North Carolina – Modern Pterosaur

July 12, 2013September 4, 2013

Sighting in Raleigh, North Carolina

I was going over a report of a pterosaur sighting in North Carolina and noticed similarities with Susan Wooten’s sighting in South Carolina. There are also differences.

Date of Sighting

NC: March 23, 2013
SC: about fall of 1989

Size of Flying Creature in Wingspan

NC: 5-6 feet
SC: 12-15 feet

Feathers or not

NC: “NO feathers”
SC: “NO feathers”

Conditions and Time

NC: driving on a highway at sundown
SC: driving on a highway at about 3 p.m.

How High Above Highway?

NC: “about 7 or 8 feet off the ground”
SC: “probably 20 ft or so” (above the highway)

Tail Details

NC: “a LONG tail with a spade at the end”
SC: “long, long tail”

Head of Flying Creature

NC: “enormous pointed beak, with a pointed top of it’s head.”
SC: “Big thing coming out of its forehead like a boomerang, and also the same in the back.”

We could just as well compare this sighting in North Carolina with other sightings in the eastern states of the USA. Many eyewitnesses have reported a large flying creature with a long tail but no feathers. Some report a “diamond” or similar structure at tail-end, and some report a head crest.

The March-2013 sighting in North Carolina needs to be taken in perspective in relation to other sightings in North America. Details in these reports need to be compared and evaluated.

Pterosaur Sighting in North Carolina

When somebody reports a pterosaur sighting in Raleigh, North Carolina, we can expect objections from skeptics. That’s what we got earlier this year, on a musicians’ forum.

Pterosaur Sightings in North Carolina and Spain

. . . saw something HUGE above me in the sky. It looked like a pale greenish white and smooth-skinned. It didn’t appear to have any feathers, and it had the tail with the diamond shape on the end.

Cover of the third edition of "Live Pterosaurs in America" by Whitcomb

Live Pterosaurs in America (nonfiction cryptozoology book)

From page 124 of the book:

“I saw two pterosaurs . . . 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 marine observed details, later recording them in his sketch: The head was large in proportion, with a large head crest; the short “hind legs” were attached to the trailing part of the wings; the vertebrae were noticeable; the end of the tail had a “tuft of hair.”

March 21, 2011March 21, 2011

More Recent Sighting Reports of Pterosaurs

The sightings themselves are not all recent, but the reports are

“Pterodactyl” in California

Well, I think it rather obvious what people mean when they describe the wings of a flying creature as like those of a bat: The wings have no feathers. The “long woolly tail” is interesting, perhaps meaning the creature’s tail had hair; some pterosaur fossils show evidence of hair. Is was obviously no bat, being described as the size of a horse.

“New Pterosaur Sightings“

North Carolina and Spain have had sightings, as indicated in this post.

New Zealand Pterosaurs

One or more species of pterosaur may live in New Zealand. Even though it is more than a thousand miles from Australia, where many eyewitnesses have seen apparent modern pterosaurs, those creatures would have little difficulty crossing that distance, over a number of centuries.

“She became aware of a little creature sitting next to her,” but gave it little attention at first. She thought it to be just a small green bird with a long tail. When it became noisy, she tried to shoo it away, whereupon the creature bit her finger, spread its leathery wings, and flew away.

Pterosaurs in Canada

In British Columbia, to be specific.

The creature was larger than any bird the eyewitness had ever before seen. It had a long tail “with something on the end of it just like the Ropen. Then I couldn’t believe my eyes when I looked at the wings and they weren’t feathers, they were like huge bat wings.”

Another sighting mentioned there, was in the Cariboo area of British Columbia.

Significance of Recent Reports

I think that new sighting reports strongly support the work of cryptozoologist who believe in modern pterosaurs. If large pterosaurs live anywhere on the planet, in modern times, they should live all over the planet, should they not? How can they be confined to any one island? Recent reports support this: Those flying cryptids, I say “cryptids” because they are not yet acknowledged in traditional scientific culture, are now reported in various countries around the globe.

February 4, 2011February 4, 2011

New Pterosaur Sightings

I really have more to say about the Marfa Lights in Texas, about their relationship to sightings of modern pterosaurs. But that can wait somewhat, for new sighting reports keep coming up, sightings of flying creatures that appear to be modern pterosaurs.

North Carolina Pterosaur

I was driving home . . . when I . . . saw something HUGE above me in the sky. It looked like a pale greenish white and smooth-skinned. It didn’t appear to have any feathers, and it had the tail with the diamond shape on the end. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I knew no one else really would. It was probably about the same in the sky, 100 ft away. I just looked up the Rhamphorhynchus and it was definitely similar to what I saw.

Pterodactyl in Spain

What some Spanish eyewitnesses call “bird,” at least one called “pterodactyl.” The KSN News Service referred to the sightings in “Giant Flying Creature in Spain,” but I have additional information about the sightings.

According to witnesses, the animal was dark (mainly black or grey) with a wingspan of between 3 and 15 meters, making loud crowing sounds in three different tones, and whose membranous wings were reminiscent of a prehistoric pterodactyl. In other cases, however, it was classified as a “mutant pigeon” or a black crow, naturally.

I suspect the reference to “mutant pigeon” may have come from the lack of feathers, for that lack is an important factor in the anatomy of a “pterodactyl.”