Groundhogs and Pterodactyls
Posted by: Loren Coleman on February 2nd, 2011
I never was sure what Groundhog’s Day had to do with these reports, but curiously, there is word of a Bigfoot from the 1940s here too.
Newspaper reporter John Boston picked out Groundhog’s Day, February 2, 2007, to summarize some two dozen fables and strange stories from Santa Clarita Valley, California. He only listed two that were clearly cryptozoological, about Bigfoot and Living Pterodactyls in his Groundhog’s Day article, which I have extracted for you. Did I mention it was Groundhog’s Day, the ultimate déjà vu day?
THE BIGFOOT
Since the days of the Spanish missions, tales have been handed down about a giant, 10-foot-tall hairy hominid roaming California – and, our valley.
In the 1940s, Signal editor Fred Trueblood reported giant, human-like footprints in Pico Canyon and joked that the person who made them must have weighed a half-ton and was 9-feet tall.
But huge humanoid radar alarms really went off here in the early 1970s when dozens of Sasquatch sightings were reported.
One terrified couple said they saw the beast, close up, while they were making out in a desolate canyon. The creature apparently was bending over, peering in through the windshield.
That’ll get you to therapy.
Jackson McBride reported a chilling tale to local sheriff’s deputies. McBride, his son and the boy’s friend reported seeing eerie lights on their Lost Canyon hog ranch. They also reported spotting a 9-foot-tall hairy humanoid standing in a pig pen. What made the deputies wince was that the creature was wearing a blue belt around its ample waist. Officers investigated the site, but found no footprints. They did bump into a man hauling trash from the farm and questioned him. The man quipped he hadn’t spot anyone 9-feet-tall – hairy or not – lately. The trash hauler asked the lawmen that if they did bump into someone matching the description, to please send him back because he could sure use the help loading his truck.
Bob Curasi, a farmer out near Lost Canyon, even made a plaster cast of the prints.
FLYING DINOSAURS
Pterodacyl sightings were reported here in the 1880s, around the Castaic and Rabbit (Elizabeth today) Lake. Many prominent citizens reportedly witnessed the huge creature with leather-like wings, giant eyes and skunk-like stink to it. It would dive into the lake and come out with fish. Or, fishermen…John Boston
Source: The Signal, Feb. 2, 2007, Santa Clarita, California, “Ghosts. Serial killers. Giant man-eating grizzly bears. Bigfoot. Pterodactyl sightings”.
The column mentions “Pterodacyl” (sic) in the text of the article, and properly spells it as “Pterodactyl” in the headline. BTW, there is nothing in the article about “giant man-eating grizzly bears,” only one note on a man-killing-a-big-grizzly-bear incident.
Can you believe this winter?
Chad Arment wrote an entry entitled The Pterodactyls of Fresno County, California in BioFortean Review, (November 2006, No. 5) that would be of interest in respect to the article above.
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.
