79 THE TERRIBLE GRINNING MEN

FORTEAN TIMES BRINGS YOU THE NEWS THAT TIME FOR GOT

One of the iconic figures of Alice in Wonderland is the Cheshire cat, known for its mischievous grin and the gradual dimming of its body from time to time so that only the grin remains. Lewis Carroll popularised the cat, but while its origins can be traced to the 18th century, they ultimately remain obscure (see FT387:58-59 for Rob Gandy’s theory). Over a century after the publication of Carroll’s classic tale, an American man went down the rabbit hole to meet his own grinning creature.

For Woodrow Derenberger the evening of 2 November 1966 should have been as uneventful as any of the previous evenings in his life. It was about half past seven and Derenberger, a salesman and father of two young children, was driving home on Interstate 77 from Marietta, Ohio, to Parkersburg, West Virginia. As he approached the West Virginia 47 interchange, a large grey metallic object shaped like an old kerosene lamp with a flat bottom and a domed top suddenly appeared next to his car. It carried no lights and it made a “fluttering, soft noise”, Derenberger told a reporter two days after the incident. “It moved along eight to 10 inches above the pavement, blocked the highway and finally stopped,”