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EXPERIENCE MYSTERY: “LIVE PTEROSAUR”
Sep. 27th, 2022 10:43 amThroughout my life, I have been sensitive to the Unseen. I do have conversations with various trees, rocks, and squirrels. For that reason, my family regarded me as crazy as a loon. Therefore, I rarely discuss my otherworldly experiences. However, my encounters with a “Live Pterosaur” (Note 1.) were with other family members. Perhaps I drew the creatures out in the open or perhaps the land spoke to me, and sent them. (Note 2.)
One incident happened in a blueberry field. During the summer, my family, who lived in Northern Maine, would go blueberry picking. We gathered the berries to make jellies for the coming winter. The time was high summer, prime blueberry season. The place was a secluded area surrounded by mountains of pine forests. (Blueberry bushes grow best in burned-out rocky areas.)
This particular day was warm, sunny, with an endless blue sky. Bending over the low bushes, we were busily plucking the berries and putting them into our pots. As a huge dark shadow came over us in the field, we looked up. This strange shadow had huge wings, a long-pointed head, and a long tail. The “bird” had no feathers that we could tell. At first, my family was curious as to what the creature was. Suddenly, everyone shook with such terror, that we raced to our parked truck. Piling in, spilling blueberries everywhere, my family tore out of there as fast as an old truck on a dirt road could go.
Finally, arriving home, we all sat silently, in the winter kitchen, just trembling. No one moved or said a word until late evening. Like dumbstruck specters, we rose quietly and drifted upstairs to bed. It was years, before anyone would mention the experience. In fact, everyone decided to have amnesia since it was that weird and frightening.
My second experience with a “Live Pterosaur,” was again at high summer in Northern Maine one night during a full moon. Our land was at the nexus of the Dead and Kennebec Rivers, on the point where the two rivers met. We had been on that land for at least three centuries. (Note 3.)
My grandmother was chasing a bat in the winter kitchen. She woke me up when she started beating the walls with her broom. I joined her as we followed the bat into the summer kitchen. Hearing cries and repeated thumping, we froze. That was no bat outside the window.
There in the window was a “Live Pterosaur,” banging on the outside frame. Still frozen with fear, we could hear the plaintive squeals from the “baby.” Finally, in a panic, we ran into the bathroom, and hunkered down in our old-fashioned tub.
While huddled in the bathroom, we could hear the piteous squeaking. We felt that it was a frightened child crying for its mother. Later in the night, we heard deep throated croaking much like a bull frog. Eventually, silence. Towards dawn, we crept out of the bathroom and went to bed.
Early next morning, I went outside and saw the clothesline poles knocked down, and the ropes torn in pieces. The family garden, nearby, was totally wrecked. All over the ground, deep divots of dirt had been dug up. I had a feeling of eeriness about the scene.
Since then, I realized I was in possession of a mystery. I felt that I witnessed a mother saving her baby, and then having a tender moment. In the presence of something sacred, my only response was silence. Were the Pterosaurs real? Were they from another world just passing though? Were they a part of the land? To me, they were a holy mystery.
Notes:
Note 1. “Living Pterosaur” is put into scare quotes because the creature is not supposed to exist.
Note 2. The local Abenaki have myths of Wooly Mammoths roaming the region.
Note 3. After the 1987 Flood, the Central Maine Power Company took eminent domain.
