The Van Meter Monster Part 2

Astonishing Legends

Scott Philbrook

History, Society & Culture

4.6 • 9.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 August 2023

⏱️ 178 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In the second part of our series on the mysterious visitor to Van Meter, Iowa, it’s time to wonder how so many credible people could see a creature so incredible and what that creature could be. An extant pterosaur, your run-of-the-mill cryptid, a Keel-like “uttraterrestrial,” something like a tulpa or an egregore, or simply a transdimensional interloper from the sacred and mystical bowels of the earth? Does a hoax that a whole town would have to be in on even make sense? Could the gestalt be a little from all of these things? We may never know precisely what the Van Meter Monster was, but we can learn how something clinically described as an unusual sensory experience affects the people who see it. Something else we can bet on is that, like it or not, we must share our reality with the surreal, and as rare as it is, people will continue to see the impossible.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	notification from Monzo. Sam requested $54 for camping supplies.
0:06.8	Sahara requested $35 for Bear Spray. Sam requested $100 for new tent. Welcome to Canada.
0:17.3	Welcome to simple cospleting and fee-free spending. Welcome to making your travel money go
0:22.4	further with your Monzo Mastercard. Search Monzo Travel today. UK residents, terms and
0:28.8	conditions apply. Listen to the astonishing jump jaw exclusively at patreon.com slash astonishing
0:34.9	legends. I don't think people are taking time off work to hit this. You sent me some video
0:40.8	of you dancing around the kitchen. It was a Monday. Music in a white drunk college cake and dance
0:45.9	to. I'll just stick with the I.I. stuff. That's Rowan said that, not me. My math teacher, like,
0:51.1	she doesn't explain it that well. Well that's the hallucination, right? That's like AI hallucination.
0:56.8	We have lives to mother shifters. Kai. Rich Adam is coming. Jim Harold is coming. I'm doing a lot
1:04.9	of laughing. Is it cool? Nice.
1:10.0	Estonishing legends would like to thank Mint Mobile, the farmer's dog, Squarespace,
1:14.7	simply safe. Our contributors at patreon.com and you are listeners for making tonight's show
1:20.0	possible. On our last episode we transported you back to the Erie streets of Van
1:26.8	Meter, Iowa, for a week of late-night terror in October of 1903 to share the spine-chilling tale of
1:33.4	the Van Meter monster at its haunting visit to that once tranquil town. One might think that Van
1:39.0	Meter is a lot different today, 120 years later, and in some ways it is. But remarkably, Van Meter's
1:46.4	population remains relatively unchanged, hovering at around a thousand souls. This legend defies
1:53.4	all rational explanation, leaving the term high-strangeness, sounding feeble and inadequate for it
2:00.2	by comparison. Skeptics may scoff at the fantastical descriptions, and who can blame them.
2:06.6	Even the most ardent believers find themselves grappling with the mind-boggling details,
2:11.8	an eight-foot tall, bat-like creature impervious to bullets, generating a stupefying stench
	...

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