Pterosaurs and a Joke in San Diego County

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.