Ep. 34 Iowa's Flying Mystery: The Van Meter Visitor

In 1903, the quiet town of Van Meter, Iowa, found itself under siege by a nightmarish creature—part bat, part bird, part pure terror. Witnesses described a towering winged beast with a glowing horn, bulletproof skin, and an eerie, otherworldly presence. But rather than flee, the townsfolk armed themselves and prepared for battle. In this episode, we break down the chilling encounters, the town’s desperate attempts to confront the Visitor, and the lingering mystery of what (or who) might still be lurking in the shadows. And for a little extra fun, we pit the Van Meter Visitor against other legendary cryptids in a no-holds-barred cryptid showdown. Who comes out on top? Tune in to find out!

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Transcript

In the fall of 1903, the town of Van Meter, Iowa, was shaken by a terrifying visitor.

A towering winged creature with blinding light.

It moved impossibly fast, shrugged off bullets, and had a horrendous sting for defense.

Some thought it was an ancient creature from the past.

Others swore it was something not of this world.

But there's one thing for sure, this legend refuses to die.

Kraken Cans, welcome back to another episode of the Kraken Cans Podcast, where we talk all things cryptid.

Cryptid.

All things urban legend.

Urban legend.

And all things spooky.

Spooky.

And I don't know what we're getting into today, folks.

Yeah, folks, it ain't no show.

It ain't no show.

You sound like a vacuum salesman in 1950s Arkansas.

Hey, folks, listen here.

New bounce kicks, baby.

Yeah, we're diving back into the cryptids.

But we're going to the Midwest.

So we're back in the states.

We're back in the states.

But I don't know if we have really visited too much of the Midwest so far.

We've gone down south.

We've stayed in the Northeast.

Of course, we've gone to West Virginia when we're talking.

Cryptids.

Were we up in Minnesota or do we just reference Minnesota?

We're up in Minnesota for the-

Michigan.

We're in Michigan.

I know that's still North.

Yeah.

For the one you did, the Detroit one.

Oh yeah, the Nan Rouge.

Yeah.

I forget.

Dude, I'm like super forgetful.

But anyways, we're in the Midwest.

We're in Iowa, and this is going to be a fun one.

Oh, is that where Barack Lesnar is from?

That's right.

Yeah.

I think he's from Minnesota.

Went to Iowa.

One or the other.

Yeah, close enough.

They're all the same, I think.

Who cares?

Yeah, it doesn't matter.

But yeah, you got anything new going on?

Anything new going on.

Let's do our weekly Corey cholesterol check.

How's that looking?

I haven't got a check for a while.

Perfect.

He's doing good.

Went for a walk today, so hopefully it dropped at least a point.

There you go.

Bada bing, bada boom.

Yeah.

Hey, I believe in you.

Pumping this baloney in you, the cholesterol will go up and the cast will be all mine.

What do you?

Like, if you died, right?

And you look down on earth, then of course I'm still just sitting in your basement doing this cast.

Can you imagine the topics that I will choose?

Like, we won't even be into any of this anymore.

You're still just going to be coming in here and coming into basement, the garage and just-

No pants.

Like, I will definitely not be wearing pants then.

No, I'm definitely going to drop an asteroid right on your freaking dome.

Go ahead and lay it in your house, dumb dumb.

I'll make sure-

Yeah, this plan does not-

I'll make sure it hits your car on the way here.

Yeah, sure thing.

Sure thing.

But anyways, yeah, back into the episode, we are going to a brand new brewery for this one.

Or at least new to us, I should say.

We're going to North County Brewing Company, located Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, home of Slippery Rock University.

I knew you were going to say that.

Well, yeah.

What's their mascot?

The Slippery Rock Mud Trolls.

Is that what it is?

I'm pretty sure they're mud trolls.

So founded in 2005, it has become a cornerstone of the local community.

Our commitment to brewing excellence is matched only by our dedication to creating sustainable and environmentally conscious operation.

Our historical building once a cabinet factory, which I think that's what Rusty Rail was a cabinet factory to, I think.

I think that was.

Yeah.

Has been meticulously restored to preserve its rustic charm, providing a unique backdrop for our state of the art brewing facility.

You know, I think there's a group out there of people that just sit around and wait for like an old factory or something to go out of business, and then they just buy it and they're like brewery.

Like they just, there's a group.

There is.

And this is a group I can get behind.

Hell yeah.

Like I wish I could be part of that group.

I don't know.

It's weird though.

I'm not, I'm into like the more like tiny breweries than I am like just giant factory big place.

You know what I mean?

I like when you go into a little tiny hole in the wall brewery.

Maybe all they got is like pizza and stuff like that.

That's my, that's my, that's my place right there.

I like both.

I'm like, I'm like, fitty, fitty.

Yeah.

Fitty, fitty.

I like that.

I'm fitty, fitty.

Today for beer, we have Paleo IPA at 6.2 percent.

On the lower end of the IPAs, this American style IPA was brewed with Centennial and Amarillo hops and dry hopped with Cascade, Amarillo, and Chin Hook hops.

There's a reason why I picked this beer for this.

Did you guess, Corey?

Do you have any idea?

I don't even know the topic we're doing.

I don't know why.

As soon as I asked, it's like, no, I have no idea.

So I think this beer pairs well with one of perhaps the best theories that I'm going to get into later.

Because one of the theories thinks that this thing was a prehistoric beast, that somehow traveled through time in some sort of portal, and that's how it got there.

And with paleo meaning ancient or old, it's often used as a prefix for scientific terms, especially archaeology, anthropology, and paleontology, to refer to things from ancient times.

So this creature seems like it's a creature of old coming to our day, and that's why I picked this brew.

Not because of just some random thing on the can, like an eyeball, which I thought about doing because it looked like that would be the eye of this thing.

It is a pretty cool looking can.

I'm trying to figure it out myself.

Yeah, Corey is going to pull some crap out of it.

He has no idea what the topic is, but he can be like, you see the stick figure here?

Actually, when I look at this, I think the stick figure was actually representing the townsfolk that were in fear.

And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, you son of a bitch.

You just sit back there, you drink your beer, you eat my baloney that I brought for you, and you have yourself a good time.

I gave you some baloney too, boy.

He gave me a piece of baloney.

He brought a whole gallon bag down with one piece of baloney that he said he cut in half on the way down because he wanted one more.

So that's where we're at right down here.

You brought a sandwich bag with a full sandwich bag.

Yeah.

You know, that's where I put our friendship, and now I know where you put your friendship, and it's fine.

It's all good.

Half and half.

That's how I put it.

Yep.

Half and half indeed.

So with that, we'll dive into the episode.

Corey shoves his...

Oh, do you want to cheers the beer first?

Yeah, we didn't even talk about the beer.

It's so hard.

I'm going to break the glass one of these days.

You're crazy.

I'm waiting for your boot.

Okay, ready for that.

This is a good beer.

I'm typically, like, American IPAs are usually a style to me that's like, meh, not my favorite.

It was pretty good, though.

It has a good maltiness to it.

Yeah, I mean, the malt definitely stands out in this beer.

I'm trying to think what else I really taste.

I can get, like, that really dry hop.

Yeah, that really dry backbone of the dry hops.

Definitely get that.

It's pretty good.

I saw the pictures for this brewery.

If you're in that slippery rock area, I think it's definitely a place worth checking out.

Looked like it was a cool atmosphere.

I wonder how close it is to the college.

I don't know, because they have two locations.

They have, like, a small brew pub, and then they have, like, the bigger facility.

But I think the facility is, like, kind of like Rusty Rail, where you can rent it out and do events and stuff like that there.

I don't know if that's open to the public all the time, or if that's just saved for events or not, but either way, they both look pretty cool.

Bam.

And with that...

And with that, folks, let's get in the episode.

All right, so before we start the episode, I want to preface it by stating my three main sources that I use for this one.

The northamericancryptids.com, strangeology.com, and themedium.com.

Strangeology.

Yep, Strangeology.

You gotta say it all together.

Is that like the science of strangeness?

I think so.

I don't know.

Pretty much just cryptology or whatever, I guess.

That's kind of just the science of all things.

Hell yeah.

A little bit strange.

Are you ready to dive down to Van Meter, Iowa?

We've done a lot of diving lately.

Can we dig or something?

No, we're diving.

Okay.

We've got to follow the river.

Screw it.

Screw it.

As we head to Van Meter, Iowa in early September 1903, this is the first night and the arrival of what we know today as the Van Meter Visitor, which I think is an interesting reference to call this thing.

It's not the Van Meter monster or the creature.

It's the visitor.

It makes it seem like so much nicer.

Like it's just come in and just like.

Yeah.

It's like, hey, what's up, y'all?

Taking a little time and then just leaves.

In a way, it makes sense because it doesn't stay very long.

It's not even like the Mothman that, Mothman was almost a full year of sightings and stuff like that.

This thing was a super short timeframe.

It was literally just on a vacation.

We're going to start with Mr.

Griffith, who was the first one to have a sighting of the creature.

As he was laying in bed late one night, Mr.

Griffith, being a local business man, he slept in more of the uppity neighborhood.

These are nicer houses.

You know, they were on the better end of town.

But he was awakened by a light shining brightly into his face.

Late at this time would be extra weird because we're in 1903.

It's not like there's just everybody just has a spotlight that could just shine in your house, just even like a mag light.

Like now, it's not that it's not as weird now to have a light shine.

LEDs.

Yeah, LEDs.

That's right.

This is the way it's the delivery of that.

Just LEDs.

Hell yeah, I like it.

But after being awoken by the light, he was obviously just totally pissed off.

Like some asshole just shined the light in his window.

So Mr.

Griffith grabbed his coat and headed outside, trying to figure out what he saw.

After he got outside and the cold air hit his face, he looked up at his neighbor's roof and saw what kind of looked like a man.

But something was slightly off, so he yelled, Hey!

Only to have the creature look right at him.

And it wasn't a man at all.

But what could be best described as a half man, half beast with glowing red eyes.

They all have them, folks.

And a horn sticking out of its head.

But it wasn't just a horn.

No, no, no.

This was the source of the light beam.

The light was just coming straight out of this thing's horn.

Dude, that's like one of them fish.

What the hell is that thing called?

Lantern fish.

No, it's not a lantern fish.

A lantern fish.

No, it has a different name.

The lantern fish.

Yeah, from Finding Nemo.

Yeah, what the hell is the name?

I have no idea.

I knew it.

I'll think of it later.

I think it's lantern fish, isn't it?

No, it has like a more sophisticated name.

Startled by Griffith, the creature turned.

I have absolutely no idea what this thing's name actually is.

All right.

Just scream it whenever it comes to your mind.

All right.

I'm not going to be listening to you in all the rest of this episode.

I'm just going to be figuring that out.

So it's just a normal episode, is what Cory's saying.

Startled by Griffith, the creature turned and jumped to the next roof, revealing its bat-like wings and height of eight to nine foot tall, as it just jumped from roof to roof until it was out of sight.

Whenever I read something like this, I always wonder what it's like to be the first witness.

Yeah.

Could you imagine?

There's nobody's going to believe you.

You're just out there standing in your boxers.

Yeah.

What the hell did I just see?

As this thing's jumping roof to roof and you're just, shit, that sucks.

It's like the Tim Allen in the Santa Claus.

He's out there standing and Santa Claus falls off the roof.

It's going to be like the same exact thing.

What if this shit fell off the roof right in front of you?

Yeah.

You put on his coat and you become this thing.

Yeah.

You could have a horn if this thing fell off the roof.

And I wonder at what point of being the first witness, do you start to tell people about it?

Do you wait till somebody else sees it?

And then you're just kind of, yeah, I saw that too.

Yeah.

But I want to wait.

I don't want to be there.

Because back then, you've been put in Pennhurst asylum.

Yeah, you could.

So nobody said shit back then.

Well, he was a man, so he'd probably be all right.

Yeah, you're right.

But yeah, he was a woman, you're for sure.

Especially if she was on her period at the time.

Look how crazy stuff happened.

This was after the witch trials.

After, oh yeah.

Definitely would have been locked up in asylum.

Yeah, definitely.

Anywho.

So there's differing stories about what Griffith was.

Some say he was a businessman.

I saw some stories actually said he was a doctor, but either way, he lived in the more wealthy end of the town like I talked about earlier.

But I'm sure he felt better or worse depending on how you look at it, because this was just the beginning of an insane five days for this little town in Iowa.

I was going to say like five days for this Griffin guy?

No, just this whole story takes place over like a five day span.

So I'm going to get into just like a short little kind of talk on what this town is.

The town of Van Meter is located in the heart of the Midwest.

Small populated area.

This time in 1903, we're looking at around 400 people total in this town.

So it's really just a farming town located on the Raccoon River.

The town isn't far from the much more populated city of Des Moines.

I don't know.

I thought I really like the Raccoon River.

I know.

That's cool.

I just picture it just being filled with raccoons, like just swimming across all the time.

There's a local dump on the other side that they always go get their food from.

Yeah.

But this isn't far from the more populated city of Des Moines, Iowa, which is one of the main reasons that these sightings started to get any kind of attention at all.

Because these sightings actually went mainstream and were printed into some of the major papers in New York City.

So for this little town of 400 people to be in the papers in New York City.

Outside of the obvious farming that went into the community, it was also home to a large brick plant, which since has been closed and abandoned.

But nonetheless will play a key role in this whole story.

Are you saying at the time of this story, it was closed?

At the time of this story, it was open.

Now it's been closed since.

Which since has been closed and abandoned.

Okay.

Yeah, the brick plant, it plays a major role.

And we're on to sighting number two.

So this is where we do get into.

This guy is a confirmed doctor.

Like the last guy, I don't know if he.

Was it like a doctor or like Dr.

Phil?

I mean, I kind of figure everybody was like Dr.

Phil back then.

Like nobody's really going to medical school.

So it's kind of like, okay, did you take your meds?

Oh, that was horrible.

I get where you're going.

Yeah.

I could imagine it better, but it was good.

It was freaking dancing.

Everybody closed their eyes right now.

We're going to silence.

Dad, now you guys can just picture what an awesome Dr.

Phil impression I just did.

I pictured it.

It was good.

Yeah.

Bung hole.

That's what I pictured him saying.

Anyways, the next night, after Mr.

Griffith's sighting, a well-respected in the community man, the doctor of the town, had a similar sighting of what I'm going to refer to now as the visitor.

So a different doctor.

Yeah, maybe.

It could have been a different doctor.

It could have also just been a doctor.

The stories, the first guy was either a door-to-door salesman, a wealthy businessman, or a doctor.

One thing actually referred to him as a medic.

I don't know what the difference between a doctor and a medic would be back then.

I figure everybody's kind of medics in the medical field at that point, but whatever.

So yeah, I don't understand why it was so complicated to figure out what this dude did.

It's just weird.

Weird to me.

Like four different sites all had four different jobs for him.

So it's like, whatever.

I don't care at this point.

I'm saying he's just a businessman.

I feel like a doctor's technically a businessman.

So to work.

So in his home, then we're back to the doctor, Dr.

Alcott at his home located above the office where he did his business.

He was sounds dirty.

It does sound dirty.

I'm thinking of some other doctors, if you know what I mean.

No, no, I don't.

Dr.

Alcott was asleep when again, just like Mr.

Griffith, he was awakened by what seemed like a beam of light hitting his head.

He reacted very similar to Griffith except for one key difference.

What do you think the difference was?

Between the two?

Yeah.

One key difference.

He pretty much did everything exactly the same.

Except I would say this guy did it a little bit better.

This guy did it better?

Yeah.

He got his gun.

He grabbed his gun on the way out the door.

Boom!

Are you serious?

Because I know you like to mess with me.

He did grab his gun.

That's the correct answer.

Was it a shotgun?

No.

I think it was a pistol.

He didn't know what he was going to run into, and he may have already heard whispers of the creature.

Yeah.

I mean, there's not many people in this town.

Yeah.

400 people.

Word probably gets around quick, because everybody goes to the same everywhere.

Dentist.

Yeah.

Doctor.

Well, yeah.

Him.

He didn't go to him.

Yeah.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

So when he went outside, he had almost identical sighting.

The creature, some reports said, perched on the roof, while others said it was just standing outside his office.

But with the beam of light still coming right out of the horn on its head.

So staring at the creature, he did exactly what Frank from Always Sunny in Philadelphia would do.

He started blasting.

He started blasting.

He shot five shots right at that son of a bitch.

And you know what this creature did?

He started blasting back.

No, this creature didn't do a damn thing, which I think is just, that's a tough ass move right there to just get shot at.

This thing didn't flinch.

This thing didn't move.

It just looked at him completely unfazed by this gunfire.

Because whatever this thing is, I mean, that's like shooting nerf bullets, probably.

Yeah.

I mean, I'll get into the theory a little bit later, but yeah, more or less.

But you'll see through this whole thing that bullets really have no effect on this creature.

So Dr.

Alcott ran back inside, locking his door and turning to look outside.

When he turned to look, the creature was gone just as soon as it appeared.

Now, after the sighting spread around town, there was a common theory that started to circulate around.

Like what this thing wanted or what this thing was?

Yeah, or what was going on with all the lights in people's windows and stuff.

The government.

The government?

Why would the, what do you, all right, what, why?

I didn't, I didn't think that far ahead.

Oh, damn.

We're getting, hey, we're diving deep into Corey's brain right now.

I think the government's sending somebody around to make sure people are paying their taxes.

Paying their taxes.

Hell yeah.

Dude, you're, I mean, Corey's two for two this episode right now.

The townspeople did believe it was the government.

No, I'm just kidding.

The townspeople believe that this is a robber or a band of robbers and that the light that was being shined in the windows, they were scouting out places to rob or loot later, which in a way makes sense because this creature was always seen shining a light in the homes of wealthy people.

Wasn't just going around like any random houses and shining lights, and it was always wealthy people.

So this was when they decided that they needed to get ready.

Neighborhood watch.

For this thing the next day, human or not, the place that they knew they needed to arm, the local bank.

So it's really funny because a lot of articles read this guy, basically said this guy was the town badass.

The town badass?

And he's just like, I just picture him as like the Fonz, like, yeah, watch that bank.

Now he works at the bank too, so.

But when I tell you the town badass, what name comes to mind right away?

Besides Mike, because for obvious reasons.

The town badass?

Yeah.

The town badass.

Like what's just a badass name?

I'm trying to think of an actual person.

I'm thinking like Johnny Cash.

Like Johnny Cash.

Nope, this man's name was Clarence.

Clarence Dunn, who happened to work at the bank and took it upon himself to protect it, which meant he was sleeping there, armed with this trusty old shotgun.

The article is just really red.

It's just really funny because they literally read, like they didn't know what to do, so they turned to Clarence Dunn.

The most badass motherfucker in the midwest.

That's how they read, and it's like, all right.

But his first name is Clarence.

Clarence's parents had a real nice marriage.

That's what I always think of when I think of Clarence.

I go to 8 Mile.

Yeah.

It's a good movie.

Eminem.

Before Mike can make an Eminem joke.

No way.

I would never make a joke about Corey's favorite artist of all time.

So following that night, we're on to night number three, which to me, this is crazy that these happened back to back.

This thing was just coming.

I think that's why they call it the visitor because it was a five-day stretch.

I'm trying to think of my theory, this whole like the government thing.

I'm just joking.

Yeah, for sure.

I'm trying to, as you're talking and stuff, I'm in my brain just building some type of theory.

So we'll see what I build by the time you're done.

I'm super excited to hear this.

The beer is just going to tear it down, and I'm going to keep trying to build it up.

So I don't know what we're going to get.

It's going to be a choreism, I think, by the end of this, and I'm super excited for it.

So the following night, Clarence set up shop in the bank.

He knew it would most likely be a long night.

So he set up a spot to sleep that would allow him to look right out the front door.

And it was along at around 1 a.m.

No shit.

Right around the same time as the two previous nights, Dun noticed a beam of light coming in the front door, scanning the bank until the light got to him where it just froze, shining directly at him.

With the brightness of the light, Dun wasn't able to really make out what was shining it.

Nevertheless, he just started blasting.

He shot right through the glass door, right toward the light, and just like before, the bolts did not seem to even phase the visitor.

You know what I was thinking?

What if it was one of these other people just shining and check on it?

Exactly.

And he fucking just blasts someone.

That's what I mean.

He can't see what he's shooting at, but he knows that there's a beam of light coming around town.

Yeah.

It's just like the sheriff coming just to check on old Clarence over there, and Clarence starts blasting.

I guess maybe they knew better than come there at 1 AM.

Yeah.

The bolt seemed to not phase the visitor.

Although it did take off, it was described as hopping, went hopping down the street almost like a kangaroo hop was what.

There's a story later, and that's what they describe it as.

I wonder if he got wounded.

I don't know.

Or if he just hopped naturally.

It seemed like he just hops naturally.

So Dunn waited until morning to leave the bank, which I don't blame that dude one bit.

I think that's the smartest thing he might have done all night.

And he looked where the creature had been standing.

What he saw there wasn't blood like he expected from the shotgun blast, but a footprint of three toes in the dirt.

There was a report that this foot was made into a cast.

But of course, as most things cryptid, urban legends, and spooky, these casts were never found.

Besides the cast, this night was a little different though, because there were multiple witnesses to the creature.

Oh, I got a good theory.

Can I throw it out right now?

Yeah, go ahead.

All right.

I think it's the Easter Bunny.

Damn Easter Bunny coming early.

I don't remember what month this was.

This was September.

Well, the story could have changed over the years.

I'm still thinking.

Back then, they used calendars backwards.

This probably was closer to April.

I think it was probably around Easter.

And I think the Easter Bunny was hopping around the neighborhood, shining lights and making sure the kids were sleeping and stuff.

Then he was going to come in to leave them some eggs and whatever they had back in 1903.

He's going to leave them all in their bank drawers.

Yeah.

Here's your eggs, kiddos.

Yeah.

Well, he got there, he shined his light, and he's like, oh, nobody lives here.

This is the bank.

Oh, crap.

And then he started getting shot at.

So the Easter Bunny is Corey's guess.

So we're starting with, we went from government to Easter bunnies.

And folks buckle up because who knows where we're going next.

Yeah, we're going to keep going on the roller coaster, boys and girls.

Oh, yeah, that's funny.

So that's right.

There was another man, local hardware store owner, OV.

White.

OV.

OV., which I think this this dude was an OG.

Yeah, I was going to say his name sounds more badass than old Clarence.

They should have put OV at the bank.

Yeah.

Well, I think you're totally right when we read on the story.

But now this sighting was slightly different because he didn't wake up to a beam of light or anything like that.

He actually woke up to what he described as a raspy noise, almost metallic in nature.

Let's hear it.

Dude, I can't picture what a raspy metallic noise is.

I like it.

I'm in.

I mean, the freak get me out of bed.

I know that.

So when he ran to his window, he saw this creature that so much of the town was describing.

It was sitting on the arm of a telephone pole, looking like it was sleeping.

So maybe it was wounded.

That was my thought when I read the first part and they got to this.

Maybe it was wounded.

That poor son of a bitch.

Had to go sleep it off.

I feel bad for it.

It hasn't done anything wrong.

Not a thing.

Not a thing.

So and White, he had sympathy for this thing.

Now he grabbed his gun and he took aim.

And White was known for two things in this community.

Not missing his shot and always eating what he kills.

Well, Corey was right with half of it.

For his hardware store, of course, and his marksmanship.

This dude could flat out shoot.

He took aim, held steady, and let the lead fly.

He felt his aim.

Do you like that?

He felt his aim was true.

But to his surprise, the creature didn't budge.

Instead, it looked at him and he described this horrible odor or stench just coming off of this creature.

This stench was so bad that he actually passed out.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

So I don't know if this was some sort of like defense mechanism that this creature used.

Mike's farts.

Mike's farts.

It could have been my farts.

Could be.

I made a guy almost puke at work the one day.

It could happen.

Yeah.

It could totally happen.

Upon hearing the gunshots though, his neighbor, Sidney Gregg, ran out of the house.

And this is, I don't know if Sidney, I'm assuming Sidney Gregg is a guy.

I'm not totally sure because it doesn't specify or whatever.

Ran out of the house to investigate and it saw the creature climbed down off the pole.

The description of how the creature climbed down is one of the weirdest, but also maybe one of the greatest things I've ever heard.

He said that the creature climbed down like a parrot would.

Like a parrot?

Using its beak to grab the pole and just swing in its legs down.

I don't know, dude, just picturing this giant menace of a creature standing like eight or nine foot tall, just climbing off this little 20 foot pole like a damn parrot.

I don't know.

What the hell?

I can't even picture that.

I can see it using its long, shiny horn and just pecking itself down.

But just like, yeah, just hooking on the back side, just sliding or something.

Yeah.

Something?

What the hell?

But yeah, like I picture because I can't, I don't exactly know how a parrot would climb down something.

But I know seeing a parrot kind of do that thing where they grab something with their beak and just swing their body up.

And I just picture that's how it is.

And you've been on telephone poles.

Yeah.

So like how, sure, how hard is it to swing yourself down from a telephone pole?

Well, I mean, back in these days, those poles were hard.

You know what I mean?

Aren't they still hard?

They're not as hard now with the way they're treated.

They're actually softer now than they were.

We have a pole at work that we just we have to change out.

So I guess, spoiler alert, I do telephone poles.

If you guys haven't realized that by now.

But there's a pole you have to change out at work, and there's actually a tag on it for what year it was put in.

It was from 1942.

Damn.

I think still totally.

I don't know why we're changing out.

Still good.

Totally good.

It's right in our town, right across the river.

So yeah, that's old.

1942.

Hell yeah.

Hell yeah.

Hell yeah.

So once on the ground again, it said that this creature hopped like a kangaroo down the street, headed toward the brick plant in the local coal mines.

And tell you about the abandoned coal mine shed.

Oh no, my friend.

Oh no.

Sounds a little Mothman-y.

It does.

This thing has a lot of similarities to Mothman.

Well, now we're talking about the mines and stuff.

Yeah.

Well, that's why I thought that the brick plant made me think of the old artillery plant, too, in that way, you know?

Remember in the Mothman episode, when they said they went to the old artillery building, when they were walking around, the one thing that they noticed was there was no birds in there.

Yeah.

Because you know when you go to those old buildings, there's always birds flying around.

That was the one thing they noticed.

There was no birds in this one particular building, and it had the dust where it flew up on the ground like a moth would.

Oh.

Yeah.

So at this point, after these first couple of days, the locals have absolutely had enough.

So after three nights of being terrorized, this proud town wasn't going to let whatever this was haunt over them and continue to do whatever it likes every single night.

They got together, gathered the facts, and came to the conclusion that they needed in daylight to go check out the abandoned mine by the Brick Factory.

It was the only place they could gather.

Something like this could possibly live or come from.

So they had no ideas that that thing was there?

They just thought-

They saw it going off in that direction.

Towards it.

And there were whispers that there were noises that could be heard from this mine from people that were out there by it.

So the best they could gather was that's where this thing was going.

They just did a guesstimate.

Guesstimate, yeah.

And I think more or less in this town, there wasn't that many places.

You're in the Midwest, so it's not dense woods or mountains or anything like that.

There was only so many places with cover during daylight that this thing could go and hide out at.

And I mean, it's a town with 400 people.

They already checked off the hardware store, the brick factory, the bank.

So like all that's left is the mines.

Yeah.

Well, pretty much.

Yeah.

And Raccoon River.

Yeah.

Don't forget Raccoon River.

Yeah, I'm waiting for that.

I'm waiting for that to come up.

I feel like that's going to come up.

That doesn't.

OK.

I literally only threw it in because the name of the river.

It serves no relevance in this entire story, except for being an awesomely named river that borders this town.

So the makeshift militia grab their guns, which at this point, I don't even know if it's necessary because we know that this thing obviously isn't really effective by bullets.

But what else are you going to grab?

And they headed in toward the mine.

As they approached the mine, they started to slow down, sneaking and listening.

As they got closer, they could hear a noise coming from the mine, a noise that seemed almost out of this world.

This is an exact quote of the men that were there describing what the sound was.

You ready?

This quote is funny, but also like kind of badass at the same time.

Let's hear it.

It sounded as, though Satan and a regiment of imps was coming forth for a battle.

I picture like the noise of like the clinking of like metal, like they're making weapons down there, and you just hear growls and guttural roar.

I picture like the, this is just what I mean, I know it's, you're probably not going to think of the same thing, but this is just what clicked into my mind was like the battle of like the Devil went down to Georgia.

Oh, just like these and nobody brought their fiddle.

Yeah, I'm just thinking of that song.

That's what they needed.

I picture like in Lord of the Rings, they have like the ogres and stuff that are like making this like makeshift army and they're making all their equipment.

I figure they're just these nasty ass, like ogre like creatures that are ready for battle.

That would be badass.

Yeah.

Damn.

And they're going to fight this army?

Yeah, with no fiddle.

Yeah.

Damn.

Oh, where's Charlie when we need him?

But I remember seeing a thing on Facebook that basically said like, can you imagine the embarrassment of the Devil coming back to hell and those guys being like, hey, did you get any souls?

Yeah.

It's like, no.

And I lost our gold fiddle.

What?

What were you doing?

It's like, you're Satan.

Just take their souls.

No, no, no.

We got to do this honestly.

It's like, what?

No, we do nothing, honestly.

Yeah.

What are you talking about?

And for the record, I kind of think in The Devil Went Down to Georgia that the Devil's part is kind of more badass in that song.

Yeah.

I just like the, I don't know, it's like more scary.

Actually, I know it's not relevant, but I saw Charlie Daniels down in Tennessee at the Grand Ole Opry, like two years before he died.

There you go.

It's pretty, it's still badass, like him playing that fiddle.

It was golden.

He's playing that fiddle hot.

No.

Damn.

Hope his fingers went too sore after that.

But anyways, I do like the analogy of just the devil went down to Georgia.

But the devil went up or down to Iowa.

Yeah.

Where are we at?

Yeah, Iowa.

I don't know which way, like over?

Yeah, from us, over.

I feel like when the devil lands in the United States, he's probably not far from Iowa to begin with.

So, but as I said earlier, these are proud men, and they were ready to shit their pants.

But they knew that their town couldn't live in fear any longer.

They all gathered around that mine and they decided that this would be the last stand.

This is Sparta.

I bet you Clarence was there giving the speech of a lifetime.

And then OV just throws Terrence on the ground and rots in it.

He's just pulling out pistols like, they're spinning like 6,000 times on his fingers and he doesn't care.

Yeah.

Good Clarence.

I do commend this town.

Now, granted, you're listening to the story of the 400 men in this town.

Well, 100 men probably realistically in this 400 person town.

So you're listening to them.

So of course, they're going to make themselves sound more badass.

But either way, I think they do sound badass of like, like, screw this thing.

We are squaring up to Satan and the regiment of imps that are coming forth for battle.

We are ready to rock and roll.

Damn, I'm getting amped up.

I'm ready to go fight somebody.

You're freaking right.

I'm ready to go punch an imp in the head, I think.

I'm going to go kick in one of my neighbor's house doors.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

Let's do it.

We'll film it for the cast.

For the cast.

So armed and ready, they yelled and hollered, calling out the creature to come out.

And it did.

Oh, not just the creature they had been seeing, but a creature about half its size in toe.

Two creatures came out of here.

So a small one and a small one.

Yeah.

So the babies, like it's like its whole family lives there.

We're talking about family.

Yeah.

I don't know.

At this point, only one comes out.

We only see the one.

Oh, but it did with everything and all the racket and stuff going on.

There had to be some more down there.

Tell me more.

Tell me more.

So the men did what any badass American would do at a time like this.

They started unloading with everything they had.

And the creature shot out a beam of light, temporary blinding some of the men.

But they continued to just unload.

And you think there's black powder going, so there's smoke filling the battlefield, pistol shooting, shotguns blasting.

This is everything they have.

And more and more black powder smoke filled the air, became harder and harder to see anything.

And finally, as the men's ammo grew nearly empty, it became quiet.

And they all sat and waited for the smoke to clear.

And as it lifted from the battlefield, there stood the creatures.

Not a hole in them, but the light in the horns growing dim.

The men stared in amazement at the creatures.

If bullets didn't affect it, then what would?

But just as they were getting ready to run, the creature turned and scurried back into the mine.

Maybe to recharge, maybe to go back in and gather an army.

It was totally unknown to the men what the plan really was.

Scared and running out of options to defend themselves, they went to the brick plant, and with as many men, children, and boys as they could find, they gathered every brick they could from that plant, and they bricked up the entrance to the mine.

Oh, shit.

They were able to seal it off, and even some tales say they actually blew the entrance up and then sealed it off.

They blew that shit up?

And after that, this creature was never seen again.

Well, yeah, it fucking got stuck in this poor thing.

Let's go get them out.

Ah.

We can.

I mean, we're planning our like...

Dude, we could hit this place where we go see the Nanruge Festival.

Yeah.

That's what I'm saying.

Like, just throw a couple sticks of dynamite, blow that wall off.

Fuck.

Why did they use dynamite?

Well, that's what they said.

That's what some of the stories said.

Well, to blow the creature up, yeah, I don't know.

I would have just enlightened the sticks of dynamite and just thrown them.

You probably would have like short fused it and got it like right by your ear and it just blown.

Ah, my hand!

Stick to the pistols, the dynamite's shooting at us!

Jason Pierre Paul.

But to this day, the creature has never been seen again.

Did it die in the mine or is it lurking?

Simply waiting for the day to come out and extract its revenge on Van Meter.

I don't know if you looked into this at all, but to this day, is there a mine there that has like a brick wall?

Is there something?

They don't actually know the location of the exact mine.

There's a map in the state of Iowa that has every mine marked.

And around this brick plant, there's actually three mines that are sealed up and marked as mines, right around this brick plant.

Nobody knows which one it is exactly, because it's really interesting.

So this whole story happened in 1903.

They never started talking about it or celebrating it till like the early 2000s.

They went over, pushing 100 years until they started to actually like, celebrate this creature in these events.

And I think it's weird to me that they didn't celebrate it earlier, because I always thought it was, I thought it was impressive.

Like these guys were freaking brave if this story was true.

I mean, they squared up with what some people consider to basically be the devil.

They squared up to them.

They let that devil take his best shot, and they just, they stayed, you know?

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's badass.

But yeah, they did nothing to celebrate or talk about this.

They tried to erase this from history in this town, which leads me to believe even more that there was something to what happened here.

Yeah, that's crazy that they kept it under wraps up until 2000.

Yeah, and there's, I don't want to say they kept it under wraps because there was people that heard it, but this town didn't celebrate it.

Yeah.

Like, you know how Point Pleasant, they celebrate Mothman.

Oh, yeah.

What are other, like the Nan Rouge in Detroit, they do the big festival there.

Krampus, they do big festivals.

Like, all those other creatures in Cryptids, they do all kinds of celebration.

There's a minor league baseball team named after Champ, you know?

But with this thing, they did not want to talk about or discuss this thing hardly at all.

Which blows my mind because, like, it didn't do anything bad.

It didn't.

You know what I mean?

Like, it didn't eat any kids or chew any chicken's head off or murder any dogs.

But it's like it scared the town folk that much.

Yeah.

Which is crazy.

But that's what I have for the story.

Let's take a beer break.

Beer break.

It's beer break time.

Crack a cold one, fill your cup, and enjoy the rest of the episode.

So, Corey, after I know you've been making theories through the whole thing, what do you think this thing is?

If you had to hazard a guess.

I mean, I had a couple of guesses so far.

You have?

Yeah, your guess has been government and rabbit.

Easter bunny, let's be specific.

Sorry.

Yes, my bad.

I think it is a visitor from another planet who is here just scouting out our species, trying to see how we live, how we go about things, just gathering intel, and then it's going to scurry back to its planet to tell its people.

Yeah, like extraterrestrial, I would say, would is one of the theories.

One of the things that I struggled the most with the extraterrestrial was why it would like hide out in the mines.

You know, and there was no, there wasn't really any sightings, any days leading up to it or anything of UFOs or anything like that.

Not to say that it can't be extraterrestrial, but that was my biggest question with that is because that's where my mind went right away.

What if they had the UFO parked in the mine?

They could.

Or maybe they had a pocket UFO.

Pocket UFO?

Yeah.

Sounds dirty.

Wait, it just shrinks down to like size of like a matchbox car and they put it in her pocket.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

I don't know what technologies they have.

Who the hell does?

Yeah.

I don't think they quite know.

Pocket UFO.

Yeah, pocket UFO.

All right, Crack Daddy, so I went over all my theories.

One of them is right.

I don't know which one.

I'm still thinking about that.

Probably the bunny one if I had to guess.

Easter bunny.

I'm getting closer.

You keep saying bunny or rabbit.

You got to be specific.

The money rabbit.

Yeah.

Totem.

What's your theory?

My theory.

So there are a couple of plausible theories.

I'm going to get to my theory right near the end of this one.

But so there's the cryptid theories.

One of the cool theories is that some people think this might be a thunderbird, which is something that I want to do a topic on.

I know on the podcast, the Paranormal Life, they did one on the thunderbird.

I don't really know too much about that.

No, but they just kept referring to it as Zappados, the one guy, which I thought was hilarious.

The thunderbird, Zappados.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I like me a good Pokemon reference.

Hell yeah.

I always liked Articuto better.

He was always my least favorite.

He was my favorite.

Yeah.

I liked...

I would say Zappados is probably my...

No, Moltres was my least favorite.

Yeah, that one stunk.

I used to play Pokemon Stadium on the N64.

Yeah.

Dude, Articuno.

Articuno.

I dominated you.

I have that still.

We'll bust out the 360 sometime and play it, and play Pokemon Stadium.

Anywho.

Yeah.

Sorry.

I'm getting fired up.

Yeah.

It's Cory's...

Cory got in that paddle at the mine, and he can't get out of it.

He's all freaking wound up right now.

So, the Thunderbird.

I just did a quick look because, like I said, this would be a good topic, and I don't want to get too much into it, but the Thunderbird is a legendary creature, deeply rooted in Native American mythology.

It's often depicted as a massive bird-like being with extraordinary powers.

According to various tribes, the Thunderbird could create thunder by flapping its wings and lightning by flashing its eyes.

So, when I think about, I think of the horn on its head, but I also think of the flash of light.

Thunderbird?

Possibly why these people are getting this beam of light in their head, because it could actually be coming out of their eyes.

What did you say about the flap of the wings?

What did that do?

Flap of the wings with thunder.

They didn't hear any thunder.

Well, they never really saw it fly away, though.

Yeah, it just climbed down like a parrot.

It hopped and jumped.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's why I'm going back to Easter Bunny.

Yeah.

That's what he's really stick with.

The other theory, which is the theory that I really think that it could be, is I think it could be some prehistoric bird, like a pterodactyl or something like that, that either survived or, and we're diving, we're getting deep now.

What if down in one of these mines, a portal through time opened up and this thing just so happened to come through that portal?

Could that be what all the noises were, were other things coming in and out of this portal from prehistoric times?

I guess that's my theory because I think it would be the coolest one.

What about the flashlight head?

That there's no plausible explanation for really.

Really in any theory, there's not really a good explanation as to the light on the head, you know what I mean?

Except for maybe the Thunderbird with the lightning by flashing its eyes.

But I just think, I guess, and a lot of the way it's depicted on like art and stuff or at their festival, now it looks a lot like a pterodactyl.

You know how the pterodactyls kind of have that long head with like the horn sticking up out of its head?

That's why a lot of them are like depicted on that.

And I also think that would be the reason why this thing could be affected by bullets, that it just has like rough, reptile skin that's basically like a rock and would just repel bullets.

So that's kind of what I have there.

That's the theory that I really liked.

There's some other ones.

You have the paranormal theory.

Was it some kind of interdimensional being that could travel through time whenever it wanted to or needed to?

Just like some of the Mothman theories.

You know, like that.

Yeah.

I think it, I don't know if it's intergalactic or something.

I can't quite remember the word, but that was the theory with Mothman.

This thing's like travels through time and just knows everything about time all the way through.

That's why it was at point pleasant.

And why it got there a little bit early was maybe that it can get like really close to the time of these events happening.

You can't get there right when the events happen.

Yeah.

Could it be something like that?

The reason I leaned against that is because there wasn't some-

Bridge.

Yeah, bridge or just really any major event that happened in this town.

Like the Neon Rouge would always show up when something bad was going to happen.

Mothman showed up when this bridge is going to collapse.

Well, it could have been, but maybe in their time period, they jumped the gun and they got here too quick.

And maybe like something's going to happen here soon, like Yellowstone is going to blow up.

It could.

That wouldn't matter with Van Meter, but possibly.

Somewhere over there.

Yeah, something.

Yeah.

They're kind of close.

You're right, Corey.

They're both in the United States of America.

That's right.

And then the last theory goes more towards your theory with the extraterrestrial.

The blinding light on its head is reminiscent of the UFO lore.

Was it an alien creature that landed in a small town, unleashing all sorts of paranoia and fear?

Was it just there to see what kind of hell it could raise, essentially?

There's also the theory that this thing is some kind of, like, demon from hell.

But I also don't agree with that one as much, because, like you said, this thing didn't really hurt anybody when it was there.

It just went shining a couple of lights around.

Seemed pretty friendly to me.

Like, you would think this thing could have wiped out all those guys that are shooting guns at it.

Yeah.

This thing had to be baby friendly.

Maybe not friendly, but it wasn't a foe.

It's probably trying to come see if they had any goddamn streetlights.

They didn't.

Exactly.

He was there.

He was helping them out.

And the other theory, which, of course, is kind of linked to everything like this, is mass hysteria or just a hoax?

Was it just an overreaction, overactive imagination fueled by the era's ghost stories or cultural fear?

Or was it just something that the town made up to, I don't know, maybe make themselves seem a little more badass?

It would make sense that this town made this up so that robbers wouldn't want to go there, though, you know?

Yeah.

Like they just fought off a monster to protect their goods and their homes and their bank.

So, hell, yeah, they ain't scared of no freaking...

Clarence.

Clarence.

Clarence ain't scared of no ghost.

Know what?

The other theory that I was thinking about, I didn't say it yet.

OK.

But what if it was like...

What if it was two Easter rabbits?

Yeah, the Tooth Fairy.

Yeah.

The Tooth Fairy.

Yeah.

Whoa.

No, I was thinking like, what if it was like some cabin fever type shit and something got in the water and all these people were just going crazy because of, you know, some type of bacteria or something that was in the water?

Yeah, that could...

Like, for a lot of these, that could always be the theory for a lot of them.

I mean, especially when you're talking about a small town with that many people, like, if they all lived close to each other and, like, wells, and I don't I don't know how they did water back then.

I think they all just peed in cups, and that's what they drank.

They didn't quite know what to do.

They peed in a cup, and they passed to their neighbor.

No, that would make sense.

And that would also, I think, go towards maybe your government conspiracy thing.

Yeah.

If they would have the government poison their water, made them all hysterical and stuff like that.

And it would explain why it was not, like this story is not really talked about that much.

Yeah, I never heard about it till right now.

I never heard about it till like a week ago.

And I'm kind of disappointed because it's right up my alley.

It's a good story.

Like this is like, I am Mothman obsessive, and I will be honest with you, I'm kind of like Van Meter obsessive when I got into this.

Yeah.

Because this is awesome.

I was ready to go fight.

Like when you were going over the scenario with the mine and stuff, like I was ready to go.

I brought my best 300 to the table right here.

I don't know what side I was on, but I was ready to go fight somebody.

He's going to punch me right in the mouth.

But he couldn't do that because he wanted me to keep reading.

Yeah.

I wanted you to keep going.

So when I think of the Van Meter Visitor, I think of two other cryptids that we've talked about in this show.

Snallygaster.

The Snallygaster was also on the table.

Jersey Devil.

The Jersey Devil and the Mothman.

The Mothman, yeah.

Yeah.

So what I did is I did a little bit of a throwdown.

And now when I say a throwdown, this is more of I compared all three of these and a couple major categories to see maybe if we can come to terms for who's the most badass out of the three.

Ooh.

And it's interesting because when I go through it, I feel like there's different ones kind of win different categories.

Yeah.

So first we're going to go towards appearance.

So with Mothman, Mothman was a tall, humanoid, glowing red eyes, large wings, often described as a shadowy figure.

The Jersey Devil, a lot of times, and the Jersey Devil was a weird one because like you did that episode, and there's a lot of different descriptions with the Jersey Devil.

But I'm going to go with this one.

Had a kangaroo-like body with bat wings, cloven hooves, and a horse-goat-like head.

Horse-slash-goat-like head.

And the Van Meter Visitor was pterodactyl-like, glowing light from its forehead, massive wings, and tough skin that repelled bullets.

So they're all similar, but all different.

I think when you think of the Van Meter as more of a pterodactyl, it really makes it different than the rest of them.

But a lot of the stories really said that this thing had a human-like quality to it when the people saw it like perched on the roof.

Because almost all these people thought it was a man on the roof when they saw it.

Until they saw the light beaming out of his hair.

Yeah, they saw the light, they saw the horn, the red eyes, then the wings, and the rest of his behavior was not human at all.

So abilities and behavior.

Mothman flies silently, eyes glow red, often linked to a disaster prediction, chases cars, and disappears without a trace.

Well, the Jersey Devil is known for eerie screams, flying quickly, and occasionally, occasionally, which we all do this occasionally, attack livestock.

And the Van Meter Visitor emits blinding light from its head with its bulletproof skin and could vanish into the earth.

The earth?

The earth.

The earth.

Right in the earth.

So, I don't know.

That's it.

Are we doing a triple threat here?

Like, are you picking who you think is going to win?

I don't know.

I'm just kind of, this is just kind of comparing all three.

Well, I want to ask you a question right now as you're the expert.

Okay.

Triple threat match, no rules.

Now, you know what?

Screw that.

We're going to say hell in a cell, triple threat match between the Van Meter, the Jersey Devil, and the Moth Man.

Hell in a cell, the door is locked, they can't get out.

Who's winning this match up?

I will.

I'm almost done with this.

Oh, shit.

I thought you were done.

I also have a special guest referee that we can use for this.

Believe it or not, I've already thought of this in my head, and I have the special guest referee already picked out, and he's kind of great.

You might have not heard of him, but I have a description of him and it's going to be great.

So the most terrifying trait, this is my last category for all of them, for the Mothman is its connection with disaster and eerie stalking behavior.

The Jersey Devil is its unnatural appearance and blood curdling scream.

And the Van Meter Visitor is its glowing headlight and resistance to bullets.

So, I have an honorable mention, and this is the guy that I'm going to put as the guest referee in this throwdown.

It's going to be Springheel Jack.

You may not have heard of him, but Springheel Jack is a legendary figure in Victorian era England.

First reported in 1837, he's described as a mysterious humanoid entity with clawed hands, glowing red eyes, and the ability to leap great distances.

Hence the name, Springheel.

Son of a bitch.

Witnesses also claimed he wore tight-fitting clothes, sometimes resembling oil skin and a black cloak.

Some accounts even said he could breathe blue and white flames.

What a perfect guest referee to add to this throwdown.

And I actually had this, I actually have in my notes as making him the guest referee for this.

So, if I had to go hell in a cell.

Doors locked, no escape.

Doors locked, and we're talking about...

Fight to the death.

So I know who...

Oh, fight to the death.

We're going to say fight to the fucking death.

All right, so there's one that I think is getting eliminated first out of these three.

My pick for being eliminated first is I think the Jersey Devil is going to be eliminated first.

I think because I don't know how it can...

The biggest issue I have with the Van Meter is I don't know how you're taking him down.

This is a tough son of a bitch with the skin and everything.

I feel like I just don't think they're taking him down, but I also think the Mothman might have an advantage because when he's there, disaster strikes.

Yeah.

So Van Meter might just have a heart attack.

Or the whole place, or the whole Hell in a Cell might just...

Yeah.

Building blows up and everything.

Right around him.

Yeah.

So I think there's that chance.

But I think just with some of the abilities, the abilities is the one where I think that the Jersey Devil was just lacking compared to this.

So it's known for its eerie screams, flying quickly, and occasionally attacking livestock.

I don't know.

I don't think that's going to help it in a Hell in a Cell situation, be able to fly quickly.

I think that's where it's going to be slacking there.

The Mothman, yeah, it's also flying and stuff.

I really think the bulletproof skin is what's going to give the Van Meter an advantage because it's just this rough and tough skin.

It's going to be hard to get into it.

What do you think?

So I think the Jersey Devil and the Mothman, they know that the Van Meter has got this tough skin.

He's going to be hard to bring down, so they team up with each other.

And somehow, together, they knock this effer out, take him out of the game.

I don't know if they like, whatever, they do something to just knock this mother effer out, take him out, right?

And I think the two of them fight.

And I think, based off of the stories and stuff, I think the Jersey Devil takes...

Jersey Devil is not winning this.

I think he takes out the Mothman because I feel like he's more ruthless.

What has he done?

He killed his whole family and then...

Supposedly, in one story, though.

That's the issue.

And then flew out the chimney.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I mean, because Mothman, he didn't hurt anybody.

Destroyed a whole bridge, possibly.

And a doll.

Killed 40 to 50 people.

He did kill people?

People died when the bridge collapsed.

Yeah, there's like 40 or 50 deaths when the bridge collapsed.

Yeah, but if he was there to warn people of the bridge...

If that's what he was there for.

Yeah, I mean, we don't know.

Well, this is just my triple threat, okay?

My triple threat.

I think the Jersey Devil rips Mothman's head off.

All right, so with that, that's our Facebook question of the week.

Let's add, we got Mothman vs.

Jersey Devil vs.

The Van Meter Visitor.

Give us who you think wins the triple threat match.

And don't forget, the Honorable mentioned, hey, I think Spring Heel Jack might be in the Van Meter.

You know, that's just a wild card.

And if anything happens to him, Rick Flair will gladly take his place.

Dude, that dude, he kind of looks like a lizard.

That's what I'm saying.

That dude's skin is bulletproof.

You're freaking right.

So with that, that's what I have for an episode.

And you're ready for a little bit of folk lore.

Score.

Oh, yeah.

Let's do it.

Boomski.

I said Boomski.

All right, we're back with the folk lore score.

That's right.

And this thing, this thing, this thing, if you didn't hear, might say this thing, this thing, this thing ain't making the board, I don't believe.

Because right now, right now, I got the accent going on right now, our lowest number 10 on our top 10 list is the Boo Hag coming in at a score of 60.

60, which means this thing at least has to average a 30 across the board to make it.

Can it do it?

And just so everybody remembers, our champ is Krampus sitting at a hefty, hefty, hefty 74.

Krampus is the name of Cory's boner pills.

I firmly believe that.

We call them Krampus pills.

Yeah.

So what do you got, Crack Daddy?

I got a 21.

I got a 19.

19, which makes it an even 40.

We still, our first 40.

Wow.

Shut the hell up.

No, it's like our 12th 40.

Our first 40, which makes it a mild myth.

We almost had it down to barely believable, which would have been sad because I just I like the story.

It was a good story.

I'm glad he's talking around in the 40s.

So to go down through our scores, do you want to make them quick, Cory?

Yeah.

Spookiness.

Three.

Six.

It was kind of spooky.

I thought it was pretty spooky if I was living in a town of 400 people and this shit was going on.

It's pretty spooky.

Historical cultural significance.

Three.

Believability.

Five.

Four.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Uniqueness.

I gave it an eight.

Oh.

Yeah.

I only made it higher because of it being a pterodactyl in that way.

I gave it a four.

Elements are familiar.

Four.

All right, shit it.

I gave it a four because I like the light.

I love the light.

The big horn, the light, loved it.

But everything else was just too familiar with me with some a lot of the other creatures that we've covered so far.

It was it was comparable.

And threat level, I gave it a two.

Two.

Yeah.

This thing is that I kind of want to give this thing a hug because it doesn't deserve what it's gotten so far.

No, it got a lot of like hate, a lot of just did just misrepresented anger.

Maybe this thing should, you know, if this thing would have ended up in New York, I think it would have had a lot better or not a lot better, but like a happier ending.

This thing probably would have went on a killing spree in New York.

Probably would have killed my boy Champ.

Probably would have wrote him.

Just wrote him.

And with that, folks, that's another episode of the Kraken Cans podcast.

Hey, make sure you follow us on social media at Kraken Cans Cast on all major social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, threads, and X.

And don't be afraid to give us, if you like it a lot or you like it, if you like it a little, just give us a five-star review.

Yeah, it helps.

On Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever you're listening to us on.

Give us a nice five-star.

If you don't want to give us a five and you're thinking lower, just go ahead and-

Just go like us on YouTube then.

That's all you got to do.

We'll call it even then.

Turn your phone off.

Yeah.

Suck a wiener for all I care.

Get out of here.

And with that-

And with that, I'm Crack Daddy.

Oh, Mike.

I'm Crack Daddy Mike and I'm out of here.

And I'm the BK Corey.

BK stands for butt crack.

Corey's stupid.

I'm Mike's so dumb, I hate him.