Modern Pterosaur – Page 28 – Please join us: Investigate reports of modern living pterosaurs.

November 2, 2011November 3, 2011

Pterosaur News for the Beginning of November

The first news is about a new site called “Zyc Pterozaura,” which is Polish for “live pterosaur.” It’s mostly about Whitcomb interviewing the three Lake-Pung eyewitnesses. The news is not in details about that sighting in the early 1990’s. It’s the fact that a site in the Polish language is mostly about this sighting of the ropen. If you’re interested in seeing this in that language:

Zyc Pterozaura

W 2004 roku Jonathan Whitcomb zbadać wyspę. Umboi Island ma zwierzę latające. Nazywa się “ropen.” Większość świadków widać tylko światła latające. Kilku świadków było bliżej do zwierząt, że leci.

W 2004 roku Jonathan Whitcomb wywiady wielu naocznych świadków, w Papui Nowej Gwinei.

Cryptozoology Book News

The third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America is now published. The extra pages added since the second edition have been at the back of the appendix, but they are significant. They are about the sighting by Patty Carson in Cuba, and one page has her sketch of what is coming to be called the “Gitmo Pterosaur.”

The book has a number of related sightings that were long ago published as news in at least one or two newspapers in central California. The following is taken from the book:

I cannot prove all the accounts were genuine, for they were recorded secondhand in the early 1890’s. . . . In the summer of 1891, southeast of Fresno, several eyewitnesses reported two featherless flying creatures with wingspans of fifteen feet. Reportedly reputable residents around Reedley described the two “dragons” for the newspaper: broad heads, long bills, and large eyes. “On the night of July 11 . . . their peculiar cries and the rustling of their mammoth wings were heard as late as 10 o’clock.” Two nights later, the “monsters” were held responsible for attacking chickens, with “many of the hens being bitten in two and left partly devoured.”

It could be difficult to sort out the truth from the fiction in those 19th century accounts in the newspapers. The feasibility of modern pterosaurs living in California is strengthened by recent eyewitness reports, however. I know of some news about possible pterosaurs being sited in San Fernando Valley, just a few years ago. The sightings were at night.

October 27, 2011November 1, 2011

Dracula Vampire Conjecture

Regarding this press release, I don’t dispute this possibility for the origin of the Dracula myth in Transylvania, that it involved one or more observations of a large pterosaur standing on the ground at night. But it is speculation. Perhaps a closer examination is called for.

Tales of Dracula and Pterosaurs

The cryptozoology author Jonathan Whitcomb, of Long Beach, California, has written many press releases on the subject of modern pterosaurs. This is the latest, dated October 26, 2011. The full title is “Author Jonathan Whitcomb Asks if Tales of Dracula Come From an Animal.” For the company contact information, I guess few people would know what “PSL” means. It stands for “Pterosaurs Still Living.” But he does not use that URL on this press release contact box, instead using the “Live Pterosaur Media Center” home page.

The release has two sightings, both from Texas, the first from San Antonio:

We noticed something flying around across the road . . . the creature was flying just above the phone lines. It would go one direction, turn, and swoop back. The shape was wrong for any large bird of the area, and the size was much too large to be any bat I have ever seen . . . anywhere from 6-10 feet across.

The second sighting is from Brownsville, Texas, with an approximate date of 1995. Brownsville is in the most southerly portion of the state. The witness involved was a 12-year-old girl at the time.

“Next door, in the neighbor’s backyard, was what she first thought was a tall man . . . He was ‘draped in a long black coat or cape,’ facing away from her. ‘Dracula’ came to mind as GR tried to understand what she was looking at. The ‘man’ turned, and revealed a face that terrified the child: It was non-human.

The girl became confused when the thing turned its head and revealed a head like a “pterodactyl.” To make the story short, she ran into the house as the thing glided towards her. In terms of cryptozoological credibility issues, I see nothing especially wrong with anything in either of these reports. Both eyewitnesses mentioned the word “Dracula” in their reports to Whitcomb. But there is something speculative with that.

The Dracula myth about a “vampire bat” transforming itself into a human form, and visa-versa, may be different in Transylvania than is known in Texas. This means there may not be much of a connection between those two sightings in Texas and the European myth.

On another subject is a new web site that ties together the ropen sighting of a Mr. Cottingham with the “Cheesman Lights” observed in the 1930’s:

Cottingham Sighting

One night, near Lab Lab on the southeast coast of Umboi Island, he saw a flying light that lasted four or five seconds . . . The ropen light of Umboi Island has been compared with the flying lights observed by the British biologist Evelyn Cheesman in the 1930’s, but her expedition was on the mainland of New Guinea, many miles to the west. According to what she wrote in her book The Two Roads of Papua, the flying lights she observed lasted about four or five seconds.

Now that is what I call a correlation.

October 25, 2011October 27, 2011

More on Pterosaurs in Cuba

The sketch of the “Gitmo Pterosaur” has been updated, for it seems that the eyewitness Patty Carson was not satisfied with the eye on the earlier sketch.

She is still not satisfied with the sketch, in particular with the mouth and where it connects with the skull, but she likes the eye on the above sketch.

But what may be equally important, Patty’s brother Tom has come forward with his own sighting, a sighting in 1966, one year after his younger sister’s. The creature flew overhead at about a hundred feet high, appearing for only about three seconds before becoming hidden by the trees. It was larger than a pelican and seemed to have no feathers, although Tom was not 100% certain about the absence of feathers. The creature he saw was a greyish tan color.

In one sense, Tom’s credibility seems pretty high. He was not trying to convince the interviewer, Jonathan Whitcomb, that he saw the same kind of creature that his sister had seen. He was satisfied to leave it at that, without any attempt to prove that he had seen a modern pterosaur.

Gitmo Pterosaur of Eastern Cuba

A new web site has come up, made for news media professionals. I’ll quote from the Gitmo Pterosaur page:

“We were engaged during the day in physical training, close order drill, gun drill, cleaning and maintenance, classes and other sundry routine common to service life, including a break for lunch with its attending rest period or free time.

“It was during such a free time period, in the middle of the day, that I was outside and witnessed the pterosaurs. “Most of the platoon was in the new barracks hanging out. I was looking in the direction of the ocean when I saw an incredible sight . . . “I saw two pterosaurs (or pterodactyls, what’s in a name?) flying together at low altitude, perhaps 100 feet, very close in range from where I was standing, so that I had a perfectly clear view of them.

“The rhythm of their large wings was very graceful, slow, and yet they were flying and not merely gliding . . . “The pterosaurs I saw had the short hind legs attached to the rearward- most part of the wing, and they had a long tail trailing behind with a tuft of hair at the end.”