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.”
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.
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.
**********************************************************************************
Reports 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.