Those of you familiar with John Keel's book The Mothman Prophecies (1975) may remember that it makes mention of a peculiar character who turned up in the vicinity of Point Pleasant at the time of the Mothman sightings. These more or less commenced on November 15th, 1966. I say more or less,because there might have been some earlier sightings. On November 2nd, Woodrow Derenberger alleges he was driving home in his truck when he was stopped by a curious vehicle. It was shaped like a kerosene chimney. It had a bulge in the center and was flaring, by which I assume emitting flames is meant, at both ends. A stranger emerged. He was wearing an overcoat of dark material and on his tanned face was a broad grin. He seemed to communicate with Derenberger by telepathy and introduced himself as Cold. Derenberger supplied his own name.
As they spoke, Cold's vehicle rose from the road, which it had been blocking, and hovered above it. Cold does not seem to have been very forthcoming, merely telling Derenberger to report the incident to the powers that be. Then his strange mode of transport descended to earth, he entered it and flew off. Once Derenberger had complied, the media got hold of the story and Derenberger earned celebrity status. Supporting witnesses of his conversation with Cold backed him up.
On November 4th, Derenberger felt he received mental messages from Cold. Cold claimed to come from a planet named Lanulos, where idyllic conditions prevailed.
Derenberger worked in an appliance store and one day two men entered and told him to forget what he had seen. Derenberger surmised that they were mafiosi, but he had no apparent reason to draw this conclusion. Derenberger also claimed he received threatening calls from persons unknown. Then Cold, who had given his first name as Indrid, actually met Derenberger's wife, whom he seems to have given the creeps. Derenberger was to go on to claim in due course that he had met other aliens and actually been taken to Lanulos.
This story has ingrained itself into the mythos surrounding Mothman. It has been thought that Indrid Cold was definitely involved in the nearby and contemporaneous Mothman scare, but there is no direct evidence of this.
The true fact of the matter is we don't know enough of Derenberger's psychology. There are witnesses who support his meeting with Cold and Cold's strange vehicle, but the rest sounds like a series of hallucinations. This leaves a couple of possiblilities open. The initial meeting with Cold may have stimulated Derenberger's brain to produce hallucinations, perhaps by making his temporal lobes over-active. If his wife actually did meet Cold, this means there was more truth in the story than just the initial encounter. On the other hand, I cannot absolutely rule out that there may be more veracity even in the case of the interplanetary voyages. Another possibility is that Cold really existed and somehow deliberately induced hallucinations of spaceflight in Derenberger's brain. We are told Cold once gave Derenberger some medication for stomach trouble. I would be very loathe to accept any kind of medication whose ingredients and provenance I did not know. Perhaps Cold's medication was the cause of Derenberger's beliefs that he had gone on flights in a spaceship.
The truth of the matter is we cannot draw any firm conclusions about who Indrid Cold was. We cannot even really be certain he existed, as the witness testimony may involve unintentional error on their parts. Indrid Cold started out as an enigma and an enigma he has remained.
Derenberger's book Visitors from Lanulos has been reprinted by New Saucerian Press at $17.99 (paperbound) and $10.29 (Kindle).
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