We need to be careful not to jump to conclusions when an eyewitness reports a sighting with one or more of the following words:
- Giant prehistoric bird
- Huge bird without feathers
- Large dinosaur bird
- Big Thunderbird
If some reports of large flying creatures come from sightings of modern pterosaurs—I proclaim, in a number of blogs and books, that they do—why is that word used by some eyewitnesses: “bird?” That word comes to mind because birds commonly fly overhead, during the daylight when we notice things in the sky, far more commonly than we notice bats. “Bird” flies out of one’s mouth naturally, for it’s not so shocking to hear. But how unnatural-sounding to tell a friend, “I just saw a giant pterodactyl fly over my backyard!” Your friend might ask what you’ve been putting into your mouth.
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Be Open-Minded with Pterosaur Sighting Reports
When somebody sees a living pterosaur, the eyewitness is almost always totally unprepared. Often people will report to me the shock of an encounter, which can be an extreme cultural shock. Questioning ones own sanity is common. Trying to imagine a trick of the light (or some other misidentification possibility) is also common. In a pterosaur sighting, the person had no desire to see a modern version of what was assumed extinct, almost without exception in Western countries. (In a third-world country, an eyewitness may simply be shocked at being so unlucky: encountering a monster that he already believed in.) Hardly anybody, in any country, ever looks up to the sky hoping to see something that might prove personal insanity.
We need to be careful not to assume that personal beliefs or perspective contributed much to the descriptions that are given to us. I receive sighting reports from around the world; eyewitnesses of differing cultures and beliefs and religions report similar details, often including a long tail with a structure at the tail-end (a “diamond” or something suggesting a Rhamphorhynchoid tail vane). Words may vary but the basic meanings of those words make a pterosaur interpretation obvious.
By the way, most of the sighting reports that I have received over the past few years have been from the United States.
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Examples of Descriptions in Pterosaur Sighting Reports
Received early in 2011:
My friend told me that she was walking with her cousin, when she looked up, she saw a very large “bird” that was circling above them and slowly descending. She turned to her cousin and asked, “Do you see that? Or am I seeing things?” Her cousin responded, “Yea, I see it. What the heck is it?” As it got closer, she could only describe it as a Pterodactyl.
Namibia, Africa, 2011
I saw a large bird gliding, moving its wings very, very slowly, very much as we see raptors or eagles do when they circle in the air scanning the land for prey. I paid attention to the wings as it would allow for identification – but this bird did not have any feathers, at least not any spread primary feathers (as eagles often show). It looked more like a large bat with distinctly brightly coloured (yellow-brown, orange?) protrusions, where birds have carpal joints (like some ‘spur-winged birds’).
Arkansas, 2012
I saw a pre-historic bird here in central Arkansas back this past spring. As I was driving over a small bridge with a creek underneath it flew up from under the bridge beside my truck and flew up above my truck and out and over a field. . . . [It] had no feathers and it was grey skinned with pink undertones.
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What do all three of the above report-excerpts have in common? Each has the word “bird” and each includes either an indication of lack of feathers or the word “pterodactyl.” In other words, eyewitnesses often use the word “bird” in a general sense, not meaning a feathered flying creature.
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Hornbill Birds and a Live Pterosaur
In a recent post, “Ropens, Pterosaurian Sightings And Manta Rays,” a skeptic of the possibility of living pterosaurs gave half a sentence to the subject of Hornbill birds as the cause of sighting reports of live pterosaurs (misidentification conjecture).
Pterosaur Sightings and Photos
Despite the canoe-like wings, photo #3 is the most credible of these three, by far, believe it or not. My intention, however, is not to force this into an all-or-nothing, sure-thing-or-fake, judgment.
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