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Pterosaur in Lakewood, California

A lady reported observing a “huge dragon pteradactal” that had been perched, at about noon on June 19, 2012, on a phone line or cable company wire over her backyard:

. . . . sitting under my [gazebo] playing on my computer in Lakewood, CA. My dog started going crazy barking and whining. I started hearing what sounded like him having really deep burps and I got up after 30 seconds or so because I knew the sounds were not coming from my dog. . . . [I . . . lost my breath] when I saw this huge dragon pteradactal looking thing.

I scared it because when he saw me he jumped off the telephone wires and when he opened his huge wings they sounded like heavy fabric . . . I watched him fly across to a large tree [on the next street over] and go inside [the canopy of that tree].

Where the ropen or pterosaur-like creature was perched:

ropen pterosaur sat on this cable on June 19, 2012

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The lady drew a sketch of the end of the tail of the creature:

sketch of the end of the tail of the "dragon" seen in Lakewood, California

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Ropen in Lakewood, California

As the creature unfurled its wings, the lady was surprised by the loud noise, like “heavy fabric.” The long-tailed creature flew off . . . whereupon the lady ran into her house to tell her husband. The two of them then drove around the neighborhood, camera in hand, searching for what the lady later referred to as a ”dragon pteradactal.”

Pterodactyl in San Diego, California

Two eyewitnesses were shocked, one night last November, by two giant long-tailed creatures that flew over the city of San Diego: apparent “pterodactyls.” This was not the first report that I have received from San Diego . . .

Pterodactyl in San Diego, California

Two eyewitnesses were shocked, one night last November, by two giant long-tailed creatures that flew over the city of San Diego: apparent “pterodactyls.” This was not the first report that I have received from San Diego, but it’s the first one with repeated two-way communication. The two men saw, near Holy Cross Cemetary but far from extinct, the pterosaurs flying about 90-120 feet high.

Ropens Over San Diego

“It was about 8 pm. I was at my friend’s house. The sky was super clear. We were standing on the street. I was watching the stars when from the west came this large dark object overhead. As it got closer, we noticed its huge wingspan; each wing was about 10 to 15 ft. It was gliding right above us . . . we had never seen anything like it. Then it suddenly stopped and turned around. . . . Then . . . we saw another one above us. . . . then they both left [towards the] east.”

Flying Creature in Los Angeles

California is a hot state for reports of apparent living pterosaurs, probably because of the combination of large land area and large human population (potential eyewitnesses), like Texas, where the reports are even more common.

Flying only about 300 feet above the heads of two astonished humans (the couple had been taking a walk in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County one night in 2009), the creature appeared to have a wingspan of 10-20 feet. Also astonishing was the faint glow . . . [leading one eyewitness] to connect the creature with the ropen of Papua New Guinea.

Nocturnal Pterosaurs

The general rule points to nocturnal pterosaurs, with daylight sightings being quite likely the exceptions. We might review the two daylight sightings in Georgia a few years ago. The eyewitness saw two apparent pterosaurs flying early in the morning, but after sunrise, the first sighting being very soon after a major storm passed through that part of the United States. It seems likely that the storm had disturbed two nocturnal pterosaurs enough that they made themselves known in daylight, by flying over a highway.

News: Pterosaurs Seen in the United States

Reports of modern living pterosaurs keep coming in, and most of them appear to be unrelated to any hoax or misidentification.

A Real Pterosaur in Pennsylvania

I noticed a large black bird in the sky . . . I called my students attention to it and they were both instantly mesmerized. The wingspan appeared to be at least six feet . . . you could clearly make out a long “horn” or “cone” type protrusion coming out of the back of its skull . . . It flew over top us and landed in the water . . . Carrie ran around the building . . . There are always ducks in that water as well as rats and other things. [She returned] . . . she said it had taken off, Carrie said it was in the water splashing and eating or grabbing something in its mouth.

 All About Marfa Lights and Pterosaurs

This has recent news about ideas on the Marfa Lights, how they resemble other lights that have been connected with sightings of living pterosaurs. (Texas)

What an extraordinary idea! Marfa Lights come from glowing pterodactyls? How could such a wild idea have any merit? Consider what critics have written about that idea; you may be surprised. When the sarcasm is brushed aside, as we eventually must do to all sarcasm, the arguments against the bioluminescent-pterosaur idea appear weak.

Another Pterodactyl in California

It’s not new news, coming from a 2007 article in The Signal of the Santa Clarita Valley; but the original report is much older, a Los Angeles Times article about sightings in the 1880′s.

The creature . . . was “as big as a horse, had wings like an oversize bat, big bulgy eyes the size of mushmelons . . . and a long, woolly tail.”

Second Edition of “Live Pterosaurs in America” (Author: Whitcomb) Coming Soon

Within the next few weeks, the second edition of the nonfiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America will be published. This expanded edition will include new reports of sightings, thrilling eyewitness accounts of encounters with living pterosaurs in the United States. Consider excerpts from some of the sightings.

San Fernando Valley, California Pterosaur Sighting

I received an email, in September of 2009, from a man who lives in the San Fernando Valley (northern Los Angeles County). . . . my girlfriend and I saw a creature last night (9/21/2009) that baffled us. It was a very large, winged creature that was gliding maybe 100 yards above us. We stared at the creature in disbelief because it was so strange . . . the wings had a glow or reflection.

Black and Orange Pterosaur in Texas

Aaron Tullock was eight years old (about 1995) when he saw a hovering flying creature . . . Late in a sunny afternoon in Marion County, Texas, he was alone in the yard of his grandparent’s house. “I saw a featherless flying animal with a wingspan of about 4 1/2 to 5 feet and a long tail with a diamond type shape at the tip of it. No hair or feathers anywhere, just leathery reptile type skin. . . . mouth/beak full of long sharp teeth . . . Its color was bright orange with black ‘tiger stripes.’ . . . although the animal was brightly colored, the underside was not brightly colored . . .”

“Pterodactyl” Flies At Night in Ohio

“. . . On June 26, 2010, at 11:15 pm, I was driving on Rt 309 just outside of Kenton, Ohio, perfectly clear night . . . and I had a creature swoop down and glide over my hood of my car. It glided smoothly and looked like a Pterodactyl . . . Because of the full moon of that eve I could see it remarkably clear and it was very close to my car. . . . I just can’t get this out of my mind. I did not know who to contact . . . thank you for your quick response.”

In addition, there is a new chapter about the Marfa Lights of Texas.

The appendix of the book will have several pages on the 1971 pterosaur sighting in Cuba, by Eskin Kuhn (actually he saw two pterosaurs). The proximity to the United States and the similarities with pterosaurs seen in the U.S. made it appropriate to include that sighting in the book.

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Flying Creature in Los Angeles

Flying only about 300 feet above the heads of two astonished humans (the couple had been taking a walk in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County one night in 2009), the creature appeared to have a wingspan of 10-20 feet. Also astonishing was the faint glow that led one of the eyewitnesses to connect the creature with the ropen of Papua New Guinea.

But it was not the bright flash of the ropen that the Los Angeles creature displayed that night; the glow was faint enough to suggest a possible reflective quality on the wings. It was definitely unlike a bird.

More about the Flying Creature in San Fernando Valley, Southern California

Addendum #1:

To those who would dismiss accounts like this with “mistaken identification” I would reply with, “What was it?” If what was seen in Los Angeles County, California, in 2009, was not a giant glowing ropen, then what would appear like that and not be that?

Some ill-informed supporters of the concept of living pterosaurs have seen a video of a Frigate Bird and thought it was a ropen; that is unfortunate. Frigate birds are not ropens, and they appear very different from each other.

Addendum #2:

The new nonfiction book Searching for Ropens and Finding God (third edition) has a new chapter on sightings of apparent pterosaurs in the United States of America, a chapter that is 100 pages long. This is serious.

Here is the first paragraph of that chapter in the book, a brief mentioning of a sighting of a pterosaur-like flying creature in Los Angeles County:

On a pleasant day in June of 2012, I walked into the Sheriff station in Lakewood, California, two miles northeast of my home in Long Beach. I knew better than to tell a police officer of my concerns about the safety of family pets now that pterodactyls had invaded the community. Nobody knows better than I: Avoid that word and avoid uttering the unforgivable word “dragon.” Yet there I was, holding onto the numbered tag as I waited for my turn, the moment when I would walk up to the window and tell the police officer . . . well, tell him something.

City Pterosaurs

Some people assume that pterosaurs, because they have not yet been officially discovered by Western science, fly only in remote areas of the planet. Think about this: If a butterfly can be carried by wind over the Atlantic Ocean, still alive, (it happens sometimes) what about a large pterosaur, still alive? In other words, if even just one species of pterosaur were living, let’s say in a remote jungle in South America, what would keep some of its descendents (over centuries) from flying elsewhere?

On page 45 of my book, Live Pterosaurs in America (first edition, published in mid-2009), a lady describes a flying creature (“at least twice the size of a hawk. Maybe three times”) that she and her friend thought might have a wingspan of twenty feet; that creature was sailing over Philadelphia. A few months after my book was published, a couple reported to me a flying, dimly glowing creature, too big to be a bird, that they observed while they were taking a walk one night; that creature was gliding over a residential neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley (Los Angeles, California, area). Large flying creatures, including pterosaurs, cannot be confined to remote areas of the planet.

Encounter in Rancho Santa Margarita, ca. 1997

I interviewed this man in 2009, although his experience resembles a “hearing” more than a “sighting.” (Rancho Santa Margarita is in Orange County, California.)

“One night I was awakened . . . awful screeching and screaming  . . . [like] pigs being slaughtered. . . . I opened the window . . . [there was] some thrashing . . . in some hedges or bushes . . . in the backyard of my . . . neighbors  [house] . . . I went into the front yard . . . heard a deep, soft, ‘hushing’ sound, like giant wings lifting something heavy into the air . . . around the side of my house . . . I didn’t ’see’ so much as ‘felt’ it. Whatever it was swept up and onto the chimney of the next-door-neighbors [vacant] house . . . a large hulking ‘presence’ sat on that chimney. As I stared hard into the dark, trying to make out a shape or a movement, I realized whatever it was was staring right back at me. I left the yard quickly and went inside.”

I submit this report not as significant evidence for live pterosaurs but as evidence that respected people sometimes encounter unexplained flying creatures, even in Southern California. I verified (phone calls) that this is a successful businessman, with no apparent reason to fabricate this story.