Arkansas – Cryptid Eyewitness

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.]

“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)

Tag: Arkansas

Arkansas pterosaur sighting

Chapel Hill ghost light or barn owl