Kentucky Pterosaur

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In my cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America, second edition, a sighting in Kentucky is explained as follows:

Earlier in 2008, a man tried to reach me by telephone. After he left me a phone message, we communicated by email about his daylight sighting, which was not years but just hours earlier.

“Hi, my name is [MR] and I live at . . . Bowling Green, Kentucky. Today I opened my back door around 4:30 p.m. . . . and I noticed a large bird in the sky flying above me. I thought it seemed strange because I [saw] a tail with a spade-like end; also the wingspan was a lot larger than any bird I have ever seen around here. . . . The bird seemed to have a set destination . . . ‘cause it did not waste any time moving through the sky.

“I thought about running in to grab my camera but I knew . . . that it would have been gone before I got back, so I watched in awe as this bird streaked [across] the sky . . . I am positive 100% about the tail, there [were] overcast [skies] today, so the sun was not glaring in my eyes. Anyways, I hope that this information is helpful in some way. I’ll keep my camera nearby and will continue to look for what I [have] seen today.

“I am confident [that] what I [saw] was absolutely not a standard bird with feathers . . . I was so transfixed on the tail of this creature that I did not notice the head.”

In the second edition of my cryptozoology book (LPA), pages 45-47, two apparently related sightings are documented for Zionsville, Indiana (north of Kentucky), on the same day. (I take no firm stand on whether or not there was only one flying creature or a number of them.) I could just as well have mentioned sightings in Ohio or Virginia or North Carolina. Over the years, I have received reports from across the USA.

Through the living-room window, IM noticed a “flying creature” strange in shape: small body, triangular wings, no feathers. The body he described as the shape of an “elongated-lemon.” The long straight tail had “a swelling at the end shaped, again, somewhat like a lemon.” With rapid wing-flapping, the small creature flew away.

The second boy, IA, [also in Zionsville, Indiana] remembers that the sighting was on a weekend. He was about to take a walk, when he noticed something through the window of his brother’s bedroom. What he first assumed to be a bird flew close to the window, revealing its color: a “deep scarlet.” Also, “Its face was very angular and almost eerie to view.” Because it flew fast and close to the window, little else was noticed at first. Then the creature landed in the street, revealing a pigeon-size, but no pigeon-resemblance.

3 Replies to “Kentucky Pterosaur”

  1. Hi Jonathan,

    Do you think the Zionsville sighting was that of a juvenile specimen, or a full grown specimen? There is a tiny pterosaur called Anurognathus, which is about the size of a person’s hand, although the shape of this creature’s head is not angular and it does not have a tail. I am not aware of any other adult pterosaur that is the size of a pigeon.

  2. For all I know, it could have been from a small species, a juvenile, or both.

    One thing many readers of “Live Pterosaurs in America” could miss is the possibility that the two eyewitnesses in Zionsville may have observed two different individuals from the same nesting den or cave. It does not seem to me like a normal migration, for the weather was too cold; I think it was more likely a forced exit from a cave, and there may have been more than two creatures that were forced out into the cold, perhaps from some disturbance in their cave.

    Indiana certainly has its share of caves.

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