Scott T. Norman, American cryptozoologist and explorer, passed away on February 29, 2008, at the age of forty-three. He was a passionate investigator of cryptids, even taking part in an expedition in central Africa to search for the Mokele-Mbembe; he failed to see any sauropod dinosaur during that expedition, but just months before his untimely death, from natural causes, he experienced what may have been his greatest success in cryptozoology: He saw a living pterosaur.
A few months after my late-2004 expedition in Papua New Guinea, I [Jonathan Whitcomb] met Scott Norman. My associate, Garth Guessman, introduced me to this cryptozoologist [Scott Norman, who] two years after I met him . . . became, I believe, the first American cryptozoologist to observe the clear form of a living pterosaur while searching for one.
In the second half of 2007, living-pterosaur investigators were active in a new sighting area . . . [in the United States]. Some of the men had been on cryptozoological expeditions in Africa or Papua New Guinea, including Scott Norman.
Silent, with stars for a background, the dark creature flew twenty feet high, over a shed only twenty feet from Scott . . . there was no mistaking it: . . . a head three to four feet long, and a two-foot-long head-crest that reminded him of a Pteranodon. . . . [Wings] more bat-like than bird-like.
Scott wished that the creature had been glowing when it flew over the shed [unfortunately, it was not glowing, at least at that time], confirming the concept of large bioluminescent flying creatures. He felt . . . the wingspan was eight to ten feet. He was a bit perplexed that legs were not visible, but like other eyewitnesses of large flying creatures he was concentrating on one or two parts of the cryptid: Apparently Scott was concentrating on the creature’s head.
Other Cryptozoologists Searching for Extant Pterosaurs
It seems that most cryptozoologists who actively search for living pterosaurs are Americans: Garth Guessman, Paul Nation, Jonathan Whitcomb, David Woetzel, and a few others. Most, but not all, seem to be strict Young Earth Creationists; one of the most outspoken in YEC concepts may be Woetzel, with Guessman seeming to preach in a similar way. Whitcomb has gone on record as opposing the idea of a 6,000-year-old universe, but some of his writings have strongly supported traditional ideas in the Bible.
Guessman’s knowledge of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur fossils allowed him to notice an important clue about the ropen’s classification. The two explorers learned that the native traditions describe the ropen’s tail as being stiff, never moving except near where it connects to the body. Guessman recognized that this relates to the stiffening extension rods of Rhamphorhynchoid vertebrae.
Paul Nation’s short video of the two indavas was examined by Cliff Paiva, a missile defense physicist, who declared that the images of the two lights were not of meteors, camp fires, auto headlights, a paste-on-the-background hoax, or other common things.
What flies in the night
As it glows
Bigger than fireflies and bats
Bigger than barn owls
Dark as the crows
But never with feathers
Woetzell is the second-most prolific writer on the subject of living pterosaurs (after Jonathan Whitcomb), with a web site titled “Genesis Park” and a more-recent scientific paper in a science journal.