Before examing this report of a sighting in Pennsylvania, let’s consider eyewitness sightings in this part of the United States, around Pennsylvania. Last September, I wrote a little about a pterosaur sighting in Ohio. To recap:
Ohio Pterosaur
The creature was red with smooth leathery skin. It had no feathers. The man said that the wings were “extremely long.” . . . Some kind of protrusion or “knob” was on the top of the head [sounds like a head crest]. The wingspan was “at least 20 feet or better.”
New York State Pterosaur
On page 39 of the second edition of my book Live Pterosaurs in America, a referred to an eyewitness report of a “pterodactyl” observed east of Buffalo, New York:
. . . my friend and I were canoeing in the creek accessed from my back yard, when we sighted a very strange creature that we had both thought to be a prehistoric bird. Immediately, I thought ‘pterodactyl.’ It was a greyish color with no apparent feathers.
Richmond, Virginia, Pterosaur
From page 31 of that book, a lady described her father’s experience in Richmond, Virginia, some years ago:
“My father has been the subject of much ridicule after claiming to have seen a “dinosaur bird” fly across the moon. His neighbor has a telescope and they’d been watching the sky when they saw it. . . . My father later told me that he’d done some research and learned that they were called “ropen.” I went online, and to my surprise, Dad wasn’t making it up. I just wanted to go on record . . . they’ve been sighted from here in Richmond.”
Pennsylvania Pterosaur Sighting
From the Live Pterosaur blog (posted March 9, 2011):
In the summer of 2006, at about 8:00 p.m., . . . in southwest Greensburg, Pennsylvaniva, a karate teacher and two of his students were talking outside. Above some small trees . . . they saw something that at first could have been mistaken for a large bird. . . . [The karate teacher said:] it caught my eye. Being that far up the “birds” body still appeared to be much larger than my 100 pound dog . . . The wingspan appeared to be at least six feet and although it was a bit away from us you could clearly make out a long “horn” or “cone” type protrusion coming out of the back of its skull . . . [The head] was at the end of an elongated neck.
. . . the proportions of the creature’s long tail [were compared with] the proportions of a rat’s tail: thicker compared with its length. The creature “appeared to be jet black with some dull brown in certain spots.”
We could here it splashing around, and Carrie ran around the building to see it. There are always ducks in that water as well as rats and other things. When she came back . . . she said it had taken off, Carrie said it was in the water splashing and eating or grabbing something in its mouth.
I began with brief references to sightings in states near Pennsylvania, for we need to realize there is nothing unique about this state, or its residents, that causes appearances of living pterosaurs. It seems that these flying creatures, however rare or reclusive they may be, live (for at least part of the year) in the central area of North America.