Last month I received the first email from Laura . . ., who encountered a huge flying creature in Central Arkansas in the spring of 2012. I have since received many emails from her, with many details about the extraordinary creature she had observed. Here is a beginning (with some editing of the English):
I saw a pre-historic bird here in central Arkansas back this past spring. As I was driving over a small bridge with a creek underneath, it flew up from under the bridge beside my truck and flew up above my truck and out and over a field. I watched it from the side and the underneath. It had no feathers and it was grey skinned with pink undertones. It had three sections to its huge wings and a crown behind its head. It was so huge and heavy that it had trouble flying up high enough to get up over the top of the bridge. I watched as each section of its wings worked. . . .
Please be aware that she initially reported to me her conclusion that she may have observed a Pelagornis, based on the overall shape, especially the wings. (The Pelagornis is thought to be an extinct bird, probably closely related to storks and pelicans. It had a wingpspan of 15-20 feet.) In our communications, she repeated her assertion that the creature had no feathers and said, “This bird seemed to be almost as big as my small pickup truck. This is not a prank…I have a life and no time for pranks.”
.
Flight path: from lower to middle to upper image [Please note that the eyewitness has made a comment recently: “. . . the flying creature did have some type of (cone-like) head crest . . . even though I did not draw that . . .”]
Her sketches confirmed to me the strangeness of the wing shape. It’s more common, in sightings of modern pterosaurs, to see sharper wing tips, rather than the squares ones observed by Laura. Nevertheless, she reports a lack of feathers, in addition to a size too large to have been from a classified bird (even if feathers were present but not noticed).
.
Pterosaur Sighting or Ropen-Pterodactyl
Youtube video of an interview of Duane Hodgkinson (American World War II veteran) by Garth Guessman (video edited and uploaded by Jonathan Whitcomb)
Pterosaur Sighting Report Credibility
To be sure, very few Rhamphorhynchoid fossils include a head crest, but that structure in not entirely unknown on “basal” long-tailed pterosaurs. Many modern pterosaurs, according to many eyewitnesses worldwide, have both horn-like (or cone-like) head crests and long tails, in spite of fossils.
Addendum:
Laura Dean called in during the Monster X Radio talk show interview, on August 18, 2013, in which Shane Corson and “Johnny Bigfoot” were the hosts. Laura gave details about her sighting experience and the strange pterosaur she had observed.
###
.
Live Pterosaurs in America (3rd edition) by J. D. Whitcomb
This book is one of the best books that I have ever read! It reminds us to have an open mind and that the things we have all been taught as fact ….may not be fact at all. This is a very interesting and educational book and may change the way you see the world around you.
I would like to add that the flying creature did have some type of (cone-like) head crest on the back of it’s head even though I did not draw that in the sketches.