Pterosaur Seen in South Carolina

I [Jonathan Whitcomb] interviewed Susan Wooten,

by email in 2007, about her sighting of an apparent

pterosaur that flew over a highway that ran by a

swamp in South Carolina. She told me “It looked as

big as any car, and had NO feathers, not like a huge

crane or egret.” With a wingspan that she estimated

at 12-20 feet, the creature glided over the highway,

passing close to her car: about twenty feet high and

twenty-five feet in front of her car. The sighting by Wooten was at about 3:00 p.m.

between Greenville and Florence, South Carolina.

The visibility was clear. She was following a friend

who was driving in a car ahead (the second woman

did not notice anything, for the apparent pterosaur

had flown behind that second car).

Several things caught my attention. Wooten’s sketch

of the pterosaur (“pterodactyl” is the common word)

showed a very long tail and legs. She was sure that

what she interpreted as a tail was indeed a tail and

that she saw the legs separately. She was also sure

of a head appendage and showed it in her drawing.

She also noted that other drivers pulled over after

the creature flew over the highway. This is another

clue that Susan saw something strange flying over a

remote area of South Carolina. The description itself

shows it was a living pterosaur.

When I brought up this sighting on a cryptozoology

internet forum (cryptozoology.com), skeptics were

quick to offer alternate explanations: anything

except a pterosaur. It seems to me, however, that

the skeptics failed to read or consider the testimony

itself, offering suggestions that contradicted what

was in the report. (Why not read it first? Really!)

The first comment included “how good a look can

someone get of something in a moving car?” This

skeptic seems to have only scanned the report or

only read my brief comment on it, for the

eyewitness described the creature: “as big as any

car.” She also estimated that it flew about 20 feet

high and about 25 feet in front of her car. And the

description itself (it includes many details) shows

that she did indeed get a good look at the creature.

Not all comments were from skeptics but the

general tone from most of them was that no

pterosaur can live anywhere in South Carolina,

therefore there must be a problem with a sighting

report that suggests a large pterosaur flew over a

highway in South Carolina. They rejected the report

because of their preconceived ideas about pterosaur

extinctions. It was almost like they said, “Nobody’s

seen a pterosaur or somebody would’ve seen one,”

which would have been obvious circular reasoning.

River in South Carolina (Photo by “Let Ideas Compete”) San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, Southern California Introduction to the sighting and the controversy Whitcomb is a living-pterosaur expert and author of the nonfiction books Searching for Ropens and Live Pterosaurs in America (both in revised editions) Consider Paul Nation’s 2006

expedition on the mainland

of Papua New Guinea. He

saw the indava-light several

times and videotaped two

indava lights on a ridge.

First Nonfiction Book

Jonathan Whitcomb wrote

"Searching for Ropens"

(now in its second edition)

after he traveled to Papua

New Guinea to interview

credible native eyewitnesses

on Umboi Island. This book

is nonfiction: a true story.

Deep in the oceans, many

creatures [fish, squid, etc] use

bioluminescence for various

purposes. On the land, perhaps

the best known case is in the

abdomen of the firefly. . . .

About two thousand species of

fireflies [fly] in the world. Each

bioluminescent species has its

own pattern.

Bioluminescence

Wooten wrote under her sketch “Definitely no

feathers -- this thing was not only huge but was

practically on top of me -- maybe 20 ft? above &

25 ft? in front of me > crossing highway”

The above sketch is by Susan Wooten, eyewitness

of the South Carolina pterosaur. Note similarities

to the Hodgkinson “pterodactyl” sighting (1944,

Finschhafen area of New Guinea).

This South Carolina sighting may relate to the

Marfa Lights of Texas, but as of late 2010 the

evidence for Marfa Lights being nocturnal

bioluminescent flying predators is only indirect,

even though the circumstantial evidence has been

accumulating dramatically through March, 2011.

Nevertheless, the creature Wooten saw flying over

the highway was nothing like any “huge crane or

egret.” Common sense insists it was a pterosaur.

Learn more about living pterosaurs, what some

eyewitnesses might call “dinosaur birds.”

Expedition of 2006 Learn much more about the South Carolina sighting. Read the non-fiction cryptozoology book by Jonathan Whitcomb: Live Pterosaurs in America (third edition). Delight in details: many sightings across the United States of America: astonishing true accounts of living pterosaurs in many states of the USA. Cryptozoology & Pterodactyls

“People think that these are flying

dinosaurs, but scientists notice they

differ from dinosaurs.”

Ropen and South Carolina Sighting This flying creature resembles the ropen

of Papua New Guinea, at least

somewhat, but this “pterodactyl” is also

called the “South Carolina pterosaur.”

Sketch by the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn: one of two pterosaurs he observed in Cuba The original version of this web page was on the old Prodigy site, before the host discontinued PWP support Consider these book reviews on strange and paranormal phenomena: near death experiences (NDE) and eyewitness accounts of living pterosaurs and dinosaurs (books by George Ritchie, Betty Eadie, F. Silcock, and Whitcomb). By the end of the 20th Century, the living Coelacanth was no longer considered very strange. The origin of the idea of the ancient Coelacanth, however, is strange. Believing in a living Coelacanth, why should we not consider a living pterosaur? And if these two kinds of creatures still live, why consider them “ancient?” Consider that.

Marfa Lights Explained