Eyewitnesses use various words and phrases for the featherless flying creatures observed. Consider the following list:

• prehistoric bird
• dinosaur bird
• flying dinosaur
• dragon
• pterodactyl
• flying creature

In Papua New Guinea, we also encounter various names:

• ropen
• duwas
• kundua
• wawanar
• indava
• kor

The following brief excerpts from sighting reports include what words were used for the creatures observed, although none of these use the exact phrase “prehistoric bird.”

California (“Taradactyl”)

I have been haunted for close to 20 years by what I saw in the desert. I have never told anyone due to the fact that I was afraid I would be thought nuts. . . . I caught the sight of it with the corner of my eye and looked up, it was soaring along the side of a plateau not far from us. We knew what it looked like. In fact I remember saying ‘Oh . . . ! That looks just like a Taradactyl.’

England (“dragon”)

The sky was clear and I was watching the stars when something caught my eye. It was a glowing object which seemed to open up to what I thought looked like a dragon. I was too shocked to tell my father as we were waiting for my mother to finish and I never told anyone about this until I met . . . my now husband.

Georgia (“pterydactyl”)

The path it took was up and then swooping down, as if it were dive-bombing  my car. As it crossed my path, in front and slightly above me, I saw it had a head that was curved, like a hammer; the head had a crest on the top that was solid, not feathery at all . . . The tail was long, had a ridge that ran along the underside, and ended in a thick, heart-shaped pad. . . . I called a buddy whom I knew was up . . . at that hour. . . . I flat out told him I’d seen a pterydactyl.

Kentucky (large bird)

Today I opened my back door around 4:30 pm. to smoke a cigarette and I noticed a large bird in the sky flying above me. I thought it seemed strange because I seen a tail with a spade like end also the wing span was a lot larger than any bird I have ever seen around here. The wings did not flutter rapidly each wing stroke was steady and powerful. The bird seemed to have a set destination as well cause it did not waste any time moving through the sky.

Papua New Guinea (prehistoric creature)

The creature I saw one early morning in Bougainville is etched in my memory. . . . I can still hear that slow flapping sound in the stillness of an early tropical morn, on the road from Panguna down to loloho on Bougainville Island in 1971. . . . When I looked up, trying to see what was making this sound, i saw a very unusual creature. Firstly, it was very big . . . It certainly looked prehistoric, in that it did not look like any other bird that I have seen before or since. Why prehistoric? Well, maybe my memory has been influenced by the intervening years, but I recall seeing this creature with a longish narrow tail . . . no feathers in sight . . .

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Sketch drawn by the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn (Gitmo, Cuba)

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Pterosaur Sightings in the USA

Can we determine whether or not modern pterosaurs migrate in North America? What exactly is migration? The dictionary definition refers to travel from one country or region to another. We think of birds that migrate hundreds of miles. Here’s a catch with pterosaurs—they are not even acknowledged as presently existing, according to standard Western biology. How can a biologist be expected to put a collar on the neck of an animal that is not supposed to exist?

Flying Creature in Georgia

[In] July of 2010, My wife and I were sitting outside when motion from above the tree tops to our left caught my attention; it’s very hard to explain how I felt at that moment. We were looking at two extremely large birds flying together and heading north . . . I can only guess to be 15-20′ wing spans and the motion of their wings as they flew was very slow. The head was long and ended in a point; wings ended in a point and appeared to be featherless . . .

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Sandra Paradise has released her name and is no longer anonymous. She was previously known simply as the lady who had seen two long-tailed pterosaurs in daylight east of Winder, Georgia, as she was driving to work on highway 82, east of the Barrow County Airport.

She has now revealed two more sightings, in addition to the first two. The third one was when she had a camera in her car but she could not stop in time to photograph it before it flew away. The fourth sighting she was not sure of except that it was probably of the same kind of creature.

Her sketches are copyrighted and she has requested her name be listed as both copyright owner and as the artist. They bear some relationship to the sketch by the witness Susan Wooten, of South Carolina, except that Wooten is not a professional artist. Paradise is.

Copyright 2008 Sandra Paradise

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Pterosaurs in Georgia

The lady . . . had been trying to find someone who might help her verify . . . the strange animals that she had seen twice in the past few weeks [in 2008]. . . . Her first sighting was at 7 a.m., the second, 9 a.m., with both mornings overcast . . . Both times she phoned a friend to tell him of her extraordinary experience.

More on Two Pterosaurs in Georgia

To review what these sightings entailed, the lady saw two different flying creatures, two weeks apart, late in the summer of 2008. They were obviously of the same species but different sizes. The tail was long, with a “heart” shape at tail-end.

I wrote in a previous post about the two pterosaur sightings in Georgia: Pterosaurs in Georgia and South Carolina. Since this is again coming up in various blog posts, it seems appropriate to mention what the eyewitness has said about her sightings, including her choice of the word “dragon”:

Georgia sightings, quoted from Live Pterosaurs in America, 2nd ed.

“The world is now totally different. I feel blessed that God has allowed me to see this creature that should not be here, and yet is, this strange dragon-like thing that lives somewhere in the woods in this redneck little town.”

To review what these sightings entailed, the lady saw two different flying creatures, two weeks apart, late in the summer of 2008. They were obviously of the same species but different sizes. The tail was long, with a “heart” shape at tail-end. Even the smaller one was larger than any ordinary bird. The wing flapping especially caught her attention, for it was different than anything she had ever seen in the flapping of bird wings: “The wings ‘pumped’ in a ‘scooping’ manner, as the motion rippled along the body and through the tail.” I’ve noticed similar remarks from eyewitnesses: unique and graceful flight.

Jonathan Whitcomb, author of Live Pterosaurs in America, calls this flying creature “American Hammerhead Ropen.”

I found it interesting that the eyewitness used the word “dragon.” Long ago, a long-tailed featherless flying creature would be labeled “dragon,” although we would think “pterosaur” in more recent generations, at least in the more-developed countries.