Florida | Live Pterosaur

July 9, 2021

Potential Pterodactyl Attacks Against People

By the investigative journalist Jonathan Whitcomb

During the past couple of years or so, I have received reports that make it clear that some modern pterosaurs can be dangerous to humans. Here is one report from the past few weeks:

Attack in Florida

I saw two of them when I was seven with my two younger sisters on a beach in Florida at night. They hovered right over us in one spot silently looking at us like we were dinner. Only a few times their wings flapped down, making a shuddering sound, wuumph! and we could feel the vibrations from their flaps. I always wondered how they stayed in one spot hovering like that.

We backed away slowly keeping our eyes on them, then turned around and ran for our lives screaming back to the grownups. None of the grownups believed us. It was pitch black. I will never forget that sound of their wings.

Attack in Western Oklahoma

The following is from an eyewitness who was only four years old at the time:

I know what I saw, because it was less than six feet above me. This thing was huge. I liken his body size to a Volkswagen bug. [It was] covered completely with brown / blackish fur [and had] no feathers. . . . the wings [had the] same color but like a bat. . . .

I ducked down just enough, I guess, for it to be a miss for it. . . . It opened its beak . . . I see teeth and at four I knew that wasn’t right . . .

This woman reported that she believes that some cases of missing children in this area of the country could be from attacks from this kind of flying creature.

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Are Modern Pterosaurs Dangerous?

The following is not a first-hand account but from a native who contacted me by emails in 2010, and he got the story from the grandson of the native fisherman who died three days after being attacked by a kor.

A modern dragon in Papua New Guinea

This is a Youtube video showing three eyewitnesses who testify that they have encountered a huge flying creature (in the southwest Pacific).

Press release on flying creatures in Utah

A nonfiction-cryptozoology author has analyzed eyewitness accounts of apparent non-extinct pterosaurs, commonly called “pterodactyls” or “flying dinosaurs,” and found that several states in the USA stand out, including Utah. Jonathan Whitcomb, of Murray, Utah, has been receiving emails since 2004, from five continents, and most of those reported sightings, in recent years, have been in North America.

Eyewitness Reports of Apparent Living Pterosaurs

The following persons ask the general public to become aware of research into many eyewitness sightings of apparent extant pterosaurs, commonly called “pterodactyls,” and to consider the possibility that at least some of the accounts have been from actual encounters with flying creatures descended from animals closely related to pterosaurs known from fossils.

August 7, 2013May 14, 2014

Another Pterosaur in Florida

I recently found a sighting report on FaceBook, actually an eyewitness account of two sightings in Florida. I here give an excerpt from “Animal Discoveries and Curiosities” by Karl Shuker:

. . . About two years ago, I heard a noise that I thought was my pool filter surging. . . . I was standing right at the open doorway of the porch ready to go down the three steps to the pool deck. It was a pretty bright night. The moon was pretty bright . . .

. . . as I looked up, something huge took off over my head and my porch. It’s wings made a loud whooping noise and as it went over I got a look at the underside of an enormous wing. The wing was grey in color and was like that of a bat not a bird. The wing had to be at least 5 feet long or more and this creature flew off over the porch out of site. . . . it was enormous, and unlike anything I have ever seen in Florida in my 35 years here. . . .

Well two nights ago [my husband] and I went out for a late night run to the 7/11 . . . As we rounded the corner I saw something about 15 feet up in a tree that was grey and huge . . . this thing flew over our car and it’s wings passed right in front of the windshield. It was exactly the same thing I had seen two years ago as far as the look of the wings. My husband saw it too this time. He said the same thing . . . that it looked like bat wings.

With a wingspan estimated to be ten feet or more, the flying creature was not likely a bat, even if a flying fox fruit bat had escaped from a zoo in Florida. That species, largest of bats, would not on two occasions give the impression of having a wingspan of 10+ feet, when encountered twice at close range.

Bat Wings on Pterosaurs?

On that FaceBook thread on “Animal Discoveries and Curiosities,” one of the comments was about a literal interpretation of the eyewitness description, that the flying creature observed had the same wing structure as bats. My experience with eyewitness reports leads me to a different conclusion, for most people have no concept of any different between the bone structure of bat wings and those of pterosaur wings.

We need to be specific here; avoid getting carried away in generalization. To illustrate, my wife runs a child care business and today a four-year-old boy answered the question, “How do you get to the zoo?” He answered truthfully: “Get on the freeway, then turn.”

Stop almost anybody on the street and ask, “Does a pterodactyl have bat-like wings or bird-like wings?” If the person does not looked shocked and back away from you, the answer will be, “bat-like.” If you happen to encounter a paleontologist on the street . . . well, that’s different. Most people have no need to know the skeletal differences between wings of bats and pterosaurs.

The point? When an eyewitness says “bat-like wings,” it means there were no feathers, and the sightings about two years ago, and about two days ago, were probably from encounters with the American ropen. And that animal, I have no doubt, is a living pterosaur.

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Pterosaur Sightings in Florida and Georgia and South Carolina

“In 1995 I was living in Pensacola Fl. . . . I was in the driveway at 5 am. I saw this huge bird with bat wings, at least a 20 ft wing span, flying towards me, I just turned and ran screaming into the house.”

Ropen Sighting in Florida

. . . an estimated wingspan of 8-12 feet and a tail as long as its torso with a large bulb or lump at the tail very diamond shaped, no feathers and all colored the same whitish-grey color with a pointed beak. . . .

small pile of books: "Searching for Ropens and Finding God" by Jonathan Whitcomb

Revised and greatly expanded: Searching for Ropens and Finding God

November 19, 2012January 4, 2014

Ropen Sighting in Florida

dense vegetation around a creek south of Crestview, Florida

With the sky an overcast of grey, at 11:45 a.m., on Wednesday, November 14, 2012, Professor Steven Watters was sitting at a table, in his home in Crestview, Florida, near the open back door, when he was shocked to see a “huge rhamphorhynchus like flying entity.” In our email communications, in his own words:

It was flying west to northeast close enough it could’ve been shot down. I . . . ran to the door and about turned white and lost my breath in disbelief. Had an estimated wingspan of 8-12 feet and a tail as long as its torso with a large bulb or lump at the tail very diamond shaped, no feathers and all colored the same whitish-grey color with a pointed beak. . . .

After it flew northeast past my location it landed on the very top of a tree about im guessing a 1/2 to 3/4 mile from where I’m standing . . . A few minutes later it disappeared from my view past the treeline continuing in its northeast direction.

Professor Watters kindly answered my questions:

Q: What was the closest distance between you and it, during its flight?

A: The closest distance between us was estimated 100 -150 feet during its flight.

. . . Q: At the closest distance it was to you, about how high was it?

A: The flight height was very low estimated 50 -70 foot just at or slightly above tree top level.

Q: For about how many seconds did you observe it, counting the time you watched it while it was in the tree?

A: It was observed for several minutes, no longer than 4 or 5 all together.

He was positive that there were no feathers.

I asked him, “Previous to your sighting on Wed, Nov 14, did you know anything about any report about a living pterosaur or ‘pterodactyl’ or modern dragon or ‘ropen?'” He answered:

No! I have never heard of such a thing, never considered seeing something I knew was extict and was nothing more than special effects in a movie. I thought it was just fairy tales or Irish drinking stories. Only after the sighting, during my research to prove myself mistaken did I realize there were actually other sightings of a similar prehistoric looking creature. During the learning process I discovered your blog and was compelled to actually share this experience with someone else, especially a non skeptic who wouldn’t just call me crazy or dismiss the revelance or possibility of the event.

I told him, “Thank you very much for providing these details. It does help the investigations.” I referred him to some online photographs of Frigate birds and he replied:

What I saw has no comparison to those pictures or any others [photos he has recenly looked at] during my own personal research. I appreciate your thorough and just approach. Sincerely my sighting’s appearance was featherless, mid length neck (especially if the frigate bird is what was meant by short neck, to me the frigate bird has no neck- just to clear that up from the previous question) and the color/hue of it was entirely greyish white with a true substantial large beak unlike the narrow [minuscule] frigate’s.

“Turkey Creek” – near Niceville (south of Crestview, Florida)

Pterosaurs in Southeastern United States

Late in 2008, I received an email from an eyewitness in Florida: “. . . something caught both of our attention, above our heads. It was a flying creature that flew over our heads towards my backyard . . .”

Pterosaur Tail Vane Orientation

How is the Rhamphorhynchoid tail vane oriented, horizontally or vertically? According to at least a couple of key eyewitnesses, it is horizontal.

February 25, 2012March 30, 2012

Pterosaurs in the Southeastern Coastal States

Sightings have been reported in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, in addition to surrounding states.

In 2010, I received a report from a lady in North Carolina:

I was driving home from dropping a friend off at school. When I was almost home (passed the Food Lion on Commerce Rd, going towards Country Club Rd in Jacksonville, [North Carolina]), I saw something HUGE above me in the sky. It looked like a pale greenish white and smooth-skinned. It didn’t appear to have any feathers, and it had the tail with the diamond shape on the end. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I knew no one else really would. It was probably . . . 100 ft away. I just looked up the Rhamphorhynchus and it was definitely similar to what I saw. It was headed towards Highway 17 and coming from Jacksonville Mall area (flying made the route different since it could fly passed all the things we had to drive around).

South Carolina Pterosaur

It was huge, as big as a plane, and looked very similar to the sketch created by Susan Wooten on your website. . . . I saw a huge pterodactyl looking creature, flying very high in the sky. The strangest thing about the sighting was how slow the wings were flapping and how high it was flying. . . . I remember shouting “that was a pterodactyl!”, but everyone else [around me] that saw it, seemed to shrug it off in disbelief.

Pterosaurs in Georgia

. . . my 16 year old son and I both saw [something that] resembled a small pterodactyl. Very large wingspan, but the odd thing was it had no discernible feathers. My son saw it better than I as I was driving, albeit slowly. He said it was a leathery-looking skin. Pointed head, diamond shape at the end of the tail. It appeared to me that its legs were kind of pointed backward.

Sighting in Jupiter, Florida

Late in 2008, I received an email from an eyewitness in Florida:

“Maybe about six years ago I was sitting outside my house with a buddy of mine talking (it was about 2 or 3 in the morning) and all of a sudden something caught both of our attention, above our heads. It was a flying creature that flew over our heads towards my backyard (behind us over the roof of the house) it was a biege brownish color, pointed wing tips, no feathers pointed beak and what made me think pterasoar was that long pointed thing protruding from the back of its head . . .. I live in Florida so I’ve seen my share of cranes and what not, but this WAS NOT a bird. . . .”

Susan Wooten's drawing of the large pterosaur she saw in South Carolina

Susan Wooten’s amateur sketch of the “huge” pterosaur that she observed in South Carolina (it flew over a highway and into a wooded area)

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California child care