Pterosaur Eyewitness

A few years ago, before I was fully aware of the significance of reports of sightings of apparent pterosaurs in North America, I received a report from a lady in San Diego County, Califorina. Now I have another report, from another eyewitness, supporting the idea that ropens or ropen-like flying creatures live in Southern California. Last November, two men witnessed two very large long-tailed creatures flying at low elevation over the city of San Diego. After some emails, I talked with one of the men by phone. He is quite credible.

Nocturnal Pterosaurs in San Diego

“I was at my friend’s house. . . . We were standing in the street . . . from the west came this dark object in the sky. It was right over us about, I say, 40 yards [high]. As it got closer we both yelled, “What the hell is that?” It looked like a huge bird. It was gliding . . . I was stuck looking at it the entire time. I began yelling at it, then it turned around and it stood still in the air. It was flapping its wings while it was there. Then outta nowhere here came another one. It was waiting for it; as it got close to the other one, they both went east.”

Apparently, the two ropens were flying in the same direction, from the west, but one was following the other. The first one was observed to be gliding but it stopped (with some wing movement or flapping) and waited for the other one to catch up. They then continued together towards the east.

A Joke Earlier in 2011

I am still searching for some strategy for communicating with the news media in the San Diego area, for we have a serious problem with the time of this late-2011 sighting. Just three months earlier, in August, somebody played a practical joke with a model “pterodactyl” being placed onto a statue in the north-coastal area of San Diego County. That “pterodactyl” joke was covered in quite a few news outlets, making any report of a genuine ropen sighting very difficult to market in this part of Southern California.

Glowing “pterodactyls?” In North America? Non-extinct? What could be more strange? Before dismissing the idea, consider some eyewitness sightings in North America, in light of reports of glowing pterosaurs in the southwest Pacific. But notwithstanding reports appear to be more numerous from some remote tropical islands, there are now enough sightings in North America to justify comparing them to sightings of featherless, apparently-bioluminescent flying creatures in the southwest Pacific.

Caribbean Sighting of Two Glowing Pterosaurs

A recent example is from a lady who was on a cruise in the Caribbean, with family members. Her daughter brought her onto the deck one night, anxious for her to see what was flying over the sea. The mother, who had not been drinking, saw two apparent pterosaurs, glowing and flying back and forth, sometimes closer to the ship.

Peter Beach’s Sightings in Washington State

According to the second edition of Live Pterosaurs in America, night sightings in the state of Washington included one by the college biology professor Peter Beach (2007).

“I went on a short trip to the Yakima River . . . because there was a [sighting]. We were unable to get a picture but we saw many . . . flashing lights. I would have assumed that [they] were fireflies but we [don’t] have them in Washington. . . . Many flashes were parallel to the river. The river at that point [has] a crook . . . and there were many fish . . . Prime hunting grounds for fish-eating birds. Only these things fish at night with bioluminescence. At first I thought I was just seeing shooting stars, but they were all parallel to the river and close to the horizon.”

The next year (summer of 2008), Professor Beach participated in another expedition at the Yakima River.

“During the short expedition I led with the O’Donnells, mid-July, we saw three hours of bioluminescent ‘shooting stars.’ The last hour was the most interesting in that there were two light blasts about 200 ft. apart, about 50-100 ft., above the river. The blasts were followed by screeches from about a dozen or so agitated nighthawks in the general area.”

During the second expedition, Professor Beach had a rather close encounter with a flying creature that he suspected was one of the ones that had been displaying the bioluminescence (although it was not glowing when it flew just over the professor’s head).

“The shape of the flying animal I saw was 3-4 ft. wingspan, 2-3 ft. long, with a bat-like wing. The neck/head was obvious but only in silhouette, and I could not make out a tail or feet. If the tail is thin, I probably was not close enough to see it even if it was there. The wing beat rate caused me to arrive at the size and altitude. The wing [beat] was similar to a Canadian Goose; a seagull beats its wings faster, a Nighthawk (wingspan 18 in.) faster still.”

San Fernando Valley, California, Sighting

“It was late in the evening almost dark . . . I was walking from my car to my house [in Sun Valley] and something in the sky caught my eye. My girlfriend also looked up and right away said is that a bat . . . What caught my eye was the bright radiation like light coming from the belly of this Pterodactyl looking animal. I seen it fly right above us maybe 150 -200 feet  and this thing wasn’t no bat it was bigger with large wing span and when it flapped its wings it was kind of a slow lazy flap kind of gliding . . .”

East of Los Angeles, Orange County is now covered with cities more than orange groves. But more rare than orange trees are the strange flying creatures that defy common explanation. Consider two cases.

Rancho Santa Margarita

Perhaps “sighting” is the wrong word, but last October I received an email from a businessman who wanted more information on living-pterosaur investigations. Here is part of his experience.

“I never considered that there could be a prehistoric creature still living today, but I had an experience about 12-years ago that has nearly changed my mind; it has at least made me consider it. . . . I was living at the time in Rancho Santa Margarita, which is a master planned community near the O’Neill Canyons and the foothills of Saddleback mountain range. . . . One night I was awakened [about 1:00 a.m.] with screeching and screaming . . . like some sort of creature was suffering, or fighting for its life in my backyard. . . . accompanied my some thrashing around in some hedges or bushes in the backyard of my [neighbors house] . . . I went to the front door and went out into the dark. . . . I then moved cautiously towards the driveway on the side of the house and waited and strained to hear again. . . . I was transfixed with fear at what I was about to see; but I didn’t ‘see’ so much as ‘felt’ it. Whatever it was swept up and onto the chimney of the next-door-neighbors house. . . . [it was dark, so] I could not really make out anything, but a large hulking ‘presence’ sat on that chimney. . . . I left the yard quickly and went inside. . . . I didn’t sleep well that night.”

University at Irvine

When I interviewed this eyewitness, it soon became apparent that his credibility was very high, although what he reported was astonishing. Flying into the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary (near the California State University at Irvine), the long-tailed creature passed just over the road. The eyewitness was thus able to estimate the length of the creature, from the beginning of the beak to the end of the tail: about thirty feet. Amazing!