Pterosaur Eyewitness

The droppings could have come from some other creature, not necessarily from the apparent ropen observed in the backyard of a residence in Lakewood, California; but circumstantial evidence points to the possibility that what I now have in my freezer may indeed be poop from a living Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur, strange as that sounds.

Addendum

The lab results came back early Tuesday morning, July 24, 2012:

I examined it using three methods: direct observation, floatation and centrifugation. I looked at two slides from each method for a total of six slides.

Surprisingly, I did not observe any parasites or parasite eggs on any of the slides. Now, the gold standard would be to examine three consecutive “movements” but since this is a wildlife field sample, we can assume that the individual is probably in fairly good health.

What I did observe was a lot of plant fragments, some insect parts and some bits of mineral soil. I did not observe bone fragments consistent with a predatory diet. This would lead me to conclude that the animal this came from is likely omnivorous or primarily herbivorous. . . .

It seems quite possible that the scat was from an opossum or a raccoon. The hair in the sample could very well have come from self-grooming, but those hairs were not examined in detail, at least not in the preliminary examination.

The longer scat on the top of the image is relatively undamaged and is about 1.25 inches or about 3 centimeters long. The remainder is fragments from an examination I (Jonathan Whitcomb) made when I suspected it was from a dog, for dog droppings were in that same area of the yard. When I saw the hair in the sample, I put everything in a plastic bag, for only one dog is ever in that enclosed area and it eats only dog food: This needs an expert examination. The scat in question is also smaller than the dog’s.

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The long-tailed flying creature had no feathers and was perched on the lower telephone cable, almost directly above the area where the scat was found. One of the two pieces of scat had evidence of a break which could have been caused by its hitting the cable before falling onto the ground.

I have no reasonable doubt about the identification of the creature itself. The eyewitness was only about eighteen feet away from it when she saw it, and she makes it clear:

I walked out from under the awning and lost my breath when I saw this huge dragon pteradactal looking thing. . . . I saw him very closely and know what I saw!!  The pic someone drew from GA. looks just like him, he had that triangle on his tail, like a dragon. . . . I am 38 years old and a very sensible woman with an education and sceptic mind. This bird is real and now in a very populated area. . . .

When the creature flew off into a large tree, she noticed that it had a long neck. While I interviewed her and her husband, I examined the backyard. When she mentioned the “triangle” at the end of the tail and the long neck, I ruled out any Frigate bird possibility. In addition, she was also clear about the lack of feathers.

While talking with her husband (they are anonymous), he noticed some droppings on the ground, under where the eyewitness said the creature had been sitting. The family dog had droppings all around that area, so it appeared to be just more of the same. But the man pointed out (without touching anything) that two droppings close together were smaller than their dog’s droppings. I took note that it lay almost exactly under where the apparent ropen had been perched. With the couple’s permission, I gathered the two pieces into a plastic bag, hoping to find somebody qualified to analyze it.

Ropen in Lakewood, California

At mid-day, in the backyard of her home in Lakewood, the lady at first paid little attention to the barking of her nearby dog. She was focused on her computer until she heard a strange noise. She looked up to see a strange winged creature that immediately flew off, startled by the human who had suddenly come out from under the nearby gazebo.

Why should only adults see apparent living pterosaurs? In fact, some of the eyewitnesses of “pterodactyls” are children. How often is a child seen to spend much time outdoors! Outside is where people need to be, if they are to have any reasonable chance of observing a living pterosaur in their life times. Those who care about the truth about reports of apparent living pterosaurs will not be so concerned about the age of an eyewitness. This is a good opportunity to list some of the sightings in which a child was an eyewitness, although not necessarily the only one who saw a “flying dinosaur.”

Sudan, Africa

The boy was taking a tray of food from one mud hut to another one night, when he was startled to see a strange winged creature.

Gitmo, Cuba, “Dinosaur”

Patty Carson was only a small child, when she and her brother saw a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur in clear daylight, at the Guantanamo Bay military station in eastern Cuba, around 1965. Note that in 1971, a U.S. Marine, Eskin C. Kuhn, also saw two very similar creatures in clear daylight. He used the word “pterodactyl.” Both Carson and Kuhn, fortunately, are talented artists and have sketched what they observed.

Sketch by eyewitness Eskin Kuhn

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Sketch by eyewitness Patty Carson (sighting about 1965, Cuba)

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Why should an objective person care whether or not an eyewitness is a child?

“Dragon” in England (ten-year-old child)

“I just wanted to tell someone about my sighting of a flying creature whilst in my childhood. . . .

“It was either 1987 or 88, when my mother used to work an evening shift at our local superstore . . . I was too young to be left at home (aged 10 then). The sky was clear and I was watching the stars when something caught my eye. It was a glowing object which seemed to open up to what I thought looked like a dragon. I was too shocked to tell my father . . . and I never told anyone about this until I met [my husband].”

The strange phrase “dinosaur bird” or “flying dinosaur” may easily through off an adult who hears an excited child try to explain what was encountered. But the age of the eyewitness does not in itself invalidate a sighting.

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Pterosaur Flying in Texas

. . . only eight years old when he encountered what could only be called a “pterosaur,” in northeastern Texas, in 1995.

California Child Care Backyard

These photos were recorded in May of 2012, after spring cleaning in preparation for the summer play times

Sandra Paradise recently gave me permission to use her real name in connection with her sightings near Winder, Georgia. She had previously been anonymous and called “PS” in my cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America. She also gave me permission to display her sketches.

Copyright 2008, Sandra Paradise (eyewitness and artist)

Quoting from the book:

The lady . . . had been trying to find someone who might help her verify . . . the strange animals that she had seen twice in the past few weeks [in 2008]. . . . Her first sighting was at 7 a.m., the second, 9 a.m., with both mornings overcast . . . Both times she phoned a friend to tell him of her extraordinary experience.

. . . entering an area of thick woods, around a mild downhill curve, with high banks and brush on each side of the road [on August 27, 2008] . . . 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 told me what made her yell out loud: It was the tail . . . a “very long” tail that had a strange shape at the end. She later sent me some sketches . . . one of them showing a thick almost-heart-shape at the end of the tail.

Overall, the animal was tan, similar to the light brown of the local deer . . . Her sketch showed a smoothly curved head crest.

More Sightings Near Winder, Georgia

. . . it was around October of the same  year [2008]. I was driving the same road, had just passed the point of my  second sighting. looking ahead and up a hill I saw a flock of crows  cross the road, from right to left, followed by –yep, you guessed  it. The pterosaur was in perfect silhouette, wings outstretched,  distinctive head in full view, pad on the tail. . . .

Pterosaurs in Cuba – Media Center

The marine observed details, later recording them in his sketch: The head was large in proportion, with a large head crest; the short ‘hind legs’ were attached to the trailing part of the wings . . .

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Live Pterosaurs in America (third edition) by Jonathan David Whitcomb

From a review of the second edition of the book:

“This is an updated review of the book and I am changing my rating to 5 stars. This book has been on my shelf for almost a year now. I pick it up every now and then and a part of me becomes more impressed by the book every time. . . . Whitcomb painstakingly reviews every account for credibility and reason. This man is not a crank. He tries to weed out would be hoaxes and miss-identification. This is not a guy looking to create evidence to confirm his own beliefs. On top of this, I have great respect for a guy who follows his dreams so passionately. He has traveled to Papua New Guinea to search for the creature there . . . If you are interested in reading about this subject, this is definitely the book to get . . .  I like how the author is not out to prove every story in the book and takes great care to make sure he has the best ones. He tries hard to make sure there are not other explanations for sightings. . . . This is well written and very hard to put down.” Review by “stevie” (five stars: maximum)

What was the largest apparent pterosaur (living cryptid, not fossil bones) ever reported by an eyewitness? The Perth Creature (1997)? The Lake Pung Ropen (about 1994)? The Hodgkinson Pterodactyl (1944)? No eyewitness has ever measured one directly, so who can say? But it seems obvious, when we consider all of the most credible accounts together, that some living pterosaurs—older individuals, uncommon at least—have wingspans greater than twenty feet. Rather than try to find a winner for size, let’s consider several reports to get a general idea.

Pterosaur Sighting at Wildlife Sanctuary in Southern California

I myself measured the road over which that creature had flown: thirty feet wide. That is how we estimate the length of the apparent ropen that shocked a driver who saw it fly from a marsh into a wildlife sanctuary, right over the road, right in front of his car.

In July of 2008, I received a phone call from a man who reported a very large flying creature, seen one year earlier, in Orange County, less than one mile north of the University of California at Irvine. He described the dark gray or black animal as 30 feet long, with 15-16 feet of that being a tail. He saw the creature fly “at low altitude,” in front of his car, over the road (Campus Drive), into the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, in daylight.

I believe the creature’s flight path was not exactly perpendicular to the road, when it flew over it, from the best of my memory of interviewing the eyewitness, which brings up the possibility that it may have been even longer than thirty feet. It’s hard to find room for much exaggeration in this sighting: The ropen seems to have been close to thirty feet long.

Biggest Pterosaurs

. . . during World War II, the American Duane Hodgkinson and his army buddy were shocked to see one of the giant ropens fly into the air right after it was startled awake from a wild pig in a jungle clearing. Hodgkinson estimated the wingspan as similar to that of a Piper Tri-Pacer airplane, in other words about 29 feet. He estimated the tail length at about 10-15 feet, at least.

Some ropens have tails about 15 feet long, from the reports of the 2007 Southern California sighting and the 1944 Finschhafen sighting, which practically eliminates bird-or-bat misidentifications, for no bird or bat has a tail nearly that long. For those who might suggest that Hodgkinson saw the long legs of a bird and exaggerated the length of what he thought was a tail, consider this: The creature running through that jungle clearing in 1944 (to get airborne) was running WITH ITS FEET while the tail trailing behind was “at least” ten to fifteen feet long. For those who might suggest that the wildlife-sanctuary ropen was a misidentified bird having long feet, consider this: What bird has legs fifteen to sixteen feet long? (Remember this estimate comes from comparing it to the nearby road.)

Perth Pterosaur

The Australian couple who observed that flying creature (for some time, as it approached them slowly) were shocked by its size. The husband (who worked in a scientific field, according to the wife) told me that he felt that the wingspan was about fifty feet, but he wanted to rationalize it to be only thirty feet.

Lake Pung Ropen

The seven boys ran home in terror, never to forget their encounter with the giant ropen that had flown over the surface of the crater lake. I interviewed three of the eyewitnesses in 2004, about ten years after that encounter. Gideon Koro pondered my question about tail length, looking back and forth at the ground to his left before answering assuredly, “sefan meetuh” (seven meters, or about 23 feet). That by itself eliminates the flying-fox-fruit-bat explanation, for that bat has a tail measured in fractions of an inch, not meters.

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