A recent report of a strange flying creature near Tacoma, Washington, has raised a question: What do you call a large flying creature that appears to be neither bird nor bat? That eyewitness in Washington called it a “monkey bird” because of the strange vocal call that it made.
Of course, with other sightings in other parts of the United States, we can call a pterosaur the obvious “pterosaur,” but what do American eyewitnesses call it?
What is interesting is the accumulation of eyewitness accounts of the creatures, regardless of what people call them.
One man who calls it a “pterodactyl” is Duane Hodgkinson, a flight instructor in Livingston, Montana. This World War II veteran was stationed near Finschhafen, New Guinea, in 1944. He and his buddy walked into a clearing, and into cryptozoological history when they saw a large creature fly up into the air. The soldiers soon realized that it was no bird that started to circle the clearing, for its tail was “at least ten to fifteen feet long,” and a long appendage stuck out the back of its head: apparently, a live pterosaur, although Hodgkinson said “pterodactyl.” Jonathan Whitcomb, a forensic videographer and cryptozoology author, interviewed Hodgkinson, in 2004, and found his testimony credible. In 2005, Garth Guessman, another investigator of “ropens” in Papua New Guinea, video-taped the old veteran in Montana. The session was analyzed by Whitcomb, who became even more convinced the World War II veteran was telling the truth: The man had seen a living pterosaur, regardless of what people call it.
