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| Model of Jeholopterus ningchengensis, a small pterosaur, or flying reptile, covered with thin fibers sometimes described as “fuzz”. Scientists believe the first stages in the evolution of feathers could have taken place in a species that was the ancestor of pterosaurs and dinosaurs. Photo by Craig Chesek © American Museum of Natural History |
I received the following inquiry from my friend Sunny Williams at Lights in the Texas Sky:
Hi Lon,
I thought I'd run this by you. I received an email from someone who had (years ago) witnessed a UFO and had possibly been abducted, along with a friend. They were children at the time and the UFO sighting was in a different state.
Lon, I can't make heads or tails of the little winged creature that ran across the road but the big ones remind me of some "Mothman" sightings. What do you think and have these things been seen in the Northwest?
This is the email Sunny forwarded to me (some spelling changes):
Subject: weird, huge, grey, furless, batwinged creature
We live in the pacific northwest (near Tacoma, WA) on many acres of mostly tree covered land with a creek. We have seen and heard a strange nocturnal, batlike creature. This thing is huge, light grey, skin with no fur, feathers or scales. It silently swoops down at you with giant bat wings. It makes a sound like a jungle monkey or bird, thus we refer to it as the monkey bird. We keep our chickens and goats, small dogs and cats safely housed at night, however two of our cats who sneaked out one night onto the roof disappeared without a trace of fur, blood or any evidence of what exactly happened. They wouldn't run away, and our outdoor watch dogs don't allow any coyotes or ground traveling predators anywhere near us. There were two of them together 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 batwings approximately 4' span are what I could see. They seem to show up every summer always after dusk anytime through the night. Locals don't seem to know about them. I might ask the local native American Indian tribes to see if they know anything about these creatures. Do you know of anyone else who might know what these things are? My brother and I saw another weird batlike creature two summers ago that was also quite bizarre yet not like these huge ones. We were riding our bikes at dusk and this black guinea pig sized thing with bat wings with holes all through the wings ran across the dirt road in front of us and under a bush. We don't know anyone who has seen anything like that either, but we DID see it. 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 are definitely out of the ordinary.
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I offered an unlikely example (Eurasian Eagle Owls) as to what these creatures may be. I don't know of any bat species of that size that live outside of the tropics. Vampire bats, Great Bulldog bats and Flying Foxes can reach that size but I don't think that they could adapt to the climate of the Tacoma, Washington region where the climate is mild during summer when temperatures tend to be in the 60's and cold during winter when temperatures tend to be in the 40's...but some mammals can adapt to climate change.
Sunny received this follow up which she forwarded to me:
Thank you for checking with your colleague. Are the owl wings shaped like bat wings? Do they cling to the sides of the trees? Do they make a sound like "Hooooowhahhhhhh, aaahooooowahhhh! with the wah like the rolling of your tongue? Also the skin on the chest and wings was grey, mottled with some brownish color like a Mexican hairless dogs skin, and it had like visible blood veins kind of like protruding on the skin area. Where can we find a picture of the Asian eagle owl and find out what it sounds like? These might be moulting or sick or something. We would love to solve the mystery, and know more about them. Please let us know if you find anymore info. Thank you again.
Then again:
Thanks again for your help and research. It is truly appreciated. We are near Tacoma in a large forested area with a huge creek running all through it. We looked through and listened to all of the owl/eagle info and enjoyed it very much. I can say with certainty that these things were definitely not owls, eagles, vultures or anything like them. I guess no one would believe us unless they saw them and heard them. These are real. They have huge bat wings with the claw type thing on the top of the wing that helps them clutch the tree. It is true that they don't seem to flap like a regular bat would. They quietly swoop and glide. They sound like those jungle monkeys and you can see skin, no feathers, scales etc. I'm sure these have got to be categorized as unknown. Maybe someone has been doing some weird genetic experiments with wildlife and releasing them to see what the survival rate will be. Maybe an environmental mutation. We will try to ask others who spend time after dusk in the forests, (if we can find anyone like that these days) weather or not they have seen or heard anything like this. We will let you know right away if we learn anymore about this. Have a wonderful, safe 4th of July. Such a pleasure to communicate with you.
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There have been somewhat similar sights in Washington state:
12/29/2007
Man blames car wreck on prehistoric winged reptile
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.
Wenatchee police cited the man with first-degree negligent driving. A breathalyzer test showed "a minimal amount of alcohol," said Wenatchee police Sgt. Cherie Smith.
Witnesses told police the man was northbound on Wenatchee Avenue and drifted into a southbound lane for less than a block. Oncoming traffic stopped and waited for the man to pass, Smith said.
He then totaled his car on a light pole, Smith said.
When police asked the man what caused the accident, his one-word answer was "pterodactyl," Smith said. A pterodactyl was a giant winged reptile that lived more than 65 million years ago.
The man was treated and released at Central Washington Hospital, hospital officials said. - hearaldnet
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The eyewitness described a pair of long-tailed “ropens” in Southwest Washington state, in a rural area that he desires to keep secret. Here is part of the testimony:
"I was riding my bike home from a friends house around 5 pm . . . I heard a strange noise . . . looked to my left, and on a wood plank fence were two of the biggest bird like creatures I could ever imagine! . . . the first thing I noticed was their heads . . . could they be dinosours? . . . They were Huge! There ft wrapped around a 2″x6″ plank . . . they’re heads I would have to say it was maybe 4ft long with the beak."
What follows is a secondary sighting of the same two flying creatures, in the same general area, by the same eyewitness, some time later:
"When they took flight they both still kept an eye back onto me. They only flew far enough to where I wouldn’t see them. They have slow head movements, as if they were rotating there heads with the heads in the downwards position." - www.modernpterosaur.com
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Large Bioluminescent Birds
Also...I received the following email from a witness in northern Louisiana:
Hello - We live in a very rural area about a mile or less from a large lake. My husband and I have seen something we cannot classify into any known bird. We have only seen them at night and only during the warmer season months. There is an interstate being built to run through here and we saw the largest groups of them around the time most of the clear cutting was going on. They are scary big. It was large enough to raise the hairs on the back of my neck and make me hesitant on letting our animals out after dark. It was definitely larger than any bird I had ever seen. They are very dark in color, possibly black. It's difficult for me to give a detailed description of it, but my husband, who got a better look at the bird says it has a large beak, huge wingspan, and long tail.
What sets it apart from anything I have ever seen was that it had a lightning-bug type glow to it. The lighting trait of it was an irregular pulsating lighting that ran the entire length of its body in no type of pattern. It seemed to just hover wings unmoving (much like a kite does), but when it moves it is very fast. My first thought was that it was it had to be some type of military aircraft we have yet to learn about, but the more I have seen it the more animal like qualities I have noticed. Some reasons for that are the pattern of flight isn't repetitious, hovering without making a sound, and it seems to move as if it is on the currents of the wind. My husband has heard a bird-like squawking that drew his attention to them the first time he saw one, but I have not.
I was very skeptical at first, and was sure he had lost his mind. Being a military brat I was sure that it was just something new...like having the Harriers before we were ready to come out about them. It took me seeing whatever it is several times to believe what I saw wasn't something mechanical. I got on the internet and learned that similar descriptions (some spot on and some not even close) have been reported. I'm still not sure what it may be, and am shy to say anything about it to others. It sounds crazy to me. My husband and I are not the only ones to have seen it.
A friend of ours, a disbeliever, came out to see for himself. And, the father of a friend, when we mentioned we had seen something weird; said he never told anyone cause he was afraid that he'd be considered crazy. He told us that he was out on the lake by our place, in his boat at night, and had seen what he thought we had described to him. I am interested for someone more educated in birds and animals to come out and see if they can sight this thing, and find out if they could debunk or explain it. I don't know if it is a plane, maybe a glider of some sort, or an animal, but something is there. It may be able to be explained...maybe not.
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The following information was found at Bioluminescent Pterosaurs in America
Glowing “pterodactyls?” In North America? Non-extinct? What could be more strange? Before dismissing the idea, consider some eyewitness sightings in North America, in light of reports of glowing pterosaurs in the southwest Pacific. But notwithstanding reports appear to be more numerous from some remote tropical islands, there are now enough sightings in North America to justify comparing them to sightings of featherless, apparently-bioluminescent flying creatures in the southwest Pacific.
Caribbean Sighting of Two Glowing Pterosaurs
A recent example is from a lady who was on a cruise in the Caribbean, with family members. Her daughter brought her onto the deck one night, anxious for her to see what was flying over the sea. The mother, who had not been drinking, saw two apparent pterosaurs, glowing and flying back and forth, sometimes closer to the ship.
Peter Beach’s Sightings in Washington State
According to the second edition of Live Pterosaurs in America, night sightings in the state of Washington included one by the college biology professor Peter Beach (2007).
“I went on a short trip to the Yakima River . . . because there was a [sighting]. We were unable to get a picture but we saw many . . . flashing lights. I would have assumed that [they] were fireflies but we [don’t] have them in Washington. . . . Many flashes were parallel to the river. The river at that point [has] a crook . . . and there were many fish . . . Prime hunting grounds for fish-eating birds. Only these things fish at night with bioluminescence. At first I thought I was just seeing shooting stars, but they were all parallel to the river and close to the horizon.”
The next year (summer of 2008), Professor Beach participated in another expedition at the Yakima River.
“During the short expedition I led with the O’Donnells, mid-July, we saw three hours of bioluminescent ‘shooting stars.’ The last hour was the most interesting in that there were two light blasts about 200 ft. apart, about 50-100 ft., above the river. The blasts were followed by screeches from about a dozen or so agitated nighthawks in the general area.”
During the second expedition, Professor Beach had a rather close encounter with a flying creature that he suspected was one of the ones that had been displaying the bioluminescence (although it was not glowing when it flew just over the professor’s head).
“The shape of the flying animal I saw was 3-4 ft. wingspan, 2-3 ft. long, with a bat-like wing. The neck/head was obvious but only in silhouette, and I could not make out a tail or feet. If the tail is thin, I probably was not close enough to see it even if it was there. The wing beat rate caused me to arrive at the size and altitude. The wing [beat] was similar to a Canadian Goose; a seagull beats its wings faster, a Nighthawk (wingspan 18 in.) faster still.”
San Fernando Valley, California, Sighting
“It was late in the evening almost dark . . . I was walking from my car to my house [in Sun Valley] and something in the sky caught my eye. My girlfriend also looked up and right away said is that a bat . . . What caught my eye was the bright radiation like light coming from the belly of this Pterodactyl looking animal. I seen it fly right above us maybe 150 -200 feet and this thing wasn’t no bat it was bigger with large wing span and when it flapped its wings it was kind of a slow lazy flap kind of gliding . . .”
NOTE: I have previously posted extensive information on these creatures and the phenomena associated with them at: Marfa Lights / Pterosaur Connection Theory - Kongamato: African Dragon - Pterosaurs: A Global Phenomenon - The Papua New Guinea Pterosaur - Thunderbirds of the Southwest...Lon
