Live Pterosaur Media Center Live Pterosaur Media Center Pterosaurs in Cuba At Guantanamo, Patty Carson, the daughter of Edwin Irwin Carson*, rushed  home to tell Mom and Dad about the dinosaur she had just seen fly away.  Nobody would believe her, so she gave up talking about the encounter; but  the memory of the creature refused to vanish, in the back of her mind for 46  years . . .until she read, in 2011, about a U. S. Marine, Eskin Kuhn, who saw  two large “pterodactyls” at that same base; his sighting was in 1971.   Carson was struck by the sketch Kuhn had drawn, for she had encountered  the same kind of creature, six years earlier than his encounter. She contacted  the cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb, in the spring of 2011, and told him  about what she and her brother had seen in 1965.   “I was around six years old. My brother George was with me, but he was only  around four. We were walking down near the boat yards, headed home. We  lived at the end of the road, last house, by the radio tower. We were walking  from the boat yards toward home . . . where it was sandy underfoot, sparse  scrub vegetation around four feet tall . . . “We were walking through that scrub area, and suddenly it sat up, as if it had  been eating something or resting. The head and upper part of its body, about a third of the wings at the joint (tips still held down) showed . . . right in front of  us about thirty feet away. All of us froze for about five seconds, then it leaned  to its left and took off with a fwap fwap fwap sound, in a big hurry, more of a  scramble, and flew to its left and disappeared behind trees and terrain. “It seemed to get some of its takeoff power from jumping with its hind legs. It  did have a tail and it had a diamond shaped tip . . . The skin was a leathery,  brownish reddish color. It had little teeth, a LOT of them. The eye was smallish  and dark. . . .  “We went home and I was ALL excited to tell my family I had seen a dinosaur,  but they all poo poo'd me and started to tell me it was a pelican or frigate bird.  NO WAY! It was as tall as a man when it stood up on it haunches. It was  close. It froze for a few seconds so I got a good look.”  In the summer and early fall of 2011, Patty Carson sketched what she had  seen, releasing the image into the public domain to promote awareness of  the existence of this extraordinary species of flying creature.                                                            ### The opinions expressed are those of Jonathan David Whitcomb. Media professionals may use these paragraphs in whole or in part for news distribution.  All of the images on this page may also be used by news media. Other Resources Kuhn’s 1971 Sighting in Cuba Giant Ropen Seen by Veteran Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaur in Cuba “Pterodactyl” in Papua New Guinea Image: 841 x 790 - 197 KB (for print media, no-color) Sighting by Patty Carson and her brother, 1965, at Guantanamo Bay military base Image: 1682 x 1579 - 480 KB Whitcomb’s Expedition on Umboi Island in Papua New Guinea, 2004 From blog “Live Pterosaur”     Final Color Sketch of Gitmo Pterosaur “Pterodactyl” Frightened Kids in Cuba  “Carson’s 1965 sighting and Kuhn’s 1971  sighting were at the U. S. military base at  Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Both sightings were  in daylight. The head crest is very similar in  the two sketches.  Carson saw that the flying  creature had a long tail with a diamond-shaped  structure at the tail-end; Kuhn drew a structure  at the end of both tails. Neither eyewitness saw anything like any feather. Both of them were  disbelieved by others, but Carson and Kuhn  continued to believe in what they had seen. I  found both of them highly credible, over the  course of a number of phone interviews.”   From the book Live Pterosaurs in  America, third edition, page 123: “How fortunate that Eskin Kuhn was the  marine who stood outside the new barracks on  a particular sunny day around mid-July, 1971!  While the other marines were hanging out  inside, this talented artist was enjoying the  lovely weather and looking out toward the  ocean. He would soon be dashing inside to  grab a sergeant to be a second witness (too  late), and would soon thereafter sketch, by  memory, what he had seen with his own eyes.” Eskin Kuhn Quoted:  “I am an artist with sharp eye for detail and  was determined to drink in the visage before  me for future recording on paper. I saw two  pterosaurs (or pterodactyls . . . what’s in a  name?) flying together at low altitude, perhaps  100 feet, very close in range from where I was  standing, so that I had a perfectly clear view of  them. “The rhythm of their large wings was very  graceful, slow, and yet they were flying and  not merely gliding . . . The rate of their [wing  flaps] was more like that of crows, perhaps a  little slower, but very graceful.   “. . . The marine observed details, later  recording them in his sketch: The head was  large in proportion, with a large head crest; the  short ‘hind legs’ were attached to the trailing  part of the wings; the vertebrae were  noticeable; the end of the tail had a ‘tuft of  hair.’”  Gideon Koro in Papua New Guinea The native of Umboi Island was puzzled by the question asked by the American Jonathan Whitcomb. There were “no feathers” on the ropen that he and his friends encountered. Koro was one of many natives the American had interviewed while on his expedition on Umboi Island in 2004. Some eyewitnesses had seen a clear view of the huge flying creature that they call “ropen.” (On other islands, and in other areas of Papua New Guinea, the creature has different names.) Whitcomb believes that the ropen is a similar flying creature to the “Gitmo Pterosaur,” a modern Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur.  *Edwin Irwin Carson was assigned to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the mid- 1960’s, probably on something secret. He was on that military base for about two years or so. He was acquainted with a number of things related to the assassination of President Kennedy.