Strange traces

Besides the incidents mentioned above, other stories were taken more seriously, even by the police. Unlike the others, one incident occurred during the day on January 1, 1976, near Harlingen, Texas. Two children—Tracey Lawson, 11, and her cousin Jackie Davies, 14—were playing in the Lawson family's backyard while their parents slept off a New Year's Eve party. The children played in the large backyard, which overlooked a field, five miles south of Harlingen along Ed Carey Road.

Suddenly, Tracey spotted a creature standing a hundred yards (91.5 meters) away. She ran home, grabbed her binoculars, and returned to examine a "horrible-looking" large black bird. She described it as five feet (1.5 meters) tall, with large, dark red eyes and wings attached to arms that were three feet wide. The animal's snout was gray and "resembled the face of a gorilla." However, the creature had a beak that was sharp, thick, and at least six feet (1.8 meters) long. Its head was hairless. During the observation, the animal once emitted a long, high-pitched call.

The children were astonished and terrified. The creature suddenly disappeared, presumably hovering over some prey or "excavation" along the irrigation canal. Later, it reappeared on the northeast side of the property, its head peeking above a small clump of trees. Increasingly frightened, the children entered the house and remained there. Later, when their parents awoke from sleep, they refused to believe their story. However, the next day, Jackie's stepfather, Tom Waldon, arrived at the Lawson estate to look for evidence of the creature and thus satisfy his stepson. To his astonishment, he found several three-toed tracks from some unknown creature.

The first three tracks were located near the fence surrounding the house. The fourth was 20 yards into the field (18.25 meters), and the fifth was another 20 yards away. The footprints had three toes, were eight inches long, square at the front, and were driven into the hard ground an inch and a half deep. Later, after the police and Stan Lawson arrived, the group examined the tracks and concluded that the children were telling a strange, but nevertheless true, story.

Stan Lawson, who weighed 170 pounds (77.1 kg), placed his foot right next to the bird's footprint and found that it left no print. He later said, "The animal must have been pretty heavy."

Coleman and Clark also recall that Stan Lawson noticed something strange about their dog's behavior. The dog lay in its kennel all day, emerging only once for dinner, when Lawson came to feed it and it entered the house through the front door. Then they had to drag it back into the kennel. That night, around 10:00 a.m., Lawson heard what sounded like large wings beating against the screen of his bedroom window, but he saw nothing. In the morning, he discovered the screen was scratched.

What's striking about this information is that in many cases, these strange flying creatures have a face resembling a gorilla, ape, or human. Even with a beak, they likely had a short, flat face—different from the long, narrow, and pointed head we usually associate with pterodactyls. Some Pteranodons, however, had short, flat faces, sometimes even beakless. For example, the pterosaur known as Anurognathus had a short face and sharp teeth; Batrachognathus had a flat face, forward-projecting claws, and extremely sharp teeth. Such a creature would have been perfectly equipped to devour a goat or even a larger animal. It may also have looked like a gorilla with a beak...