the city that something supernatural and inaccessible to human understanding was running in the city.
The next observation was on October 1st. Clarence Dunn, manager of the city bank, barely got dark, went to the bank building. He feared that bandits' attacks could be behind all the rumors and was very worried about the bank's money. He entered the building and sat in the foyer with a gun. He didn't have to wait long.
Bank building in Van Meter in 1903.
At about 1 am, Dunn heard an inexplicable sound outside, which sounded like a wheezing sound or as if someone was being choked. As he sat in the dark, gripping the shotgun tightly in his hands, the darkness suddenly lit up with a bright beam of light and Dunn saw through the window that there was a dark creature outside.
Without thinking, Dunn started shooting at this creature and then it ran away somewhere. Dunn was sure he had hit and hit him, but there was not a speck of blood anywhere. But he found very strange tracks. They were three-toed foot prints. There are reports that a plaster cast was made from one of the tracks, but now no photo or description of it can be found.
The next evening, the owner of the hardware store, O. White, was awakened by a frightening unearthly sound, like the grinding of claws on metal. Waking up instantly, White jumped out of bed and grabbed his rifle, which he always kept nearby. When he looked out the window, he saw a tall, dark figure sitting like a bird on the top of a telegraph pole.
White started shooting at the figure, but it only shook its head slightly, as if the bullets were annoying him. Later, White described that a wave of terrible stench began to emanate from the creature and the smell was so strong that he eventually became dizzy and fell to the floor and lost consciousness.
At this time, the co-owner of White's store Sydney Cragg woke up from the noise of shots. He went out into the street and saw how a humanoid creature climbs down from the post and on his head something like a large beak (probably the same horn). When the creature reached the ground, it was about 8 feet (2.4 m) tall, and its legs were similar to those of a kangaroo.
A bright light began to emanate from the creature's forehead and, according to Cregg, it was as powerful as an electric lamp. Then the creature looked around, spread its wings and disappeared into the night sky.
Brickworks in Van Meter, Iowa, 1903
This whole very strange saga continued on the evening of October 3rd. Platt Jr., who runs a local brick factory on the outskirts of town, noticed strange noises emanating from a nearby abandoned coal mine. He described these sounds with a colorful comparison "Satan and his regiment of demons are attacking."
When Platt went to the mine, he encountered a winged beast that appeared at the entrance to the dungeon. And next to him was another creature, much smaller. The horns of these creatures emitted a bright light, and then they both flew away.
When Platt told the residents of the city about this, it was decided that the old mine was the den of these demonic creatures. A detachment of people with guns set up a camp near the entrance to the mine and began to wait for the creatures to return. They returned the next evening and people started shooting at them with guns. Of course, this again had no effect.
Later, an article about this event appeared in the newspaper, in which it was said in particular:
“They received such a 'warm' welcome that an entire Spanish fleet could have put down. But they didn’t react with anything but unearthly noise and a specific smell, and then they disappeared inside the mine”.
After that, people blocked the entrance of the mine with stones and such creatures in the city were never seen again. Only legends about those events remained in my memory, and several newspaper articles that, decades later, were found by researchers of anomalous phenomena Chad Lewis, Noah Voss and Kevin Lee Nelson, who described them in their book "The Van Meter Visitor" ("Guest of Van Meter").