Pterosaur Eyewitness

Even recent criciticms (for example, by the paleontologist Darren Naish) of living-pterosaur research sometimes includes the insinuation of misidentification regarding bats, especially the fruit bat called “flying fox.” A typical sighting of a large long-tailed pterosaur, however, differs greatly from a sighting of a Flying Fox fruit bat. For one thing, at least some critics fail to realize how many sightings of apparent pterosaurs are in locations where this Megabat does not live.

Georgia Pterosaur (from the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America)

The lady . . . had been trying to find someone who might help her verify the existence of the strange animals that she had seen twice in the past few weeks. . . . Her first sighting was at 7 a.m., the second, 9 a.m., with both mornings overcast. . . .

Fifteen miles of her commute is on a two-lane 55-mph road through woods alternating with pastures . . . on August 27, 2008. She had woken up early and could not get back to sleep, so she left her house at 6:45 a.m., with the sky still overcast from the last remnants of [a] storm. . . . She had driven less than ten miles, just leaving an area of pasture, entering an area of thick woods . . . when an animal suddenly flew from the right, just over the front of her car. Although alone, she yelled, “What the — what — what is that?” She was stunned.

. . . It was the tail; she looked up at a “very long” tail that had a strange shape at the end. . . . a thick almost-heart-shape at the end of the tail . . . “Dive-bombing my car,” is how she described the flight path, as it crossed the highway in front of and slightly above her. “Curved, like a hammer,” is how she described the head, which had a crest that she thought was “solid, not feathery at all.” . . . a smoothly curved head crest.

Obviously what the lady saw near Winder, Georgia, in the summer of 2008, was no Flying Fox fruit bat, even if that species of Megabat lived in Georgia, which it does not. So what about sightings in Papua New Guinea, where those bats live in great numbers?

Hodgkinson-Hennessy Ropen

The cryptid seen in New Guinea, by Duane Hodgkinson in 1944 and by Brian Hennessy in 1971, I have named “Hodgkinson-Hennessy Ropen.” Similarities between the descriptions given to me by these two eyewitnesses struck me as too much for coincidence. . . .

. . . these different lengths of head crest I believe fall within the range of eyewitness error. In other words, the creatures observed by these two men could very well have had the same length of head crest (relative to the size of the head) . . .  it seems likely that the species is the same for the 1944 and 1971 sightings.

Both Duane Hodgkinson and Brian Hennessy were struck by the long pterosaur tail . . .  in a manner of speaking, and Hodgkinson was close enough to make an estimate of tail-length: “at least ten or fifteen feet.” It was obviously not any Flying Fox fruit bat.

Eskin Kuhn Pterosaur Sighting

Her sighting [Patty Carson] confirms the credibility of the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn, who long ago reported his 1971 encounter. But Patty saw a similar creature in 1965 . . .

Kuhn sketched what he had seen, soon after his sighting (obviously no fruit bat):

Pterosaur misidentification—I mean a non-pterosaur being mistaken for a living pterosaur—is possible, even when the apparent “pterodactyl” has a long tail (or seems to have one). What modern bat or bird is known to have a long featherless tail? Probably not even one, but there is another possibility that we need to watch out for: Some birds have long legs that they hold behind them during flight. But first let’s consider actual tails on birds.

The black Hornbill bird, Anthracoceros malayanus, lives in Southeast Asia, in particular in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. The following photo, taken in Malaysia, may be that species; at least it appears to be some type of Hornbill. 

It seems highly unlikely, however, that the above bird could be mistaken for dark-colored featherless flying creature with a long tail. It is a dark-colored feathered bird with a wedge-shaped tail. But other birds actually have long tails, including the oceanic Frigate Bird.

Five species of Frigatebirds fly over the warmer areas of oceans. Some of them have been mistaken, by Westerners, for the ropen of Papua New Guinea, which is reported to have a long tail. But the tiny head of the Frigatebird is close to the body, making its silhouette quite different. Notice the one on the right, with hardly any of the head visible. Now compare it to a sketch of the Gitmo Pterosaur.

Eskin Kuhn, in 1971, at the Guantanamo Bay military installation in Cuba, sketched the two pterosaurs he had personally observed one clear day.

Notice the enormous head of the Gitmo Pterosaur. Also, notice the shape of the wing and the structure at the end of the tail and the obvious featherless appearance. This flying creature is obviously not a Hornbill bird and obviously not a Frigatebird.

This sketch was drawn, by the eyewitness, within hours of the sighting. In addition, Kuhn provided us with many paragraphs describing the overall experience, including many details about the appearance and the flight of the two creatures, which were seen at close range. He has stood by his testimony for decades, in spite of criticisms from skeptics. In 2011, his account was supported by a new eyewitness who had observed the same kind of flying creature at the Guantanamo Bay station; that new eyewitness recently learned about Kuhn’s sighting and has now come forward with her account of a sighting just a few years before Kuhn’s.

 But what about those birds that have long legs and hold their legs behind them in flight?

The American Flamingos on the right have long legs, making it possible for some eyewitnesses to mistake those legs for a long tail. Indeed, the end of the legs even looks like the tail-end of a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur. But what about that extremely long neck? And what about the shape of the head and the shape of the wings? Even if the Gitmo Pterosaur were pink, a flamingo it is not.

Long tails (or apparent tails) alone do not necessarily mean what you have seen is a pterosaur; but a pterosaur head crest with a Rhamphorhynchoid tail and an obvious lack of feathers—that means you have probably seen a living pterosaur.

Three years ago, I received a long email from an Englishman who had a sighting of a pterosaur in Spain, just a few months earlier. This flying creature may be related to the kongamato of Africa, or at least to some pterosaur-like creatures seen in Africa.

. . . I assure you I am NOT LYING- I’ve got literally no interest in making something like this up. Apart from the two people with me at the time, I haven’t mentioned this to anyone (bar yourself now), simply because I realise it sounds odd, and can’t be bothered to have to defend myself on this. However, I firmly believe that anyone seeing something generally considered unbelievable should mention it to people who are actively researching the field . . .

. . . last summer, some friends and I drove from England . . . to Benecassim (in East Spain—near los desert del palmas I think) for a music festival. One night, whilst sitting on the ground by the tents . . . I saw what I at first assumed was an owl gliding over the campsite (I assumed that because it was night time, and obviously no other birds would be out-bar things like nightjars-which this was not!) – it passed right over us, probably about 30-40ft high, and as I watched it, I realised it was definitely no owl I’d ever seen before. It was the colour of suede/sand, looked like the same sort of texture as suede (i.e no feathers), had a long thin tail, and didn’t flap once. I only saw it for a few seconds . . . it fairly quickly passed into the dark . . .

. . . wingspan I’d estimate to be only 2-3 feet tip to tip, and was gliding for the whole time I saw it. The impression I got was a lot more bat-like than bird, except it had a beak, and I realise that owls have flat faces, and bats obviously don’t have beaks.

The eyewitness could not tell whether or not the creature had a head crest, for it flew directly overhead. Several aspects of his report caused me to rate his account highly credible.

The third edition of Searching for Ropens will be retitled “Searching for Dragons,” with an official publication date that will probably be early in 2012. Some of the revisions are extensive. I here quote from the present version of this edition, from the first two paragraphs of the first chapter.

It looked like a dead pterodactyl, not fossil bones but with skin, like it had died recently. Could those creatures, non-extinct, still fly? Although I never verified the authenticity of the photograph in the soon-forgotten library book, the idea behind that image would be awakened four decades later, plunging me into the most dramatic adventure of my life: exploring a remote tropical island, searching for giant living pterosaurs.

My first exposure to a remote tropical island with a giant reptile—when my younger sister Cindy and I were infants—came from Mommy reading Peter Pan. (When I was four, my second younger sister was born, not to the name chosen by Cindy and me, “Captain Hook,” but to a name of judicious parental compromise: “Wendy.”) Each character of the story had a role, but the crocodile enigma at first puzzled me; it eventually resolved into both good and bad: useful to Peter Pan as enemy to Hook, but generally dangerous.

Those who enjoyed the first or second edition of Searching for Ropens should be happy reading Searching for Dragons, for much has been added, including new eyewitness accounts. Here is one report from Australia:

Around the late 1990’s, in the state of Victoria, near the Dandenong Ranges, just east of Melbourne, at about 9:00 p.m., he saw what he first thought was a pelican flying about 3000 feet high; but he soon felt that it was too big to be a pelican. . . . This thing was at least as large as a light plane, say a Cessna. It was about 5 klms away and was lazily flapping its wings, flying to the east, at that point a clear sky. It appeared to be lit up by the moonlight and shining as if it had no feathers . . . I could see it quite clearly.

Cryptozoology Book (Searching for Dragons)

Quoting an early version of the last paragraph of the title page of the book:

“Believe what you will about Darwin’s writings on the common descent of all life on earth. But these pages extol the credibility of natives whom Darwin would have thought less evolved than himself, natives some Westerners consider superstitious and unworthy of belief when their testimonies appear to contradict the extinction assumptions that support Darwin’s ideas. Believe what you will about Darwin, but most native and Western eyewitnesses that we have interviewed have been found credible.”