According to Wikipedia, the kongamato “is a reported pterodactyl-like creature said to have been seen by natives and explorers in the Mwinilunga district’s Jiundu swamps of Western Zambia, Angola and Congo.” Actually, pterosaurs are also reported in other parts of Africa, and some of those sightings may be of a flying creature similar to the kongamato.
I once interviewed, by email, a young man who had been startled one night, in his village in Sudan, Africa, by an apparent pterosaur. (See “Modern Pterosaurs in Africa,” below.) It was the first time that I had a direct communication with an African eyewitness of a pterosaur-like cryptid on that continent, although I had previously had an indirect connection through a man in Liberia. The point? Pterosaurs may be living in many parts of Africa, not just in the Jiundu swamps.
About one year before my 2004 expedition on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, (I wanted to videotape a ropen) I noticed that reports of pterosaur-like flying creatures in that part of the southwest Pacific included accounts of grave robbery. How fascinating! The kongamato of Africa, in at least one report, was also said to rob graves. It appeared to be too much for a coincidence.
He believes a large stingray could overturn a boat (“Kongamato” means overturner of boats), declaring that a pterosaur would never have enough mass to overturn a boat. I find a number of serious problems with that pterosaur-impossible assumption, although there may have been some instances of large stingrays being labeled “Kongamato.” The point is twofold: His dismissal of the pterosaur possibility is flawed and the dependence on the label “Kongamato” can cause problems as well as solve them.
Pterodactyl in Sudan
Early one night in 1988, the boy noticed something on the roof of a nearby hut. Lit up by the patio light, perched on the edge of the roof, the creature appeared to be four-to-five feet tall, olive brown, and leathery (no feathers). A “long bone looking thing” stuck out the back of its head, and its long tail [like] that of a lion.
These are America ghost lights, not directly related to pterosaur sightings in Africa. But they indirectly relate to sightings of pterosaurs in the United States and to reported glowing pterosaurs in North America.
Four sighting stories in HML may be related. Each involves a light witnessed by the driver of a car that seems to be chased by the light. These are obviously real persons, with names, including “Bunnell.” He offers “Fata Morgana” as a possible explanation but admits his own sighting (one of those four) does not fit that type of mirage phenomenon very well. But another of those four sightings seems to defy the Fata Morgana explanation.
