Indrid Cold – The Grinning Man

What would you do if you saw a strange ship pass you by and a tall man with an eerie grin on the side of the road flag you down?

While Mothman was terrorizing Point Pleasant, WV, there was another entity roaming the area – Indrid Cold, also known as the Grinning Man.

Countless witnesses claimed to see this strange, grinning man; in fact, one man – Woodrow Derenberger – claimed to enter his spaceship and visit his home planet of Lanulos. But, is it believable? Listen now!

What would you do if you saw a grinning man standing in the road?

Would you stop and talk to this entity?

Is Indrid Cold connected to the Mothman?

What is up, Bizarros?! This week we dive into the fascinating tale of Indrid Cold.

Who Is Indrid Cold?

Well, that’s the mystery, right?

So, what is Indrid Cold? What does he look like – generally speaking, before we get into a few encounters?

Also known as the Grinning Man and the Smiling Man, he is considered a humanoid entity, but his origins are mostly unknown.

As you can tell by his name, he is very well known for his persistent and eerie grin.

He is a very tall “man” that wears a shiny, metallic-like set of green overalls and has very tiny, beady eyes that are unnaturally spaced far apart.

Some folks claim that he has no visible ears or nose, and his skin has been called tan or greenish. He also does not have a single hair on his head; he is perfectly bald.

With that said, let’s get into a few encounters with this creepy man.

Also, just a note – since a lot of this occurs around the same time as Mothman, a paranormal investigator gets mentioned a few times – John Keel – he spoke to encounter witnesses both about motorman and also these strange Indrid Cold sightings.

Indrid Cold Encounter Experiences

Encounter 1 – New Jersey

The first encounter takes place on October 11, 1966, in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Two boys, James Yanchitis and Marvin Munoz, were walking home along 4th Street and Jersey Street.

As they were walking, they reached a corner that was parallel to the New Jersey Turnpike.

This particular turnpike is elevated, and there is an extremely steep incline that goes down from the busy street, which leads to 4th Street.

Also, a large wire fence runs along the edge of the other street below where the boys were walking.

Essentially, it’s almost impossible for anyone to climb up the incline to the turnpike above. It would be super dangerous to be in that spot.

Up ahead, under bright street lights, they saw a man they would never forget.

James would later say, “He was standing behind the fence. I don’t know how he got there. He was the biggest man I ever saw.”

Once James saw the man standing in a location that felt impossible to get to, he instantly nudged Marvin to quietly make sure that he saw him, too.

James asked Marvin, hey, who’s that guy standing behind you?

Marvin looked around and saw him, this huge man standing behind the fence.

Originally, he was staring at a house off in the distance, but once he heard the boys rustling, his attention shifted to them.

He wasn’t walking or doing anything. He was just standing there, still, with a large grin plastered on his face.

Marvin claimed that they heard reports about people being chased by a tall green man earlier that day, so the boys didn’t stick around to see what this man may have wanted.

A few days after this encounter, well-known paranormal investigator and journalist John A. Keel interviewed the boys about their experience.

The boys were interviewed separately and provided the same exact story, which was:

“The man was over six feet tall, they agreed and was dressed in a sparkling green coverall costume that shimmered and seemed to reflect the street lights.

There was a wide black belt around his waist.” The boys also said, “He had a very dark complexion and little round eyes…real beady…set far apart.”

The most frightening and bizarre aspect of the encounter is the fact that “They could not remember seeing any hair, ears, or nose on this figure.”

The figure reported by witnesses became associated with extraterrestrials because it was sighted shortly after a UFO report near the same area.

The report states that a “blazing white light as big as a car” almost hit the 550-foot tall television tower outside of Pompton Lakes, New Jersey.

A policeman and his wife witnessed the object move in a slow manner north, and it then disappeared beyond the nearby hills.

On the other side of the hills, Sergeant Benjamin Thompson and Patrolman Edward Wester of the Wanaque Reservoir Police also witnessed the same light at around 9:45 p.m. as it flew low over the reservoir.

“The light was brilliantly white,” Officer Thompson stated, “It lit up the whole area for about three hundred yards.

In fact, it blinded me when I got out of the patrol car to look at it, and I couldn’t see for about twenty minutes afterward.”

Let’s move on to the second encounter.

2 Mrs. Lily Encounter

Another encounter with the grinning man occurred in Point Pleasant, again in 1966.

This encounter takes place in a rural home owned by the Lilly family.

They were dealing with what they thought was poltergeist activity in their home. They thought their home was actually haunted, although they would see strange lights in the sky around their house.

A quote from Mrs. Lilly:

”We’ve seen all kinds of strange things…blue lights, green ones, red ones, things that change color.

Some have been so low that we thought we could see diamond-shaped windows in them.

And none of them make any noise at all.” Automobiles near the Lilly home would stall unexplainably, and kitchen cabinets and doors inside the Lilly home would slam inexplicably in the middle of the night while everyone was asleep.

Their living room door, which was chained and snap-locked at night, would be discovered the next morning completely wide open as if someone had somehow opened it from the outside.

Another very unusual event the family would experience would be phone calls and strange noises.

Their phone would ring and ring. And when they answered it, they would hear metallic, incoherent sounds on the other end of the line.

Other times it sounded like a baby crying, which sometimes they thought sounded like it may actually be coming from inside the house.

They called the phone company to report their experience, but the company had no answer for them.

John A. Keel, who personally investigated and questioned the Lilly family, asked them, “Did you ever dream that there was a stranger in the house in the middle of the night?”

Linda Lilly, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Lilly, then confessed her story.

She described how she woke up one night and saw a very large figure towering over her bed.

“It was a man, a big man. Very broad. I couldn’t see his face very well, but I could see that he was grinning at me. He walked around the bed and stood right over me. I screamed again and hid under the covers; when I looked again, he was gone.”

Linda then ran into her mother’s room, shrieking hysterically: “There is a man in my room! There is!” She refused to sleep alone for months following the encounter.

Encounter 3 – Woodrow Derenberger (aka Woody Derenberger)- 1966

The next encounter took place that same year, 1966, and just about a month later, on November 2nd.

This one took place in West Virginia and sparked the tie-in to Mothman (West Virginia’s Man-Bird.)

So, it’s November 1966, it’s night, and Woodrow Derenberger was driving on I-77 and returning from a business trip in Marietta, Ohio.

He was a sewing machine salesman currently living in Mineral Wells, West Virginia.

He heard some rumbling behind him as he was driving and realized that his sewing machine was poorly positioned in the back seat of the truck.

So, he turned the dome light on in his car and turned around to move the sewing machine.

As he did, he saw a car pass him, and then as soon as that car, he saw there was something else behind it – maybe 50 feet or so.

Quickly, this ship approached his truck. He thought it must just be another car but realized it had no lights.

Focusing his attention on this craft, it pulled ahead of him and in front of him and started slowing down.

To avoid a collision, Derenberger slowed his truck down and pulled off the highway onto the shoulder.

He studied the ship for a minute.

It was some type of aircraft that looked like a “kerosene lamp chimney.”

A moment later, a hatch opened on the aircraft, and a man emerged and began approaching Derenberger’s truck.

A quote from Derenberger:

“The sound when it was hovering over the ground and when it was lifting, I couldn’t distinguish no difference in this sound; it was a low fluttery noise.

If you’ve ever heard the blades of a helicopter as it was idling sitting on the ground, that would be the closest way that I could describe the noise it made, but it was not very loud.

It was approximately 8 to 10 inches off of the ground, and as soon as it came to a stop, immediately there was a door on the side facing me open, and this man stepped out, and he started walking immediately right to the right-hand side of my truck.”

While the man was relatively tall, in the dark of the night, he appeared to be a normal-looking human.

Woody claimed, “He had a topcoat on, and it was zippered down the front.

His top, the top two buttons, were open and, he, this outfit was a shiny material, it was a glossy outfit like it was metallic.

I suppose you would call it, and his shirt was a little bit darker than his jacket, and below his coat, he had on trousers of the same kind of cloth material, and I believe the trousers were just a shade lighter than his coat.

He looked perfectly natural and normal as any human being.

He had, his face looked like he had a good tan, a deep sun tan, 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 eyebrows, his face, and his features were very normal. I don’t believe that he looked any different from any other man that would meet on the street.”

But there was one strikingly abnormal feature. His grin.

He wore a long-lasting, uncomfortable grin and had his arms folded with his hands under his armpits as he walked.

The man spoke to Derenberger, but completely telepathically. He never opened his mouth.

A quote:

“He asked me to roll down the window on my right-hand side of my truck, and I did what he asked,”

“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.”

That was the name that he was called by, and he asked me what the city of Parkersburg was; he pointed to the light.

He didn’t point, but he gave the impression that he was pointing. He asked me what that was called, and I told him it was Parkersburg; it was a city, a town.

He asked me if most of the people lived in this city or town, and I explained to him that it was a place of business; it was where we transacted our business, but the people lived in communities, outline communities, most of the people.

When I told him that this was a city, he said that where his home was that was called a ‘Gathering,’ and again he told me not to be frightened, which I was.

I was very frightened, and as far as I can understand, this was all mental; there were no spoken words from him.

I knew what he was asking me, but yet he stood there, and his mouth did not move.

He had a smile on his face; he appeared very courteous and friendly. And after I talked with him for a while, he told me, he said ‘We will see you again.’

Then Indrid Cold’s ship maneuvered its way over to Cold, a hatch opened, and the grinning man entered the ship.

A second later – it shot straight up, making a fluttering sound.

He was stunned. He didn’t even remember the drive home.

When he got to his house, his wife claimed he looked like a zombie.

He just sat down at their table in silence and stared into space.

He didn’t know what to do other than report his experience to the Parkersburg police.

By the next day, the media frenzy surrounding the story took off. Derenberger agreed to be interviewed on live television on WTAP.

Taking part in the interview were members of the state police, representatives of the Wood County Airport, the Parkersburg Police, and a representative from the Wright Patterson Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio.

For 30 minutes, the men peppered Derenberger with questions about the strange encounter.

After the interview aired, however, others came forward with claims that they had also seen a figure matching Derenberger’s description of Indrid Cold.

One man reported that a man matching Indrid Cold’s description tried to flag him down, but he was too afraid to stop.

Apparently, other people claimed to see lights and “fluttering vehicles” on the road Derenberger said he talked to Cold on.

And several other witnesses reported they had seen Derenberger stopped on the road talking to a man on the same road.

This isn’t where Derenberger’s encounters with the strange grinning man end.

Just a few days after his initial encounter with Indrid Cold, on November 4th, Derenberger was heading back to West Virginia from Pomeroy, Ohio, with a friend.

As they were driving, Derenberger felt a tingling sensation in his head. Almost immediately, he realized it was Cold trying to communicate with him.

A quote from Derenberger:

“He told me to slow down and drive very carefully, that his ship was directly over my truck, and they were following me.

He told me that the first time he had contacted me, he had only asked me questions to calm me and settle my fears.”

As Cold’s ship was floating above their car, telepathic messages began spilling in Derenberger’s head.

He offered up information to Derenberger. Indrid Cold revealed where he was from, his home planet named, Lanulos.

Another quote:

“Mr. Cold told me that he was from a planet called Lanulos. He said that it was located close to the galaxy of Ganymede and that his planet was practically the same as ours, that they have woods, fields, streams, and oceans.

They have woods, streams, fields, and oceans, the same as we do.

They’ve taken samples of our vegetation and animals. Ours are much like theirs. Cold is married.

He said his first name is Indrid, his wife is named Kimi, and he had two sons at that time. He has three children now.

Their life span is 125-175 years, but if they stayed here too long, I think they’d go back in years so far that they might possibly forget how to manipulate their craft.

Lanulos has many things that would be of value to us, and we have many things that would be of value to Lanulos.

Cold wants to have a friendly exchange.

There is a landing base on the Moon, which is shared by many interplanetary civilizations.

Those from Lanulos also have a mother ship up there, as big as a football field and nine stories high, equipped with berthing docks.

The scout ships land there and are taken aboard the mothership.”

While his friend he was riding with did not speak to Cold, he also reported feeling weird sensations in his head during the ride.

Also, imagine what Derenberger looked like, probably mouth agape, super focused, just quiet for like 10 minutes.

Funny, yet strange.

Derenberger started speaking out and claiming that the US government and NASA were aware of Indrid Cold and this planet he mentioned.

He also believed that there were bases on Mars and Venus, too.

Over the next few weeks, Derenberger claimed that Indrid Cold made frequent appearances, both in his home and around town.

He even brought another individual with him named Karl. They would show up on his back porch late at night and have long conversations telepathically.

He even let Derenberger explore their ship.

As this was occurring, there was a massive wave of UFO sightings reported around the city of Parkersburg.

Unfortunately, all of this publicity took a toll on Derenberger. There were skeptics, and folks would often ridicule him.

He kept changing and losing jobs. He became obsessive to the point that his wife ended up leaving him.

His house would often receive strange unknown phone calls.

Sometimes they were threats to stop speaking about his experience; other times, they were odd beeps and electronic hums; sometimes, it was just silence.

As his story grew in notoriety, folks would flock to his house late and night, hidden to try and catch sight of Indrid Cold or UFO activity.

There was one occasion when two men were hiding in the woods by Derenberger’s property.

They observed a black vehicle enter his front yard. A peculiar man dressed in an all-black suit with tan skin exited and talked with Woodrow before leaving.

The men were disappointed, not fully understanding what they actually may have witnessed.

From Dereberger’s perspective, men in black suits would show up unannounced at Derenberger’s door and abruptly ask questions regarding his experience with Indrid Cold.

If he wasn’t outright with information or details of his experience, they acted in what he called a threatening manner.

At one point in 1967, Derenberger went missing for 6 months.

During this time, he claimed that Indrid Cold took him to his home planet of Lanulos.

He said the residents walked around wearing basically no clothing, although some wore colorful shorts.

All of the words written on signs appeared to be squiggly, oriental-like writing.

They lived in a galaxy called Ganymede, and everything was peaceful. They believe everyone is born equal and cannot comprehend the word hate. They were all happy. There was no war.

There is a lot more on Derenberger; he has a whole book on his experience with Indrid Cold and visiting Lanulos. It wasn’t written by him, but in 1971 he provided the information to Harold Hubbard.

He went to the moon, Saturn, their home planet, and all of that good stuff. There is a lot more about Derenberger and his experience, so that may be its own episode one day.

But if you want to learn more in the meantime, I recommend checking out Visitors from Lanulos.

But let’s move on to our 4th encounter.

Encounter 4 – 1978 – Pier

On December 3rd, 1979, a police officer named Zanfretta got out of his patrol car at a self-service gas station near Genoa, which is about an hour and a half south of Point Pleasant.

The officer claimed that while he was filling up, he heard someone calling out to him from the shadows outside of the station.

Cautiously he searched around, and then he saw where the voice was coming from.

Zanfretta described the entity that was speaking to him as a tall, humanoid figure with a bald, “egg-shaped” head, who was dressed in a checkered suit that included a chest plate made of “steel.”

He was also grinning from ear to ear.

As the grinning man spoke to him, the officer realized his lips were not moving.

Still, he was compelled by what the smiling man was saying.

He ordered the officer to drive his vehicle into a small cloud that was hovering just above the ground nearby.

The officer claimed that the sound of the Grinning Man’s voice physically compelled him to obey the request.

The young guard did as he was instructed and claimed that he and his patrol car were levitated within the cloud and deposited onto a colossal spacecraft.

This ship, according to the watchman, was filled with reptilian-like aliens and large, transparent cylinders filled with a weird blue liquid.

One of the cylinders was said to have contained a “frog-shaped” body, which the aliens explained was: “An enemy of ours from another planet.”

What Is Indrid Cold?

What do you think, Bizarros? What could Indrid Cold be?

Was he an extraterrestrial or a demonic entity?

Could he be a normal-but-creepy human being, or the Men in Black?

Or was all of this Mass Hysteria? 

Let us know what you think in the comments.