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).”
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
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
ver-26