The Oxford English Dictionary defines the word cryptid as “An animal whose existence or survival is disputed or unsubstantiated, such as the yeti.” For the following witnesses to living cryptids, there is no dispute. In this series of National Cryptid Society’s case files, you will read what the witnesses have experienced in their own words.
Keep an open mind when reading these accounts, and also remember one’s perception and memory of an event can be influenced by the emotions felt at the time of the occurrence. The contributors to this series of articles are doing the best they can to recount what are in some cases very shocking and traumatic experiences.
If you have a personal cryptid sighting story you would like to tell us, please visit our “Make A Report” page on this site.
National Cryptid Society Case File #57: Pterodactyl Sighting in Delavan, Illinois
This sighting occurred in the late 70’s.
The witness statement is as follows:
“Something just told me today to check the internet to see if other people have had sightings of this, so I’m telling mine.
I don’t remember the exact year because I was young I think I was in first grade or second but we were living on a farmhouse in the country surrounding Delavan Illinois.
It was between 8 am and 10 am I think.
All I know it was a warm sunny summer morning and I decided to go outside and take our blue heeler for a walk.
On our property at that time we had a mowed pasture that had 4 or 5 apple trees, an apricot tree and a long grape vine bush and there was a 14 foot wide path that attached our front yard to that pasture.
While I was dead smack in the middle of it with the dog I heard this loud rustle on the other side of the trees.
When I looked to the south I saw this outrageously large bird just fly straight up and start flying east.
It scared the living daylights out of me because it was the size of our house and bigger than the apple trees and as soon as I saw it I knew what it was.
It was a friggin Pterodactyl!
The color of it was exactly the color of sand or tan over its whole body and it had no feathers.
It had a long narrow mouth a long slightly curved horn out of the back of its head and no tail that I saw.
It looked like everything was attached by its tan skin.
When I saw this I came back to the front door screaming.
My older brother thought it would be funny to lock me out of the house because I came back to the front door screaming and beating on the door then he unlocked it because he saw how frantic I was and that’s when I told him what I saw.
I told dad that day to when he got home from work and he just said that I probably just saw an eagle or a hawk or maybe even a crane.
Nothing ever came of it and I just kept my mouth shut since then.
Til this day I know what I saw because of how old I was.
I was old enough to know what an eagle, hawk and crane looked like.
And now checking the web I see that other people have pictures and even videos of something extremely similar except for the color.
Well that’s my story do what you want with it but I know 100% that is what I saw that day.”
There have been two other NCS Case Files where pterodactyl-like flying creatures have been reported in Illinois.
NCS Case File #29: Pterodactyl sighting over Roscoe, Illinois
Submitted by Andrew
Location: Roscoe, IL
1999
“Sadly I don’t have any photographic or video evidence for what I’ve got to share, I believe it was 1999 (right around there) it was quite a few years ago. However, it was in the middle of town at my sister inlaws house located in Roscoe IL at the time. She, my brother, and I were out on the back porch sky watching as there was supposed to be a meteor shower that night.
We were watching and saw a few streaking here and there across the night sky which was fairly clear, a few patchy sections of clouds. As we were sitting there scanning for more I looked over my shoulder to a area of sky that was looking over the roof of the house from the back yard (in a northern direction) there was slight cloud coverage that had started to block my view as I was getting ready to look elsewhere I noticed something emerge just below the cloud cover, it was quite large but hard to distinguish from itself and the dark coloring of the clouds until it had dropped a little further down. The only word I’ve got to describe it with is a pterodactyl.
I could clearly make out its silhouette and watched it flap its wings then glide for a long distance before I eventually lost sight of it in the tree line and cloud cover. I was a bit shocked and didn’t speak until it had left my view, I turned and asked if either my brother or sister had seen it.. my sister nodded her head and my brother was busy looking elsewhere but if not for her confirmation, I think I would have brushed it off after all this time. But I still do not have any idea what it could have been, and even if it were a pterodactyl, with the size of what I saw I’ve got no idea how it could survive undetected and not be seen.”
NCS Case File #30: Pterodactyl Sighting over Peoria, Illinois
Submitted by Cheryl
Location: West Middle Road, Peoria, Il.
1964
“When I was about 6 years old, I seen a very large bird flying across the sky. It was huge, it’s head was shaped oddly (compared to birds I had seen). I ran to tell my mom, but I didn’t know how to really describe it to her, because I had never heard of a pterodactyls. I just told her I had seen a very large bird that covered a lot of the sky. Her reply was that it had to be an airplane if it was that big.
We lived about a half mile from the Peoria Airport. I knew it wasn’t a plane, because it was flapping it’s wings & it looked like it was in slow motion, not to mention the odd shaped head. Years later I learned about the pterodactyl in school and when I had seen the picture of it, I knew that was what I had seen. Because the head was identical to what I had seen when I was six and that would explain why the bird I had seen was so big. Of course, no one believed me. But to this day, I know what my eyes had seen, I was just too young to know what it was called.”
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