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An Apparent Living Pterodactyl Reported in Utah

large pterosaur seen by Sandra Paradise in Georgia, USA

Press Release from Jonathan David Whitcomb, originally published as a Facebook “Note” (but FB Notes may eventually become extinct)

MURRAY, UT, April 24, 2020/~~~ The nonfiction author Jonathan Whitcomb, of Murray, Utah, in 2017 and 2018, interviewed four eyewitnesses of an apparent “pterodactyl” in central Utah. He now declares that those reports from Draper, Salt Lake County, help distinguish Utah in a map showing where similar sightings have been reported across the United States.

On April 18, 2020, Whitcomb made public that map and now asks people to contact him if they have seen anything similar, wherever it was. He and his associates look for any kind of support people may give to their research and to their searching for non-bat featherless flying creatures that some persons call “flying dinosaurs.”

Map of USA with colors indicating pterosaur sightings per human population

From Declaration on Eyewitness Reports of Apparent Living Pterosaurs

Over the past 16 years, hundreds of eyewitnesses have contacted Whitcomb from five continents, and some of those were from 41 states of the USA. Three of those states now stand out in the number of reported sightings of apparent pterosaurs in relation to each state’s human population: Hawaii, Utah and Arkansas, in that order.

Whitcomb admits a few challenges for this branch of cryptozoology: “Bigfoot is a far better known cryptid, yet my associates and I face a bigger problem than competition for attention: generations of Western tradition that insists all species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs became extinct millions of years ago. That controversy has given us negative attention. On top of that is the possibility that in some areas of the world somebody might see a frigate bird and think they had witnessed a non-extinct pterodactyl. Not everything that looks like a pterosaur is one.”

One of those areas is around the Hawaiian Islands, where the great frigate bird may be seen by over a million tourists each year. From a distance, those birds may appear to be featherless to some naive tourists, even though Whitcomb insists that at least some of the reports he receives from Hawaii are clearly not due to any frigate birds being misidentified.

Yet if skeptics eliminate Hawaii from the list of 41 American states with reported pterodactyl sightings, because of frigate birds, where does that leave Utah and Arkansas? Whitcomb loves to point out that problem with the frigate-bird explanation for reports of living pterosaurs in general. He declares, “Oceanic frigate birds do not congregate far from the ocean and surely not in Utah, Arkansas, Oklahoma or Kansas, where pterosaur sighting reports dramatically stand out.”

In the past thirteen months, Whitcomb has uploaded to Youtube 54 videos on sightings of animals he believes are descended from ones closely related to pterosaurs known, by paleontologists, from fossils. Years earlier, he wrote a scientific paper hoping to encourage scientists to take eyewitness sightings from Papua New Guinea seriously: “Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific.” It was published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in 2009. In recent years, most eyewitness reports sent to him have been from North America.

Whitcomb led an expedition in Papua New Guinea in 2004, where he searched for the ropen of Umboi Island. Since then, he has written five nonfiction books on modern pterosaurs and has published over a thousand blog posts and other web pages on that branch of cryptozoology. His Youtube channel is “Protect Animal Life.”

The data used to construct the map of sightings in the United States, showing the dominance of Hawaii, Utah, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas, was obtained from the site Declaration on Eyewitness Reports of Apparent Living Pterosaurs and from the 2010 census.

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from web page "Declaration on Eyewitness Reports of Apparent Living PterosaursHundreds of sightings of modern “pterodactyls” worldwide

Flying dinosaur sightings around the world

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one of Whitcomb's web pages: misc Umboi Island photos

“More Pterosaurs Online” (Youtube video)

Online resources for sightings of living pterosaurs

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large pterosaur seen by Sandra Paradise in Georgia, USA

[The tail] “was obviously a part of the body”

Sandra Paradise describes the huge flying creature she saw in Georgia

In this Youtube video, uploaded on May 8, 2020, on the channel Protect Animal Life, discover how shocked Sandra Paradise was to see a living pterosaur just a few miles from her home, just east of Winder, Georgia (United States) in the summer of 2008.

The above sketch she drew and sent to Jonathan Whitcomb. She responded to the suggestion that what she saw was a great blue heron that was carrying a snake in its mouth. Sandra dismissed that speculation, for the flying creature was nothing like any great blue heron.

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Video on Pterosaur Sightings in South Carolina

A blog post on a Youtube video on the PAL channel (“Protect Animal Life”).

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Recent Pterosaur Sighting Reports in the United States of America

Mansfield, Ohio, pterosaur sighting - eyewitness's sketch of the apparent pterodactyl

You don’t need to go on an expedition to Papua New Guinea to see a modern pterosaur including a long-tailed featherless ropen. For generations, Americans have been encountering these shocking flying creatures, and the sightings continue. The following are a few of the recently reported encounters with pterosaurs in the USA. As has been usual, not all of the reports are of recent sightings; they’re just recently reported.

At least some of these sighting reports have been slightly edited for spelling, punctuation, etc., and at least most of them are here given only in part.

Pterosaur Sighting in Edgerton, Wisconsin, in 1996 (reported mid-July, 2016)

When I was about 8 years old, living on a farm in Edgerton, WI, I remember looking up and seeing a large flying creature. Something seemed odd about it and after a second or two I realized it had a long, whippy tail, not at all like a bird. I watched it fly across the sky until it was out of sight and will never forget what I saw. I know it wasn’t any bird I’ve heard of before, that tail was just, wrong. It had a bulb at the end of it . . . [Apparent ropen]

Mansfield, Ohio, area (sighting in late June of 2016)

. . . I was on Stiving Road [probably northwest of Mansfield]. It was [about] 4:10 to 4:20  a.m. The sky was still pretty dark. I saw on the left . . . a creature flying toward the Mansfield Airport area.

Its head shape was like a stick at [approximately] a 45° angle. I could see its body and feet but not its wings because of the side view and to me it looked like a petrasaur [pterosaur].

This was the first time I have ever seen anything like this. . . . Here’s a picture I drew of an [approximation] of what I saw.

Mansfield, Ohio, pterosaur sighting - eyewitness's sketch

Sketch drawn by the eyewitness – note unusual angle of the head/head-crest to the body

I (Jonathan Whitcomb) had a phone conversation with the eyewitness of the above flying creature and found no significant problem with his credibility. He was about 200-250 yards away from the apparent pterosaur. He could say nothing about the presence or absence of a tail.

Near Loganville, Georgia, around mid-June of 2016

Like many sighting reports, this one was sent to Jonathan Whitcomb by email.

[Received early on July 16, 2016] . . . very late about a month ago just outside of Loganville, Georgia. On Centerville/Rosebud Road. . . . we saw this huge bird fly from her side up and away to my side (driver side). It didn’t have any feathers or fur on the wings and you could see the bones in the wings like a bat only this was as large as the hood of my truck. It also appeared to have a tail that was kind of hanging down but slightly curled up as it flew.

. . . My wife said she immediately thought of Jurassic Park. We did not see the head as it was flying away at an angle. Researched a lot of birds on Google but a pterodactyl is the only thing that looks like it. [Possible ropen]

Pterosaur Sighting in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in early 1980’s

This report of a daytime sighting comes from a comment on one of my YouTube videos (only slightly edited).

One flew right over our heads and landed in my mom’s field across the creek. . . . He was no more than ten feet directly above us, but I think it was closer to five. [It] feels like I could have jumped and touched him! His wing span was 15-17 feet.

Very distinctive kite point on the end of his cat like tail. No feathers, fur or anything. Skin was like dusty black leather, feet were pulled up, black, long pointed  black nails. I didn’t see the top of his head or his back well before he landed. . . . [Very likely a ropen]

Never really publicly posted my encounter before so I thought I should get the info out there so someone can use it.

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Ropen pterosaur sightings

Live Pterosaurs in America and Searching for Ropens and Finding God—those are the two major nonfiction cryptozoology books about non-extinct “pterodactyls” that include the long-tailed ropen.

Eyewitness of a ropen

“Pterodactyl” was the word used for the ropen of Papua New Guinea. The American Duane Hodgkinson, a World War II veteran, gives us the shocking details about the encounter the two soldiers had with the huge flying creature in 1944. This professional-quality YouTube interview was done by the cryptozoology-explorer Garth Guessman and edited by Jonathan Whitcomb.

Frightening Pterosaur Sightings in the USA

California (two)

Oklahoma

Rhode Island

South Carolina

Texas (two)

Wisconsin

Fear of the flying creature is only one kind of terror with encounters between human and pterosaur in the United States of America. Sometimes the eyewitness is frightened not during but after the sighting and not for fear of the creature itself: It’s fear of personal insanity.

Pterodactyl Sighting

Peter Beach and Milt Marcy, both of the Portland area of Oregon, led an expedition in Papua New Guinea, in March and April of 2015, searching for a living pterosaur that previous American explorers had failed to see clearly. This time Americans did see, in daylight, the form and features of an apparent pterosaur.

Ropen Sightings

“The Big Picture of Modern Pterosaurs”

“Reply to Misidentification Conjectures”

“Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaurs and Ropens”

etc.

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New to the Public: Sightings Data for USA

data on living-pterosaur sightings

I now make my pterosaur-sightings data available to the public, from the compilations leading up to the end of 2012, for the forty-eight contiguous states of the USA, for the more credible reports. Out of the 128 sightings (worldwide) in that compilation, 90 were in the lower-forty-eight states. For details on those sightings in the USA, see these images (Be aware that the first one, with columns B-U, is the only image designating, on the left, the kind of data):

Pterosaur Sightings – columns B through U

(CA, TX, IN, SC, FL, KY, WI, MI, AR, OK, GA, RI, ME, NY, MD, KS)

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Pterosaur Sightings – columns V through AN

(OH, CA, GA, TX, NM, WA, PA, MI, WI)

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Pterosaur Sightings – columns AO through AZ

(TX, CA, KY, AZ, FL, GA)

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Pterosaur Sightings – columns BA through BL

(NY, PA, NJ, GA, MI, NC, OR, WA)

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Pterosaur Sightings – columns BM through BW

(CA, MN, WA, MT, ID, SC, AR, MS, NC, KS)

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Pterosaur Sightings – columns BX through CM

(GA, VA, CA, NC, OK, NY, IL, LA, WA, AL, AZ, FL)

Be aware that five of the above can be understood only by referencing the top one, which contains an explanation in the “A” column for the kind of information: “long tail” (yes of no), length of sighting (in seconds), etc.

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Introduction to the Data on American Pterosaur Sightings

Except for column-A, each column is for a sighting report in the United States of America (NOT including Alaska and Hawaii). Column-A is the type of data, for example row-3 is for the presence or absence of a long tail. Many of the cells are empty, for most eyewitnesses gave limited information on their encounters.

What do I mean by “more credible sightings?” Each sighting report in this compilation (including the 90 here examined) was judged by me to be more than 50% likely to have been an actual encounter with a living pterosaur.

In what state was a particular sighting? Row-44 tells you that, usually in the two-letter abbreviation used by the U.S. Postal Service.

What do I mean by “Non-JDW interviewer?” Row-47 tells who interviewed an eyewitness. I’m JDW (Jonathan David Whitcomb), and “JDW+” means I was one of the interviewers. I interviewed eyewitnesses in at least 64 of the 90 sightings (71%+).

What do I mean by “Concerned of opinions?” Row-24 is for indications of whether or not an eyewitness was worried about what people would think about their reporting a sighting of an apparent “pterodactyl” or “dragon” (by whatever name). For 75 of those 90 reports, I did not get anything recorded in the database, but 14 indicated they were concerned and one indicated no concern. In light of the 14-to-1 ratio, I feel sure that the great majority of the remaining 75 did indeed worry about what other people would think about them.

In What States Were the Sightings?

The following shows how many sightings were in the 33 states involved.

Alabama: 1

Arizona: 2

Arkansas: 2

California: 13

Florida: 3

Georgia: 7

Idaho: 1

Illinois: 1

Indiana: 2

Kansas: 2

Kentucky: 2

Louisiana: 1

Maine: 1

Maryland: 1

Michigan: 2

Minnesota: 1

Mississippi: 1

Missouri: 1

Montana: 1

New Jersey: 2

New Mexico: 2

New York: 5

North Carolina: 4

Ohio: 3

Oklahoma: 2

Oregon: 1

Pennsylvania: 3

Rhode Island: 1

South Carolina: 2

Texas: 10

Virginia: 2

Washington: 6

Wisconsin: 2

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Notice that in the two states with the largest human populations (California and Texas) we have more sightings (13 and 10) than in other states and that these are also the two largest states in land area (48-contiguous states). The third-place award for most sighting reports is Georgia, with seven. This state is average in land area but large in human population, eighth in the United States according to a July-2014 estimate.

Why so Long in Coming?

Why has it taken so long for this pterosaur-sighting data to be made public? I compiled it at the end of 2012 and made certain statistical data available in 2013. But I saw that it would be too easy for many persons to jump to wrong conclusions, if they had all the raw data. At least one or two prospective armchair researchers were actually expecting to learn something about migratory patterns from the many details that I had compiled on encounters with apparent pterosaurs in the forty-eight contiguous states of the USA.

But what can anybody learn about migration patterns from a teenaged girl who throws a few stones over the edge of a cliff, causing a “pterodactyl” to fly off the edge of that cliff and glide away down the river gorge? The direction of flight has no relationship to any migratory pattern, for that flying creature was just trying to avoid getting hit by a flying rock. You might as well take note in which direction a running back is running with a football and try to figure out in what city he’ll be playing the next game, next week.

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Image of the Kinds of Data

feathers, or lack; long tail?; head crest; etc

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Pterosaur Sighting by a Ms Wooten, in South Carolina

Susan Wooten, of Greenville, South Carolina,  was driving from home to Florence (about  1989) when she saw a giant creature glide  over the highway in front of the car. . . . “It looked as big as any car, and had NO  feathers, not like a huge crane or egret”

Pterosaur Sightings in North America

What about sighting reports? Can’t they help us understand migration for these featherless flying creatures? Not likely. Look at a few examples. A teenager and her dad are standing at the top of a cliff as the girl is tossing stones over the edge. A large “pterodactyl” flies off the cliff, just below the humans, soaring out over the river below. The flight direction has nothing to do with any migration . . .

American Pterosaur Sightings (and in Papua New Guinea)

From 2005 until the present, eyewitness reports in the United States have rivaled those in Papua New Guinea. As some Americans learned about the live-pterosaur investigations in the Southwest Pacific, eyewitnesses of similar flying creatures reported encounters to Jonathan Whitcomb; he analyzed the  many accounts and then wrote the non-fiction book Live Pterosaurs in America . . .

California Pterosaur Sightings (Los Angeles)

The sightings were a little over a mile apart, both from drivers on the northbound Interstate-5 Freeway, just east of Griffith Park, near Glendale.

Texas Pterosaurs

What does Texas have to do with extant pterosaurs? A lot. Not only do eyewitnesses report apparent living pterosaurs in Texas, but two Texans are pioneers in this cryptozoological investigation.

Flying Creature in Georgia

This past Wednesday, January 2, 2013, I received an email from an eyewitness in Missouri. The sighting was not old: “about 45 minutes ago.” But the present hot spot for sightings, in the past few weeks of cooler weather, is the state of Georgia, with two sightings in December of 2012.

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Whitcomb's nonfiction book

Cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America

From the back cover of this nonfiction:

The author, Jonathan Whitcomb, the world’s most prolific writer on living pterosaurs, here shares with you years of interviews with Americans who have encountered the rare nocturnal flying creatures whose descriptions make them nothing other than pterosaurs . . .

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Flying Creature Sightings in Georgia

Cooler weather does not mean pterosaur sightings come to a halt, for they continue. This past Wednesday, January 2, 2013, I received an email from an eyewitness in Missouri. The sighting was not old: “about 45 minutes ago.” But the present hot spot for sightings, in the past few weeks of cooler weather, is the state of Georgia, with two sightings in December of 2012.

The following are some of the words of David Schroder (who has given me permission to use his name), of northern Georgia:

[In] July of 2010, My wife and I were sitting outside when motion from above the tree tops to our left caught my attention; it’s very hard to explain how I felt at that moment. We were looking at two extremely large birds flying together and heading north . . . I can only guess to be 15-20′ wing spans and the motion of their wings as they flew was very slow. The head was long and ended in a point; wings ended in a point and appeared to be featherless . . .

Anyway, it happened again yesterday [Dec 9, 2012], this time there were three of us who saw this bird fly over, in plain sight, in daylight, up close . . .

. . . I have been trying to contact a whole lot of people (with not much success) I don’t know how to say this any other way except that I have seen these very large birds that don’t even come close to looking like anything else I’ve ever seen. I believe them to be Pterosaurs or something similar to them. . . . I have seen three of these birds in the past year and a half, I have also heard them. . . .

This last sighting has sparked me to do something about it. There were two other people with me when I saw the last one; this was three days ago. I am intent on identifying these large birds. This is not a joke, I, we have seen something that is not supposed to be here! . . .

We need to keep this in mind: When Mr. Schroder says “birds,” his description of the flying creatures includes:

  • “appeared to be featherless”
  • wingspans of about fifteen to twenty feet
  • “the head was long and ended in a point”

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looking down a mountain-side of forest in the state of Georgia

Forested hills in Georgia, USA

Update, December 21, 2018:

A number of additional sightings have been reported to me from the American state of Georgia, over a number of years. At least some of these flying creatures I believe were ropens.

In August of 2018, I received the following, which is only part of one email:

May 2018, My husband and I both saw a living pterosaur. It was flying about 10 feet from the ground. It flew directly in front of our car while we were going approximately 30 miles an hour right at it. . . . It headed over the tree line near the Atlanta Motor speedway. . . . It was greyish in color. . . . It was as long as the car is wide. Possibly slightly longer.

One year earlier, I got the following email from a different eyewitness in Georgia (although the sighting was in 2003):

In 2003 I was driving my dad to visit one of his friends… we were in the foothills of the mountains between murrayville and Dahlonega… we went around a curve and we saw a large pterodactyl flying toward the truck… we were freaked out it was like it was gonna try and swoop in on the truck… then we drove under some trees and it was gone!!! I’ve told many people but, I know what I saw…

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Sightings in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina

Although pterosaur sightings are reported across the contiguous 48 states of the USA, the southeast has enough of a similarity of environment to suggest the “pterodactyls” seen in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, may be similar species or even the same species.

 

State of Georgia is Hot

Along with his wife and some friends, Schroder has seen this flying creature, most recently on December 9, 2012.

 

Live Pterosaurs in South-East U.S.A.

Apparent pterosaurs in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina

 

“Another Pterosaur Sighting in Georgia”

On Wednesday, July 18, 2012, a lady was driving with her two sons on Highway 27, in Franklin, Georgia, around 8:15 a.m., when they saw what she called a “flying dinosaur.”

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Cover, back and front, of Live Pterosaurs in America - nonfiction book

Non-fiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition

For the previous (second) edition, an Amazon review includes:

This is an updated review of the book and I am changing my rating to 5 stars. . . . I pick it up every now and then and a part of me becomes more impressed by the book every time. Yes, the skeptics will laugh at it, but I am a skeptic too. . . .  I remember stumbling on this subject (cryptozoology, living dinosaurs, extinct animals) in recent years. I always find myself fascinated by the subject. I remember hearing stories for the first time. Wait?? Some people claim to have seen dinosaurs and pterodactyl like animals today and in the past?? I couldn’t get enough and their are so few books on the subject. I highly recommend this. . . . Whitcomb painstakingly reviews every account for credibility and reason. This man is not a crank. He tries to weed out would be hoaxes and miss-identification. . . . Yes, it as a lot to take in. My first thought about these creatures was, “Well, I guess it could be possible because new guinea is very secluded and actually one of the few remaining lost worlds”. Whitcomb will have you suspending disbelief again as he shares his collection of personal accounts from Americans. . . . If you are interested in reading about this subject, this is definitely the book to get . . . This is well written and very hard to put down.