A pterosaur sighting need not be in a remote tropical rain forest. According to a recent analysis, by cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb, of 128 sighting reports, 75% of the reported encounters with apparent pterosaurs were in the United States of America, and 5% were in Papua New Guinea. This does not mean that many more of the flying creatures live in the USA; many more Americans have easy access to the internet and email, and are proficient in English, compared with third-world countries like Papua New Guinea.

Long Tails Wipe Away the Competition

The same analysis reveals how much long-tailed pterosaurs seem to dominate reports. Of those eyewitnesses who reported a long tail or the lack thereof, the ratio was 95% to 5% in favor of long tails, suggesting most of the creatures are basal, or Rhamphorhynchoid, pterosaurs. This is not restricted to any particular part of the world, but is common worldwide.

Sighting in Spain, 2007 (“a long thin tail”)

Firstly, I assure you I am NOT LYING- I’ve got literally no interest in making something like this up. Apart from the two people with me at the time, I haven’t mentioned this to anyone . . . simply because I realise it sounds odd, and can’t be bothered to have to defend myself on this. . . .

I’ll get to the point- last summer, some friends and I drove from England (where I live) to Benecassim (in East Spain-near los desert del palmas I think) for a music festival. One night, whilst sitting on the ground by the tents (a fair way from the noise and commotion of the festival), I saw what I at first assumed was an owl gliding over the campsite (I assumed that because it was night time, and obviously no other birds would be out-bar things like nightjars-which this was not!) – it passed right over us, probably about 30-40ft high, and as I watched it, I realised it was definitely no owl I’d ever seen before. It was the colour of suede/sand, looked like the same sort of texture as suede (i.e no feathers), had a long thin tail, and didn’t flap once. . . .

Sudan, Africa, 1988 (“Its tail . . . was very long”)

In Sudan, the classic house is one level, made of mud bricks and walls, 3-5 rooms . . . each room being a separate unit, but connected by a roofless hallway that leads to the patios.

One evening in July of 1988, we had some guest over . . . the guest were in the living room which was @ one end of the house, and my aunt was in the kitchen preparing the tea and cookies, which was @ the far end on the other side of the house. She asked me to bring the tray of tea, cookies, sugar & spoons to the guest. So I took the tray walked through the open hallway and proceeded to the living room.

When I got to the patio, I noticed something on the roof of my uncle’s room. Mind u it was night time but the patio has one of those long cylinder like light bulbs that light up the whole patio & the roof is only 10 feet or less from the ground. I was standing by the bathroom, about 10 feet away from it. It was perched about 5 feet from the light bulb. I seen it very clearly and got a good look @ it.

It was very large, about 4 or 5 feet in height . . . no feathers . . . leathery looking. It had a large long, wide beak & the classic appendage (the long bone looking thing sticking out the back of its head). it was perched on the edge of the roof . . . Its tail looked like a lions tail; it was very long & had a bushy or hairy tip.

Pterodactyl Sighting in Canada (“ long, skinny, pointed tail”)

. . . In Brampton, Ontario, Canada, while driving to work . . . with my mother at about 8:00 a.m. EST, my mother and I saw a strange bird-like creature flying low and close to the car about 20 feet away from us. . . . exactly like a miniature pterodactyl like you see in the movies like Jurassic Park . . . The only difference is that it was much smaller, having a wingspan of about four feet.

It was gray and did not appear to have any feathers . . .  It had a long, skinny, pointed tail extended straight behind it that had sort of a diamond shape at the tip. It also had a long neck extended out in front of it as it flew.

Two Pterodactyls in Cuba

The U. S. Marine Eskin C. Kuhn observed two similar flying creatures, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 1971. He sketched what he had seen, within minutes of the encounter, giving us details of the appearance of those two ”pterodactyls.”

Sketch by the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn (Cuba, 1971)

Worldwide Sightings of Pterosaurs

The pilot put the plane into a dive to avoid a collision with what he at first assumed was another airplane. As it passed, it became obvious that it was no plane.

Pterodactyl Sightings not From a Fish

But why should modern creatures conform precisely, in a few arbitrarily-chosen details, to those that we know from fossils? How absurd!

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]