The sightings reported in the second edition of the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America are almost entirely encounters in the United States, but there is a noteworthy exception, the sighting by Eskin Kuhn.
An excerpt from pages 123-124 of the book:
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. . . .
“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.”
From the introduction of Live Pterosaurs in America (2nd ed, author: Jonathan Whitcomb):
If this book does nothing more than comfort the eyewitnesses of strange creatures, I would be grateful; but there’s much more. We need to understand why we believe what we believe. When I first began researching these eyewitness sightings, years ago, I mentioned a word to a kindergartner: “pterosaurs;” he said, “A comet.” Years later, while writing this book, I mentioned my work to a second-grader; she said, “Who will buy your book? Crazy people?” I think better of you. And I think, because of what she and many others have told me, that we must understand indoctrination, for it influences our beliefs; the extent of that influence discomforts me.
From page 27 (Scott Norman’s pterosaur sighting in the United States):
He saw the creature silhouetted against the stars of the sky; no color was visible. Lack of any sign of a tail interested me, for just a few years earlier a local man had seen, in daylight, what investigators assume was the local pterosaur; it had a tail. Maybe Scott missed the tail in the dark.
Scott wished that the creature had been glowing when it flew over the shed, confirming the concept of large bioluminescent flying creatures. He felt confident that the wingspan was eight to ten feet. He was a bit perplexed that legs were not visible, but like other eyewitnesses of large flying creatures he was concentrating on one or two parts of the cryptid: Apparently Scott was concentrating on the creature’s head.
