The Grinning Man

I'm looking for more information regarding the phenomenon called the Grinning Man. Opinions are also welcome.

To start, some background. The Grinning Man. Known aliases include Indrid Cold, Karl Ardo and Demo Hassan. Has been connected with Springheel Jack, the Mad Gasser of Mattoon, UFOs, and famously, Mothman. Appearance varies by reports, from a seemingly featureless entity without hair, ears or a nose, dressed in a reflective green jumpsuit, to a MIB-type figure.

The most famous case was at Point Pleasant, West Virginia during the Mothman sightings. A strange vehicle reportedly trailed and stopped a panel van. A man, roughly 6ft tall, with slicked black hair and the previously-mentioned green reflective suit exited. The witness claims that the man telepathically told him his name was Cold and asked him some bizarre questions. He said he would return. The witness never reported encountering him again.

Another encounter during this time frame was that of the Lily family. The family reported seeing various coloured lights over their home, as well as activity mirroring that of a poltergeist, doors slamming and opening, vehicles stalling and the like. Unexplained sounds were also heard. The climax of this was when the daughter claimed to have "dreamed" to have seen a tall, broad man standing over her, grinning.

en.wikipedia.org...
www.unexplained-mysteries.com...

The grinning man is one of the more creepy urban legends. I have read about him before, but this is the first time I have seen it brought to ATS.

reply to post by ShadeWolf


Heard of mothman but never the grinning man would liek to know more on this.

reply to post by ShadeWolf


I hope you're doing research for a compilation thread... would be interesting. Have you seen these yet?

Mike Conley's Tales of the Weird: Brush with Grinning Man no laughing matter

The Grinning Man

Apparently, John Keel would have been the person to talk to about this. He authored The Complete Guide to Mysterious Beings but has since died. The book might be something you'd consider.

Heres a description about grinning man and a picture

www.facepunch.com...



[edit on 2-5-2010 by sam_inc]

[edit on 2-5-2010 by sam_inc]

reply to post by sam_inc


Those are some rather interesting depictions, although a bit fanciful for my tastes. The first one reminds me a bit of the MIB phenomenon, and I love the shadowing of the cheeks, the second is almost certainly from a bad horror movie, and the third...well...it's definitely interesting, I don't think it comes anywhere close to the real thing. Plus, it only said he wore a green suit, not that he was green.

BTW, that text is directly ripped from Wikipedia.

reply to post by sam_inc


Sorry to add no info on this matter but i just looked athe artist impressions of the grinning man and the 3rd pic scared the hell out of me

I also read the wikipedia article about the grinning man, and I have to say that the creepiest part about him is that he just... grins at you. Like, yeah, that's probably where the name came from, but really. That's creepy.

VERY CREEPY.

reply to post by ShadeWolf


I've been obsessed with this character for the past year, and I'm surprised that there is not as much information on this topic as I thought there would be. I've recently finished the mothman prophecies by John Keel. I saw that someone suggested him earlier. This book had a great deal of information on the grinning man. The book documents all of the incidents covered on wikipedia, but it also covers several more including a grinning man by the name of vadig, and another by the name of Mr. Apol (pronounced apple). What's really bizarre is that the book deals more with these sightings and those of the MIB than the actual mothman. One interesting point that John Keel makes has to do with the possible origin of Indrid Colds name. He takes a point made by John Mitchell in the book "The View Over Atlantis" (a book on leye lines) which states that: "A peculiar feature of the old alignments is that certain names appear with remarkable frequency along their routes. Names with Red, White and Black are common; so are Cold or Cole, Dod, Merry and Ley." Keel suggests that these leye lines might have a connection with the name of Cold. One day on a whim I typed "Indrid" into a baby name database (lame but worth a shot) to see what meanings I would get. There was not an "indrid" but there was an "Indra" which was the indian god of storms. Rather this means anything or not, I don't know. As for the names of Vadig and Apol, I got nothin. I am curious to know where you found out about Karl Ardo and Demo Hassan. I have never heard of those two grinning man aliases before. Anyway sorry for the long post and the inevitable grammer mistakes, hope you found at least some of this stuff useful.

Kind of an old thread but I thought I would add this since if this is true its probably the best account of the the Grinning Man/Indrid Cold there is.

Kinda surprised no one else posted it here though I'm sure its in a thread on ATS somewhere.

www.freewebs.com...

The Grinning Man used to scare the hell out of me, in fact, the mere thought of him still does. I read up about him on Wikipedia, prior to them deleting the article. I really wish I could get the original text from that article, that was the scariest thing I've ever read in my life.

Not sure I've heard of it in full detail.
The article was deleted from wikipedia.

I found a few sites with detail of the thing in question...
www.unexplainable.net...

All of a sudden, a strange, tall man stepped out. He was described as being “really tall and tanned”. Derenberger claimed that the man had a “gleaming green” outfit on, similar to what the boys in NJ noted. The Grinning Man alleged communicated with Derenberger telepathically and asked him strange questions about UFO sightings in the area. The entity then, telepathically, revealed his name to be “Indrid Cold”. Site