One of the more bizarre incidences in UFO lore is eerie because of how unusual it is, and because to this day those that investigated it have never been able to provide a conclusive explanation.
It was November 2, 1966, and sewing machine salesman Woodrow Derenberger was driving home at night on an empty road in rural West Virginia when he saw a UFO (although he didn’t use the term when he reported the incident) blocking the road ahead. He stopped, and watched a man emerge from the craft and approach his car.
Derenberger would later say the man – who was smiling – was entirely normal in appearance and “courteous and friendly”. But he never moved his face when he spoke: all communication was telepathic. The smiling man identified himself as ‘Cold’ and said he came from “another country” and was not harmful. He told Derenberger he would contact him again and asked him to tell others he had been contacted.
Derenberger did exactly that, and reported the encounter to police the same evening. A media circus followed, including a live TV interview and reports in newspapers nationwide. Others would report seeing UFOs in the area, some said they’d even seen Cold but driven past without stopping and two children claimed to have seen a grinning man fitting Cold’s description several days before Derenberger’s sighting.
In the years that followed, Derenberger gave a full name for the figure – Indrid Cold – and claimed that not only had Cold continued regular visits but that he had identified himself as an alien from a planet called Lanulos, and even taken Derenberger to the planet multiple times. Derenberger gave talks on his experiences, and even co-wrote a (poor selling) book about it in 1971 entitled ‘Visitors From Lanulos’.
In time – mostly due to attention from paranormal researcher John Keel – Indrid Cold entered the UFO mythology, and would become linked with the Mothman cryptid. As these things do, the character evolved in myth and has become somewhat of a cryptid himself (called ‘The Grinning Man’), since appearing in movies, TV shows, books and games. Indrid Cold has long outlived his ‘creator’ and the character’s identity these days runs the gamut from friendly space alien to extradimensional devil.
In some ways Derenberger seems like another George Adamski or Howard Menger – two men who had obtained a measure of fame and fortune from their alleged alien encounters. But Derenberger had apparently not heard of either, was not particularly interested in UFOs, and those that interviewed him at the time found him genuine and not motivated by profit. Furthermore, Derenberger most decidedly did not benefit from his tale: the notoriety and attention made him paranoid and depressed, lost him his job, ruined his marriage, and eventually left him delusional.
And yet he never recanted, and to his grave in 1990 always claimed it was true. He seemed to genuinely believe he had been visited many times over decades by a mysterious smiling telepath named Indrid Cold, who had shown him wonders other men could only dream of.
Fancy, madness or the truth? With Derenberger gone and Cold now part of folklore, does it matter?