Reported sightings of pterosaurs in Texas outnumber those in surrounding states of the south-central USA, but Texas is a much bigger state, in human population and in land area, than its neighbors, with plenty of room to hide nocturnal pterodactyls.
Sightings in Texas
Much of what amateur cryptozoologists know about these flying creatures in Texas has been published in two non-fiction books: Big Bird, by Ken Gerhard; and Live Pterosaurs in America, by Jonathan Whitcomb. Most of Big Bird is about sightings in Texas but not necessarily of feather-less cryptids; only a small portion of Live Pterosaurs in America refers to direct sightings in Texas, but all of those seem to be feather-less cryptids.
Richard Guzman and his friend Rudy, in about 1982, at about 6 p.m., in Houston, Texas, saw a strange creature flying about fifty feet above the ground, only a little over a hundred feet from the men. The “snakelike tail” and hump on the back of the head caught Guzman’s attention. Also strange, the end of the tail had a “fin.” The total length of the creature was about five feet, and the wings were “bat-like.” Guzman was later interviewed by Ken Gerhard.
A lady and her brother, in San Antonia one evening in 1986, saw something flying around across the road, a little 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 lady described the wingspan to Jonathan Whitcomb: “huge, anywhere from 6-10 feet across.” The two eyewitnesses watched the flying creature for about twenty minutes.
(The eyewitness learned of other’s encounters by searching with “I saw a prehistoric bird.”)
“My father and I saw a huge, featherless bird in Arkansas . . . We were sitting on big rocks at a cliff about 300 foot above the river when it flew out just under us and we watched it all the way down toward the river till it passed the tree lines. It was an awesome experience, indeed. . . . wing span of maybe eight feet . . .”
“I had seen an extremely large bird that resembled a pterodactyl some years ago . . . between Rush Center and Larned, Kansas. I could not believe my eyes as I immediately thought of a prehistoric bird when I saw it. It must have had a wing-span of 16-20 feet. . . . It did not appear to have feathers. . . . This bird looked textbook pterodactyl. . . .”
. . . in Woodward, Oklahoma, near a small river, at about noon, a fourteen-year-old became terrified at the sight of a pterosaur-like creature. “I was walking to the small river where I usually caught carp fish. . . . a large animal took off into the air. . . . Then I noticed it was a dinosaur. I went to my knees so that it would not see me. I was afraid it would eat me.
Sometimes an eyewitness will not mention the word “pterosaur” or even “pterodacty,” but might label the flying creature a “dinosaur bird.” One eyewitness did an online search with ”I saw a prehistoric bird.”
Advertisement:
“Mr. Whitcomb does a thorough job questioning indoctrination and the close-mindedness of the Western world. Reading so many eye-witness reports of people who have seen living pterosaurs in America was mind-opening, to say the least . . . The passion that Whitcomb and the pterosaur witnesses feel about these investigations make this book a great read and keep the pages turning. If you are prepared to question the indoctrination society has imposed on you since childhood, you are ready for Live Pterosaurs in America.” [Amazon.com review for third edition of this nonfiction crypotozoology book]
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