Terror In Small Town Iowa, The Van Meter Visitor

Townspeople shot at the beast as it crawled 
down the electric pole, then flew away.

Mass hysteria? Maybe.

A bat-winged demon with a spotlight for a forehead? Maybe.

Either way, something strange unfolded in Van Meter, Iowa, in the fall of 1903, and it left the entire town rattled, reeking of gunpowder, and a little embarrassed in the aftermath.

Van Meter wasn’t exactly a bustling metropolis, just 900 people, give or take a few farmers in the fields. But for five nights in late September and early October, this sleepy town on the Raccoon River hosted something nobody could explain, and just about everybody saw it.

It started with lights—floating, brilliant beams that cut through the night like the high beams of a Model T before such things existed. Then came the sounds. Buzzing. Hissing. A low hum like a nest of hornets, and then came the creatures.

One paper breathlessly reported that “two weird-looking, terror-striking monsters are living in a coal mine on the edge of that town.” Apparently, they were nocturnal, winged, and loud enough to serve as a town-wide curfew bell. At sundown, doors were locked, curtains drawn, and more than one brave Iowan supposedly dove for the bed skirts.

Now, you may think: “Sure, people were simpler back then. Easier to fool.” Maybe, but consider this: the list of witnesses reads like a Chamber of Commerce roster.

First up was Dr. A.C. Alcott, who was trying to enjoy a quiet night when a beam of blinding light sliced through his window. Outside stood something “half-human and half-beast, with great bat-like wings,” a horn protruding from its head that shot light like a railroad lantern from hell. The smell, he said, was “worse than death.”

He fired five shots. The bullets didn’t faze it.

Peter Dunn, a bank cashier, heard scratching around the corner of the bank. A sound you never want to hear near money. When he stepped out, something blasted him with light. Dunn did what any self-respecting Midwestern banker would do. He grabbed his shotgun and fired. The next day, he found three-toed tracks behind the building.

Dr. O.V. White, who rented a room above the hardware store, heard something on the telephone pole outside. He peered out and watched the thing descend, using its beak like a third arm. It hit the ground, bounded like a kangaroo, and flapped its massive, featherless wings. He fired his gun and was overwhelmed with a stench that could curl the wallpaper.

Sidney Gregg saw the creature fly off, flapping and leaping like it was making up the rules as it went, and just when you think the story couldn’t get weirder—enter the tile plant.

The creature disappeared into an old mine
outside of Des Moines.

At about one in the morning, J.L. Pratt Jr., a worker at the tile plant on the northwest edge of town, heard a noise erupt from the abandoned coal mine that sounded like “Satan and a band of imps were coming forth for battle.” Say what you will about early 20th-century Iowans—they had a gift for description.

Two winged creatures burst out of the mine—one large, one small—each with a glowing horn in the center of its head. A crowd of men fired more than a dozen rounds at them. The creatures didn’t flinch. They just rose into the air and disappeared, probably wondering why these people were so rude.

The next morning, a group of men tried to seal off the mine entrance. Whether they succeeded, no one really knows. The story ends there—abruptly, suspiciously, and with more questions than answers.

Not long after, the Daily News printed a half-hearted retraction, blaming the whole thing on “a very active practical joker or some energetic robber at large.” They admitted that their correspondent, Mr. H.H. Phillips, “exercised his imagination to build up a stronger story… by weaving fictitious details with the genuine.”

Translation? Okay, maybe we juiced the story a bit. Please stop writing angry letters.

But by then, the tale had gone national. Dozens of newspapers across the country ran wild with it. Headlines mocked the “cowardly citizens” of Van Meter for hiding under beds and behind curtains. The New York Evening World suggested there were “more interesting things to dream about,” like the World’s Business Opportunities section.

Still, what makes the Van Meter incident stand out is how many people saw something. For five nights, whatever it was, it kept showing up. And then it vanished. Just like that.

 The Van Meter Visitor wasn’t the first winged creature to spook folks in this neck of the woods.

Long before coal mines and typewriters, Chief Black Hawk of the Sauk and Fox nations told of a white spirit who lived beneath what’s now Fort Armstrong on Rock Island. He had great wings “like a swan, but ten times larger.” The people kept their distance out of respect, not fear. That spirit eventually vanished—scared off by cannons and commotion from the soldiers who built a fort on the island.

Even older are the legends of the Piasa Bird. As recorded by Perry Armstrong in 1887, the Piasa was a winged, man-eating monster that stalked the cliffs near Alton, Illinois. It had bat-like wings, eagle talons, and a taste for human flesh. Unlike the Van Meter creature, the Piasa didn’t come in peace. It came for dinner.

So, was the Van Meter Visitor some long-lost relative of these mythic beasts? A forgotten spirit? A hoax? A panic? Or something else entirely?

No one knows.

Here’s what makes the story strange: it disappeared.

I’ve read thousands of newspapers from the first two decades of the 20th century. There are no follow-ups. No anniversary retellings. No interviews with aging witnesses. Van Meter went silent. Whether out of embarrassment or something darker, they locked the story away.

Maybe they feared more ridicule or just wanted to forget. Or maybe they didn’t want anyone poking around that mine.

We’ll never know.