You are now listening to cryptid cocktail party
Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of
Cryptic Cocktail Party, a show where we have
a few drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive
into the unknown. I'm your host, Dave. Joined,
as always, by my wonderful co -host, Sarge. How's
it going, Sarge? What the fuck is up, y 'all?
Yeah, how you doing, bud? You looking good, as
always. Oh, thank you very much. I had boxing
today. Yeah, did you beat the shit out of your
kid? No, no, they don't allow that, which is
weird, because it is Massachusetts, but... I
did punch my boxing coach a little harder than
he or I were expecting. So he said I did a good
job. Well, hey, that's high praise coming from
someone. Yeah. You know, I'm coming from someone
who is wildly uncoordinated. Apparently, I do
have a slight edge in what I like to call Irish
karate, which is just boxing. Oh, not hitting
your kid full. Sorry to get in the face. No,
that's Irish jujitsu, obviously. Just kidding,
friends in Ireland. We know you're actually normal
people. Yeah, well, I'm glad you're doing good.
I'm glad. Yeah, how are you? Oh, wait, Dave.
So I know this is an audio medium. So for those
of you who are listening at home, I'm sorry.
Look. Oh, shit. That's a picture of me. Yeah,
you're right there on my mantle, buddy. I'm in
a place of honor. I love that. I feel honored.
I feel honored to have a spot in your home. What
I really like is that when business meetings
happen at this computer during the week, everybody
on the meeting can see that. They get to see
my glorious mug. Yeah. I love it. The Pope of
aviators. Yeah. Yours is hanging up. You can't
see it. It's over here. That's right. I'm always
watching over you. Exactly. This constant judging
look. The shame I feel. Yeah. Shame I feel. Yeah.
That's true. We both feel it. I'm doing good.
Yesterday was Valentine's Day. I had a pretty
good Valentine's Day. We did a ramen tour of
Philly. We just went to a bunch of different
ramen places. That sounds amazing. I would do
that by myself on Valentine's Day. It was really
cool. I had a really good time. I walked around
Chinatown. Chinatown and Philly is fucking awesome.
It's one of the funnest places in the world.
It was a good time. Besides that, I don't know.
I'm doing good. We got some stiff reviews over
the last week. Yeah. I was going to get to that.
Okay. I'll let you get to it then. Well, I was
going to say, it turns out our weather weapon
series, big hit. People love it. They do love
it. They do love it. You know what? They were
highly critical, but it's only because they liked
it. Exactly. They just wanted to keep us on our
toes. My favorite is the one where they demanded
we take the episode down now. Yeah. Do they work
for YouTube? I don't know. They were very, they
were very upset. And my question is when has
that ever worked? When has demanding just a random
citizen demanding you take something down? When
does that ever actually work? If anything, that
would inspire me to put it in more places. Yeah.
I also, because of all the wonderful feedback
we got from our weather, I almost did a part
of three today. That would have been great. I
almost did it. I would have been so happy about
that. No, but instead, I did something a little
different this week. Not a little different.
We've done a bunch of these. We're doing another
redo episode. Okay. It's a story that when I
did it the first time, I liked it. I thought
it was good. The guest I had for it, very half
-hearted in it. Okay. So the episode isn't that
great, but also after rereading the original
script. I don't know how anyone listened to it.
It was a jumbled mess. It was fucking terrible.
Dude, you were still figuring shit out. It's
all good. It has everything that I know that
you'll love in a story. It doesn't have a real
end to it, and I still didn't write one. I kind
of left the script not as it was, but I kind
of beefed it up, made it more readable and understandable.
sentences that work good. Well, of course I'm
paraphrasing here, but I do believe the quote
is something along the lines of great scripts
are never finished. They're just abandoned much
like your children. I don't know if that's the
case for this, but anyways, so we're going to
be redoing the van meter visitor. Is that something
you're familiar with? No, no, you're unfamiliar,
unfamiliar, unfamiliar. You're going to love
this episode. Okay. I can already guarantee you.
All right. So this story takes place in van meter,
Iowa. Hence the name, the Van Meter Visitor in
the fall of 1903. So Van Meter at this time was
like a small coal mining town. Still could be
for all I know. I did not look into it, but I'm
sure you can picture like what I mean. It's got
dirt roads or more accurately dirt road, a couple
of telegraph telephone poles, water troughs for
your horses. And at night it gets real dark,
real fast. It's like the kind of darkness where
if you see a light outside your window at 1 a
.m. Your brain doesn't go, must be a car or something.
It goes, well, that's fucking new and probably
concerning. Yeah. Yeah, it's problematic. Yeah.
And over the course of roughly five nights, September
29th through October 3rd, 1903, that's exactly
what happened to several respectable men in town
who all reported seeing something that absolutely
should not have existed. What they described
was an eight to nine foot tall humanoid. massive,
smooth, bat -like wings, a blunt horn sticking
out of its head, and from the tip of that horn
would shoot bright white beams of light, the
witnesses said, that temporarily blinded them.
Basically, it's a pterodactyl with a built -in
headlamp. I was thinking Baron Trump. He might
have a horn. I don't know. I think he just hides
it under the part of his hair. So you're not
familiar with this creature at all? No, it sounds
hilarious. It is pretty good. Okay. I love the
bat wings. That's my favorite part. Yeah. And,
and also in this detail is consistent across
a couple of accounts. It smelled horrific. Like,
like what exactly? I don't know. It was just
universally agreed that it smelled bad. And you
know, something has to smell real bad for people
in 1903, Iowa to be like, it stinks. Yeah. You
know what I mean? Not because they're dirty people,
but because it's like the 1903, you know, not
a lot of sewers, not a lot of sewers, not a lot
of. regular bathing i would assume yeah probably
a lot of outhouse situations yeah that's always
the one thing like when you watch like a period
piece movie or tv show like that takes place
in like 1903 or earlier is like people like going
down on each other i'm like bro yeah it's like
don't don't go in there that was that's any sex
scene that happens in a period piece i'm just
like that must smell so fucking bad oh yeah And
there's probably so much hair. Oh, God, dude.
Loads of it. Yeah. You got to, like, bushwhack
to find your way to anything down there. You
need to bring a campaign hat and a machete. Yeah,
do something. All right. So let's get into some
of these stories. Like, what happened here? So
on September 29th, 1903, at around 1 a .m., local
businessman U .G. Griffith was awoken by a bright
light shining directly into his bedroom window.
Now, remember. Electricity in small towns like
Van Meter in 1903 is still relatively new if
it existed at all. It was like a 12 -year -old
kid on a bicycle. Streetlights are very rare.
Headlights don't exist yet. So if you see a focused
beam of light blasting into your window, that's
not normal. It's like borderline supernatural.
For a split second, I can guarantee you that
this dude thought he was being raptured. For
like a minute. Either that or he's like, did
I build my house on train tracks again? Yeah,
for like a split second, this dude was probably
freaking out. I would. Yeah, but in the end,
he just got annoyed and he was like understandably
annoyed. He assumed someone is screwing around
with some kind of spotlight. So he goes outside
to confront whoever is behind it. Instead, he
sees the light isn't just some dickhead fucking
with them, but it's actually attached to something.
massive he then watches whatever it was leap
from one roof to another across the street not
like glide or fly but jump from one roof to across
the street yeah and this is like 1903 so the
houses are pretty far yeah i'm guessing yeah
Then the light and whatever it was attached to
took off and disappeared into the night. So that's
the first sighting. The very next night, around
1230 a .m., town physician Dr. Alcott wakes up
in the back room of his office under the same
circumstances as the first, a bright light shining
directly onto his face through the window. So
the good doctor decides, fuck this. I'm tired.
It's late. I don't have time for whatever witchcraft
or wizardry is going on. So he grabs his gun
because it's 1903 and that was the go -to solution
for basically anything. That's how doctors solved
a lot of problems back then. Yeah, that and cocaine.
Oh, you've got a cold? Well, do this cocaine
to get the ghosts out of your blood. Yeah, so
he grabs his gun and he goes outside. He approaches
the source of the light. and sees what he describes
as a humanoid figure with smooth bat -like wings
and a blunt horn protruding from its head. That
horn is the source of the light. This is where
we get the actual description of the creature.
It was from the second sighting. He raises his
revolver and fires five shots at it, which didn't
do shit. So he's like, sorry, my bad. And then
slowly retreats back inside. Does he know if
the bullets hit it? I think so. I don't know.
Okay. The only reason I ask is that, like, handguns,
not, not the greatest when it comes to aiming,
you know, they're, they're pretty accurate up
to a certain point, but there's like a lot of
distance. Yeah. You're probably not going to
hit what you're shooting at. Yeah. I don't know
how close he got to it, but also things pretty
big. Yeah. It's not like a, I feel like it's
a hard target to miss. Right. So that's a good
point. I mean, but I also don't know. I mean,
if he was close enough to see that it had like
a blunt horn on its head and that actually, that
thought kind of, is rolling around in my brain
right now like what does he mean by blunt is
it like a shot glass basically like yeah the
way i kind of think is like a like a rhino horn
but like the tip cut off yeah yeah that's weird
yeah but also it'd be hard to miss that it had
a horn even if it was dark out because again
it's this it fucking shoots light you can't miss
it like hellboy's horns right yeah kind of that's
that's kind of what i was thinking yeah yeah
so he shoots at it doesn't do shit so he goes
back inside and then this thing just kind of
fucks off into the night I would do the exact
same thing, so I'm with you, Doc. And then October
1st rolls around and enter Peter Dunn. He's a
bank cashier who believes that this whole thing
is just an elaborate hoax. He thinks that it's
possibly burgers trying to distract the town
from some sort of high -stakes robbery, which
honestly, this would have been a pretty rad prequel
for Ocean's Eleven. Just a team of heisters.
Doing whatever. That would be amazing. Yeah.
I actually, I want to just call back quickly.
I don't know if you caught it, but you said the
word burgers instead of burglars. And so for
a second, I was thinking like Mayor McCheese
had his hand in this. Or maybe there was just
some German dudes there and that was just their
last name. I was like, burgers? Is this a 1903
word I don't know? You thought Mayor McCheese
and not Hamburglar? Well, yeah, because Mayor
McCheese is a burger, whereas Hamburglar is just
stealing burgers. I don't know. Whatever. He
could be doing it in conjunction. You know, why
don't you not call me out on my mumble mouth,
all right? Okay? Making me look like a dum -dum.
I'm not trying to make you look like a dum -dum.
I'm trying to express the joy that I felt for
a brief moment when I imagined a bunch of clandestine
cheeseburgers running amok. Well, that's an entirely
separate episode. We'll get to that eventually.
Another yokai, I'm sure. For sure, probably.
Yeah, there's got to be a cheeseburger yokai
and it's like super American. So yeah, so Peter
Dunn, the bank teller, he thinks that this is
burglars, not burgers, trying to distract the
town, which would have been pretty cool. That
would have been great. Yeah, so what he does
is he camps out in the bank overnight and at
around 1 a .m. he hears what he describes as
gargling or like a strangled gasping sound coming
from outside. He opens the door to investigate
and is immediately blinded by the horn light,
which I mean serves him right. Because if he
truly believed that this was a bunch of robbers,
why go investigate a distraction? You're staying
in a bank at night trying to catch burglars committing
crimes. Yes. And your thought is, let me open
the door to this secured bank. That's an accident
to confront burglars. That's what I'm saying.
That's what I'm saying. Like, why would you?
Why would you fall for such a clear distraction?
If you thought that this was burglars, why would
you leave? Like, why would you go outside? You
were going to come inside and then you fucking
blast them away. Absolute moron. Yeah. You could
have done a home alone thing. And it would have
been great. Oh, there was so many other options
than just, let me go investigate this sound real
quick. Let me open the locked door to the bank
to investigate what I think are burglars. Yeah.
So he's blinded by the light. When his vision
clears, he sees the creature and does what everyone
else in this moment seems to be doing, and that
is he starts unloading rounds into this motherfucker.
Oh, he did have a weapon. He did. Of course he
does. He's guarding a bank. But again, it does
nothing at all, and it just kind of fucks off.
Now, either on the same night or the next, reports
kind of vary. what it was, but hardware merchant
OV white wakes up to the same, like rasping noises
outside of the store. He looks out his window
and he sees the creature perched up on a telegraph
pole. So he shoots it. It's kind of a running
theme for this episode. The most American story.
It's right up there with when the natives fought
the Sasquatch, but this time it fires back and
it releases like a powerful noxious odor towards
them. No. It just farted. It was a nervous fart.
That's what happens. Yeah. We all get it. It
happens. Yeah. When I'm in a terrifying situation,
sometimes it just kind of. You just fart. It
just happens. Yeah. It's either that or a boner.
It depends on where the fear is at. Or you get
the rare fear boner slash fart combo. Yeah. Yeah.
Which is not a comp. I mean, it's a good deterrent.
For any robber. Any would -be mugger. Because
you're so confused about what's coming. Is he
going to poop? Are we going to have sex? What's
happening? Got to keep him gassing. Keep him
on their toes. Meanwhile, you got to keep him
gassing. Now, around this time, minors in Van
Meter, and I mean that as in like people that
go underground to dig resources. This is going
to be a Chris Hansen episode for a second. Yeah.
Miners is in like hard hats and pickaxes, not
the ones that the elite seem to prefer and have
no repercussions over their preference of them.
Dave, why don't you take a seat right over there?
had reportedly been hearing strange noises coming
from the local coal mine. Again, Van Meter was
a mining town. One account described the sounds
as, quote, like Satan and a regiment of imps
coming forth for battle, which is metal as fuck.
That's oddly beautiful coming from a coal miner.
Yeah, it's kind of poetic. And the mine manager
at the time, J .L. Platt, reportedly said that
he had also witnessed something coming out from
the shaft. Now, here's where reporting gets slightly
inconsistent. Some accounts say one creature,
others say two. The second one's smaller than
the first, but the description stayed consistent.
Wings, horns, lights, you know what it looks
like. So, Platt does what any good company man
would do and organizes a posse. Because if you
are a mining town in 1903 and a glowing wing
thing crawls out of your shaft, you gather men
with rifles. It's like 1903 policy. Honestly,
my favorite part. Also, can we just quickly talk
about everybody's names? Oh, they're all great.
They're all 19 or three names. They're all great.
They all sound like somebody who lost a lot of
money when the stock market crashed in 1929.
Yeah. They're all that era. Fancy as fuck. Well,
yeah, these were all, like I said, there's no,
what's crazy about this story is that there's
no like regular man who saw this thing apparently.
Right. It's like, it's doctors, bank. tell like
it's all like upstanding citizens like it's kind
of crazy uh yeah so before dawn a group of armstown
folks uh gathered outside the mine and waited
when the creature or creatures returned to the
shaft they just fucking unloaded on this thing
one newspaper one newspaper reported that the
barrage of gunfire was heavy enough to quote
unquote have sunk the spanish fleet that's how
many bullets We're flying around at this thing,
which is just phenomenal early 1900s journalism.
And once again, according to the reports, there
was no visible damage to the creatures. The creatures,
they just kind of shrieked, released that same
fart smell again, and then retreated back down
into the mine. And once the creatures were back
down in the depths, the solution... They just
bricked up the entrance. They didn't pursue it.
They didn't investigate any further. They just
collectively decided that's the end of that and
then sealed it up. Just lock him in there with
his farts and let him deal with himself. They
just did what they do at the end of horror movies.
They just sealed it away and just prayed that
it didn't come back. It's being investigated
by top men. Top men. But I mean, it seemed to
have worked. The sightings stopped. Okay. Yeah.
I mean, that did work. That did work. The one
thing that I don't think they accounted for,
though, is that you just sealed off the mine.
Your town is a mining town. What are you going
to do? Well, it's probably why we've never heard
of this town before, and we probably won't ever
hear about it again. Yeah. I don't even know
if it still exists. It's still there, I think.
They probably had to do another business. Maybe
they just started, maybe they went into business
selling the first fart sprays. Maybe. I mean,
we'll get into some theories, but that's the
story of the Van Meter Visitor. It's not a lot,
but there's a lot of firing at things in it.
Honestly, what I like is the defense mechanism
of the putrid fart smell. Yeah. Because I can't
think of many things that are grosser than when
you're walking around somewhere and you walk
through someone's fart cloud. Oh, yeah. Like
when it's your fart, it's like gross, but not
the worst thing in the world. When it's someone
else's, they might as well have just farted directly
in your mouth. It's the most disgusting thing
in the world. This happens in my gym. There's
like a phantom farter. And I'm pretty sure this
guy's got like some kind of parasite. Because
it'll just, the smell will fill the entire gym.
And it's not a small gym. It will fill the entire
building. Oh God. I think he might have, he might
need medical attention. Yeah. Or maybe I'll tell
you what, I won't follow him into a mind. Maybe,
maybe he's like a vegan. I feel like vegan farts
are always the worst. It smells like a barn.
Yeah. It's all vegetables. Yeah. No, no shade
to vegans. You guys are doing great. But your
farts are some of the most atrocious. It's like,
it's like a, like a dirty barn. Let's all be
honest with ourselves. You can't deny it. Or
you can deny it. You know what? Write me an email,
crypticcocktail at gmail .com. Yeah, maybe we're
wrong. Maybe we're wrong. But I don't think we
are. I think that makes sense. Yeah. But yeah,
so there you have it. That's the story. Now,
do you have any theories as to what this thing
could be? You know, I'm at a loss here because
I have never heard of a creature that emits light
from a blunt horn on its head. I don't think
anyone has. I think this is it. I think this
is the only time. Yeah, no, I mean, that's what
I mean. I guess we're just going to go with the
old standby of interdimensional creature. Honestly,
I didn't even think about that. I didn't even
cross my mind. Nephilim. It was the Nephilim.
You know what? We almost got there. We almost.
Yeah. So, I mean, it could have been a hoax,
possibly. But if it was, it involved multiple
prominent men. repeatedly firing guns into the
night and then in stilts like that would have
had to been stilts involved in some kind of mechanism
to make the wings yeah it had to been a lot i
mean like and then they doubled down publicly
in like newspapers like that's a lot of commitment
from prominent men just for like a small town
prank yeah like like i don't think a lot of prominent
men are gonna be like you know we gotta do we
gotta come up with a bad guy Yeah. The other
option is that it's mass hysteria. Possibly.
But it's only affecting the most prominent guys
in the town? I guess. You know, maybe it could
have been a misidentified animal. Large birds
can look pretty fucking scary at night. Yeah,
but a bird that's more than six feet tall? Yeah.
Well, there's that fucking... There's like a
crane. Our crane's pretty big. Or a stork. What's
the one that the top mothman was? Oh, could be
a stork, I guess. I mean, pelicans are pretty
big, but they're not that big. They're also not
in Iowa. They're pretty far away. Well, you're
really limited in my options here. I'm sorry.
I mean, like, I can't think of one bird that
is so unreasonably large that someone would mistake
it for a person. Oh, herring. Heron? Heron. Herons.
Like a great blue heron. They're pretty tall,
but I don't think they're tall enough. And where
would the light be coming from? That's what I
was going to say. But most birds don't have beams
of light shooting from their skulls. Or maybe
some kid just captured one and then like stuck
a lantern on its head. Yeah, maybe. And he's
just dying laughing in the bushes as all these
people are trying to shoot at it. Yeah. The only
thing, I mean, the only possible explanation,
there's two. One, it was like just newspapers
embellishing shit. Like in the early 1900s, fucking
people love that shit. And they kind of just
made stuff up. Yeah. See the Spanish American
war for details. Hearst wasn't exactly the most
honorable guy in the world. Yeah. But my theory
is that I think the mine, I think they struck
something in the mind and it was like, like a
gas leak. Like the smell people hallucinating.
That's definitely a good theory. I agree. I think
that's, I think that's mostly like the smell
was probably maybe sulfur or some sort of natural
gas. And the town was just a little too close
to the mines and the mine shafts. And it was
just kind of like given like a Silent Hill type
scenario. Yeah. And like the whole time they're
seeing this creature and shooting at it thinking
it's a monster. And it's really just the sheriff
holding up a flashlight. Like, what are you guys
doing? Yeah. The only thing I think of is that
if it was like a hoax and it was perpetrated
by like the most prominent men in society, is
that. there is like some sort of corporate sabotage
to try and fuck with the mining company to get
like something out of it. I don't know what,
I don't know why, but if it was a hoax and it
was done by these people, there had to be some
sort of monetary reasoning behind course. Like,
I mean, maybe they were trying to get like the
town to shut down or whatever. That could be
it. Yeah. Like they could have been like proposition
by another mining company. To like fuck with
whoever was there now, get them out so that the
other people can come in and buy the mine and
then take that. Yeah. Because, you know, you
lower the value of the mine because everyone
went crazy. Yeah. And apparently there's a boarded
up pterodactyl. Yeah. And if you're a prominent
member of society, the best way to get good property
would be to make it really cheap, lower the property
value by having everybody move out. No one wants
to live in the town. Then you buy it all up.
You develop it. Yeah, that's Bob's your uncle.
That's your millionaire. For me, that's that's
if it was a hoax, that's what it is. But I honestly
just think that. Yes, I didn't want to say it,
but because I feel like that's a cop out for
a lot of like cryptic side. I mean, I don't necessarily
think it's a cop out. I think it's entirely possible
that. You know, it could be something like that.
I mean, how many times was there a hysteria in
Europe that turned out to be something close
to ergot poisoning? You know, you got like the
dancing plague and fucking all that. Right. So
it could very easily have been something like
that. I mean, I don't know how that would work.
I don't know. I've never heard of. any swamp
gas that makes you hallucinate. I don't mean
like swamp gas. I mean like if there's like a
natural gas leak from the mine, like they hit
a vein or something. No, I'm just using swamp
gas as a stand -in. Yeah, no, I got you. Mine
gas. But yeah, like that to me is the most reasonable
thing. But we did not touch on the fact that
it could have been Nephilim. It could have been
an interdimensional. Interdimensional creature.
Yeah. Which is why they couldn't get photos.
It was blurry. By natural, just by natural. Just
by nature. Yeah. Natural sources. Yeah. You hate
to see it happen. You hate to see it. Or it could
have been chemtrails. Yeah. Or maybe they came
up with this story to distract everyone from
the Epstein files. First recorded instance. You
know, this is preemptive. They knew something
like this would happen in the future. They knew
it was coming. They knew that the Epstein files
were going to get released. And they were like.
We need to come up with something quick to get
them off the scent, a distraction who's in 2026.
They're going to be talking about a van meter
visitor. And that's exactly, that's what it is.
You know what? I think we solved it. They were
like, why are we, why are we trying to get ahead
of how far ahead of this? Do you want to get
123 years? Yeah, we, I think we got to the bottom
of this. This is clearly what's going on. It's
deep state liberal hoax to distract. It was a
trans drag queen and they're trying to hide it.
Fuck. Unbelievable. The things these liberals
will do to draw attention away from their own
failings. Meanwhile, they'll look at these files.
The Dow's up over 500 ,000 million points. The
Dow's the highest it's ever been. The highest
it's ever been. You know what? You're not even
a real lawyer. All right. Right. Okay. Yeah.
I'm a real lawyer because I have the Barbie and
I dressed like it. Exactly. All right. Sorry.
So that's the episode. It's not a long story.
It's not a good. It's a fun story. It's a fun
story, but it's a little shorter. There's not
a lot to go off of, obviously, as you can tell
by the length of this episode. But it's fun.
I'm glad I got to do it with you because I figured
you would appreciate it. Yeah. Well, I'm going
to be gone next week. You are. And I apologize
in advance, but I do have to go to work in another
state for a while or another place, actually.
I'm going to Puerto Rico. I'm very excited. Yeah.
Oh, actually, I'll tell you off air. It's fine.
Okay. All right. Sorry. So that's the episode.
Thank you so much for listening, everyone. Is
there anything you want to plug or say before
I do my whole spiel? No. No, I'm good right now.
You can follow me on TikTok, Sarge the Destroyer,
or Instagram. Don't bother following me on Twitter.
I am not going to get the notification. I only
use that to say mean things to people who suck.
Hell yeah. I pick on the government. And you
can follow us on Instagram at Cryptic Cocktail.
Follow us on TikTok, Cryptic Cocktail Party.
Leave us a five -star rating or review wherever
you can. It really helps the show. It really
helps the show. Yes, please. So please. Please
help us. Please. We want to be mildly successful
at this. It's moderate. Moderately successful.
Pardon me. I think that's all I got. Shirts are
ordered. I'm so excited for those. I cannot wait.
It's about a two to three week turnaround for
them to make the shirts and get them to me. Then
after that, it's just me getting them to you
guys. I think that's it. With that out of the
way, Sarge, you want to say goodbye and I love
you to the audience? Yes. Audience goodbye. And
I love you.