This Paranormal Life - #221 The Van Meter Visitor - A Real Winged Demon?

Episode Date: July 13, 2021

Many small towns hide dark secrets, but in some they still live right underneath the surface. In Van Meter Iowa in 1903 a creature appeared that defied description and terrified everyone who encountered it. Not only that but spoiler alert: bullets don’t do jack to this thing. This is the story of the Van Meter Visitor.BUY OFFICIAL TPL MERCHwww.thisparanormallife.com/storePatreonpatreon.com/ThisParanormalLifeYouTubeyoutube.com/thisparanormallifeTwittertwitter.com/ThisParaLifeInstagraminstagram.com/thisparanormallifeSecret Society Facebook Pagewww.facebook.com/groups/thisparanormallife/Research by Amy GrisdaleIntro music: www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If a werewolf goes to a planet without a moon, will it ever transform? Are flies just tiny birds? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello and welcome back to This Paranormal Life. This is the comedy podcast where every Tuesday we investigate a different tale, claim, or beast, or demon, or animal we've never seen or heard of before and decide whether it's paranormal or not. Plot twist, most of the time it's not, but sometimes it is and that's why we're here every single week, sorting the wheat from the

chaff. My name's Kit Grimelvena. This guy is Roy Pires, a cross from my co-investigator. How are you doing today, Roy? I'm doing fantastic. Yesterday was my first day out of quarantine. I've been quarantining for 10 days and I'm out, baby. I'm back. I was worried for a second you were going to say quarantining since March 2020 or something. I heard it was safe. I came outside for the first time. I'm ready. And boy, it is bright. How does it feel to be out? It feels fantastic. I mean, you have gone back inside a dungeon to record this.

It does feel a little sad to be out for one day and then back to... And we actually have a lot to make up on recording too. So you're not leaving for 11, 12 days? Quite a few. We're going to be back in the dungeon. But yeah, it was nice. I went out yesterday. You know, went out and had some pizza which was delicious um couldn't taste it of course i don't know what's going on

there um and i had this freaking cough that was driving me nuts okay you need to we need to stay in now so this and if we could get through this that would be really great because i feel like shit today okay my god and i thought it was gonna be fine but it's like it's been getting worse and uh it's good to be outside but it also like it's also just like but it also cough that's what you have to say i feel like you knew you were gonna cough when you said but it's also i just can't it's hard to put sentences together because i can't like taste or smell anything yeah you mentioned that and which is one of the most famous symptoms of covet 19 is it yeah because when the phone where they were like the nhs called

me and they were like have you have you done any tests and i said yeah negative and i think they took that as like my tests were negative but i was like nope but you didn't say no you said negative right you use the word that usually means i'm healthy yeah yeah okay and then she was like are you sure and i said positive so there was some confusion granted i there was a was a poor choice of words. You were looking at the test when you said positive. Ah, f*** me. This is a bit of a change to how I thought this episode was going to go. But to be honest, we're here now. We might as well finish the episode and then, I don't know, go to an ICU, I think.

I don't feel well. In today's investigation, it's September 29 29th 1903 in Van Meter Iowa it's one in the morning and implement dealer UG Griffith is sound asleep in bed implement dealer means he is in the business of farm equipment that's really thank you for clarifying that you thought it was weed I didn't know why I had no clue what that was only around a thousand people live there today but in the early 1900s the population is just shy of 400 residents are used to a quiet life so ug griffith is pissed when he's awoken by a bright light in the middle of the night here we go you said it was at the time it was only 400 people that live

there yep now bear in mind that uh populations of towns were a lot like the contrast in the value of money. So in olden days, a dollar was like a million dollars in today's money. I think that checks out. So an old-timey town that had 400 residents is like f***ing New York City. This is a metropolis. Yeah, there were just less people on Earth, so... So this was like a hustling, bustling... A nuclear family of four.

That was like the population of Amsterdam. Yeah, exactly. You could buy a house for a quarter. What in the hell? He's not going to stand for this. He's got implements to deal in the morning. Not wanting to yell out the window and wake up both the other residents of the town, he pulls on his boots and heads out into the street.

He's furious, muttering to himself, Some dumb kid's found himself a spotlight, huh? Wants to mess with my sleep, huh? I'll show him. A spot? I thought it was 1903. Did they have spotlights then? I guess so.

Ah, maybe they did. They had cars though, right? So they must have had lights. Yeah, maybe. Back then maybe it was two candles in the front of your car. Load up cartimeline.com. We need to get to the bottom of this. He sees the source of the light perched on top of a house and strides up to it, ready to unleash the scolding of a lifetime. He's blinded by the beam, but squinting up, he can just about make out a vast and terrifying shape. That's no kid! Whatever's holding this blazing torch is enormous, but it's shining so bright Griffith can barely

keep his eyes open. Suddenly the creature leaps high into the air in the blink of an eye. Whoa! It clears Main Street in one jump, landing on a house on the other side of the street. Griffith can't believe how fast it had travelled. He's never seen anything like this before. He's frozen on the spot, eyes fixed on the grotesque silhouette. But as quickly as it had hopped across the street, it slips away into the dark night. Ladies and gentlemen, we are looking at some sort of intergalactic frog. That's right, everyone. It's the Loveland Frogman Part 2.

He's moved to iowa from ohio he's back he didn't move very far sure in the scheme of earth uh ohio got too hot too many people were looking for the almond eating frogman uh so he's moved to iowa yeah maybe who knows an intergalactic frog. We do not know. All he saw was, quote unquote, a vast and terrifying shape in the darkness. Wow. Griffith heads back to bed,

trying to convince himself he's dreaming, sleepwalking, or straight up hallucinating. But it would soon become clear that this is just the first of a flurry of sightings of what would go on to be called the Van Meter Visitor. Ooh, I like the ambiguity there. The Visitor? Not a lot to go on.

Yeah. With that name. We're usually one for specifics. The Frogman. The Donkey Lady. Yeah, very specific descriptions of the creature. So when you throw something out there like the Visitor, now that's cool.

That's very cool. It actually implies nothing and yet quite a lot. It also implies that they came and dipped. Yeah, right. They didn't stick around. I like this. I like it a lot. So it's a lot scarier sounding than some of the creatures we've investigated in the past. Absolutely. Everyone knows when you watch a horror movie that the boring bit is when they reveal the monster at the very end. It's a Scooby-Doo ripping off the mask. Once you can see it and touch it and feel it with your own hands, it's not as scary anymore. It's worse if it sneaks up behind you, says boo, and then vanishes. You never even see that. You don't know if you've gone crazy or if it was real terrifying the following night's

events would happen to someone else the town's medic dr alcott is roused by a blinding light outside his it's also bad if your town is so small it just has a medic not a doctor yeah a guy who knows the recovery position and maybe And maybe CPR if you're lucky. Yeah, it's all... There's no preventative action being taken place. It's only someone who can deal with all the problems. Yeah. No one to prevent any of them. It's basically a PE teacher with a first aid kit.

That's what you're dealing with here. Yeah, if you go to them with high blood pressure, good luck. Yeah, it's not gonna help he all he has is a suitcase of morphine and a big cartoon hammer to bonk you on the head with before an operation that's right dr alcott is roused by a blinding light outside his window and goes out to investigate it is true you make a good point i guess they wouldn't have had very sophisticated lights back then so a light not a lot of blinding lights even nowadays if a laser beam comes in through your window you're just like ah some kid has got a laser pen and they're flying around the place yeah granted a torch coming through your living room window would be a lot scarier yeah unless i don't know presumably that's what it's like living in downtown Los Angeles.

Police helicopters and searchlights. Yeah, open up, let me in. We've got a search warrant. I've heard it all before. Yeah, if I was just sleeping in my apartment and a spotlight came in through the windows, I would think I'm getting scrooged. I would think that three ghosts are now going to visit me

and tell me to stop being such a little bastard. I mean, at the same time, I have told you about the simply inordinate amount of police helicopters that circle my flat on a daily basis.

Right. We live relatively close to each other. You don't get this very much, right? No, I don't. You live in also a lot busier area than i do but uh every single night dozens of police helicopters descend on my street i don't know why i we live four streets apart and yet i am in i'm on an animal Crossing island and you're in GTA Vice City. It's f***ed up. It's actually f***ed up when you're trying to sleep

and police helicopters are circling you. Because you do all that dog fighting as well in the basement. So you're always kind of on edge anyway. Yeah. So like, and they're just like out looking for petty criminals and stuff and you're sweating bullets. Yeah, dog fighting, street racing. racing yeah sorry i i should clarify uh because i think that painted you in a bad light you don't you don't make dogs fight each other you fight the dogs that's what it was i feel like some people

thought maybe you made dogs fight that's that was totally that's not okay um kit fights the dogs yeah the first rule of fight club is don't bow wow yeah i've been doing it for a couple years it's like uh you know i just tell people it's like mma or something it's like niche but like it's going to be big you know um yeah i think i could be the conor mcgregor of it of that sport uh i'd say you maybe have to like work your way up a little bit more i have to win at least one match which i haven't done and they're small dogs too i want everyone to know that i'm quite worried about my first bout with a border terrier because the chihuahuas nearly made me infertile i'll tell

you how much yeah i i came around the other day to podcast and a pomeranian had you in a headlock day to podcast and a pomeranian had you in a headlock which is almost are so small it's incredible it was almost incredible because for it to even lock your head with its little arms was incredibly i tried to take it down and i got like a mouthful of uh dog hair and i couldn't breathe for the rest i think i black i think the dog won by default because i blacked out so early um so don't feel bad for the dogs either because they're pretty much running the show they almost have a human fight club where they just take turns beating up kit in his own basement and people always say the dogs always win this must be rigged but i organize the fights i'm the promoter so it's not rigged it's rigged

against me if anything so if you see me walking around east london top off flabby abs not at all like brad pitt but walking six dogs under the guise of a dog walking business that's actually what i'm up to yeah the door is open by the way all the time the dogs can leave whenever they want but they kind of like get off on beating up Kit now. It's their playtime. More dogs have joined since the fighting league started rather than more have left. I cannot stress enough to recap. Dr. Alcott is roused by a blinding light outside his window and goes to investigate.

But unlike UG Griffith, he has the sense to grab his shotgun on the way out of the door. As soon as he sets his foot outside, there the creature is on a rooftop. It's eight feet tall easily. Blast him! Something about it looks strangely human, except it has... Full fire! I was a little fast there. It has a set of huge leathery wings. Blast him!

He realizes the light is coming from what looks like a horn on its head. Remembering there's a weapon in his hands, he takes his chance to open fire. He takes five shots in total. This must be a semi-automatic pump action. Well, it better be, otherwise he's reloading. pump action. Dude, well it better be otherwise he's reloading. Yeah, again, this is not the behavior of someone I would want to save

my life. He's getting phone call after phone call to come to people who are ill down the street. I've got a John Wick style shootout to attend first, sorry. At first he thinks he's missing the target but for the last few he sees his bullets make contact.

They just aren't doing anything. The doctor's whole body floods with fear, and he runs home and slams the door behind him. If you're unloading five shotgun shells into an eight-foot creature, and it's not even phased, you best hope you saved a couple shells for yourself, because that thing's not coming down and it's gonna tear you to shreds

if it gets its hands on you. That's why the shotgun's a bold choice because it's a hard one to turn on yourself when you need to in a sort of cryptid man battle. Right, you would almost have to take your shoe off and use your feet to kind of try and pull the trigger. If one needed to. The next day, everyone's talking about it. Rumors are circling and people are scared. I heard it's 20 feet tall.

Well, I heard it picked Griffin up and shook him like a dog. It isn't long until these panicked whispers fall on the ears of local badass Clarence Dunn. He's a logical man and knows that there's nothing strange going on here. It's probably a clever gang of robbers trying to lure the entire town out of their homes at night. Or worse, they're headed for the town vault. The town vault? But Clarence is a rebel with a cause. This is his town.

And if anyone's going to be creeping around in the middle of the night, it's going to be him. He decides to wait up and keep watch to solve the mystery once and for all he pitches up at the bank in the middle of town his trusty shotgun at his side if any bandits try and make their way in he'll be ready this got really red dead really fast i mentioned the rory right before we started recording that this town is uh per on the side of Raccoon River. Yeah. So it's a real time and place in history.

Hours pass with no disturbance, but the eerie silence is broken by a violent strangling sound. Clambering to his feet and grabbing for a shotgun, Clarence staggers towards the door. Before he can get there, he's struck with a paralyzing beam of light. Try as he might, he can't move. It's as if his shoes have been nailed to the floorboards. Without warning, the blazing light dims and Clarence sees what he later described as some kind of great form behind the light. He's scared and confused but is regaining his faculties. He realizes he's mere meters from the monster, raises his gun, and shoots it right from where he's standing, right shattering the window of the bank. Clarence hadn't believed Dr. Alcott's story

about a fearsome creature impervious to bullets, but it was standing before his very eyes. But only for another moment moment just like the two previous nights it vanishes without a trace as he watches there's a lot to unpack there yeah what do you make of that if you were clarence it's interesting he was hit by the beam of light and frozen on the spot like it's some kind of freeze ray i'd like to know if it was because of the light that he was paralyzed, or is this kind of like a total shock? Yeah, yeah, like frozen on the spot, can't believe what I'm seeing kind of ordeal. Because he gets his hands on the shotgun pretty fast for someone who's completely paralyzed.

Yeah, it's really hard to know, isn't it? for someone who's completely paralyzed. Yeah, it's really hard to know, isn't it? I mean, we do have to remember, like, even though we have not been through the eyes of a couple of different people who've experienced this, Clarence thought there was a team of bandits in the town up until about 30 seconds ago. So if this is what I was confronted with

for the very first time, knowing nothing about it, I would probably be frozen to the spot. You were warned, Clarence. You were warned very descriptively of what this thing was. The audacity for people to tell their stories and you go, nah, I think it's bandits. And then that same night,

an eight foot light beast comes at your front door and you're like, who could have foresaw this? Better shoot it. No one's tried that before i know clarence talking to the police after the fags like i guess in retrospect i'm shocked but not surprised on account of being told every single detail of the previous encounters even the bullets not having any effect i wonder if they're kind of bouncing off the creature like superman or if they're just phasing through it like it doesn't even exist i mean yeah that's a great point i love that detail of the story where he shoots the thing at point blank range but all that happens is the window of the bank smashes into pieces it feels like a moment from james bond when he's uh running around the the

fun house of mirrors oh yeah and he's like trying to catch the the villain but it's like it's all smoke and mirrors he can't see where they are it's as if this beast is playing him using the glass you you run in all the lights go on and he's like he's got the gun and he's looking at all the mirrors and you just hear like, You think you know what's real and what's not. This is Batman now. You think you know what's real and what's not, Batman. But I think that you'll find that illusion plays a big part in our society today. Of course, in those movies, he never shoots the right person first. No.

He always gets a couple mirrors down, you know. Always a couple down. And then right when you're least expecting it, the Joker, let's face it, appears right behind him and he can't see it. And grabs him by the throat. Or he's got the gun pointed at what he thinks is a mirror. And then the mirror just goes. Oh, perfect. It writes itself. It really writes itself. It really does. got the gun pointed at what he thinks is a mirror and then the mirror just goes oh perfect it's it's it writes it really writes itself it really does so i love that uh i love this creature's commitment

to cinema exactly it's a real like if you're gonna be a night beast you might as well do some theatrics yeah 100 although i would love to see the version where Batman goes to the Hall of Mirrors. He's got the gun ready and it's just the Joker going, you see, illusions are something that you don't understand, Batman. I got you now! How? How did you see me? It's not that deceptive. You're right in front of me. I could feel your breath on my skin you know

how sound works right like i can hear that you're right in front there's only one mirror as well one big mirror that or you shoot the mirror it ricochets and gets him in the nuts i mean it's wild that the vault is a thing that this is a thing where did that come from booty is kept in one vault yeah one big treasure chest that this paranormal beast is gonna oceans 11 this vault i think it's uh i know it sounds a bit wild but i think it is a thing right back in the day small time there'd only be one bank probably i guess it's all physical cash so keep all your goods in it yeah i mean i would 100 watch a movie where a a small group of paranormal creatures team up to rob a casino right where they're like

cryptid oceans 11 yeah they're like chupacabra you need to enter the vents at this location and drop down right when goat man abilities yeah yeah you got everyone there spring heel jack you need to launch yourself onto the top of the building there will be a helicopter pad get ready for the donkey lady to breach the walls Loch Ness Monster just there's like a stream that goes into the building if not I don't know just like take five because we don't actually know why you're here do you need human money Loch Ness Monster do you need human money i don't know how you work he doesn't he doesn't speak he doesn't speak of course no he doesn't speak any language

awesome can anyone translate and i don't know what that means spring hill jack you know we need you to do your stuff but please do not throw any acid in anyone's face. That's not a cool cryptid thing to do. It's just illegal. We could have got a human to do that if we wanted someone to do that. So don't. Only the men, I see. No, no, no acid in nobody's face. Clarence sinks to the floor, his heart pounding.

He can't process what he's just seen. All he wants to do is get to the safety of his own bed, but he's pretty shaken up. Not to do is get to the safety of his own bed but he's pretty shaken up not to mention he should really watch over the bank until morning as he's just busted the window wide open and bandits could really run in and take the whole thing he's a bandit at this point yeah after a few hours of nightmare riddled sleep he steps outside to greet the new day there on the ground outside the bank beneath the shell casings and shards of glass are huge, three-toed

footprints. Oh boy. Forgetting all about the security of the time's money, he bolts home to grab a pot of plaster so he can make a cast of these things. Just a day ago he had brushed this whole thing off as an elaborate prank. He knows he needs proof if anyone sensible is gonna believe

him. Rory, I would love to show you an image of these casts but, um... at prank he knows he needs proof if anyone sensible is going to believe him rory i would love to uh show you an image of these casts but um no it's better than physical evidence sometimes it's just like using your imagination because we can really you can really like in vr dive into the the time and place using our minds and kind of just usually i would picture it usually i'd be more upset but look it's 19 1903 i believe you said i'll give you the benefit of the doubt that is a long time ago this is a guy who just broke into a bank to fight a night beast with a shotgun yeah i don't trust him with any possessions and yeah he's not he wasn't uploading this shit to like Wikipedia. Who allowed him to do this? Who gave him the okay to be the one to do this?

When you're a local badass, Clarins done, you get to do what you want. Because even when the beast came and went, he just slept in the bank, having constant nightmares until he woke up, presumably shotgun in hand. Does he have a job? Does he have a job? What does he do? Why is he local badass? I wish that was a profession, but I don't think it is. Yeah, this is dangerously close to the actions of John Marston from Red Dead Redemption.

He needn't have bothered trying to prove it to anyone, because that week the creature pops up all over the place. The town is incapacitated with terror. O.V. White, the owner of the hardware store, takes a shot at it when he sees it asleep at the top of a telephone pole. Asleep? Well, it's tuckered on account of spending all night haunting the villagers. On the top of a telephone pole?

I thought this thing was huge. It's a really, well, it is, but it's a real bird-like thing to do, isn't it? Oh, yeah, that's right. You said it had wings, to be fair. Okay. The air suddenly fills with a disgusting, sour smell. White thinks it must be a defense mechanism like a skunk, and it smells beyond terrible. His neighbor isn't far behind and catches up with the mysterious visitor as it's climbing down the pole he aims his gun at it but it takes flight before he can pull the trigger guns don't work but as we all know from all military action movies people with guns tend to not take it on face value or on your word that guns don't work they're like nah bro not my gun though sure yeah you're a wimpy little gun sure but me with my barrett 50 cal sniper rifle

is i'm gonna take this thing down best believe also there's something strange about shooting it anything paranormal or not while it's asleep that really feels wrong yeah like even if you were killing the devil you'd want to at least wake him up first yeah and say bye bitch and pull the trigger yeah hey hey satan hey i'm i'm just i'm gonna kill you but i just i want you to be awake because oh shit he's awake for two seconds, turns you into a frog. Fuck! I should have driven! I should have driven! Taken the driven shot! Fuck!

You know what I mean? It seems wrong. Even if, like, I don't know. It's like Captain America. If he snuck up and strangled Thanos in his sleep, that feels bad. I know it's good, but it feels bad. It doesn't feel very patriotic doesn't feel very american uh you're right give that job to i don't know hulk or someone who doesn't who

isn't the like propaganda guy yeah yeah the guy in front of the magazine himself yeah even if you uh like gathered a town meeting the next day and you were like, I f***ing got him. I cut off his head here. And everyone's like cheering. They're like, yes. Like, how did you do it? And you're like, you're never going to guess. He was asleep in a little bush. I think like nursing its children or whatever. And I just put the barrel of my gun in its mouth and blew its brains out. There's going to be a lot of people who are like, that's not okay. I know it was giving us a lot of trouble, but I think you're the animal for doing that. I think we need to put you down. Yeah, this feels, I don't know, something about it feels kind of cowardly. It's like in the movies where they capture King Kong. You know, he's a bad gorilla

sure he's pretty easy he's well he's pretty violent i think he eats everything he can get his little monkey but that's not why they take him to new york city that's too far that was this is the part where they go too far is uh sure you know. Deal with them whatever way you need to. But don't take them to New York City, freak them out, flashball them. I haven't watched King Kong in so many years. Was the premise of the movie they had to capture him because he was eating everything? Jesus, I don't remember.

I don't think King Kong did anything wrong. I think they just found a giant monkey. You might be right now. Yeah, because I think it... He wasn't one all the world's bananas yeah i think in the new one they're filming a movie on skull islands and there's a giant monkey and then they're like how much money we could get if we show people this monkey 20 bananas we'd save if we put this thing in a cage and feed him oatmeal instead? This thing takes flight into the air.

It flies over the whole town and the men chase after it, partly to see where it goes and also to get away from the stench. They reach the outskirts. Where'd the stench come from? The beasts. It smells? Yep. Wow, okay. That's new.

Yeah, yeah, no. O.V. White, he said he thought it might be a defense mechanism like a skunk. Oh, right. Oh, God, that's not good. Yeah, I mean, a deadly beast is bad enough without a stinky deadly beast. The men reach the outskirts of the tarn and see the beast heading away at speed before descending. It's going to the old coal mine. Oh, we got you now, you son of a bitch. The two men hatch a plan over the next few days. All the while, people living near the abandoned

mine start hearing sinister sounds emanating from the old shafts. After the event, a newspaper quotes them saying the sounds were as though Satan and a regiment of imps were coming forth for a battle. Oh my God. That's bad. That's very descriptive. And at that point, you're thinking back to five years ago when you bought that house near the old mine and everyone said, don't do it. The real estate value will tank in years to come.

The mine can't keep going forever. They'll have to shut down the mine and you'll be living next to a mine. And you said, no, the views are great and the house is big and spacious. There you go. Now you got to deal with this. Satan's army of imps coming for you.

I mean, at this point you block up the mine, right? Like dynamite the entrance and just seal it off and starve the thing miners still inside there's no time as word gets out a fair few of the local men volunteer their monster hunting services with enough men and heavy artillery on their side they can't lose so out they go to the outskirts of time prepared to slay the beast or die trying. The angry mob is in a frenzy as they reach the hilltop overlooking the mines, but their bloodlust turns to fear when they see the visitor is at the mine's entrance, and it's not alone. It's accompanied by a similar creature, but it's

much smaller. No one knows what to do. They're all just standing there, confused. As they slowly come to their senses, someone shouts, Get him! The men charge forward as one. Guns a-blazing. But in a move everyone should have predicted, the visitor and what seems to be its child take flight and escape. Now what?

Now we wait. There's nothing on Earth a bullet can't kill. That doctor and Clarence are probably terrible shots. When those things get back here, we blast them. Plain and simple. Why does no one have faith in the person who saw the thing before they did?

You don't have no more tools. It's 1903. You have no more tools to deal with this thing there's no bloody doctor for one there's there's no police there's no military one guy saw it and he was like it's a it's an eight foot night bird the next person is like well i don't think it is and then he sees it it's like it's an eight foot night bird and i shot it and it didn't work and then the next time he goes well i think you missed i and it's like, it's an 8-foot nightbird and I shot it and it didn't work. And then the next thing it goes, well, I think you missed with that shot. I think it's bandits, yeah.

And I'm going to stake out the old bank. I don't know why the beast ever came to the bank, by the way. Yeah, that doesn't make a lot of sense at all. That was kind of a good guess on the part of the Clarence. Yeah, he didn't even go for the vault at all. I don't know. We live in an age of stupidity today, and this is 120 years later.

It's pretty fair to believe that this was also an age of stupidity. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't surprise me at all. To them as well, I mean, guns were so fresh. They were like lightsabers to those people. Laser guns. They were like, this is the future of war.

What are you telling me? A bullet't gonna kill this thing we just got it's like telling someone today a nuke won't do the job yeah it's like what do you nuke it all you want it won't make a dent well i feel like you didn't hit it with the nuke or your nuke was a dud i've seen billy'sukes. They're weak and they're tiny. It destroyed Canada. Billy's nukes destroyed Canada. It wasn't weak. So the men hunkered down. And after hours in the cold, the men are stirred by the faint sound of beating wings. Here they come.

Get ready. The men stick to their plan, but the creatures are unharmed. They can't believe it. Whatever these things are, they are totally immune. Ignoring the onslaught completely, the pair of beings make their way into the cave and out of sight. At this point, the guys are tired and getting ratty, and one of them has an idea. If it involves a gun, I'm leaving right now. Nobody even uses this place anymore.

Let's just seal it up and go home! Yes, boys! Genius. Thankfully, Mr. White, the hardware store owner, has enough bricks at his disposal to block up the entire entrance, and that's exactly what they do. Wow. That was the last time the visitor was ever seen. Whether the creatures find another way out or were trapped inside forever, we'll never know. So to this day, the mines remain bricked up?

Is this the only time this has happened in this paranormal life where the times people simply buried the cryptid alive uh yeah i mean it must be i almost respect that though that's quite a practical solution is like let's just seal it off and hope like another generation will have the technology to be able to deal with this yeah it's like i often like to reference it's a bit like dumping megatron to the bottom of uh mariana's trench yeah it's like someone else's problem we don't know what to do let's figure it out in 200 years you just know that civilization would work tirelessly to create some sort of heat-seeking

laser cannon to be able to take this thing down. And 300 years later, they remove all the bricks and go into the mine. There's an eagle skeleton in there and an eagle baby skeleton. It was a bird. They missed every shot. It was an endangered eagle, of course. Yeah. It is quite encouraging for the believability of this story that this thing was such a nuisance and a

nightmare they had to bury it alive yeah yeah because it it at least proves that you know this thing was believed to be real so passionately that the entire town felt that physical action was required to seal it off and trap it and if there haven't been any sightings since the wall was put up, that's some good evidence right there. You know, if we had heard that the great pyramids of Giza in ancient Egypt were built to contain an evil being, that would be very concerning because they actually put a lot of effort into the pyramids. So it must have been quite important. So not quite the same scale, but building a giant wall to seal up a mine to keep a beast inside.

That's quite creepy, actually. Yeah, yeah. I really like that. I wish we had taken that approach to more paranormal creatures. First sighting of the Loveland Frogman. Trap him in a little cage. Trap him in a cage. Yeah, because it's always kill the beast.

It's never trap it, you know? Well, sealing it inside a mine is killing it just over a longer period of time. Yeah, unless that thing is a rock-eating Goron, it's going to be dead in a fortnight. So the problem is, we're not sure where this mine is there's a lot of posts and videos about paranormal activity at an abandoned brick factory in van meter but that that a lot of websites say is near the mine but i've been unable to see with photos the mine itself our researcher amy grisdale did some digging and found a website that has an interactive map of all the coal mines in Iowa.

Now, Van Meter has four in total, three of which are really near the old brick place. So in theory, if we wanted to go looking, we do have a jumping off point. So even though one entrance was sealed, there are other entrances where it could have maybe escaped? No, other mines. Other mines. OK. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's possible. If they're interconnected i don't know maybe it's possible if they're they're

connected that's possible but um it appears to be different minds yeah i guess if one town of a thousand people has four there's a chance the beast buried through and they got out another entrance um but it would be very interesting to know if anyone alive has seen this mine and heard this legend yeah it's kind of a it's quite a predicament, isn't it? We're kind of stuck in this dilemma where the only way to tell if the creature is real is to open up the mine and risk setting it free once again. Yeah. So it's kind of like, all right.

It's the Pandora's box for sure. Exactly. Is it worth the risk of possibly unleashing this thing once again on this small town just to be like, oh, yeah, it is real. Oh, the ancient prophecies were foretold. That's pretty interesting. Oh, what do you know? Oh, yeah, look, it just picked a guy up. The guy is unloading shot after shot from his nine millimeter pistol.

It's not doing anything. It's not going to work, buddy. All the stories are true. It's the one thing we know. It won't work. What a dumbass. What an idiot. Rips his head off.

So we've got to try and establish what we're dealing with in this case. So let's just recap with the powers this thing had to see if anything jumps out at us it was a three-toed humanoid being with giant bat wings that could fly and move an incredible speed have we covered anything like this before mothman maybe very interesting mothman giant winged looks a bit like a human except for on account of being a giant moth too yeah This thing could incapacitate people, render them confused. It had a 100 watt torch on top of its head. Yeah, I kind of forgot about that. Bit of a weird one.

It's like a flying lighthouse. Which is definitely not in the remit of moths because they like lights. They don't have lights. Yeah. So, okay. in the remit of moths because they like lights they don't have lights yeah uh so okay you can't that's too power you can't make a moth that also makes light it's like yeah having king kong but he grows bananas out of his fingers it's too powerful what he wants he already has because that would evolution has stopped that from happening it It also smelled bad and could seemingly drop a chemical bomb on command. And of course, last but not least, it couldn't be hurt by bullets,

even at close range. Now, I struggled to come up with a known cryptid that has every single one of these attributes. So we're going to have to take them one by one and break down what fits. One story this may remind listeners of is the Jersey Devil. Yeah. If you can't remember what the Jersey Devil looks like, here's Wikipedia's description. A bipedal kangaroo-like creature with a horse or goat-like head, leathery bat wings, horns, small arms with clawed hands, legs with cloven hooves, and a forked tail. Bit all over the place. bit mishmash. That was a good episode.

I recommend going back and listening to that one if you haven't heard it already. It's kind of a, you know, NBA all-star cryptid. It has been reported to move quickly and is often described as emitting a high-pitched blood-curdling scream. We're kind of losing it at the hooves, though. The hooves are throwing it.

It's a bit of a mishmash. Yeah. It's got the wings. It's got the speed. It's got the creepy noises, but doesn't have a light, and it's a good bit smaller than the eight feet that these men said the visitor was.

Yeah. So when you look through other cryptids some of them have a passing resemblance i mean the florida skunk ape smells awful mothman's got the wings but whatever visited van meter in 1903 isn't an exact match for any of these now maybe the reason we can't think of any known cryptid that matches the description is because it's something we've never seen before could it even be from another planet hmm well they did call it the visitor which i liked implying it's visiting from somewhere it also couldn't be hurt by bullets and could move at unbelievable speed and project light so it kind of seems like cool technology yeah yeah i know what you mean i think it's just something about it um residing in a mine with its child that makes it feel not extraterrestrial feels like an animal

it was also sleeping on a lamppost yeah that doesn't seem advanced alien wouldn't do probably because in the stories where we do have someone who is you know blinded by a light and paralyzed and they see some sort of creature usually that creature has arrived and then quite quickly departed in some sort of craft yeah it doesn't kind of come down check out the local bank have a nap on a telephone pole go into a mine for a little bit maybe pulls our beds to aliens who knows but i think if it was some sort of um intelligent extraterrestrial life also bricks wouldn't stop it from escaping that's true a laser beam would have cut a hole out of the bricks immediately yeah i like that earlier i i heavily foreshadowed that this thing was a visitor because it came and went.

It didn't go anywhere. They buried it alive. Yeah. It's the opposite of a... Well, I guess it visited and never left. Does that still make you a visitor if you never leave? I guess. Or just makes you a resident, I guess.

Now, the closest match that I could find could be the Thunderbird. Whoa. The legendary creature from Native American history. Zapdos? It had enormous wings and could flash lightning from its eyes. Now, some people think it's a myth. Others regard it as like a real part of their living culture. Without evidence, it is hard to say. But what if the Van Meter monster counts as evidence of a Thunderbird? And despite being widely considered mythological, there is actually a couple sightings throughout the years of real Thunderbirds.

There was one famous sighting it's called the 1977 lawndale illinois thunderbird attack attack it was reported that two unidentified birds attacked a young boy on july 25th 1977 10 year old martin lowe was playing outside when he was suddenly attacked by two large birds one of which picked him up and carried him 30 feet before martin's mother ruth lowe ran to her son's rescue chasing the birds away and recovering her son jesus christ are we talking about like a large crow here or are we talking about like a rescuers down under 40 foot golden eagle several eyewitnesses saw the attack take place the birds were described as having a white ring around their necks

four and a half feet long body with each wing approximately four feet long a six inch hooked bill and three front claws one back claw and a large black body okay so not too big i mean four feet wings either side yeah not wingspan no so i mean once you put in the body and both wings you're talking about 10 feet wingspan that's quite a big bird isn't it i mean that door right there is probably this is a big door in the studio that thing is probably about that would be nine foot i'd say so a wingspan bigger than that could definitely pick up a boy and it's also too big to be a bird yeah because i because i mean look there are big birds sesame street alone sure but but I don't know if there's any correlation between the size of birds and their ability to fly or not. Cause the whole thing is that birds have,

isn't it that they have hollow bones. Isn't that kind of the reason why they can pretty much fly somewhere. Uh, whereas like larger birds, like ostriches. Yeah. You know know they can't fly they're too heavy so for a creature like this to be that size and still capable of not only flying but picking up a child and flying yeah picking up cargo be able to drop a child like a care package uh that's paranormal i think an albatross is the biggest bird Let me ask Siri here Hey Siri What is the wingspan of an albatross? Here's an answer from discovermagazine.com

The albatross is one of the world's largest living birds With a wingspan of up to 11 feet across 11 feet across Damn So that's not far from this creature that's basically the same wow that kind of put a hole in the sail didn't it so here's a picture of an albatross example next to a human my god that's a bigger bird than big Bird. That thing is huge. It looks like, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like a giant seagull. Like, it could pick up a child.

It could easily pick up a child. Weirdly, recently I was in Hastings, south coast of England, checking out the castle and that, checking out the battle, see if I could find any swords lying about. Of course, you never know. And there wasn find any swords lying about of course you never know and there was there wasn't any swords so got bored went to a little fishing museum they have right there on the seaside um really cool just to see all the old like fishermen's huts and stuff and they had an example

of an albatross and it said that albatross are so big and so heavy that if there isn't a breeze they pretty much can't get off the ground wow they they like they can't just flap their wings and get up there they need like a wind to like take them they need like boeing 737 style a huge runway basically only lift itself off and then it's fine conditions that's crazy so that crazy. So that's, I mean, that kind of shows you, isn't it? Like, is that bird, if it could barely fly, you know, without a breeze, is it really picking up a boy and carrying him? I didn't think about that. Yeah.

Also, I think they only eat fish. They eat animals on land. How fishy was this boy? Was he a trout looking mother f***er mother he'd been eating scampi three times a day for years he smelled like a crustacean his dna was 80 scampi by the time the bird got him i mean as someone who's grown up on the on a lot of um coastal towns i've been straight up attacked by seagulls before so i'm no stranger to the violence of birds um seagulls have have smashed into my hands so that i drop my entire meal and a gang of them will come down and grab it uh i was bitten by a goose when i was younger

um which made me afraid of geese and swans wow so i've had i'm i've had a long history of of uh being terrorized by birds so this hits close to home good thing you didn't marvel style turn into goose man i mean just to nip this one in the bud i will show you a quick artist illustration of what a thunderbird might have looked like back in the day wow i mean jesus christ this isn't what i i mean let's face it i was picturing zapdos the legendary uh lightning pokemon but this is more of like a it's a dragon kind of but with a really long wormy body and it this thing has a horse in its mouth so it's definitely pretty big and it ain't a pony no this is a full horse

yeah what we're talking about is some kind of bird can i mention the picture below it was i supposed to see that yet because that is ridiculous yeah actually yeah you can okay just need to make sure uh don't know why kids stopped me there because slightly below that picture is another picture of which i think it's quite clear why i would stop you it's a big departure from the image you just saw yeah i mean the first one sure it kind of looks like a bat a giant bat with a crocodile body this one is a creature from an anime. It is a... It is the power of love and friendship on its side. It's a pterodactyl with a skull head shooting a laser beam from its eyes.

It's a bit more nuts. Now, that one is wild and terrifying and does, in many ways, fit the description of the Van Meter Visitor, in many ways fit the description of the van meter visitor uh which is interesting because it also looks damn similar to ancient dinosaurs such as the one i'm showing rory right now a pterosaur i've never seen this dinosaur before um i think it's a type of like precursor to like well certainly a relative to pterodactyls, you know? Yes. I think this actually becomes comes before dinosaurs.

It's not even technically a dinosaur. Dude, that's nuts, isn't it? I mean, it's also funny that, you know, to see all these like bird dinosaurs, because as we all know, birds are technically dinosaurs. So it's cool to see their early forms still stomping about. Should be called Kentucky Fried Dinosaurs. KFD. So a pretty tough one to crack here, Rory. We've got no cryptids that really match this thing, meaning it's potentially totally unique.

We've got maybe a little hint of an an ancient native american um mythological creature and then even more worryingly it pretty much the only thing that fits the bill is a 230 million year old dinosaur there must be more stories like that um of people claiming that they saw extinct creatures. I feel like that's got to be a whole other episode, right? Right? Like dinosaur sightings in 2020 or 2021? Because there's got to be people who have just been out and they're like, I saw a velociraptor. That would be a really fun story. It's just a chicken.

It's easy to get them mixed up, actually. Because we've talked about, you know, time slips before. Yeah, man. Who's to say that this ancient dinosaur didn't slip out of existence and into this tiny little town in the 1900s? So true. I love this idea. A mashup of a previous episode, the idea that a portal could open up in the middle of nowhere and a dinosaur slips out. Yeah. And into 1900s iowa i guess there's some questions about the bright light and bullets not affecting it um because if jurassic park has taught me

anything is bullets can affect dinosaurs not the t-rex but some of the smaller ones i didn't even consider t-rex that's another possibility which i don't want to get into because we've got too many as it is. I should say, as an addendum here, there's always a possibility of a hoax, right? In all paranormal cases. Sure. But I would like to note that in an old newspaper article written about the Van Meter visitor, it talks a lot about how the locals were pretty pissed off about this whole affair. They were annoyed that it happened.

They were annoyed the visitor caused so much disruption. And they were annoyed that they got the reputation for this thing happening and such a crazy thing happening. And they just wanted to move on and get past it. A far cry from many of the other kind of things that happen to small towns. And they just run with it and try and make a buck out of it i think there is now of course a festival commemorating the visitor granted yeah but it started in 2013 over 100 years after the actual event okay that's fair it wasn't like three weeks later no they were like welcome to thunderbird city home the visitor. If you knock on the bricks at the mine, you can hear it squawk.

Only $3 a knock. So, Rory, I feel I have overloaded you with possibilities for what the Van Meter Visitor is, but we've got to decide whether it's truly paranormal or not. What do you think today? Glad to have the options. I appreciate the research that went into this. And, you know, I'm a sucker for a good cryptid story especially one that could possibly involve uh mythological pokemon a legendary pokemon i don't think i ever said that i don't think i said that uh lightning

bird does imply the existence of ice bird okay and firebird that would have to be a different podcast i think which i also like i'm very interested in um i think the problem that we Ice Bird and Fire Bird. That would have to be a different podcast, I think. Which I also like and I'm very interested in. I think the problem that we have with this episode, which we have with a lot of our cryptid episodes, is the physical evidence. You know, I think even when we did the case of the Lizard Man, a very unbelievable story. We still had the cement plaster.

We still had the cement casts of its prints that it left in the, in the dirt. Um, even though we didn't have any photographs, but in this case, we don't even have the prints that were allegedly made by the town badass. It's true. So there's kind of, even though there's a lot of lore and theories around what the creature is, there's very little physical evidence to help us with today's case. And frustratingly, the physical evidence may exist locked away in a creepy old mine in Iowa to this very day. So if that's what we have to do to find out whether or not this thing exists or not, then maybe that's what we will have to do on a bonus episode crack into the

old mine and see for ourselves mr biden tear down that wall it was waiting for the second someone give it a chance that'd be great after years of petitioning you finally get the town to tear down the wall you remove one brick and there's just an eye peeking out whoa put it back in put it back in until that wall has been uh has been taken down unfortunately uh i just don't have enough evidence to say that this exists. So I'm going to have to do a no this week, unfortunately. I think it will have to be a double no. The case of the Van Meter visitor.

I would love to hear from anyone in this area who's maybe heard of this legend. Maybe gone down near the creepy old mine that's been bricked up. And maybe, hell, chipped away at a couple of bricks just to see what's up. Get a little peek, sure. I can't believe no one has tried removing the bricks yet. Someone's got to have. Right? Yeah.

But better them than me, I think. I'll research the story from my cozy, cozy living room. Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode about the Van Meter Visitor. Fantastic story. Thank you so much to Amy Grizzdale for researching that one. For guesting on the podcast. I actually don't think...

Not going to protest that. At the end, we were always like, thank you, Cameo editor. Thank you, Amy, for doing all the research. But like, you know, when is it ever like, thank you, Rory, for the jokes and the insight that you brought to the podcast. I feel like people don't... I feel like you know when is it ever like thank you rory for like the jokes and like the insight that you brought to the podcast i feel like people don't feel like you get the thanks through kind

of the success of the show and and the you know the followers and and kind of the nice messages you receive from the listeners yeah i don't know we do get financial support from patreon too so that's kind of like a that's actually like a pretty tangible little thank you it's like sure whatever all that's like fine but when does everyone just go thanks rory what a another great episode every time we record i usually go thanks man for for coming over and uh and i'm doing a great podcast just yeah i thank you every time it's just you know it doesn't mean anything coming from you because i don't like i don't think about you as someone who's like important or anything so i want it from i want it from somebody famous.

Tell me what you really think, Rory. I want someone famous to say it just for once in my life. So I'm confused because you got annoyed that I thanked our researcher, inferred that you wanted thanks, and then said it wouldn't mean shit coming from me because I'm not famous. And actually, Cammie and Amy feel the same way. Really? Yeah, we have a WhatsApp group without you in it, and we all agreed it was just like, f*** this kit guy.

We should start our own thing. This is weirdly candid of you. You never really... You usually beat around the bush an awful lot more. You just said, you don't care what I think, and we all agree, f*** this kit guy. Yeah, yeah i'm sorry so we're gonna do like our own podcast and then this is how you're telling me i just felt like i wanted like the audience to be a part of it um why so why would you want them because they're family it's a fucked up thing

to want them to be a part of so everyone tune in to you don't get to end the podcast tune in to our other podcast do you know what it is yet? yeah I've got a pretty good idea it's called hold on let me bring it

you're clearly thinking so hard about this no we have it in an email sorry I just gotta go through the email chain um cammy said fuck it amy said who what who does he think he is so it doesn't sound like there's been any brainstorming about the we haven't quite got to the we haven't got to the point of the show yet have they even agreed to do the podcast with you yet uh yeah no they have oh my god i'm out it's just them they f***ing they booted me out bud i can't believe that they i mean obviously it's good that like you know we're still a team together and like that's cool because you know i always respected the work that we did together hold up i just got an email no no that rory guy is a subject

line no don't read any block them we trolled him like the little bitch he is no he's out you're in oh my god this can't be happening i mean my instinct is to be appalled because i thought we were hiring them, but I actually feel pretty special to be included again. So, f*** it, I'm in. No! What about us, the show? All right, everyone, stop listening. Unfollow, unsubscribe.

Unfollow Rory on all platforms. Follow the new podcast. No idea what it's called. I guess I'll have to link it below. I appreciate this podcast ending seems a little chaotic but rest assured by the time this goes live um the dust will have settled and someone will be on top and i hope it's me if you can't get enough of this paranormal life investigations into all things paranormal check out patreon.com because on patreon dot com forward slash this paranormal life you can get access to

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to check out the patreon because our most recent bonus episode was all about haunted Disneyland. All the f***ed up dark side s*** that has ever gone down at Disneyland. It was one of my favorite episodes we've recorded. Super fun. And that's available along with 40 plus other full length episodes for as little as $5. But Kit, what if I want This Paranormal Life merchandise, but I don't know how to use Patreon? We have a new merchandise store over on thisparanormallife.com. We have a US store and a UK and Europe store. So you can get This Paranormal Life official merchandise

shipped to you fast, as cheap as possible, and made with very high quality product. No sweatshop labor or none of that. Rory, tell them what kind of t-shirts you can get. Oh, Jesus. You can get This Paranormal Life logo t-shirts. Oh, yeah. Beautiful, pristine, crisp shirts. You can also get Chompy's, everyone's favorite breakfast cereal. We've got Chompy's branded t-shirts in multiple styles. So definitely go check it out.

And we'll have, can we say this? Can we say we've got a new design coming soon? Kind of soon? The new podcast that I'm starting with Cammie and Amy, the merchandise will also be available in this Paranormal Life store. We're piggybacking off their Shopify. No, you're absolutely right. There is a new design pretty imminently, actually.

Yeah, we'll have updates soon. So yeah, stay tuned. You can always find out what's new in the world of this paranormal life by checking out our socials, all of the links to which are in the description of this podcast. Just swipe up, check it out.

Like I say, thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. We will, of course, be back next Tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale. Bye-bye. Thank you.