Welcome to What The Heck's Creature Feature! These episodes release on Saturdays and look at folklore and cryptids from around the world! The same academic style is applied to these episodes, but they look at history and eyewitness reports before describing the creature of the week! A lot of the time, theories are a bit more scarce than the main episodes, but the content is still just as interesting.

This week we're looking at the Van Meter Visitor. In 1903, the town of Van Meter, Iowa, was attacked over the course of three days by a huge, flying creature. Every night, at 1AM, a bright light would wake someone up and they'd go to investigate. On two of the nights, the victims shot at the creature, not even leaving a scratch. What did the town do to stop the creature? Could it have been a hoax? Where is the creature now? Listen in to find out!

Links to other ways to listen are found here: https://linktr.ee/whattheheckpod

References:-

“Half Human, Half Bat: Van Meter Remembers a 1903 Visit from a Winged Monster.” Des Moines Register, 2013, https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2015/07/01/van-meter-remembers-1903-visit-from-winged-monster/29583469/. 

“Local Lore: The Van Meter Visitor | Iowa PBS.” Home | Iowa PBS, https://www.iowapbs.org/article/11624/local-lore-van-meter-visitor. Accessed 11 June 2025. 

Pfeifle, Tess. “The Van Meter Visitor — Astonishing Legends.” Astonishing Legends, Astonishing Legends, 14 Oct. 2018, https://astonishinglegends.com/astonishing-legends/2018/10/14/the-van-meter-visitor. 

You can email Glen at [email protected] with any of your spooky stories, unexplained events, mysteries that you want him to look at, or anything you'd like him to correct or address.

Thanks for listening, and if you enjoy the podcast and think you know others who will like it, share it with them!

All the sounds from this episode were mixed by Glen, using Soundtrap. Enjoy them!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.