Arkansas pterosaur sighting

Around the end of 2004, I received an email from an eyewitness in Arkansas. More details are available in my book Live Pterosaurs in America, but I include many of the details here, for those who live in the Texarkana, Arkansas, area and have seen a similar flying creature but have not yet read my book.

It was probably 1982 [in Texarkana, Arkansas]. It was getting dark but there was plenty of light in the sky when we saw what we believe to be a pterodactyle [pterosaur AKA “pteodactyl”]. The wingspan seemed to be about 25’ to 30’ ft wide. It was probably about 70’ to 80’ off the ground, flying over a large tree in front of the house. . . . The incident was very brief but nontheless was an awesome sight to see. If someone would have told me that they had seen a creature like that, I doubt I would have believed the story until I saw it for myself. . . . [from the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America]

The meaning of this sighting of an apparent living pterosaur (and a giant one at that) is better understood in context of many sightings of similar flying creatures in the United States, over the past few decades. Here are excerpts from a few online sources:

Texas Flying Creature (actually two apparent pterosaurs in two parts of Texas)

I was about 11-12 yrs old . . . In the open backyard next door was what looked like a 9 or 10 ft tall man . . . then the man turned and I realized that this man didn’t have a face like a man at all! . . . I watched what looked like disgusting black leathery . . . bat-like wings . . .

Ropens — Sightings in the United States

 . . . a teenager riding his bicycle on a dirt road in Washington State, years ago . . . stopped when he saw, by the side of the road, the two huge flying creatures with wings that had no feathers but looked like “black rubber.” The wingspan . . . twenty feet.

Pterosaur near Swamp in South Carolina

The pterosaur was “gliding” but it flapped its wings slowly once or twice. The wingspan was about twelve to twenty feet. . . . The huge featherless creature swooped down over the highway, maybe only “twenty feet” high and only “twenty five” feet in front of the car. (Highway 20, South Carolina) [The car was driven by Susan Wooten.]

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”

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