Van Meter — the Van Meter Visitor, 1903

OVERVIEW

The Van Meter Visitor is a local legend of Van Meter, Iowa: a flying creature that newspapers reported over several nights in September and October 1903. The story ran first in the Des Moines Daily News and was retold, and embroidered, by other papers.

HISTORY

On the tale's account, the toolmaker U. G. Griffith saw a strange light moving over the town's rooftops on 29 September 1903 and was not believed; that night Dr A. C. Olcott was woken by a light in his face, saw a creature with bat-like wings and a blunt horn that shone, smelled its stench, fired his shotgun, and shut himself in his office.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

LEGEND. Blake Smith (Skeptoid, Fortean Times) calls it typical of the period's sensational newspaper monsters, and suggests the original author, the local man Harry H. Phillips, 'might have just made the whole thing up'. A 2013 book revived it, and the town now holds an annual festival with tours of the 1903 sites; some residents call it a fun legend, others a complete hoax.

VISITING

A public town; the festival tours the sites named in the 1903 reports.