Coping With a Live Pterodactyl While Driving

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Personally, when driving near an airport, concentrating on my driving, instead of a nearby plane landing or taking off, can be challenging. I cannot imagine how a driver could concentrate on driving when a large pterosaur flies right in front of the windshield. The well-known cryptozoologist Loren Coleman has mentioned one sighting that caused a car crash in the state of Washington.

Pterodactyl Causes car Crash

A 29-year-old Wenatchee man told police a pterodactyl caused him to drive his car into a light pole about 11:30 p.m. Thursday [December 27, 2007]. [The blog post by Loren Coleman is dated two days later.]

. . . Witnesses told police the man was northbound on Wenatchee Avenue and drifted into a southbound lane for less than a block. Oncoming traffic stopped and waited for the man to pass, Smith said.

He then totaled his car on a light pole, Smith said.

When police asked the man what caused the accident, his one-word answer was “pterodactyl,” Smith said. A pterodactyl was a giant winged reptile that lived more than 65 million years ago.

Wenatchee in Washington state

City of Wenatchee in the middle of the state of Washington

Other Pterosaur Sightings by Drivers

Two weeks ago, Americans (at least a few Americans) observed Drive Safely Work Week; this week, it’s National Teen Driver Safety Week. I doubt we will ever have Drive Safely While Witnessing a Live Pterodactyl Week. But in the United States, driving may be the most common activity when someone sees an apparent living pterosaur (probably because most Americans are usually indoors when they’re not in an automobile). Within a period of about three years, I received reports of at least ten sightings in seven states: South Carolina, California, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas, Ohio (3), Georgia (2). With sighting dates from about 1980 to 2007, one involved driving a tractor, the rest involved driving a car.

Let’s look at one example from Live Pterosaurs in America, a lady who encountered an apparent pterosaur in Kansas:

“I had seen an extremely large bird that resembled a pterodactyl some years ago . . . between Rush Center and Larned, Kansas. I could not believe my eyes as I immediately thought of a prehistoric bird when I saw it. It must have had a wing-span of 16-20 feet. . . . It did not appear to have feathers. . . . This bird looked textbook pterodactyl. I am curious if any other Kansans have reported such a sighting? The bird took my breath away.”

What about the possibility of dreaming while falling asleep at the wheel? As explained in my book Live Pterosaurs in America, the sightings by drivers whose reports I have published deserve attention because of the lack of waking up. But in my book, I failed to clearly explain why a driver would dream of a pterosaur, or something else equally shocking, while driving: A lower level of consciousness may be creating a dream that causes the person to wake up. But in that kind of case, waking up itself is dramatic, remaining in the driver’s memory, for the timely awakening could have saved the person’s life.