Dinosaur Sightings

QUESTION: Have there been live dinosaur sightings in modern times?

ANSWER:

Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park touched man’s universal fascination with dinosaurs and sent many people scrambling to discover what, if any, dinosaur sightings have occurred in modern times.

Here are some details from supposed dinosaur sightings.

Whether or not pterosaur (“winged lizard”) is technically a dinosaur, this flying reptile is still believed by some to have died out 65 million years ago. However, there have been dozens of dinosaur sightings in recent years in the United States alone. In 1961, a business man flying his own plane over the Hudson River Valley was ‘buzzed’ by what he said could only be described as a pterodactyl type creature. In 1976 there were at least three very similar sightings in Texas, including one in which three elementary teachers in San Antonio all reported seeing the same creature. One of the most fascinating sightings occurred in 1856 when a railway tunnel was being dug between St.-Dizier and Nancy, France. The Illustrated London News on February 9, 1856, reports that when a large limestone boulder was split open, a creature with a wingspan of 10’ 7” spilled out, flapped its wings, then died, leaving a precise mold of its body in the stone. Recorded sightings of thunderbirds are no stranger to in the American Southwest.¹

Since 1938, the coelacanth fish species, believed to have been extinct for a millennia, has turned up as dinosaur sightings in waters from South Africa to Indonesia. One of the most recent sightings of coelacanth were identified during a 2002 dive off the shores of Sodowana, South Africa. Until these live specimens were sighted and studied, they had only been known from fossils.²

By far, the most fascinating dinosaur sightings come out of Africa with similar creatures spotted in Papua, New Guinea. These stories have been persistent for centuries and are too similar to be ignored. A specialized field of study, crypto zoology, has pursued these findings for many years. Consistently over the past 100 years natives talk about mokele-mbembe (blocker-of-rivers). These dinosaur sightings come from varied areas, but are startlingly similar. All of them involve a creature that spends most of its time in the water, though it climbs ashore during the day in search of food. Its size is approximately between an elephant and hippopotamus but with a long neck and small head. And the mokele-mbembe feeds off of specific vegetation and fruit growing along the water’s edge. No matter where they have been spotted in Africa, the natives all say that hippopotamus and alligators quickly leave the section of the river where this creature roams. It is very territorial and aggressively protects its area. Every time natives are shown pictures, they quickly identify a sauropod-type dinosaur, similar in shape to a small Apatosaurus. In 1983, university-trained biologist Marcellin Agnagna began his own excursions into these areas and describes his sighting in an area near Lake Tele. David Woetzel, president and CEO of CCR Data systems is another frequent researcher gathering sighting information of the mokele-mbembe in Africa.³

Sightings of Ogopogo, a plesiosaur-type creature, are abundant and have been well documented in Canada for the past 130 years. Generations of Australian Aborigines have given detailed, consistent accounts of interactions with the Gee long Bunyip, some form of bipedal dinosaur. Modern dinosaur sightings are fascinating, thought provoking, and a marvelous reminder of our awesome Creator.⁴