Small Town Monsters is a film series that explores lost and bizarre history centered on strange creatures and anomalies around the United States. They have begun to release small ‘case files’ clips freely available through their Youtube channel, and the first one centers around a very popular character in the annals of Forteana: The enigmatic Indrid Cold.
The clip interviews the daughter of Woodrow Derenberger –the man who claimed to have met Cold one night on a lonely road, as immortalized by John Keel’s classic The Mothman Prophecies— and she discloses some interesting tidbits about the story I hadn’t heard before. I take issue, though, with the notion Cold communicated ‘telepathically’ to Woody, because in the recorded interview below you can hear the man himself describe his incredible close encounter, and state Cold asked him to roll down his window so they could talk –whether the glass interfered with his ‘psychic control’ over Derenberger is something I’ll leave for you to decide on your own…
But if Indrid Cold wasn’t a figment of Derenberger’s imagination, then WHO was he? Perhaps he shall never find out, and by now the ‘Ufo Mythological Zone’ (a term coined by my colleague Lorin Cutts) has forever linked him with the ‘grinning man’ archetype –something I myself confess on contributing to, with my essay “Anarchy in the UFO!” on the UFOs: Reframing the Debate” anthology.
One thing is for certain: Indrid Cold’s fascination stems from the ‘liminality’ of his persona: the fact we cannot pinpoint neither his nature, origins or even his intentions, being how despite his efforts to calm Derenberger’s fears with a smile (or a grin) he seemed to have caused him a permanent trauma.
This liminality seems to be confirmed by the very name of the planet he allegedly came from: Lanulos. A word that may be pure gibberish concocted by Derenberger’s febrile mind… or an anagram for the Spanish words “Sol” and “Luna.” And what is it that we get when the Sun and the Moon get together? Why TWILIGHT of course!
