Scott Norman Pterosaur Sighting
From the second edition of the book Live Pterosaurs in America, we read:
A few months after my late-2004 expedition in Papua New Guinea, I met Scott Norman. My associate, Garth Guessman, introduced me to this cryptozoologist who had explored in central Africa, searching for the Mokele-mbembe. Scott never saw the Mokele dinosaur in Africa, but two years after I met him he became, I believe, the first American cryptozoologist to observe the clear form of a living pterosaur while searching for one.
The person speaking here is the author, Jonathan Whitcomb. For copyright reasons, I will not quote too extensively from the book. But I can say that Scott Norman was skeptical, in July of 2007, when another cryptozoologist convinced him to help them search a secret location in the United States, where one or more pterosaur-like flying creatures were reported to fly at night.
He realized the location was close to the residence an old friend in that state, so he agreed to go. After arriving at the search area, he examined part of a video that the other cryptozoologists had recently recorded one night; they thought it might be a pterosaur, but Norman thought it more likely to have been a bird.
This means that Norman was not biased in favor of a modern pterosaur when he stayed up one night to take his turn watching for the flying creature. What he saw flying over a shed he observed with an open mind, not making any hasty conclusions from any emotional state of mind.
I think it appropriate to quote what some other cryptozoologists, besides Whitcomb, have said about Scott Norman and about his sighting of a possible pterosaur.
Chad Arment Quotes Scott Norman:
I was sitting in a chair, sideways towards the shed looking up at the starry skies, when this animal came gliding just over the shed and into the field and then I lost it. I did not tell them about the sighting until later that morning, I had to sleep on and think about what I saw.
The animal I saw had an 8-10 foot wing span, the wings were bat-like in shape, the inside had that wavy type of look. The body was about 5-6 feet in length, the neck about 1-2 feet in length, the head was about four feet in length, and the head was key for me: it has a crest that was about 2 feet in length, fit that of a pteranodon, don’t know how else to describe it. Our contact had a similar type of sighting three years ago in daylight. In his sighting he saw a long tail, I did not see one, and all of the pteranodon pictures I’ve seen show a real short stubby one. The animal I saw was stockier compared to some of the drawings of pterosaurs I’ve seen. The animal in the video that’s supposed to be a pterosaur and the animal I saw are two different animals.
The Passing of a Great Cryptozoologist
The cryptozoological community was shocked and saddened at the death of Scott T. Norman. He passed away on February 29, 2008, just two weeks before he would have turned forty-four.
Scott T. Norman was one of the good guys in cryptozoology. When not involved with his cryptozoology, his work, or his church, Scott was also a First Responder, Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) and, for example, was activated and helped out at the Irvine Wildfire last fall in California.
Scott was a deeply religious man whose faith was with him always, and who was calm and intelligent. He will not be able to return to Africa, but Africa had become part of him. I am glad he was able to live his dreams before he left us.
I am totally in shock and send out my empathy, sympathy, and sorrow to his friendly family.
Scott, keep searching.
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Live Pterosaurs in America, by Jonathan Whitcomb
Second edition published November 20, 2010
How are sightings in the United States related to those in the southwest Pacific? How do some apparent nocturnal pterosaurs pertain to bats, and how are bats irrelevant? How could modern living pterosaurs have escaped scientific notice? These mysteries have slept in the dark, beyond the knowledge of almost all Americans, even beyond our wildest dreams (although the reality of some pterosaurs is a living nightmare to some bats). These mysteries have slept . . . until now.