Scott Norman’s Pterosaur Sighting: Update
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 5th, 2008
There is more data to be added to the initial Pterosaur sighting info you read about here.
Chad Arment has posted the full information he has on Scott Norman’s sighting in his posting “The Scott Norman ‘Pterosaur’ Sighting: His Own Words.”
Chad shares Scott’s description of what he sighted:
The animal I saw had an 8-10 foot wing span, the wings were bat-like in shape, the inside had that wavy type of look. The body was about 5-6 feet in length, the neck about 1-2 feet in length, the head was about four feet in length, and the head was key for me: it has a crest that was about 2 feet in length, fit that of a pteranodon, don’t know how else to describe it. Our contact had a similar type of sighting three years ago in daylight. In his sighting he saw a long tail, I did not see one, and all of the pteranodon pictures I’ve seen show a real short stubby one. The animal I saw was stockier compared to some of the drawings of pterosaurs I’ve seen.
Please read all of what Chad has at his site.
It makes for interesting and a more complete reading on the story broken here. I’m happy we are hearing about this chapter of Scott’s life now.
Scott Norman’s ability to translate each part of the creature’s anatomy to a measurement in feet is admirable. But one has to wonder how reliable such estimates are given that a flying object is judged in the absence of other objects. A full moon over the horizon looks a lot bigger than a full moon at zenith but it’s an illusion. If the animal was smaller than 8-10 feet, could it be explained as a known bird of that part of the world?
Scott himself said in the description it could have been smaller. What got him (and me) is the crest.
Could it be?
I’m a believer, but I’m also willing to believe it was a bird. Could be either. Fascinating “sighting” regardless—from a fascinating man.
Richard888,
I understand what you are saying about depth perception, but the moon typically doesn’t fly 20 feet above someone’s head. The article here on Cmundo says, “Two nights ago our fellow researcher, Scott Norman, saw a creature glide over him only 20 feet up.”
Whatever it was, it certainly sounds out of he ordinary.
I really enjoyed reading Scott Norman’s report. I live about Thirty miles from the Norman residence. I hope his colleagues including John Kirk, follow up on this report. If it is possible I would like too be included in any field work in upcoming investigations. If I read the report right, this sighting took place in my state and not in PNG. If this is the case I would like to get involved.
Once again my heart goes out to Scott, his family, and friends.
This is a very fascinating subject ! Hope they find more answers soon.
It’s important to note the original more lengthy account quoting Scott:
http://www.strangeark.com/bfr/articles/scott-norman-sightings.html
Reply to Richard888:
“. . . one has to wonder how reliable such estimates are[,] given that a flying object is judged in the absence of other objects.” (by Richard888)
Actually this seems irrelevant for this case, as there was a nearby shed.
The full account of the quotation includes these three things:
“. . . the head was about four feet in length, and the head was key for me: it has a crest that was about 2 feet in length . . .”
“. . . really hard to give exact measurements in the night, so could be smaller, though a possibility that it could be larger, though I’m confident about saying it has an 8 to 10 foot wing span . . .”
“The animal was only 20 feet from me, our contact told us his shed is 18 ft high, and the animal was about two feet above that and probably it was a little closer as it flew by me . . .”
This seems to indicate that the creature flew just two feet over a shed, giving Norman an easy way to estimate distance (twenty feet away). The problem with trying to find a way that he exaggerated the size is this: If the creature were much more than twenty feet away, it must have been larger than he estimated; if it had been much closer than twenty feet away, it would have almost collided with Norman. We see that there is limited potential for size miscalculation here. I believe that this is why Norman said that he was confident in his estimate.
The size is really unimportant beyond the fact that whatever he saw was bigger than a crow. The importance is in the description of the bird/flying thing itself…
the head was obviously disproporionate from the rest of the body and very different than any sort of known bird…and the long neck is not characteristic (well I’ll give you flamingos and what not), and especially in connection with what he described as a “stockier” body or form. Stocky is not a descriptor I would usually associate with birds at all.
ASSuming the sighting is legit and that it was not a R/C thing or some other construct, this is a really important sighting.
The description of bat-like wings reminds me of the giant flying creature that Ivan T Sanderson took a shot at in Africa.
The reason Scott could talk about the size and measurements so readily is because the morning after he made the sighting, I and another fellow researcher drilled him with questions. We wanted to get all the details while they were fresh on his mind. We spent much of morning going over all aspects of the sighting including multiple measurements.
For example he originally stated that the creature had a wingspan of about 4 feet. As we kept scrutinizing him we found out that his definition of wingspan was incorrect. He thought wingspan was the length of only one wing. Once we cleared that up he stated that is was more like 8 feet between wing tips.
Scott made the sighting next to a shed that had a 10 foot wide door. When we asked him again to give a size estimate he looked at the doorway and asked how wide it was. We measured it at 10 feet even. At that point Scott said, “then it was about a 10 feet wingspan.”
Later on he only stated “8-10 feet” to stay conservative, because, when I pinned him down on his closest possible estimate, he told me, “10 feet”. And that is what I documented in my interview notes.
Knowing his credibility first hand, I am confident that Scott Norman saw a 10 foot creature flying 20 feet above him on July 19, 2007 at about 2AM.
Garth