April 2010 – Cryptid Eyewitness

April 28, 2010April 29, 2010

Pterosaur seen near San Antonio, Texas

As recorded in Live Pterosaurs in America, according to one eyewitness:

Neither my brother or I was prone to being scared by anything outside at night. This night was different. We noticed something flying around across the road . . . the creature was flying just above the phone lines. It would go one direction, turn, and swoop back. The shape was wrong for any large bird of the area, and the size was much too large to be any bat I have ever seen . . . The wingspan was . . . from 6-10 feet across. . . . ” . . . this was no water fowl. I have spent many years in Florida, where there are large numbers of those, and this was different. The behavior was all wrong as well. Whatever it was, it was no bird. No crane, stork, pelican, heron, owl, buzzard, eagle, hawk, or any other that I have seen, looked like this.

This sighting, taken in context with many daylight sightings of obvious pterosaurs, suggests the two eyewitnesses saw a pterosaur that night. But what if we examine this sighting apart from other sightings? After all, very little detail was seen here. The main point is that whatever was flying above the phone lines was neither bird nor bat, at least nothing that she had ever seen. Note her disclosure that “the behavior was all wrong.” That alone suggests it was no large bird or large bat, flying back and forth that night near San Antonio, Texas, for it was too large to be a bat and flew unlike any large bird should fly at night.

See Cryptozoology Book and also “Live Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific”

April 16, 2010September 23, 2010

Chapel Hill ghost light or barn owl

“Barn owl” hardly seems mysterious or paranormal, but what about the strange lights of Chapel Hill, Tennessee? The legend involves a headless ghost that uses a lantern to search for its head. According to one version of the story, long ago a signal man was walking on the railroad tracks one stormy night. He slipped in the rain and hit his head on the rail before a train came and . . . well, you know. Another version has the poor man falling off a boxcar; that seems more likely. But the general drift of the story resembles other ghost light stories in the United States, for example, the Gurdon Light of Arkansas*. The explanation for the Chapel Hill Light and the Gurdon Light is the same: bioluminescent barn owls.

Many ghost lights in the eastern and southern states resemble the “Silcock Min Min lights” of Australia. Fred Silcock wrote a book about the slow-flying mystery lights: The Min Min Light, The Visitor Who Never Arrives. Of course it does not explain all strange lights of the world; but when a slow-flying light, just above the ground, weaves back and forth like a hunting barn owl, then that is probably what it is. The surprising characteristic of the glow is not yet classified in biology textbooks; nevertheless, eyewitnesses verify that some barn owls sometimes glow. And that explains the white underside feathers: to allow light to easily pass through those feathers.

Not all ghost lights in the United States behave light hunting barn owls, however. Marfa, Texas, is famous for the dancing lights that have defied scientific explanation for a long time, but that’s another story.

See the Marfa Lights, “Living Nightmare” (not any barn owls)

* See also Arkansas Pterosaur (although this may not be related to the Gurdon Light)

April 6, 2010September 4, 2010

Biology professor sees possible pterosaur

In my nonfiction book Live Pterosaurs in America, I mentioned the sighting by Professor Peter Beach, in the summer of 2007, near the Yakima River in the state of Washington. Consider part of what he wrote about it:

. . . we saw many . . . flashing lights. I would have assumed that [they] were fireflies but we [don’t] have them in Washington. One of the flashes took off from a big tree overhanging the river and made a kind of flashing coma turn. Many flashes were parallel to the river. . . . there were many fish . . . Prime hunting grounds for fish-eating birds. Only these things fish at night with bioluminescence. At first I thought I was just seeing shooting stars, but they were all parallel to the river and close to the horizon. Next I noticed that when the cloud cover came in, I could still see the flashes. They were under the cloud cover. Whatever they are, I suggest that they are at least unknown to science, night flying, bioluminescent, flying creatures . . .

About a year later (perhaps in the same area) the professor led another expedition, observing the flight of the bioluminescent flying creatures for three hours:

. . . there were two light [flashes] . . . about 50-100 ft., above the river. . . . followed by screeches from about a dozen or so agitated nighthawks in the general area. I think the Rhamphorhynchoids, if that is what they were, were feeding on the nighthawks as the nighthawks were feeding on the flying insects. Bats were also common, but they were fast, made sharp turns, and were relatively small . . .

I know of others who encountered strange flying lights over rivers in the United States, flights that were only just above the water. Even where fireflies live, these flying things are much larger and faster.

See “Pterosaurs Alive in America”

See also “Cryptozoology, science, and pterosaurs”