front cover of "Live Pterosaurs in America" - third edition
South Carolina Pterosaur Sighting
Between Columbia and Florence, S. C.
South Carolina “Pterodactyl” Sighting by Susan Wooten
Susan Wooten, of Greenville, South Carolina, was driving from home to Florence (about [1986]) when she saw a giant creature glide over the highway in front of the car. Her friend, who was driving in a car ahead, saw nothing behind her. It was 3:00 p.m. “It looked as big as any car, and had NO feathers, not like a huge crane or egret. . . . it swooped down over the highway and back up gracefully over the pines.” It was in a remote swampy area. Some cars in the opposite lane pulled over after the pterosaur-like creature flew over the highway. Susan wanted to pull over to talk with them but she would have been separated from her friend who kept going. The pterosaur started out above pine tree- tops and swooped lower above the road and then up again to fly above treetops on the other side. “It came from the left towards me . . .  then over median, and over me, then up over treetops on my side, to the right.” The pterosaur was “gliding” but it flapped its wings slowly once or twice. Its wingspan was about twelve to twenty feet. The weather allowed for a good observation: “nice pretty day--clear, in the fall, but don't remember which month.” Was it a pterosaur? Probably. Other people have seen similar flying creatures, in various countries of the world, including the USA.
The huge featherless creature swooped down over the highway, maybe only “twenty feet” high and only “twenty five” feet in front of the car (Highway 20, South Carolina). "Could Susan have dozed off for a second? Brief dreams that wake up the driver are common. But if that happened, Susan would have remembered waking up or at least being sleepy. In addition, the drivers of the other cars would not have pulled over to talk about somebody’s dream that had flown over the highway. I think that Western civilization needs to wake up to the reality of living pterosaurs. Why believe that all species of pterosaurs must be extinct?" (words of the cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb) Jonathan Whitcomb, author of the three non- fiction books on sightings of pterosaurs, (including "Searching for Ropens" and "Live Pterosaurs in America") said the following about the pterosaur sighting by Wooten: “Although my email contact with Susan was mostly for only a few weeks, I found no sign of any hoax; I believe her report is genuine, with little potential for any hallucination or dream or hoax. “The clarity of the weather, close distance to the creature, and its large size and clear lack of feathers—these combine to refute any misidentification of a bird. Also, the large size and slow flapping of wings combine to refute a misidentification of a mechanical pterosaur (a model airplane also would sound like a model airplane or like some- thing mechanical).”
swamp in South Carolina Sketch by the eyewitness Susan Wooten
South Carolina has many areas where creatures can hide
Susan Wooten drew a brief sketch of the flying creature (above)
Introduction to the sighting and controversy 
At night, in Jupiter, Florida 
Expanded third edition 
Clear Thinking in Science 
Report by Duane Hodgkinson 
Huge pterosaur flying over Perth in 1997 
Sightings of the ropen 
Bougainville Island pterosaur 
Husband-Wife Relationship 
long tail of the pterosaur seen by Sandra Paradise Another sketch by the eyewitness in Georgia: Sandra Paradise
Images above and to the right are Copyright 2008 Sandra Paradise 
Sandy Paradise, a professional artist, drew what she had observed flying over a highway in Georgia, in 2008. She reported many details of her sighting to Jonathan Whitcomb (as Susan Wooten had previously done). Details varied, within natural eyewitness variation.
Sandy Paradise was driving through a rural area, between Winder and Athens, Georgia, in daylight, when she encountered this apparent pterosaur: big. This pterosaur sighting in Georgia supports Susan Wooten’s earlier report of a huge featherless long-tailed flying creature to the east, in South Carolina. Similar “dragons” or “pterodactyls” have been observed in other states, including Florida, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Virginia, New York state, Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and in other U.S. states and in indeed in other countries worldwide.
Read much more in this non-fiction  cryptozoology book by Whitcomb The most comprehensive nonfiction book, on extant pterosaurs in many of the 48 contiguous states of the USA
Swamp in South Carolina
Copyright 2005-2019 Jonathan D. Whitcomb 
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