This is unrelated to the “pterodactyl” joke of August-2011, in which a statue of a surfer, in northern San Diego County, was discovered to have become ensnared by a huge model of a pterosaur. The big birds or pterosaurs that flew over the middle of the city of San Diego, on November 4, 2011, at about 8:00 p.m., was no joke to the two men who witnessed the spectacle. One of the flying creatures was following the other one, at only about a hundred feet above the neighborhood around the Holy Cross Cemetery. The wingpsan of the leading pterosaur was estimated at twenty to thirty feet, and it had a long straight tail.
The problem with notifying the news media, in this case, was that just three months previously somebody had played a practical joke. A statue in northern San Diego County was found to have a model “pterodactyl” fixed onto the top. This was carried in the news, becoming well-known in the San Diego area. What news reporter would thereafter give serious consideration to a report of two giant pterodactyls flying over the middle of San Diego?