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Gitmo Rhamphorhynchoid

The Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay military base) had modern Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs, at least a few decades ago, so the Caribbean may still host such a “flying dinosaur.” I use that non-technical phrase in this post, for those flying creatures, because Patty Carson probably used that phrase or one like it when she told her father, the base commander, about her terrifying experience in 1965, when she and her younger brother saw it.

In my last post, I had assumed that there were more than two children who were eyewitnesses in 1965, but I have since learned that there were only two. We cannot depend of the second child, however, because he was only four at the time and now has no memory of the experience. If I understand correctly, however, the two years difference in age may not be the primary factor in memory, for Patty Carson, who was six years old at the time, has always had a better memory the average and she seems to have indicated that her memory is better than her brothers (Whitcomb phone interview, May 4, 2011).

I have also learned that Carson, later in childhood or adolescence, was inquisitive and sharp and recognized one or more images of pterosaurs at the Smithsonian, when her father worked in Washington D.C.

Flying Dinosaur Still Flies in Cuba

I have recently learned that Eskin Kuhn is not the only eyewitness of a large long-tailed pterosaur (Rhamphorhynchoid) at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. On May 4, 2011, I interviewed, by phone, Patty Carson, who now lives in Southern California but who witnessed a “flying dinosaur” at Guantanamo Bay, in 1965. Although she was only a child at the time, she immediately told her family about the frightening encounter, and although her family disbelieved her at the time, her testimony of the appearance of that flying creature now verifies the plausibility of Kuhn’s 1971 sighting. Patty verified that the sketch drawn by Kuhn is very similar to what she had seen in 1965.

More Support for a Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaur in Cuba

A problem keeps popping up in my investigation of reports of living pterosaurs. Eyewitness usually report to me a sighting where nobody else has ever before reported one. Lake Pung on Umboi Island in Papua New Guinea is an exception, as is a secret location in North America. But now a new report supports a previous sighting report. Patty Carson, of California, has reported to me her encounter with a large pterosaur that popped up in some scrub brush on the Guantanamo Bay military installation, many years ago.

Her sighting confirms the credibility of the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn, who long ago reported his 1971 encounter. But Patty saw a similar creature in 1965, when she was just a child.

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Stingray Interpretation for Kongamato

Dale Drinnon, on a post with many references to non-pterosaurs in Africa, offers an interesting suggestion for the origin of the word “kongamato.” He says that the kongamato was “originally a water-monster that arose from the water and overturned canoes.” He offers this explanation, that a stingray “might be able to upset a small canoe,” meeting the requirement for the literal meaning of “kongamato,” which I believe is something like “he who overturns boats.”

Drinnon then makes a broad statement, declaring that no pterosaur could ever overturn any canoe because no pterosaur would have enough mass. I disagree, submitting the following as more convincing than the reasoning of Drinnon:

Objectiveness and Live Pterosaurs

He believes a large stingray could overturn a boat (“Kongamato” means overturner of boats), declaring that a pterosaur would never have enough mass to overturn a boat. I find a number of serious problems with that pterosaur-impossible assumption, although there may have been some instances of large stingrays being labeled “Kongamato.” The point is twofold: His dismissal of the pterosaur possibility is flawed and the dependence on the label “Kongamato” can cause problems as well as solve them.

How are small boats usually overturned? A human in a small boat makes a wrong move. Put yourself into that small boat and how would you react to an attack by a reported-dangerous flying creature with many teeth? How could you avoid making a wrong move for a small boat? How easy for a terrified human to overturn a boat that was dive-bombed by a Kongamato!  What difference does it make if the mass of that flying creature is insufficient to overturn a boat by only an impact?

The above blog posts also goes into details about how presumptuous it is to assume that no modern pterosaur could be different than those species we know from fossils.

Pterosaurs or Stingrays in Africa

Regardless of what caused natives, long ago, to name this frightening creature, many reports of apparent pterosaurs in Africa involve featherless creatures flying over land, not jumping out of water, as a stingray may do on occasion. Although some modern pterosaurs appear to live close to water (even catching fish on reefs, as is the case with the ropen of Papua New Guinea) the sighting reports themselves, when details are noted, eliminate any reasonable possibility that what was seen was a stingray.

It’s not that Drinnon offers the freshwater stingray as an explanation for most sightings of what have been called “kongamato” in Africa. He offers a winged lizard as a better candidate, but I suspect he has taken too narrow a perspective in disregarding living pterosaurs as an explanation.

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Marfa Lights Like Warmer Nights

Whether or not CE-III Marfa Lights are caused by pterosaur-like creatures similar to the ones in Papua New Guinea, we need to determine if they are very likely caused by any kind of creature, or if they could be non-biological. We also need to consider the warm-blooded question, well handled on this post: “How do Pterosaurs Survive the Cold?”

The data recorded by James Bunnell is priceless. The 52 sightings recorded by his cameras, from late in 2000 through late in 2008, give us detailed weather data, including the temperatures when sightings began, what he calls “at start.” I list totals, by percentage of total, for four temperature gradations:

  1. 32 F or colder: 11.5%
  2. 32.1-39.9 F: 4%
  3. 40.0-49.9 F: 11.5%
  4. 50.0 or higher: 73%

That coorelates well with nocturnal hunting by predators that prefer reasonable temperatures, obviously. Could this be related to ground temperature in a way supporting some kind of energy from the earth? Bunnell’s data does not smile on that conjecture, for when the total sightings are subtotaled by season of the year it shows 43% in the Spring, hardly a season to be noted for high ground temperature. By comparison, only 19% of the sightings were in the summer.

Examining the details from the eight sightings in Winter, we see the following, in order from coldest to hottest, remembering that this refers to the temperature when the sightings first began on the nights in question:

21.2 F., 24.8 F., 24.8 F., 32.9 F., 37.4 F., 43.7 F., 48.2 F., 82.4 F.

We see that five of the eight are above freezing, which is notabley moderate for that high desert area of southwest Texas, on Winter nights. The February 9, 2001, reading of 82.7 F. looks out of place, but I presume it was an unseasonably warm night.

Could the warmer temperatures be related to a non-biological energy source closely related to the atmosphere? There’s a problem with that potential coorelation. In my post “Analyzing Data for a Marfa Lights Interpretation,” I mentioned the nights of July 14-15, 2006, (July 15th and 16th Universal Time) which involved appearances only one minute apart, 38 and 37 minutes after sunset. But the weather differed in temperature, Dew point, humidity, and wind speed. How could such a close coorelation be the result of something primarily related to the atmosphere, when atmospheric conditions were so different?

Everything points to a group of intelligent bioluminescent flying predators that have some preference to warmer temperatures, but that still need to hunt at night, even when it is colder and less ideal. The potential complexities involving multiple species of prey and possibly more than one hunting technique, depending on weather and prey, make this a difficult puzzle, but the data does well support this biological interpretation.

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