Pterosaur Eyewitness

As we end the year, let’s look at a few press releases about reports of extant pterosaurs:

A Psychologist saw a Living Pterosaur

Brian Hennessy encountered a strange “prehistoric-looking” flying creature one morning, as he was on a dirt road on Bougainville Island (then part of New Guinea). He actually heard the flying creature before he saw it. This news release compares Hennessy’s 1971 sighting with Hodgkinson’s: “Whitcomb drew sketches based on Hennessy’s and Hodgkinson’s answers, concluding that they had seen the same type of creature . . .”

Eyewitness of “prehistoric-looking” flying creature

Pterodactyl in mid-20th-Century Cuba

Kuhn also said, “the pterosaurs . . . had the short hind legs attached to the rearward-most part of the wing, and they had a long tail trailing behind with a tuft of hair at the end.” He added that “. . . I would estimate their wingspan to be roughly 10 feet.”

Unmasking a Flying Predator in Texas

This press release gives a brief overview of why the strange flying lights near Marfa, Texas, are probably caused by a group of bioluminescent flying predators, maybe similar to the ropen of Papua New Guinea.

Pterodactyl-like Creatures Reported in Papua New Guinea

The Pteranodon-like creatures are unlike the solitary long-tailed “ropen” reported to fly at night over nearby Umboi Island. The New Britain creatures, with no sign of tails, fly in daylight, usually two or three at a time, sometimes in single file. They are also unlike the giant Flying Fox fruit bats, common in Papua New Guinea, which have no head crests or beaks.

Reports of Living Pterosaurs in U.S.A. not from Hoaxes

Three aspects of the data independently show that hoaxes could not have had any major impact on the eyewitness accounts:

1. Wingspan estimates
2. Certainty about lack of feathers
3. Tail length estimates

Wingspan estimates are far different from what would be expected from hoaxes, with 27% falling “within the narrow range of 8-10 feet.”

“Whitcomb questioned many of the eyewitnesses about how certain they were about the absence of feathers.” A two-to-one ration made it obvious that hoaxes could not have been prevelant, for somebody making a hoax would not likely admit any uncertainty about lack of feathers.

Tail length estimates also produced an interesting overall result: Long tails greatly outnumberd short tails, something that would be most unexpected from hoaxes. Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs have received much less attention in film and television, compared with the short-tailed pterosaurs.

I rarely mention jaws that snap or claws that scratch. I write more on featherless features of long-tailed creatures, emphasizing both non-bird and non-bat evidence from eyewitnesses, and  I warn against a weakness in Western mentality, pleading for self-inoculation against the intellectual danger of bulverism. Laying aside those points, I’ve recently read the cryptozoology book Bird From Hell, not the best or second-best living-pterosaur nonfiction but it warns us of a more down-to-earth danger. It’s now time to mention what often captivates readers: teeth with an appetite to bite.

I hope that no pterosaur was responsible for any of the human deaths in British Columbia, Canada, along the 500-mile stretch of highway from Prince George to Prince Rupert, but I also hope that all attacks from irresponsible humans, against innocent human victims, will cease, and that this world will become a paradise in which death itself will cease. Notwithstanding all our hopes for the future, however, we now face a present danger, a warning from Gerald McIsaac, author of Bird From Hell, who believes that “most of the hitchhikers [on this highway at night] who disappear have been killed by this animal. It is also my opinion that many of the people who have disappeared have not been reported.”

Chapter Eight, “Highway of Tears,” in Bird From Hell reveals, “Amnesty International estimates that since 1969, thirty-two women and girls, most of them Aboriginal, have disappeared along that highway.” Nobody denies that some women and girls in this part of Canada are victims of abuse at home and that some of them hitchhike on this highway, making themselves vulnerable at night. But the general human population, at least the Native Americans in one area of northern British Columbia, keep indoors at night to avoid the “devil bird,” and some eyewitnesses of that flying creature have been attacked by an animal with wings, when those persons have stayed outside after sunset.

Of course it is possible that aboriginals are superstitious and that all the missing persons, over the decades, who have walked that long highway at night were attacked by human rapists and murderers; that seems possible on the surface. But animalistic humans do not fit all the reported encounters at night in British Columbia, according to the book Bird From Hell.

What about the dead horse mentioned in that book? Much of its body was found by a tree. Of course ordinary non-human predators could be responsible, or so it seems. But why were parts of its body in the top of that tree, with some of the branches broken?

What about the girl in Kwadacha (northern British Columbia)? She was outside one dark night, when it seemed that “one of the boys” was spying on her. She was big for her age, and decided to teach him a lesson by charging him. At the end of the charge, she came to a stop. It was not one of the boys . . . She was facing a creature that she later called the “devil bird.” It released a “cloud of smoke” and flew away. Whatever the species of that flying creature, pterosaur, whatever, it was not one of the boys or one of the animalistic humans who have attacked girls on the Highway of Tears.

I don’t believe everything that I’ve read in Bird From Hell, but other cryptozoology books mention “pterodactyl attacks,” even when a different name is used for the flying creature. Take one account in the pioneering nonfiction On the Track of Unknown Animals, by Bernard Heuvelmans:

Coming straight at me only a few feet above the water was a black thing the size of an eagle. . . . its lower jaw hung open and bore a semicircle of pointed white teeth set about their own width apart from each other. . . .  And just before it became too dark to see, it came again, hurtling back down the river, its teeth chattering, the air “shss-shssing” as it was cleft by the great, black, dracula-like wings. . . . the brute made straight for George. He ducked.

Those are the words of the well-known biologist-explorer Ivan T. Sanderson (1911-1973). Within minutes, a large flying creature had dived straight at a human twice; I would call that behavior “attacking.”

I have read other reports of early-to-mid twentieth-century attacks, in Africa, from pterosaur-like flying creatures; but in late-2004 I did more than read: I led a small expedition on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, where I interviewed an old villager who encountered a strange flying creature. Micheal told me that he had witnessed, in 1949, the glowing ropen one night, when it dug up and carried away a human body that had just been buried in a grave in Gomlongon Village. I would not call that behavior “attacking,” for the man was already dead, but it was extremely rude to the family and friends of the deceased. If I were a resident of Umboi Island, I would not allow my children to wander too far, alone at night. And if I were a resident of northern British Columbia, I would avoid a long walk at night.

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.

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Encounter eyewitness accounts of living pterosaurs in the United States. Live “pterodactyls?” In the United States? Many scientists have long assumed all pterosaurs died millions of years ago. Now take a whirlwind tour of many years of investigations in cryptozoology, and prepare for a shock: At least two species of pterosaurs have survived, uncommon, not so much rare as widely, thinly distributed.

Join the cause of discovery: Contribute to this living-pterosaur investigation by purchasing your own copy of the third edition of the nonfiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America.

Over many years, sighting reports involving a ship or a boat have accumulated. Consider some of the accounts, although they may have little in common except that one or more eyewitnesses on a boat or ship saw one or more apparent pterosaurs.

Sighting From U.S.S. Jouett

From the post “‘Pterodactyl’ Flies Over Military Ship”

With a fellow cryptozoologist, some time ago, I interviewed a man who had been a sailor on the U.S.S. Jouett (guided missile cruiser), CG-29. He told us about the night when he was surprised by an excited shipmate who summoned him out of his bunk. Many sailors had just witnessed a giant “pterodactyl” that had flown directly over the ship.

I was one of the two cryptozoologists who interviewed, by telephone, the former sailor. The man we interviewed, however, was not himself an eyewitness, for he got up topside right after the creature had flown away. His shipmates, however, told him about the giant “pterodactyl.” The captain told everybody to keep quiet about that word, and to only mention it was something unidentified.

Boat Attacked by Pterodactyls near Samoa

This comes from “Dudlow,” who comments on July 21, 2006:

. . . back in the early 1960s off the Samoan Islands. Hairless and featherless . . . a ‘flock’ of these 20-foot+ wingspanned ‘birds’ came in high over their sailing vessel around the same time each evening for several days . . . These screaming furies would circle lower and lower and then make strafing runs low over the hull of their vessel. My friends had to retreat with their children into the cabin for protection . . . They called them pterodactyls, for lack of any better term. And they really didn’t like talking about or retelling this truly weird experience.

Two Glowing Pterosaurs in the Caribbean

A lady who . . . had taken a cruise on the Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas. On about the second day of their cruise, between about 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m., her daughter called her to come out to the balcony to “see something weird.”

 ”The minute I stepped onto the balcony, I knew exactly what she wanted me to see. Off in the distance were two very, very large, pink/orange flourescent birds flying behind each other. They looked like the flying dinosaurs, I forget what they are called. They would fly towards the ship, then back out to sea, then fly together in tandum then make a sharp right, away from the ship and disappear into the night. Then they would return.”

Japanese World War II Ship Shelled Pterosaur Caves

“. . . it was the japs [Japanese miliary] on the island who were attacked by the kor.  They [Japanese soldiers] apparently shot several wounding them then followed them to cves [caves] and blew [blew up] the entrances. They called ships fire on the hills and pounded them for several hours.”