Two sightings of living pterosaurs were reported in December, 2012, for the state of Georgia. One of the reports came from David Schroder, who told me, “You can use my name if you like.”
Towns County, Northern Georgia
Along with his wife and some friends, Schroder has seen this flying creature, most recently on December 9, 2012. What he believes was his first encounter with this creature—that was years ago and not a sighting: He and his neighbor heard a strange “scream” that frightened Schroder’s dog enough that “she had her tail between her legs and ran into her dog-house and would not come out for over an hour.” By email, he told me about his first sighting (not edited for spelling or other English errors):
Since then I have never thought too much about it until July of 2010, My wife and I were sitting outside when motion from above the tree tops to our left caught my attention . . . We were looking at two extreamly large birds flying together and heading north towards the N,C, border.
Both birds had what I can only guess to be 15-20′ wing spans and the motion of their wings as they flew saw very slow, the head was long and ended in a point, wings ended in a point and appeared to be featherless, they had a tail of sorts, it looked like it was maybe 1/4 the length of the body and had something on the end that was a little bigger than the tail itself. IThe body of the birds looked to be a dark gray. They were close when they flew over, there wasn’t any doubt that these were part of the family of birds that I suspected might be living in the southern Appalachian mountains & no doubt what I had heard in the past,
He then told me about his most recent sighting:
Anyway, it happened again yesterday, this time there were three of us who saw this bird fly over, in plain sight, in daylight, up close ….. it was a young Pterodactyl, they are not only alive, they are producing offspring and thriving here in the Georgia/North Carolina mountains, after yesterday’s sighting, I have no doubt and I will defend what we have seen and heard to anyone with out ever second guessing myself again.
East of Winder, Georgia
I began email communications with Sandra Paradise in September of 2008, and in 2012 she granted me permission to use her real name. Over the years that she has been driving to work, on a highway between Winder and Athens (east of Atlanta), she has had four sightings. Consider what she has said about her first sighting (no editing):
The path it took was up and then swooping down, as if it were dive-bombing my car. As it crossed my path, in front and slightly above me, I saw it had a head that was curved, like a hammer; the head had a crest on the top that was solid, not feathery at all; the mouth was closed so I could not make out a jaw structure; I could make out the darkness of an eye.
The tail was long, had a ridge that ran along the underside, and ended in a thick, heart-shaped pad. The tail I got a good look at.The body seemed to have a fat tummy, but was hard to see, being hidden by its wings as it flew across; I could not make out a wingspan because I saw it in almost perfect profile so the wings were foreshortened, but they just flapped along, and the thing made perfect sense as it flew.