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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.”

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.

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.