In a rural neighborhood near Tacoma, in the state of Washington, a family has been dived on by flying creatures very unlike any bird or bat. They have come to call the “batlike” things “monkey birds,” although the creatures have no feathers.
Weird Bat-Like Predators in West-Central Washington
We have seen and heard a strange nocturnal, bat-like creature . . . huge, light grey, skin with no fur, feathers or scales. It silently swoops down at you with giant bat wings . . . There were two of them together [strange flying creatures] and they seemed fearless of me when they swooped down at me more than once and returned way up to the top of the highest trees. I couldn’t get a look at the faces or eyes, mainly the huge grey bat wings approximately [four foot wingspans] are what I could see . . .
We see regular little common bats all of the time after dusk, so we know what they are like. We know owls, hawks, eagles and all of the normal flying creatures around here and these others [the flying creatures with four-foot wingspans] are definitely out of the ordinary.
Pterodactyl in Central Washington
But pterosaur-like flying creatures are not restricted to the Tacoma area. To the east, in central Washington state, late in 2007, police encountered an eyewitness who reported encountering a “pterodactyl.”
A 29-year-old Wenatchee man told police a pterodactyl caused him to drive his car into a light pole about 11:30 p.m. Thursday . . . When police asked the man what caused the accident, his one-word answer was “pterodactyl,” [Sgt. Cherie] Smith said.
“In [Socorro, New Mexico], me and a close friend . . . were hiking during the midday . . . We both looked up to see . . . a large flying animal . . . It had a 20-30 foot wingspan . . . It had a long tail with [a] seeming spike at the end. Its head was very pterodactyl shape with a fluted back pointy head.”
[In Texas] “Neither my brother or I was prone to being scared by anything outside at night. This night was different . . . We noticed something flying around across the road . . . flying 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 . . . The wingspan was huge, anywhere from 6-10 feet across.”
Fallacy of the Flying Fox Explanation
For decades, reports of “pterodactyls” in New Guinea . . . were dismissed with the explanation that people were just observing [the fruit bats] Flying Foxes . . .
[Most] eyewitness sightings of apparent-pterosaurs . . . include a description of long tails. An American World War II veteran, Mr. Duane Hodgkinson, described the tail of the “pterodactyl” that he saw: “at least ten to fifteen feet” long. A villager on Umboi Island . . . said the ropen’s tail was seven meters long. A professional psychologist, Brian Hennessy, said that the creature that he saw [also in New Guinea] had “a longish narrow tail.” An Australia couple also saw a creature with a long tail. None of these eyewitnesses saw any feathers; each of them reported a giant creature. Fruit bats do not have long tails.
10/30/11 my girlfriend & I pulled up @ home around 1:35am. Ya we came from a party, but I dont drink. We dont do drugs. She had 4 beers all night so if she was even buzzed I couldn’t tell. As we walk 2 my front door something moves in my neighbors (my mom & dad) back yard. We have a duck we keep there it quacked & flapped its wings as we noticed it. It was tall & skinny. It seemed 2 rise off the ground. I think it jumped but seemed alittle slow? Went strait up curved & directly over us. What I saw is what I saw. It seemed 2 be like a really big bat? Was really big maybe 10 -15 ft wingspan? We watched it glide away seemed 2 never flap? I dont believe in ghost. I really am a gotta see it 2 believe it kind of guy. She saw exactly what I saw. Our duck saw it. Im sure it must have been some kind of animal? Owls get that big?? Can anybody here help me? My duck was fine. We looked there was no tracks? I just fell weird would feel better if I knew what we saw.
Since this is a comment on the post “. . . Flying Creatures in Washington” (state), I presume that this sighting was in Washington; is that right?
Did you notice anything else about its appearance? Did it have a tail? Could you see any detail on the head? Did you ever see it flap its wings, even if just a little? (I presume you meant the duck when you said, “. . . it quacked & flapped its wings . . .”)
Thank you for reporting your sighting here.