Pterosaur Seen in South Carolina

Late in 2007, I interviewed Susan Wooten,

by email, about her sighting of an apparent pterosaur that flew over a highway near a swamp in South Carolina. She told me that

“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, coming

to as close to “twenty feet” high and “twenty-five feet” in front of her car.

The sighting 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 behind that second car).

Several things caught my attention. Her

sketch of the pterosaur (commonly called

a “pterodactyl”) 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 fly over a remote area of South Carolina.

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?)

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) is evidence that she did 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.

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.

Jonathan Whitcomb wrote "Searching for Ropens" (now in its second edition) after he traveled to Papua New Guinea to interview native eyewitnesses on Umboi Island. This book is nonfiction: a true story.

The above sketch is by Susan Wooten (South Carolina pterosaur). Note similarities to the Hodgkinson “pterodactyl” sighting (1944, New Guinea).

There are book reviews on the strange and paranormal phenomena: near death experiences (NDE) and eyewitness accounts of living pterosaurs and dinosaurs.

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?”