Rancho Santa Margarita Cryptid Sighting

Possible Pterosaur Reported to Jonathan Whitcomb

From OMF (anonymous), a businessman in Orange County, California:

 

"I never considered that there could be a prehistoric creature still living today,
but I had an experience about 12-years ago that has nearly changed my mind; it has at least made me consider it.

 

"I was living at the time in Rancho Santa Margarita, which is a master planned community near the O'Neill Canyons and the foothills of Saddle-back mountain range.

 

"My house was on the perimeter of

the community, [near] the road that separates the wilderness canyons from the community.

 

"We had lived there about 10-years

and never had seen anything except

for some hawks, coyotes and rabbits.

 

"One night I was awakened at about [1:00 am], with the most God-awful screeching and screaming that I have ever heard. It sounded like . . . pigs being slaughtered, it seemed like some sort of creature was suffering, or fighting for its life in my backyard.

 

"The sound was so terrifying that the hair stood up all over my body as I went to the window in my bedroom which faced Northeast towards the canyons and mountains. I opened the curtains and tried to see into the dark night. I opened the window hoping to get a better gauge on where the sound was coming from through the screen.

 

"I could make out that the sound was accompanied my some thrashing around in some hedges or bushes in the back-yard of my behind neighbors house, which was vacant at the time. The unearthly screeching continued and it almost sounded like there was [a] struggle to the death going on.

 

"I woke my wife who for some reason was sleeping through the noise, I asked her what she thought it was, she said it sounded like a dog or cat being killed; she was wrong.

"I could not stop myself from going downstairs to investigate more closely. When I got to the dining room and the door that led to the backyard, my fear got the better of me and instead I went to the front door and went out into the dark.

 

"I went into the front yard and stood there for a minute listening, trying to hear if the sound was still going on; it had stopped. I then moved cautiously towards the driveway on the side of the house and waited and strained to hear again. As I stood silent, I heard what I would describe as a call, a short screeching bark, it came from the back of the house where the previous noise had come from

 

"Chills shot up and down my spine. As I stood holding my breath, a heard a deep, soft, 'hushing' sound, like giant wings lifting something heavy into the air. This came from around the side of my house, in between [my] house and the next-door-neighbors house.

 

"I was transfixed with fear at what I was about to see; but I didn't "see" so much as "felt" it. Whatever it was swept up and onto the chimney of the next-door-neighbors house. the night sky was incredibly dark so I could not really make out anything, but a large hulking 'presence' sat on that chimney. As I stared hard into the dark, trying to
make out a shape or a movement, I realized whatever it was was staring right back at me.

 

"I left the yard quickly and went inside. Needless to say I didn't sleep well that night.

 

"The next day I called around and finally got a hold of a wild animal control center in Orange County, I described what I had heard and experienced, they told me that it was most likely a great horned owl."    ###