Iowa Dragons

 



Yet another unlikely place dragons have shown up in the modern world is the eastern side of Iowa. Just like the River Dinos, this is another one of those frustrating cryptids that have multiple sightings, but there’s very little information in each account.


The description of these dragons varies with each encounter, but generally they’re winged snakes, with shiny scales and horned heads. No legs are ever reported. Sometimes their heads are more sea horse like or crocodile like. All the dragons are reported to be larger than any native bird, with wingspans up to 15 feet. They also flying by slithering or twisting through the air, so we have another cryptid who doesn’t flap its wings.


The earliest sighting was written about in the Burlington Times on August 11, 1887. A farmer named Lee Quarter saw a giant serpent flying over his corn fields. He said it had a forked tongue, serpent like body and scales the glistened in the sun. It flew with a writhing and twisting motion. The serpent landed in Lee’s field with an audible thud, but took off again before he could get to its location.


A few years later in 1890, there were numerous reports of dragons seen around Independence Iowa. I couldn’t find the exact number of times the dragon was seen this time, only that the number of sightings was substantial and the town was in an uproar. The dragon seen this time had an alligator like head on an otherwise serpent like body, massive wings, two horns and was scaly and green.


After this the dragons went quiet and were only seen a century later.


The next report was by a woman named Megan and another unnamed witness in 2005. She and her passenger were driving through Burlington in the middle of the night, around 3am, when they saw a giant creature flying through the sky. She described it as being ten feet long with 15 foot wings. The dragon had a long snake like body, sea horse shaped head, bat like wings and a tail that flowed behind it. The beast was brown in colour. Similarly, a pastor in Colfax said he saw the dragon in 2006, but no other details were given.


In 2015 an anonymous witness was sitting in their garden with their grandfather when they too saw the dragon. This sighting took place at dusk. They were not far from a lake (they didn’t mention which one) and planned to do some night fishing once it got dark enough. From their yard they saw something large flying over the lake. At first the two of them thought it was a large bird of prey, but as the creature got closer they could clearly see it was a bat winged serpent. They watched it for several minutes before it flew away again.


2018 Tyson Atkins saw three dragons in northern Iowa. They were circling near the sun from his perspective, as a thunderstorm closed in from the opposite direction.



 One person known on the internet as Zeuz (no real name given) had the most interesting report, but this being an internet comment it must be taken with a grain of salt. He said that he sees the dragons in Grand Mound Iowa frequently, most often during nights with full moons. They most often appear in groups of three. The majority of them are brown. But there’s one large individual who is larger, blue in colour and has four wings. Adding that these dragons occasionally prey on his cattle.


Even more so than Wisconsin, Iowa seems a very strange place to find dragons. One must ask where they would hide in such a flat and open landscape.



Sources


https://jackandkitty.com/dragons-in-iowa/

https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Iowa_Dragons

https://poddtoppen.se/podcast/1272017998/paranormal-dads/dragons-in-iowa-episode-49

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqfVqBq0g2U&t=20s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9TNbyHGQig




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