“Big Bird” of Texas

Some would call it “pterodactyl,” some would call it “a big bird,” some would call it “flying dinosaur.” But descriptions, including “featherless” and “long-tailed” suggest what people see is a pterosaur, regardless of textbook declarations about extinction. Some critic might say, “extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence.” Of course that makes sense. Search history and discover the total lack of evidence for universal extinction of all types and species of pterosaurs. Evidence for living pterosaurs, however, jumps out at us from all periods of human history, whether the eyewitnesses used the word “dragon” (in old times) or “pterosaur” (in recent times); eyewitnesses of living pterosaurs make the case, and part of that case is in Texas.

Marfa Lights in Texas

It has been suggested that the mysterious flying “Marfa Lights” in southwest Texas are from bioluminescent flying predators that are hunting the Big Brown Bat. Some of the lights may be just that, although there are other creatures that could also be prey for large nocturnal flying creatures, including snakes. Nevertheless, there are a number of factors that make the bat-hunting hypothesis appear promising.

Large Nocturnal Flyer in San Antonio, Texas

Around 1986, in northwest San Antonio, two young eyewitnesses were disturbed by a strange flying creature that appeared to be entirely out of place.

“. . . something [was] flying around across the road . . . 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 . . .” [from the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America]

Fight with a kor in northern Papua New Guinea

R.K. (anonymous, at least for now) recently reported to me several things about the creature they call kor:

“I was born and brought up in Manus Island . . . there are lights swooping over fish shoals between rambutyo and lou baluan islands. Two years ago [on a boating trip] we . . . could see the lights soaring over us and heard flapping of wings . . . they did dive into the sea and then erupt out of it . . .” [too dark to see much]

R.K. also told me about a fisherman who died after fighting off (and killing) one of the creatures; it seems that local natives believe the kor attacked the fisherman to eat him (larger kor are said to catch and eat young crocodiles and turtles). Consider this excerpt of R.K.’s English-language version of the fight.

“. . . from the grandson . . . of the man who killed the creature [and later died himself] . . . [in the early 1960’s was] the last [human] death reported by this creature . . . the animal destroyed his canoe and [the fisherman] fought it with a traditional fishing spear. . . . The animals tail and jaws took a heavy toll as it followed him to shore where a sea cave runs into a crevice . . . Badly wounded . . . [the fisherman] wedged the spear into a crevice and took the animal through the mouth with the spear [killing it] . . . [The fisherman] crawled out [and] was found by villagers . . . He died three days later.”

Umboi Island (about 200 miles to the south of these islands), where I interviewed many natives in 2004, has a very similar creature that they call “ropen.” With one exception, no human death on Umboi has been attributed to the ropen, with one exception (there was no eyewitness of any attack, and there was no human body ever found; a “crazy” woman went into the bush looking for the ropen and never returning).

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