Does anyone have a newspaper article to share? It could be an old one, but please, not the nineteenth-century ones about the pterosaur breaking out of a tunnel in Europe or the cowboys who shot one in Arizona; we need more recent accounts.

Newspaper Articles – Live Pterosaur Media Center

The Houston Chronicle, by circulation the ninth largest newspaper in the United States, pulled away the welcome mat to “flying dinosaurs” that might want to fly over southwest Texas; it emphasized Whitcomb’s lack of credentials and experience. But “What’s going on in Marfa?” (December 19, 2010 issue) was elicited by the press release “Unmasking a Flying Predator in Texas,” which was written by Whitcomb after he had received, over several years, eyewitness reports of apparent living pterosaurs in Texas, from citizens of Texas. The Houston Chronicle writer failed to mention that.

This Houston Chronicle article deserves attention, although I had previously written about it briefly on this blog (Dinosaur Bird post). Before getting into details, I emphasize that I am grateful that “What’s going on in Marfa” was published by that newspaper, for it may have given at least a few readers the opportunity to consider the possibility of modern living pterosaurs, or at least to know that some people take it seriously.

Unfortunately, the staff writer for the Houston Chronicle, Claudia Feldman, did not take my cryptozoological hypothesis seriously. She asked me about my education and about my ideas about Marfa Lights, but appeared to set aside the sightings that make up the foundation of my investigations. Considering the politics of major news media, this should not be surprising. Any idea contrary to the beliefs of the great majority of newspaper readers—that is rarely taken seriously unless ample or obvious evidence appears in other news reports. What media writer would want to take a serious risk of censure? The idea that glowing pterosaurs live in Texas—that can too easily appear too paranormal to most news writers. That said, I feel that Feldman made a serious error in neglecting the many eyewitness accounts, reports from citizens of Texas who have encountered apparent pterosaurs; I have interviewed some of them myself, and have found them to be credible.

Front Page News – Live Pterosaur

The Antwerp Bee-Argus was more kind to the possibility of live pterosaurs. The August 5, 2009, issue of this weekly newspaper in Ohio gave the subject the front page, unfortunately misspelling “pterosaur” in the title, but giving an open-minded approach to a strange sighting by a local man.

Few major newspapers have published eyewitnesses accounts of apparent living-pterosaurs, at least in recent years. As reported in the Antwerp Bee-Argus, they “have been thought by many scientists to have gone extinct many millions of years ago,” that is, the pterosaurs, not yet major newspapers.

An email interview in 2007 is hardly news now, but this account of a sighting of a possible pterosaur has not previously been covered on this blog.

The Australian Steven Cottingham was the government’s Officer-In-Charge (Kiap) of Umboi and surrounding islands, and he lived on Umboi Island for one and a half years (natives call this island “Siassi,” although that word is also used for the group of islands that include “Big Siassi”).

His first email included:

My sighting occurred at night near Lab Lab on the southern tip of Umboi. The light lasted for four to five seconds, and until reading your reports now, have never been able to explain the sighting. The natives I was with simply said it was a spirit light!

I asked him a few questions:

Thank you, Steven

Thank you for telling me about your sighting. May I ask some questions?

1) Do you recall the time of night?

2) What direction was the light traveling (or was it stationary)?

3) Was there any color to the light or was it just white?

He answered:

1) Approximately 7 pm. I had been out fishing off the reef.

2) Horizontal, across the top of the Coconut palms. It was moving slowly and in a wavelike motion. It was too high and covered too much distance to be a person walking with a lantern, but I checked at daybreak to see if there was a walking track on a hill behind the coconut palms. There was nothing at that height. The coconuts were on flat ground.

3) Yes, dull orange. Not as round as the moon, but bigger than what a Coleman lantern would be.

I suspected that the “wavelike motion” related to wing flapping, but I asked him an open question: “Was the wavelike motion from side-to-side or up-and-down?” He answered, “Rhythmic, gentle UP-AND-DOWN as the light flowed in the direction of left to right.” This confirmed the possibility that he had observed a flying creature.

Cottingham in Context

A sighting by the biologist Evelyn Cheesman, a few decades before Cottingham’s sighting, is described in one of her books:

In her book, The Two Roads of Papua, she said that the flash lasted “about four or five seconds, but that flash had been a little distance away from the first. Flashes continued at intervals. . . . a most intriguing mystery; because by no possibility could there be human beings out there using flash-lamps at intervals . . .”

Cheesman’s sighting was on the mainland of what is now Papua New Guinea, west of Umboi Island.

Notice that the government official said, “The light lasted for four to five seconds,” and the biologist said that the flashes lasted “about four or five seconds.” That is very close to what natives on Umboi Island have said about how long the ropen light lasts.

On a different note of the same composition:

Are Live Pterodactyls Only Misidentified?

“Some skeptics have suggested that this flying creature is just a misidentified bird. One or two skeptics have even suggested it is just a Manta Ray or Singray, for those fishes, at times, can jump out of the water and might appear to fly.

“There are major problems with a gliding-fish interpretation, however. One skeptic said a little about two sightings in New Guinea: the Hodgkinson sighting of 1944 and the Hennessy sighting of 1971. Details were entirely absent in this critic’s writing, however. Neither sighting could have been from any fish.”

The other day I received a package from Australia, from Fred Silcock, who is probably the world’s leading expert on intrinsic bioluminescence in Barn Owls. One item in the package was a copy of an article from BBC Wildlife. But how do barn owls relate to reports of a live pterosaur? It’s the bioluminescence, or at least the hypothesis that both Tyto Alba and modern pterosaurs glow at night, especially when they fly.

BBC Wildlife Article by Richard Mabey (December, 2009, issue)

[The will-o'-the-wisp] was once frequently seen in marshy areas, and I’ve found records for the Waveney Valley where I live. None [of the records] are later than the 1830′s . . . the floating and bouncing, the eerie motion against the wind. One Norfolk fenman remarked that it “flew like an owl.”

But this spring an Australian reader of BBC Wildlife, Fred Silcock, sent me a copy of his self-published book about will-o’-the-wisps Down Under, where they’re called Min Min Lights. It’s based on more than 600 first-hand accounts, and ends with an extraordinary theory about their origins.

Mabey mentioned how Silcock obtained physical evidence for Barn Owl bioluminescence: “He commissioned histological examinations of a number of road-kill barn owls . . . [examinations] revealed dermal structures bearing similarities to known organs of luminescence found in some fish species.”

The Min Min Light (nonfiction book by Silcock, revised edition)

From page 49:

Eddie Sutton of Logan, Victoria, told me of a walk around the farm he took with his grandfather one day . . . when Eddie was a boy. They came upon a dead bird, which Eddie said he later believed was a Barn Owl. ‘That looks like the bird that lights itself up,’ said grandfather.

Eddie’s grandfather, long ago, once went to sleep on a haystack. He was awakened by a bright light next to him. The light rose quickly and flew away, revealing itself as a bird.

From page 50:

“The wife was with me [Mantung, South Australia] and we went into a paddock . . . we saw a bright orange light shoot up from the ground and hover over the trees . . . about 150 metres away. As we got closer the light came down and settled into the canopy of one tree. After a minute or so the light shut off and sitting where it had been was a white owl . . . The Barn Owl is white, isn’t it?” (words of Dennis Stasinowsky)

Marfa Lights of Texas (differs from Min Min and will-o’-the-wisp)

Residents around this part of the state, human residents, see some evidence of intelligence in these lights; that’s why they are called “dancing devils.” Along with that, Mr. Bunnell, one of the world’s leading authorities on the “ML’s” (mystery lights) has been amazed by their complexity. It seems that the scientists, including Bunnell, have no good explanation for that complexity. Non-living entities are deficient, entirely deficient, in any reasonable way, when it comes to reasons for dancing lights, and the dancing are far too complex.

A large portion of reports of apparent pterosaurs come from two states: California and Texas. Ohio and Washington State have their share, however, and a recent report involves a “monkey bird” near Tacoma, Washington.

Weird Bat-Like Creatures

The eyewitness called the strange flying creatures “monkey birds,” although he also mentioned a lack of feathers. He called it that, because of the strange call that he heard them make. The original report (or near-original) is found at Lights in the Texas Sky.

We have seen and heard a strange nocturnal, bat-like creature . . . huge, light grey, skin with no fur, feathers or scales. It silently swoops down at you with giant bat wings. . . . We keep our chickens and goats, small dogs and cats safely housed at night, however two of our cats who sneaked out one night onto the roof disappeared without a trace of fur, blood or any evidence of what exactly happened. They wouldn’t run away, and our outdoor watch dogs don’t allow any coyotes or ground traveling predators anywhere near us.

Pterosaurs in the Western United States

Peter Beach, a professor of biology, at night witnessed what he suspects was a bioluminescent flying predator over the Yakima River in the state of Washington. Much of his account is in the nonfiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America.

One of the flashes took off from a big tree overhanging the river and made a kind of flashing coma turn. Many flashes were parallel to the river. . . . there were many fish . . . Prime hunting grounds for fish-eating birds. Only these things fish at night with bioluminescence. At first I thought I was just seeing shooting stars, but they were all parallel to the river and close to the horizon. Next I noticed that when the cloud cover came in, I could still see the flashes. They were under the cloud cover.

Obviously meteors do not fly horizontally under cloud cover; in addition, Professor Beach mentions that one of the flying lights flew in a curve. He also noted one particular pair of light blasts that caused the local Night Hawk birds to scream in response. It suggests that the bioluminescent flying creatures (pterosaurs or not) were hunting Night Hawks.

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