Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
A figure of sinister appearance and telepathic powers associated with a ufo landing and John Keel's mothman experiences. Also known as "the Grinning Man", he has over the years gained prominence on the internet and in books and movies and has attained cryptid status. Here's the actual first encounter with him in 1966 reported by Woodrow Derenger near Mineral Wells West Virginia:
"Things always seem mysterious on chilly fall nights in the country.
For Woodrow Derenberger, his mysterious encounter with an almost human grinning man on the backroads of West Virginia one November night would affect him and his family for almost a quarter of a century.
In 1966, Woodrow Derenberger was a sewing machine salesman living in Mineral Wells, West Virginia. One November night that year, Derenberger said he was returning from a business trip to Marietta, Ohio, when he had to stop to adjust a sewing machine in the back of his truck. Once he got back on the road, he noticed lights ahead of him.
Thinking the lights were police officers, he stopped, only to discover that the lights didn’t belong to a car, but to what he said was an aircraft that looked like a “kerosene lamp chimney.” Derenberger said a man stepped out and approached his truck.
“He looked perfectly natural and normal as any human being,” Derenberger told Ronald Mains, during an interview on WTAP-TV in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the day after the encounter.
“His face looked like he had a good tan, a deep suntan. He was not too dark but it was just like he had been out in the sun a lot and had a good tan. His hair was combed straight back and it was a dark brown and he seemed to have a good thick head of hair. His eyebrows, his face, his features were very normal. I don’t believe that he looked any different from any other man that you would meet on the street.”
But he wasn’t normal, Derenberger said. He had a large grin and kept his arms folded with his hands up under his armpits. And though he spoke to Derenberger, his smile never moved. He spoke, Derenberger said, telepathically.
“He asked me to roll down the window on my right-hand side of my truck and I done what he asked,” Derenberger said during the interview. “And this man stood there and he first asked me what I was called and I know he meant my name and I told him my name and he asked me, he said, ‘Why are you frightened?’ he said, ‘Don’t be frightened, we wish you no harm,’ he said, ‘We mean you no harm, we wish you only happiness,’ and I told him my name and when I told him my name he said he was called ‘Cold’.”
It was Derenberger’s, and the world’s, introduction to the entity known as “Indrid Cold.”
https://dailyyonder.com/woodrow-derenberger-and-the-legend-of-indrid-cold/2021/12/03/
Indrid Cold phone call clip from "The Mothman Prophecies"
"Things always seem mysterious on chilly fall nights in the country.
For Woodrow Derenberger, his mysterious encounter with an almost human grinning man on the backroads of West Virginia one November night would affect him and his family for almost a quarter of a century.
In 1966, Woodrow Derenberger was a sewing machine salesman living in Mineral Wells, West Virginia. One November night that year, Derenberger said he was returning from a business trip to Marietta, Ohio, when he had to stop to adjust a sewing machine in the back of his truck. Once he got back on the road, he noticed lights ahead of him.
Thinking the lights were police officers, he stopped, only to discover that the lights didn’t belong to a car, but to what he said was an aircraft that looked like a “kerosene lamp chimney.” Derenberger said a man stepped out and approached his truck.
“He looked perfectly natural and normal as any human being,” Derenberger told Ronald Mains, during an interview on WTAP-TV in Parkersburg, West Virginia, the day after the encounter.
“His face looked like he had a good tan, a deep suntan. He was not too dark but it was just like he had been out in the sun a lot and had a good tan. His hair was combed straight back and it was a dark brown and he seemed to have a good thick head of hair. His eyebrows, his face, his features were very normal. I don’t believe that he looked any different from any other man that you would meet on the street.”
But he wasn’t normal, Derenberger said. He had a large grin and kept his arms folded with his hands up under his armpits. And though he spoke to Derenberger, his smile never moved. He spoke, Derenberger said, telepathically.
“He asked me to roll down the window on my right-hand side of my truck and I done what he asked,” Derenberger said during the interview. “And this man stood there and he first asked me what I was called and I know he meant my name and I told him my name and he asked me, he said, ‘Why are you frightened?’ he said, ‘Don’t be frightened, we wish you no harm,’ he said, ‘We mean you no harm, we wish you only happiness,’ and I told him my name and when I told him my name he said he was called ‘Cold’.”
It was Derenberger’s, and the world’s, introduction to the entity known as “Indrid Cold.”
https://dailyyonder.com/woodrow-derenberger-and-the-legend-of-indrid-cold/2021/12/03/
Indrid Cold phone call clip from "The Mothman Prophecies"
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