It was 10 years ago today that I saw "the bird".
On June 15, 1991, I was on my way home from work at the General Cinema in the Greenwood Park Mall. It was a very pleasant Saturday afternoon. The time was right around 5:30 PM. I stopped for the light at the intersection of Southern Ave. & Shelby St. (Indy Southside).
I would normally have gone North on Shelby to Prospect St,. but instead, made a quick,reflexive left turn to cut through Garfield Park to get to my apartment on Morris St..
I pulled in to the park to the first stop sign. I immediately became aware of a very large "bird" , visible to me through the car's windshield (above and to my right ) flying just above tree-top level.
"Damn, that's a big hawk!", I thought at first.
As the creature was gliding over the clearing of trees above the street, I "instinctively" (?) pressed harder on the car's brake (knees a little shaky). My hand went into a tight grip of the steering wheel, as I leaned forward to allow my brain to better process what my vision (and gut) were telling me.
"Oh my god......" I remember saying aloud.
I was looking at a "baby" pteradon (?) flying over Garfield Park on a Saturday afternoon in 1991....A.D. !
I would estimate that it was roughly 8 feet long from its nose to the tip of its tail. The wings were slightly rounded, but didn't appear to have the light transparency that we so often see in drawings of flying prehistoric reptiles. The wing span seemed to be proportionate to the body length (8 feet). The basic, over-all, color of the creature was that of burnished tan leather, with darker brown areas at the crown of the head and down the spinal column.
The head was also somewhat more rounded than we normally envision, and I seem to remember that its beak also had sort of a downward curve.
The most ominous feature was the very prominent "club" at the end of its tail. I would guess that the (darker brown / kiwi shaped) club would have the circumference of a softball.
For all of its apparent ferocity, it seemed to be having a difficult time when it came to maneuvering in the air. Its glide began to degrade, and it gave 3 very brisk - and powerful looking - flaps of its wings to avoid slamming into a tall tree along its flight path.
Most unforgettable in terms of its movement was the fact that each time the wings flapped down, the clubbed tail would drop in a reflexive, coordinated "jerk". It cleared the tree and continued on its path, and beyond my vision.
And so I just sat there; foot still "squeezing" the brake; hand still "strangling" the steering wheel. It was like I had been suddenly "freeze-dried".
"Oh my god.........."
"Oh my god.........." was the best verbal response I could come up with at that moment. I, somewhat shakenly, drove the rest of the way home repeating the "Oh my god" mantra.
I learned ( the hard way ) not to share these facts with too many people. Never has it been suggested that I was hallucinating the event. But what I have found most disdainful have been all of the suggestions that what I actually saw was an eagle; a kite; a remote control plane, ( and even once; a remote control pteradon ! )
My response to such skeptical observations is - first of all - the fact that some innate, ancestral part of my psyche immediately reacted to the creature before my thoughts could process the images and verify to me the reality that this creature was (indeed) a "dinosaur".
An instilled, self-preservation component in my unconscious mind ( honed by my pre-history ancestors ) automatically "kicked in" to lock my muscles in place, preventing any movements that would have made my presence more detectable to a passing aerial predator.
All of this transpired inside of me in a split-second, beyond my conscious awareness; and in deference to all of my then-to-fore assumptions pertaining to possible encounters in reality.
In the course of my 39 years prior to this event - and in the 10 years that have followed - I have never, NEVER otherwise xperienced that "jolt" of intrinsic, subliminal terror. ( And I pray that I will never again have to feel the blasting shot of cold chill that petrified my spinal column.)
You just - very simply - do not have such austere reactions to the sudden appearance of a "kite".
The reptilian was flying NE / SW, at an angle that - I later calculated on a map - would have eventually taken it to the Sierra Mountains of Mexico, more than 1,700 miles away. I was able to notice on that night's weather portion of the news that a high level storm had pushed its way into the upper Midwest from the Gulf of Mexico. My best theory is that what I saw was one of the creatures known to the local sheep farmers of Texas and Mexico as "night raiders". These are very large flying reptiles, akin to pterodactyls, that conduct nighttime ( and sometimes daytime ) "air raids" to grab live stock and return them to their nesting areas in the desolate regions of the Sierra Madres.
The creature over Garfield Park that day ( I guess ) must have been swept up into the force of the upper-atmosphere wind currents and carried to the Midwest. Judging by the angle of its flight, I think he/she might have been following its own instincts to get back home. Also, by its size, it must have been still young enough to be a novice.
( Adult versions of this creature have been reported to have wing-spans of upwards of 30 feet. )
On June 15, 1993, I had my first opportunity to see the movie "Jurassic Park". As I was driving home from the theatre ( the same one that I had just left - still in my GC uniform - when I had the encounter with "the bird" ).
In a most bizarre synchronicity, the pteradon over Garfield Park became a harbinger of my future experience of the movie "Jurassic Park". ( Same date / same theater / two years into the future. )
And as Rod Serling might say, this prospect is "Offered for your consideration".
I have heard reactions form several guys (with overly active machismos) who have commented that - if it had been THEM who had had the same encounter with the same creature - they would have tried to chase it down in their cars and then blast it from the sky.
But take it from one who has "been there"....
roviding that your genes and chromosomes are sufficiently attuned to their most basic, inherent programs of "fight or flight", you will do neither.
In that same moment, you will do everything within the capacity of your primal nature to not ruffle any of its feathers.
Or should I say, its "scales" ?