Europe | Live Pterosaur

November 14, 2018November 14, 2018

Hot Spots for Pterosaur Sightings

ropens or living pterosaurs seen in Cuba

By investigative journalist Jonathan D. Whitcomb

Let’s begin with areas outside the United States, then we’ll get into the major hot spots in the USA, for sighting reports of these featherless flying creatures.

Shropshire, England

In September of 2017, I received an email from a lady living in England, near the border of Wales. She is the mother of four children, and some members of the family, including the mother, have seen an apparent pterosaur, very much non-extinct. This family had two sightings in September of 2017.

In August of 2018, I received an email from a man living in that same general area of Shropshire, but this sighting was in February of 2017. Here’s a bit of what he reported to me:

A creature with a wingspan of about 4-6 feet and a mottled greyish brown colouration flew directly overhead and onwards towards a field . . . this was way too big to have been a native bat species. . . . I recall a short tail, but it became thinner and more tapered out towards the end of it.

Shropshire, England (West Midlands), east of Wales

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (mid-20th century)

I’ve written a great deal about two sightings in eastern Cuba, about the flying creatures witnessed by Patty Carson (1965) and Eskin Kuhn (1971). An important point is that their sketches reveal similarities with many other apparent pterosaurs seen in other areas of North America.

These sightings, and others, are covered in my new nonfiction book for children and teenagers: The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur.

Ropens seen by Eskin Kuhn (left) and Patty Carson (right)

Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea

So much has been written about ropen sightings on this remote tropical island that we’ll only consider a brief summary of some sightings here:

Seen by seven boys/teenagers around late 1993 (Lake Pung)
Jonathan Ragu and his daughter saw one in 2004
Jonah Jim saw one flying towards Lake Pung in 2001
Rex Yapi Epa saw a huge ropen. It was mostly under water.

The crater lake Pung, Umboi Island (photo by G. Guessman)

We now turn to pterosaur sightings in the United States

Raleigh area of North Carolina

Some of these sighting reports have received negative reactions from popular press in North Carolina, but the news professionals, apparently, had only a limited number of sighting reports to go by. I’ve written much about these sightings elsewhere, so let’s move on.

Mansfield, Ohio, area

We don’t have many sighting reports to examine from here, but the city of Mansfield has a human population of less then 50,000. In that context, the two sighting reports that I have received are significant, for only a tiny fraction of the eyewitnesses ever contact me, wherever the sightings take place.

A man saw an apparent pterosaur on June 30, 2016, at about 4:00 a.m., and the report did not appear noteworthy to me when I got it; when I got another report from another eyewitness from Mansfield, Ohio, however, I saw it as more significant.

Ten days ago (Nov 4, 2018), I got an email from another eyewitness in that little city. Here’s a portion of what he told me:

I was taking my brother to work at 6 am. We live in a heavy wooded area where a creek runs through and when we made a left turn and my dad hollered deer. It flew in front of the truck about street light level and I said that’s not a deer that’s a bird. It was huge. My dad said that’s a pterodactyl. . . . It’s neck was long, it’s skin was like leather . . .

That would seem to make two sightings by three eyewitnesses in Mansfield, but there’s more. A few decades before, the mother of that eyewitness (the man who was taking his brother to work at 6 a.m.) also saw a “pterodactyl.” To bad for her but her parents did not believe her. That was also in Mansfield.

Los Angeles County

These sightings in this area of Southern California have been so numerous that one blog post alone will not properly hold all the details in many of them. Since I have written about those encounters in many other publications, we’ll let them suffice for now. (See the link below: . . . Los Angeles County.)

Draper, Utah

Just a few days ago, I interviewed an eyewitness face-to-face, in this community in the Salt Lake Valley. Last year, my wife and I interviewed another family in that same general area of Draper, also a face-to-face interview. Those two locations are only about two miles apart.

I’ve written elsewhere about those encounters. To summarize, three sightings involved four eyewitnesses, within a period of about eighteen months. I have no major doubt: They encountered a large ropen. I am not speculating about whether or not it was the same exact animal; I believe it was the same species.

How to Support this Investigation

Please support this work by purchasing your own copy of the new nonfiction book The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur (or buy one or more copies to give as gifts to children or teens).

I’ve been told that the title should have the word ‘pterosaur’ and not ‘dinosaur,’ but the girl referred to in the title seems to have used the d-word when she reported her sighting to her family (Patty Carson in Cuba in 1965). I also came to see that people would remember the title better (and find it easier) by using the word that is technically incorrect.

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Living pterosaur in England

These extraordinary flying creatures are nocturnal, at least most of them and for most of the time.

“Flying Dinosaur” Book for Ten-Year-Old Girls and Boys

To the best of my knowledge, no other nonfiction cryptozoology book about living pterosaurs has ever been written specifically for English readers between the ages of about eight and fourteen years old. The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur . . .

Living pterosaur in Cuba

“I communicated with another eyewitness, in 2011, by emails and phone, about what I’d eventually call the “Gitmo Pterosaur.” Here is some of what I received from Patty Carson, whose father worked at Guantanamo Bay in the mid-1960’s . . .”

The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

One new nonfiction . . . takes the reader into a little explored jungle, figuratively and literally: human encounters with living pterosaurs, what some persons call “dinosaur birds” or “pterodactyls” or “flying dinosaurs.” One eyewitness was a little girl in Cuba in 1965: Patty Carson. [about the non-fiction book for kids and teens]

Living pterosaur in Los Angeles County

“Dragon Pterosaurs in Southern California”

Flying Dinosaur book for ten-year-old

About a new nonfiction book for children and teens

September 30, 2017December 9, 2017

Pterosaur Sighting in England

By nonfiction author Jonathan D. Whitcomb

Living-pterosaur (LP) cryptozoology involves interviewing eyewitnesses of unusual flying creatures, analyzing details in those reports, and comparing various accounts. Sometimes a number of sightings occur in the same general area. Let’s look at the British Isles, an area mostly neglected in my previous writings about these wonderful flying creatures that are not extinct. In particular, we have many reports of dragons in England, earlier in history, and some of those accounts may have involved flying creatures that have been reported in recent generations.

Please be aware that one explanation that people may suggest is that ropens or non-ropen modern pterosaurs have flown from Africa to the British Isles. I now have not nearly enough knowledge to say anything about that potential connection between Africa and western Europe, so let’s put that aside for now.

Pterosaur Sightings in Western England in September of 2017

Whitchurch, the oldest continuously inhabited town in Shropshire, England, has a population of about 10,000 and is only two miles from the border with Wales. On September 27, 2017, I received an email from a lady who wishes to be anonymous but whose experience needs to be shared with the world. In one of the emails I sent her, I mentioned the possibility that some of the larger living pterosaurs may be dangerous to people.

Here is part of her account (slightly edited for punctuation, spelling, etc):

. . . I am in the best of health mentally. I do not take any form of narcotics nor prescription pills, and I do not drink. I am a God fearing women. . . . Two weeks ago around 9 a.m. . . . I went into the garden . . . we live near a wildlife reserve which has an abundance of birds and wildlife, including eagles and hawks, heron, geese, swans, etc. It’s usual for them to fly overhead, and I see them flying; you hear their calls and get familiar with sounds.

Well, on this particular morning I heard a very strange screech; I say strange as I had never heard it before, and it was very loud, almost resounding. I could hear it getting closer across the way from behind the trees. I was curious as to what the sound was, but nothing prepared me for what I actually saw.

I saw two pterodactyls, side by side, flying past the tree. Now at first I had to check myself, because the first thing I thought was “those are blooooody big birds, that’s no lie.” But what struck me was that it had a giant size beak and the wings had no feathers.

. . . this was huge and flew directly past [some crows, revealing size], so due to its size I could see it clearly although it went past fast due to the size of the clearing between the tree and the houses. It was grey in colour, both of them as far as I could tell.

I have [researched] every bird in England and even foreign birds that look similar, in case any had escaped, but the one thing is the sound. None of the birds sound like what I heard. I took a whole day pondering and wondering what it is I actually saw . . .

I thought perhaps it was a toy, yes they have some good toys, but they still look plastic and two dimensional unless at a great distance, even the ones that flap their wings. It didn’t flap its wings up and down like a toy. It was a very fluid motion even coming across in a down to side ways sweep. After a day of research I kept the information to myself except [for] my husband, who remained skeptical but listened very nicely.

I may also add that it did not have [that I noticed] a lump on it head. So that is my story, however last weekend two of my children were playing in the garden . . . around 10 a.m. [and] my son of 13 years came running in to me saying he saw a giant big brown bird with giant wings.

He did have a look of fright or concern on his face, so I knew he wasn’t trying to pull my leg or was exaggerating. My younger daughter, who is nine, was with him and she said she didn’t see it, as she was playing by the trees, but she heard its sound. I asked her the sound (she happens to be a very good mimic when it comes to animals), and she made the sound that I had heard.

[For] the screech sound, the only thing that has come close is on Youtube: a pterodactyl sound clip. I went through pictures of birds with my son; he said it was bigger than the eagles which usually fly around the area. He said it was brown with very long wings. I asked him [if] it have feathers; he said he doesn’t know, he only saw it for a moment. So . . . [I] showed him a [picture of a] pterodactyl and he said, “Yes, that’s what it looked like.”

What I saw had no feathers and its wings were almost bat shaped. I had hoped someone else had seen it or it may have been reported, but as to date no one has. I have done much research online and the largest heron here still does not compare to what I saw: The legs are not long enough and the beak is not as big and the feathers are a major factor here.

I cannot explain what I saw. It was something like out of a movie but it was so quick I still disbelieve what I saw, and at the same time I know what I have seen. I do not know how something like that flying around was not seen by anyone else, as it was low flying, or how it could hide, but what I have told you is true.

Kind Regards . . .

“Bridgenorth, Shropshire” by Paul Sandby (1731-1809)

I replied:

Thank you

I was fortunate to be able to pass through your area of England in 1972 and still hope to return some day.

I know it can be a shock to see this kind of flying creature: We’re taught from early childhood that all of them became extinct long ago. My associates and I hope that these animals will be acknowledged by Western science before long. My own research has been ongoing for most of the past 13 years. We have an expedition ready to start in Papua New Guinea, where these flying creatures are best known and most commonly acknowledged. I will not be able to go along myself but I am grateful that I’ve been able to do just a little bit in supporting it this year.

Let’s begin with what my associates and I know. The animals are indeed real and very much non-extinct. One common name that many people use for them in the USA and in many English-speaking nations is “pterodactyl.” The proper word among scientists is “pterosaur,” but let’s not worry about that technicality.

We know, from many years of interviewing eyewitnesses in a number of areas of the world, that these modern species of pterosaurs are real, not from human imagination or hallucination. The two you saw, and the one seen by your son, have probably been seen by other persons in your area, but most people do not report their sightings, at least not to me or to one of my associates.

Since you have cats and children, I need to warn your family that at least some of the larger ones may sometimes be dangerous, although we still have much to learn.

I have a couple of questions:

1) Did any of the ones seen by your family have a long tail?

2) What is the online address (URL address) of the Youtube video that has a “pterodactyl sound clip?”

Thank you very much for reporting your sighting. It has been some time since I’ve gotten a report from your area.

Jonathan Whitcomb

The lady replied:

Dear Jonathan,

Thank you for your reply and information regarding pterosaurs.

This is the youtube clip with the sound, there are a number of them on youtube but this one comes closest to what I heard, although only up to four seconds as the second part of the sound I didn’t hear that.

{sound of pterosaur shreek}

As for your question whether or not they had tails, this is my son’s interpretation of what he saw (he is not the best artist): He said it moved very fast like in stealth mode and was chasing one of the eagles or hawks around. He said it was 2-3 times the size of the bird it was chasing. I found a better image online but he said that it didn’t have such a big head crest part and the tail more like what he drew.

As for me, there was something trailing but I thought it was legs, but I didn’t really focus or notice as I was focused on its front, the beak and wings, and the time frame that I saw it was very quick. But to be honest I would say I saw legs rather than a tail. . . . It had very long wings.

My daughter told me yesterday that on the way home from school she was looking out the window and where the sheep were she saw one flying in the sky. My husband did not see it as he was driving. It could be a heat of the moment thing as she is my youngest daughter of nine years, and you know how children can be sometimes, but she said she honestly saw it so thought I would mention it. I asked her to draw what she saw.

I hope that has been of help to you, I shall certainly keep a look out and let you know if I see anything else.

Kind Regards . . .

Shropshire, England

Concluding notes from Jonathan Whitcomb

We need to keep an open mind about ancient accounts of flying dragons in England and consider them in light of the more recent sightings of apparent pterosaurs.

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Not extinct but living pterosaurs

How many critics have assumed that eyewitnesses of living pterosaurs must be either mistaken or dishonest! . . . I have interviewed eyewitnesses from many countries, including the United States, England, the Netherlands, Sudan, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Australia. Many of them describe a large flying creature with a long tail.

Cryptozoology in England

A witness reported a large pterosaur-like creature flying above Nursery woods.

Pterosaur Sightings in Europe

Lake District of England
Spain, mid-2007
Books on modern pterosaurs

Living Pterosaurs (monsters?)

(by the cryptozoology author Jonathan David Whitcomb) I’m also grateful to Lon Strickler for allowing me here tp report a few sightings of apparent pterosaurs, but it deserves a brief introduction. This is a strange investigation in a narrow branch of cryptozoology.

Non-extinct pterodactyl

“The extinction of some species of pterosaurs, out of so many known from fossils, is hardly disputed. The popular textbook declaration that all species became extinct millions of years ago, universal pterosaur extinction—that concept itself is approaching extinction.” Jonathan Whitcomb

Living-pterosaur books for LDS readers

Searching for Ropens and Finding God
Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea
Live Pterosaurs in America
Modern Pterosaurs

Ropen of Papua New Guinea

Plans for an expedition on Umboi Island, possibly starting before the end of 2017

Owlman sightings in England

The young witnesses ran back to their father, crying and frightened. They claimed they had seen a large unidentified winged creature . . .

Extinction ideas and pterosaurs

Western indoctrination into the dogma of universal-extinction of all species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs has been so widespread for so many generations that any mention of the possibility of one species surviving to modern times is often met with extreme skepticism or worse.

Living pterosaurs in Africa

. . . specific sighting reports have similar details, namely this: a large or giant size, a long tail with a Rhamphorhynchoid-like structure at the end, and a lack of feathers.

Ropen bioluminescence

Dragon or Big Bird in Sandy and Draper, Utah
Ropen Sightings in the United States
Ropen-Pterodactyl in Utah and Arizona?
Marfa Pterosaurs? You’re Getting Warmer!

Eyewitnesses of living pterosaurs

With each passing year, it becomes more obvious why many eyewitnesses of apparent living pterosaurs are credible and that the flying creatures observed are indeed modern pterosaurs. Many of the sightings are of obvious ropens, in other words modern Rhamphorhynchoids.

January 28, 2017

Pterosaur Sightings in Spain

By living-pterosaur expert and author Jonathan D. Whitcomb

Sighting in Benicassim, Spain (mid-2007)

I received an email in 2008, from a man living in England. Here’s part of his sighting report:

I hope you are the Jonathan Whitcomb . . . investigating pterodactyl like animals in Papua New Guinea?

I’m not sure who to tell this to, as it’s a bit strange, but I was researching ‘modern pterodactyls’ on the
internet, following something I saw a bit closer to home in Spain, and your name cropped up quite a lot, so
thought you might be interested in what I saw . . .

Apart from the two people with me at the time, I haven’t mentioned this to anyone (bar yourself now), simply because I realise it sounds odd, and can’t be bothered to have to defend myself on this. . . .

. . . last summer, some friends and I drove from England . . . [to a desert in Spain] for a music festival. One night, [while] sitting on the ground . . . (a fair way from the noise and commotion of the festival), I saw . . . [something that] passed right over us, probably about 30-40 ft high, and as I watched it, I realised it was definitely no owl I’d ever seen before. It was the colour of suede/sand . . .

[The flying creature] had a long thin tail, and didn’t flap once. I only saw it for a few seconds (as the campsite was lit up, illuminating it from beneath), but it fairly quickly passed into the dark, out of the reach of the light. It wasn’t as big as the ones you describe from Papua New Guinea, but was 100% not a bird. . . . I haven’t been able to find any species of fruit bat ANYWHERE that has a long, straight tail, and I’m sure I’d recognise a fruitbat . . .

. . . wingspan I’d estimate to be only 2-3 feet tip to tip, and was gliding for the whole time I saw it. The impression I got was a lot more bat-like than bird, except it had a beak- and I realise that owls have flat faces, and bats obviously don’t have beaks. The tail must have been close to a foot [long] I guess . . . held out perfectly straight behind it.

Sightings in Barcelona, Spain

Let’s consider reports of the “giant winged cryptid” seen in Barcelona in 1990.

. . . the creature was seen (day and night) in various parts of the Catalonian capital and in locations such as Gavá, Sant Joan Despí, Salou, Bellvei del Penedés and the region of Empordá. According to eyewitness accounts, the bird ranged as far away as 100 kilometers distant from Barcelona.

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. . . .

A few days after the apparition, the Police acknowledged in a story published in El Periodico de Cataluña that it had received hundreds of calls reporting the presence of the gigantic being, while the citizen hotline crashed as a result of the event. . . .

Conclusion

What are we to think about these sightings of strange flying creatures in Spain? Take them in context: sightings of apparent modern pterosaurs worldwide.

The following are only some of the nations where these “pterodactyls” or “dragons” are reported to fly, at least at some time within the past 100 years, and some of these countries have many sighting reports.

Australia
Canada
China
Cuba
Great Britain
Greece (island of Crete)
Mexico
Namibia (Africa)
Netherlands (Holland)
New Zealand
Papua New Guinea
Philippines
Singapore
Spain
Sudan (Africa)
United States of America (most states)

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Pterosaurs in Spain

With all the web pages, blogs, and forum postings about possible pterosaurs reported in Papua New Guinea, the United States, and Africa, what about other continents? Well, Europe has its share . . .

Giant Flying Creature in Spain

In Barcelona and surrounding areas in Spain, in 1990, a large or giant flying creature was reported by a number of eyewitnesses. Now some cryptozoologists and others are trying to explain what happened.

El Ropen de Papúa Nueva Guinea

El “ropen” es un cryptid de Papúa Nueva Guinea. Algunos investigadores creen que es un pterosauro que vive.

August 15, 2014August 18, 2014

Is Dracula for Real?

This vampire idea has nothing to do with the Twilight fiction books by Stephenie Meyer or the films from those novels. It’s not directly related to the 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, either. Since the word “Dracula” has come out in a few of the many sighting reports of apparent living pterosaurs, it’s time to examine an explanation for the origin of the vampire legends in Europe and Asia.

Natural Explanation for Vampire Legends

Not all legends are based solely on imagination or fiction. When enough people see something similar at night, fear can cause imaginative ideas to flourish, in particular when people have little or no knowledge about what they actually observed in the dark. It’s common for us to grasp at conjectures to fill in the void of ignorance, yet what originally caused that grasping is often real human experience.

Vampires in Europe

For thousands of years, vampire legends have floated around in what we now call the Middle East and in ancient Greece, and probably elsewhere: terrifying spirits that drank blood. The kinds of stories better known to the modern Western world, however, more resemble legends from southeastern Europe within the past two or three centuries. From the early-to-mid-1700’s in particular—that’s when the frenzy of vampire gossip took hold in some areas.

European Dracula

Vampire Stories in the Philippines

According to Wikipedia, “The manananggal [related to the Aswang legend] is described as being an older, beautiful woman capable of severing its upper torso in order to fly into the night with huge bat-like wings . . .” This could have come from observations of a ropen, for that modern pterosaur has nothing resembling a lower torso or legs of a human. On Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, one native tradition about the ropen seems related: It is said to transform itself between snake, human, and ropen. On one or more occasions, natives in the Philippines may have seen a woman at night, in about the same area and about the same time as a ropen was seen. This led to the idea that a woman can transform herself into a large winged creature at night.

Bats and Vampire Legends

Also according to Wikipedia, bats were not originally associated with the vampires of European legends, within the past few centuries. “Vampire bat” refers to species in the Western Hemisphere, with that animal being named for its blood-drinking; the European Dracula more likely got the bat-idea from the New World, not the other way around. Little is said about any wings on vampires, on the Wikipedia pages, and much of what is mentioned refers to stories in the Philippines.

So does the Dracula story (about a man transforming himself into a dangerous bat) come from encounters with blood-sucking pterosaurs in Europe? Probably not, although the man-to-ropen transformation legend on Umboi Island appears to resemble that European story. Each area of the world, and each legend, needs to be taken into account separately, which is a bit outside my area of expertise in my interviews with eyewitnesses of apparent living pterosaurs. Nevertheless, it may be worthy of closer scrutiny.

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Dracula-Vampire and Modern Pterosaurs

. . . I don’t dispute this possibility for the origin of the Dracula myth in Transylvania, that it involved one or more observations of a large pterosaur standing on the ground at night. But it is speculation.

Searching for Ropens and Finding God

Similarities of belief are emphasized in Searching for Ropens and Finding God, with mutual faith in the supreme mission of Jesus Christ and with mutual conviction in the historic truthfulness of the Flood of Genesis and agreement in the new interpretation of the biological nature of the fiery flying serpents. No compromise is needed in those beliefs.