Pterodactyls Or Windshield Cracks?
Posted by: Loren Coleman on September 11th, 2009
You be the judge.
The Argentine Pterodactyl? Or the Argentine Windshield Crack?
Images of windshield cracks researched and shared by K. Gehrman. Or as he puts it: “I found two more pictures of tiny pteradactyls stuck to peoples windshields!”
About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
To me the giveaway is that the shape and orientation don’t change. There are only a few interesting questions, like why the photo was taken in the 1st place, and why the crack and the beach scene are both in reasonably good focus. The crack photos shown below either show the crack in very good focus, which would leave the background out of focus, or the crack very fuzzy, with the background in good focus.
One way to achieve this is to shoot the picture from the back seat, so that the crack is not so close to the camera, and then crop out the parts of the photo that show the car. That degree of forethought would make this a simple hoax, though.
It’s quite obviously a windshield crack.
Even if this was not, I don’t see how this object in any way resembles a pterodactyl. How does the object it question look as if it is any sort of biological organism capable of self propelled flight? I think people could see this as whatever they want. This will be a UFO to some, a flying humanoid to others, and an inter-dimensional beastie to others. A pterodactyl? No matter how I look at this, I see no resemblance whatsoever.
We don’t know what any of those other things look like for sure, but we have a good idea of what pterodactyls and other flying creatures look like, and it isn’t this. We also know what windshield cracks look like, which is to say exactly like what is seen in the pictures.
It looks exactly like a windshield crack. Let’s take a shave with the razor. There is really nothing in the photos that can overcome the overwhelming fact that a windshield crack is precisely what the alleged object looks like, and there is really no reason to reach for other conclusions such as surviving pterodactyls. What is there to point us in that direction? You would have to show a whole lot more to offset the most obvious mundane culprit here. Which is more likely? That the photo (focused or not) shows exactly what it looks like (a windshield crack), or photographic evidence of surviving prehistoric beasts or UFOs? Which is the more rational conclusion in this case? I think most here know the answer to that one.
In fact, from what I see, even if this was somehow shown to be a definite free floating object, which I’m pretty convinced it is not, I would actually argue against it being a pterodactyl based on its appearance.
Much of the time, if it looks like a lamp it’s a lamp, and a windshield crack is a windshield crack. If there is no reason to add unnecessary plurality and grasp at other unknown options, we should not be doing it in photos like this.
Awwww. It looks like two of them are kissing in mid-air in those last two pictures!
A friend of mine scored some much cooler pictures a few years ago, thanks to a cicada on her windshield.
katydid rather
D’oh! I knew that. I blame just coming off of night shift.
Why speculate that it might be a Pterodactyl? Who is to say that it is not an Iguandon that was flung into the air by the clubbed tail of an Ankylosaurus?
The first time I saw this the most likely answer seemed to be radio-controlled model helicopter, with the rotor blades frozen by the exposure speed.
Once you factor in the presence of a windshield the solution becomes obvious. What I don’t understand is where the notion of pterodactyl ever came from ?! Perhaps it was supposed to be dive-bombing the photographer feet first with it’s wings folded up and it’s head tilted back, only a few feet away and having very long spindly claws – maybe then it could be a pterosaur.
However that is not, needless to say, what is claimed.
Last week’s car park T-bird was barely worth all the attention it got, but how this could ever be construed to be a pterodactyl is something of a cryptic phenomenon in itself.
Unknown bug, anyone? To me it’s more plausible to be a unknown bug. For instance. Maybe it’s wings move like a hummingbird. But these wings you can’t see when it flies. It may look like a windshield crack, but it may not.
Maybe the windshield was cracked by something dropped by a pterosaur? The photographer was obviously too shocked to catch a pic of the beastie itself. Right?
Yes indeed, this is a great photo of a cracked windshield. I have one of these cracks in my windshield. I believe mine may have been caused by a pterosaur of some sort, or a common vulture. Either way I know if you do not get it fixed it will spread. Voice of experience talking here.
Wow, I have a pteradactyl on my windshield too! Who knew?
I though a meteor destroyed the pterosaurs not created them.