The Ushiku Pteranodon is a winged cryptid reported from Ushiku City, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan.
Description[]
In 1999, about six members of the baseball club at Shimone Junior High School in Ushiku saw a huge bird in the sky. They said it had a wingspan of about 7 meters, by eye.
In September 2017, a man and his friend photographed a pterosaur-like creature in Ushiku City and reported this sighting to cryptid researcher Takeshi Nakazawa. According to the witness, this was not his first sighting of a pteranodon-like creature; he had seen such a creature several times before.
According to Takeshi Nakazawa, this is not the only area where such creatures have been spotted; pterosaur-like creatures have been reported in various regions, including Chiba, Gunma, Osaka, Miyazaki, Tokushima, Okinawa, and Hokkaido.
There are several theories as to its true identity, but the most likely explanation is that it is a kite modeled after a pterosaur or a type of radio-controlled model plane that is also modeled after a pterosaur.