Category: Eastern U.S.

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Chesapeake Sighting of 1990

On page 40 of the second edition of Live Pterosaurs in America begins a detailed account of a daylight sighting in around 1990, summarized here.

“What I saw I remember distinctly and will never forget. I was twenty years old, taking a camping trip with my boss and his friends, and I believe it was near the Maryland-Virginia line in the Chesapeake area. We were tubing [inner-tube] in the river . . .

“My boss and I suddenly saw, parallel with the water, quite a distance away, a flying object that was strange. Why? Because we knew it was quite far away, but it was as big as a regular bird would appear up close. It was gliding, with an occasional slow, smooth flap. . . . amazement took over. It flew directly over us, about twenty yards above us . . . it perched on a tree about fifty yards past us. A minute later, it flew away along the same river path, and I’ve never seen anything like it since.

“I know what it was. It wasn’t a heron; it wasn’t a vulture; it wasn’t an albatross. I had spent countless hours as a child studying dinosaurs and playing with dinosaur models. I know what I saw.

“. . . This [pterosaur] had a pterodactyl protruded head and a rhamphorhynchoid diamond-tipped tail. I believe you call it a rhamphorhynchoid-pterosaur [actually, when descriptions suggest a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur, I usually call it ‘ropen’] I’ve seen it. It’s hard to be exact about the size. . . . wing-tip to wing-tip, about 12+ feet? I don’t even know if I’m close. And the length, I’d estimate about 10 feet? It was brown and leathery.”

Modern Pterosaur Details

Details are what make scientific progress possible, but Naish seems to always avoid mentioning any details involving sighting reports that are taken most seriously by the cryptozoologists most actively involved. He can write many paragraphs without mentioning even one sighting report, yet he tries to make it appear that all reports are wrong.

Science and Marfa Lights

In the book Hunting Marfa Lights, by James Bunnell, pages 270-279 contain a table with dozens of ML (mystery light) sightings with much information on dates, times, and weather conditions. The recent excitement on some blogs comes from a recent enlightenment centered on the dates July 14-15, 2006 (Texas time), in particular on the times that those mystery lights first appear each night: Thirty-eight and thirty-seven minutes after sunset respectively. This now seems extremely significant.

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Live Pterosaurs in America - back cover of bookReports of huge flying “pterodactyls” in American skies have floated around the internet for years; but before about 2005, details were scarce. When an eyewitness was named, the interviewer was often anonymous; even when an eyewitness was credible, and the account published in a newspaper, the story was ridiculed, discouraging others who had also seen strange flying creatures. Where could eyewitnesses go? What a predicament for them! Who would believe their reports?

Read the authoritative cryptozoology book on reports of living pterosaurs in many of the 48 contiguous states of the USA.

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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.”

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Another Pterosaur in South Carolina

Another eyewitness has come forward, with a report of a huge pterosaur seen flying over a sports field in Clinton, South Carolina. Others saw the creature flying high in the sky that day; I hope other eyewitnesses will come forward.

I saw a pterosaur in Clinton, SC when I was 15 or 16 while at a soccer camp at Presbyterian College in 1994 or 1995. . . . It was huge, as big as a plane . . . It was the last day of camp . . . I happened to be on the side lines resting when I saw a huge pterodactyl-looking creature, flying very high in the sky. The strangest thing . . . how slow the wings were flapping and how high it was flying. Several parents who were watching the scrimmages and some of the other players on the sidelines saw the creature too.

Years later in college, I was having some beers with some friends and somehow one of them ended up blurting out that he saw a pterodactyl. I told him I had seen one too and as it turns out, he was at the same soccer camp in Clinton, SC when he saw it. Over time I had started doubting myself because, or course, no one I ever told believed me. Now I had someone else to back up my story. Seeing Susan Wooten’s story on your website further reinforces my belief in what I saw.

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Ohio Pterosaur Sightings

I recently received an email from an eyewitness:

” . . .On June 26, 2010 at 11:15 PM I was driving on Rt 309 just outside of Kenton Ohio, perfectly clear night and very bright outside due to the full moon and I had a creature swoop down and glide over my hood of my car. It glided smoothly and looked like a Pterodactyl and I thought to myself “what the H _ ll was that!” and watched it as it smoothly flew into a thick area of trees . . . it looked like it had a tail and was also looking like it was jet black, I could see almost the bones in its wings but I did NOT see feathers at all.”

A minister gave this account of his sighting in Ohio:

“It was around 9am on a Sunday morning in Oct. of 2005. I was in Mount Vernon, Ohio. I was coming to preach at a church out in the country . . . I happen to notice a creature in the sky. . . . I took a moment to slow the car down and take a look at it. To my estimation it appeared to have no feathers . . . a leathery grayish color. . . . It’s wings did not look like bird wings, but also appeared leathery and bat-like . . . The tail: longer than most bird tails I am used to, no feathers, and with a diamond-shaped point at the end.”

Some time ago I received an email from an eyewitness of a daylight long-tailed pterosaur.

 ‘We have them here in U.S. Hi my name is Jan. I am from Antwerp, OH in Northwest Ohio. I have seen the same thing. It was huge. And it matches your description. About 4.5 ft tall, 10ft from head to end of tail. long skinny tail with a spade about 3-4in from end of tail. It had a wing span of I would say 8-10ft. Dark green skin sort of like an alligator. It had round long pointed teeth . . .”

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Pterosaur Sighting in South Carolina

From the nonfiction book Live Pterosaurs in America (Chapter One: South Carolina Sighting):

Susan Wooten was driving east on Highway 20, to the town of Florence, on a clear mid-afternoon in the fall of about 1989, following a girl who lived in her dorm, who was driving ahead. . . . Wooten saw something flying from her left, then passing in front of her, behind her friend’s car. “It swooped down over the highway and back up gracefully over the pines,” but its appearance was shocking: “It looked as big as any car . . . NO feathers . . . like a humongous bat.”

Local libraries revealed other sighting accounts in the area, but not until 2007 did Wooten find much more: accounts on web sites . . .

Since early 2004, living-pterosaurs investigations have relied on eyewitnesses finding a web page and responding. Have you seen something like a living pterosaur? Do you know someone who saw a “pterodactyl” or “dinosaur bird?” Please contact me, Jonathan Whitcomb. You may remain anonymous; your privacy will be protected.pterosaur in South Carolina, sketch by eyewitness Susan Wooten

Read more about bats, ropens, and pterosaurs

This crude sketch relates to the realistic sketch done by Eskin Kuhn of two pterosaurs he saw in Cuba in 1971.

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Jupiter, Florida, Sighting

At about 2:30 a.m., in 2002 or 2003, two men were talking outside a house in Jupiter, Florida, when a strange creature flew over their heads and into the backyard. Moments later, another one flew in a different direction. They got a good look at the first apparent pterosaur: “beige brownish color, . . . no feathers, pointed beak . . . long pointed thing protruding from the back of its head.” The wingspan was about four feet. [more details, see pages 24-25 in the book Live Pterosaurs in America]

The time of the sighting answers a question about some of the sightings in Papua New Guinea: Why do native islanders, in at least three areas, report that these (pterosaur-like) creatures fly around at Christmas time? Modern pterosaurs have not been converted to Christianity (although a few cryptozoologists have petitioned modern pterosaurs to preach to those who need to be converted to Christianity). Many natives celebrate Christmas at night, so they are walking about when the ropen (called “kor” in areas of northern Papua New Guinea) is flying around. Most modern long-tailed pterosaurs appear to be nocturnal, for they appear mostly at night.

Read more about the Jupiter, Florida, sighting in the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America

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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.

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Bowling Green, Kentucky, Sighting

In May of 2008 M.R. (anonymous) went outside at 4:30 p.m. and noticed what he at first assumed was a large bird.  “. . . in the sky flying above me. I thought it seemed strange because I seen a tail with a spade like end also the wing span was alot larger than any bird I have ever seen around here. . . . each wing stroke was steady and powerful. The bird seemed to have a set destination as well cause it did not waste any time moving through the sky. . . . I watched in awe as this bird streaked the sky to the south east of where I live. I am positive 100% about the tail, there was overcast sky’s today so the sun was not glaring in my eyes.”