According to a PBS report, the remote Highway 16 in British Columbia, Canada, has been called the “Highway of Tears.” It stretches for over 400 miles, from Prince Rupert to Prince George, with much of it through Indigenous reserves where unemployment may top 90%. Amnesty International estimates that thirty-two Native American women have gone missing here, in the last thirty years. Many people assume that monstrous humans are responsible: rapists and murderers. Evidence suggests that at least some of the victims were assaulted by humans. But the nonfiction author Gerald McIsaac (second edition of Bird From Hell) thinks that most of the children and women were victims of the “devil bird,” a flying creature that some eyewitnesses have described like a “pterodactyl.”
Pterodactyl Attacks and Human Death
I don’t believe everything that I’ve read in Bird From Hell, but other cryptozoology books mention “pterodactyl attacks” . . . Take one account in the pioneering nonfiction On the Track of Unknown Animals, by Bernard Heuvelmans: “Coming straight at me only a few feet above the water was a black thing the size of an eagle. . . . its lower jaw hung open and bore a semicircle of pointed white teeth . . . And just before it became too dark to see, it came again, hurtling back down the river, . . . [with] black, dracula-like wings. . . . the brute made straight for George. He ducked.” [account by Ivan T. Sanderson: an expedition in Africa]
Two men saw two large flying creatures, at about 8:00 p.m. on November 4, 2011, in San Diego, California. One of the eyewitnesses, with no sign of any hoax involvement, reported his sighting to the cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb.
The men first noticed just one long-tailed creature, as it came gliding in from the direction of the ocean, but it was soon met by another one. The wingspan was estimated at twenty to thirty feet. Although the moon helped light up the creatures, it was not possible to be sure whether or not they had feathers. The color was like golden brown, where color was discernable.
Pterodactyl in San Diego, California
“I was at my friend’s house. The sky was super clear. We were standing on the street. I was watching the stars when from the west came this large dark object overhead. As it got closer, we noticed its huge wingspan . . . It was gliding right above us . . . we had never seen anything like it. Then it suddenly stopped and turned around. . . . we saw another one above us. . . . then they both left [towards the] east.”
Sightings of “pterodactyls” from Texas to Southern California confirm that these flying dinosaurs, technically “pterosaurs,” are far from extinct. Most of the creatures, not all, have long tails, suggesting Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs, even though modern ones seem to be more like giants than the ones we know from fossils, which suggest more of a bird-size.
No doubt one of the best-selling novels from the late twentieth-century to the present, The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho, has been purchased in the millions of copies worldwide. But Wikipedia had published a serious mistake, prior to January 18, 2012, giving it credit for 65 million copies sold, instead of the 21 million declared on the author’s own site.
How does that relate to the concept of modern living pterodactyls? Wikipedia also has declared that all pterosaurs became extinct by 65 million years ago, a declaration flatly contradicted by countless eyewitnesses worldwide. Let’s set aside the fiction of The Alchemist for a moment and look at another book, a non-fiction cryptozoology book: Live Pterosaurs in America.
From the title page of the third edition of this cryptozoology book:
“Reports of huge flying “pterodactyls” in American skies have floated around the internet for years; but before about 2005, details were scarce. When an eyewitness was named, the interviewer was often anonymous; even when an eyewitness was credible, and the account published in a newspaper, the story was ridiculed, discouraging others who had also seen strange flying creatures. Where could eyewitnesses go? What a predicament for them! Who would believe their reports?
From page 13 of the book:
“The greatest danger facing innovators, rebels, and those who search for living pterosaurs—that’s a newspaper. National newspapers ignored the success of the Wright brothers (their December, 1903, successful powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina). News reporters and editors, many of them, assumed that the controlled powered-flight of two bicycle mechanics was a lie, that it never happened. Even as late as 1908, many newspaper professionals thought the Wright brothers ‘better liars than flyers.’ . . .
“But flying dragons! In modern California? Without news headlines? It’s easier to believe in flying bicycle mechanics.”
Learn From The Alchemist
(From the Amazon page of the English paperback)
The Alchemist is the magical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure as extravagant as any ever found. From his home in Spain he journeys . . . across the Egyptian desert to a fateful encounter with the alchemist.
The story of the treasures Santiago finds along the way teaches us, as only a few stories have done, about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, above all, following our dreams.
As we continue to follow our dream of the scientific discovery of a species of living pterosaur, let us remember the long journey of Santiago in The Alchemist. We need patience, however long the journey.
Would you like to read a non-fiction cryptozoology book about modern “pterodactyls” in North America? You now have three choices, at least, and they are not at all similar in style or sighting locations or anything else, except in emphasizing the possibility of modern pterosaurs living in North America. The following are excerpts from the Amazon “Book Descriptions” for the latest editions of the paperback versions of these three books, in alphabetical order.
Big Bird, by Ken Gerhard
A LEGEND ON LEATHER WINGS! The Indians called it the Thunderbird, a winged monster . . . Today, from all over the dusty U.S. / Mexican border come hair-raising stories of modern day encounters with winged monsters of immense size and terrifying appearance. Further field sightings of similar creatures are recorded from all around the globe. The Kongamato of Africa, the Ropen of New Guinea and many others . . .
Bird From Hell, by Gerald McIsaac
As children, we are captivated by stories of huge, fantastical creatures, such as the wooly mammoth and the pterodactyl. The prevailing wisdom is these species are long extinct, but new evidence uncovered by author Gerald McIsaac casts doubt on these widely held assumptions. McIsaac gathered stories from the elders of the First Nation-those who were formerly referred to as Indians, Native Americans . . .
Live Pterosaurs in America, by Jonathan David Whitcomb
Encounter eyewitness accounts of living pterosaurs in the United States. Live “pterodactyls?” In the United States? Many scientists have long assumed all pterosaurs died millions of years ago. Now take a whirlwind tour of many years of investigations in cryptozoology, and prepare for a shock: At least two species of pterosaurs have survived, uncommon, not so much rare as widely, thinly distributed.
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Excerpt from the title page of the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America (3rd edition):
Reports of huge flying “pterodactyls” in American skies have floated around the internet for years; but before about 2005, details were scarce. When an eyewitness was named, the interviewer was often anonymous; even when an eyewitness was credible, and the account published in a newspaper, the story was ridiculed, discouraging others who had also seen strange flying creatures. Where could eyewitnesses go? What a predicament for them! Who would believe their reports?
. . . How are sightings in the United States related to those in the southwest Pacific? How do some apparent nocturnal pterosaurs pertain to bats, and how are bats irrelevant? How could modern living pterosaurs have escaped scientific notice? These mysteries have slept in the dark, beyond the knowledge of almost all Americans, even beyond our wildest dreams (although the reality of some pterosaurs is a living nightmare to some bats). These mysteries have slept . . . until now.
An anonymous man who explores remote areas of Mexico has reported large tracks that he thinks belong to a strange flying creature that is seen in this part of Mexico (within flying range of the border with Texas). This area is between 7000 and 8000 feet above sea level, according to the eyewitness. Although the tracks do not show the toe-claw marks that would be expected of pterosaur footprints, it is possible for some species of modern pterosaur to leave prints without toe marks.
Two kinds of clear prints were observed: a wide track about twenty inches long and a narrower track about twelve inches long. The eyewitness recently sketched the two and provided photographs.
To begin, the footprints in this remote area of Mexico were not all clear impressions; in fact, most of them were more scuff marks. So why believe that they were from one or more flying creatures? They were separated by 15-20 yards where there was no evidence of any creature on the ground. This might be dismissed if the marks were few in number, but the man walked for a long distance, following the intermittent footprints.
The impressions in the soil were one inch deep, and he could not make that deep of an impression, even after jumping on the soil nearby; it must have been a heavy animal. One of the kinds of footprints was about 18 inches by about 20 inches (the man compared the size with his foot)
