Monday, March 26, 2012
I recently received media inquiries in reference to some of the cryptid sightings I have reported in southwest Florida...unknown creatures described at Huge Short-Snouted Snake-Like Creature - Ft. Myers, FL - 1/20/2012 and Strange Encounters: Southwest Florida. The inquiry focused on an 'Ahool' encounter in Lee County, Florida. Here is the email that was forwarded to me:
Hi - I recently had an encounter with a bird-like creature but I know it wasn't a bird - it looked to be a flying person. I know it sounds weird and crazy but I know what I saw. Well here's the whole story. On Feb, 5th around 11:30pm my older sister and her husband were taking me, my little sister, my mom and my two nieces to eat at Denny's in a near town (Fort Myers, FL). Well as we were driving on I75 out of nowhere through the windshield I see a person with wings fly over our car. It went over two times back and forth. I got a good look - it looked like a person with wings but then again it also looked like a pterodactyl (pterosaur). My brother-in-law also saw it and agreed with me. He says it was not a bird! Well that was my encounter with the creature.
My nephew also witnessed a person-like creature. He was walking to his girlfriend's house late at night and by her neighbor's house there are some trees. He said he saw a person / figure standing in the trees looking at him. He asked his girlfriend if she also saw it - she said that its always there. He then started to walk closer to get a better view of it when the creature jumped off the tree onto his girlfriend's neighbors fence causing it to make rattling noise. The dogs started barking and then the creature flew off in front off his eyes. It then ran into his girlfiend's house scared it would come back but it didn't. My nephew's encounter happened in Lehigh Acres, FL a couple of days before my encounter happened! We have no clue as to what it is or why it would be following us?! It is very mind boggling!!
The Ahool is a flying cryptid, possibly a giant bat, or by other accounts, a living pterosaur or flying primate. Named for its distinctive call A-hoooool, it is said to live in the deepest rainforests of Java. It is described as having a monkey/ape-like head with large dark eyes, large claws on its forearms (approximately the size of an infant), and a body covered in gray fur. Possibly the most intriguing and astounding feature is that it is said to have a wingspan of 3 m (10 ft). This is almost twice as long as the largest (known) bat in the world, the common flying fox. - Coleman, Loren & Clark, Jerome - Cryptozoology A To Z: The Encyclopedia of Loch Monsters, Sasquatch, Chupacabras, and Other Authentic Mysteries of Nature
There is a similar type of flying cryptid in central Europe called the 'Alp' as described at In Search of the Alp and Possible Alp Sightings in Austria. As well, Pterosaur sightings have occurred worldwide, including the United States. Researcher Jonathan Whitcomb has tirelessly documented these dinosaur-like flying cryptids for over a generation. Syfy's Destination Truth also produced a segment where the team traveled to Java in search of the creature.
The Ahool was first described by Dr. Ernest Bartels while exploring the Salak Mountains on the island of Java. In 1925 naturalist Dr. Ernest Bartels, (son of ornithologist M.E.G. Bartels), was exploring a waterfall on the slopes of the Salek Mountains when a giant bat, swooped down over his head. Then in 1927, around 11:30 pm, Dr. Ernest Bartels was laying in bed, inside his thatched house close to the Tjidjenkol River in western Java, listening to the sounds of the jungle when he suddenly heard a very different sound coming from almost directly over his hut, this loud and clear cry seemed to utter, A Hool! Grabbing his torch Dr. Bartels ran out of his hut in the direction the sound seemed to be heading. Less than 20 seconds later he heard it again, a final A Hool! It was the giant bat he encountered 2 years before.
People who have visited the area have questioned the local people about the bat. The people say they have seen it or know of it’s existence and avoid it as they do other large wild animals. The villages are remote and people do not own cameras etc, so no photos have ever been produced.
Bartels accounts of the Ahool were passed to Ivan T. Sanderson by Bernard Heuvelmans, and Sanderson concluded that the Ahool is a form of unclassified bat. Sanderson took an interest in the Ahool because he too had a strange encounter with an unknown giant bat in the Assumbo Mountains of Cameroon, in Africa. Sanderson thought that the Ahool could be an Oriental form of the giant bat like creature he witnessed in Africa, called the Kongamato.
The biggest known bat today is the Bismark flying fox, which has a wing span of six feet (almost 2 metres) from wingtip to wingtip The island of Java, is near the flying fox's home of New Guinea, so could it be a relative? The other theory about Ahool is that two large earless owls exist on Java, the Spotted Wood-owl (Strix seloputo) and the Javan Wood-owl (Strix (leptogrammica) bartelsi (named after Bartels father) being 16-20 inches (40-50 cms) long and with a wingspan of 4 feet (1.1meters). However one would have thought Bartels would have known what the owls looked like, especially as his father discovered one and also the local people would be familiar with them. With the demise of the rain forests, if these creatures exist, they may have been pushed to extinction, which is a sad thought. - Karl P.N. Shuker, Ph.D. - The Beasts that Hide from Man: Seeking the World's Last Undiscovered Animals
Man blames car wreck on prehistoric winged reptile
A 29-year-old Wenatchee man told police a pterodactyl caused him to drive his car into a light pole about 11:30 p.m. Thursday.
Wenatchee police cited the man with first-degree negligent driving. A breathalyzer test showed "a minimal amount of alcohol," said Wenatchee police Sgt. Cherie Smith.
Witnesses told police the man was northbound on Wenatchee Avenue and drifted into a southbound lane for less than a block. Oncoming traffic stopped and waited for the man to pass, Smith said.
He then totaled his car on a light pole, Smith said.
When police asked the man what caused the accident, his one-word answer was "pterodactyl," Smith said. A pterodactyl was a giant winged reptile that lived more than 65 million years ago.
The man was treated and released at Central Washington Hospital, hospital officials said. - heraldnet
Two Eyewitness Accounts - Flying Cryptids
The eyewitness described a pair of long-tailed “ropens” in Southwest Washington state, in a rural area that he desires to keep secret. Here is part of the testimony:
"I was riding my bike home from a friends house around 5 pm . . . I heard a strange noise . . . looked to my left, and on a wood plank fence were two of the biggest bird like creatures I could ever imagine! . . . the first thing I noticed was their heads . . . could they be dinosours? . . . They were Huge! There ft wrapped around a 2″x6″ plank . . . they’re heads I would have to say it was maybe 4ft long with the beak."
What follows is a secondary sighting of the same two flying creatures, in the same general area, by the same eyewitness, some time later:
"When they took flight they both still kept an eye back onto me. They only flew far enough to where I wouldn’t see them. They have slow head movements, as if they were rotating there heads with the heads in the downwards position." - modernpterosaur.com
Caribbean Sighting of Two Glowing Pterosaurs
A recent example is from a lady who was on a cruise in the Caribbean, with family members. Her daughter brought her onto the deck one night, anxious for her to see what was flying over the sea. The mother, who had not been drinking, saw two apparent pterosaurs, glowing and flying back and forth, sometimes closer to the ship.
Peter Beach’s Sightings in Washington State
According to the second edition of Live Pterosaurs in America, second edition: Eyewitness Reports of Pterosaurs in the Contiguous United States, night sightings in the state of Washington included one by the college biology professor Peter Beach (2007).
“I went on a short trip to the Yakima River . . . because there was a [sighting]. We were unable to get a picture but we saw many . . . flashing lights. I would have assumed that [they] were fireflies but we [don’t] have them in Washington. . . . Many flashes were parallel to the river. The river at that point [has] a crook . . . and there were many fish . . . Prime hunting grounds for fish-eating birds. Only these things fish at night with bioluminescence. At first I thought I was just seeing shooting stars, but they were all parallel to the river and close to the horizon.”
“During the short expedition I led with the O’Donnells, mid-July, we saw three hours of bioluminescent ‘shooting stars.’ The last hour was the most interesting in that there were two light blasts about 200 ft. apart, about 50-100 ft., above the river. The blasts were followed by screeches from about a dozen or so agitated nighthawks in the general area.”
During the second expedition, Professor Beach had a rather close encounter with a flying creature that he suspected was one of the ones that had been displaying the bioluminescence (although it was not glowing when it flew just over the professor’s head).
“The shape of the flying animal I saw was 3-4 ft. wingspan, 2-3 ft. long, with a bat-like wing. The neck/head was obvious but only in silhouette, and I could not make out a tail or feet. If the tail is thin, I probably was not close enough to see it even if it was there. The wing beat rate caused me to arrive at the size and altitude. The wing [beat] was similar to a Canadian Goose; a seagull beats its wings faster, a Nighthawk (wingspan 18 in.) faster still.”
San Fernando Valley, California, Sighting
“It was late in the evening almost dark...I was walking from my car to my house [in Sun Valley] and something in the sky caught my eye. My girlfriend also looked up and right away said is that a bat...What caught my eye was the bright radiation like light coming from the belly of this Pterodactyl looking animal. I seen it fly right above us maybe 150-200 feet and this thing wasn’t no bat it was bigger with large wing span and when it flapped its wings it was kind of a slow lazy flap kind of gliding...”
What are people witnessing? Large flying cryptid sightings are becoming more frequent all over the world...especially in the United States. The upper Midwest, Pennsylvania and Texas have been particular hot spots. Could there be surviving remnants from Earth's prehistoric past? Are there supernatural flying humanoids, Mothman or Ahool, living among us? Can an interdimensional theory be applied to flying cryptids? If so, then are we getting a glimpse of the past...or the future? Your comments are welcomed...Lon
The Weiser Field Guide to Cryptozoology: Werewolves, Dragons, Skyfish, Lizard Men, and Other Fascinating Creatures Real and Mysterious
Hidden Animals: A Field Guide to Batsquatch, Chupacabra, and Other Elusive Creatures
'Phantoms and Monsters'
CLICK POSTER FOR TICKET INFORMATION