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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.