Living Dinosaurs near Palm Springs, CA?

My 82-yo grandmother shared an intriguing story this Christmas. I don't remember what we were talking about that prompted her to tell it, but she assumed we had already heard it.

She said that back in about 1960 she and her late husband were driving some back road on their way to Palm Springs, California. I don't know more about the road except it was a common route to get to Palm Springs back then and sounded like it was in the mountains (perhaps Idyllwild?-- I could find out more if someone really wants to pursue it). As they drove she saw a little side-road or fork of some kind where she distinctly remembers seeing a large tree stump, and that's where she saw what to me sound like dinosaurs.

She said there were two of them walking on the side road near that tree trunk and that they looked to be about 5' tall (she insisted they were taller than she, and she's 4'11"). She said they were gray and slightly tan, and they walked on their hind legs, had long tails and had short front legs. She especially remembered their necks which she said were long and very reptilian. We sketched some shapes to confirm her descriptions and based on what she says I think what she saw basically looked like those raptors in Jurassic Park.

She was very shaken up at the time (she hates reptiles) and when they got to some sort of rest stop or cafe, they talked about it with the owner of the place and he said he had seen one too but nobody believed him and assumed people thought him crazy.

My grandma is just a nice little old lady who does not know much about animals and isn't one to joke. In fact I think the reason I never heard this story from her is that she doesn't realize that there aren't supposed to be 5' dinosaurs running around, but I made certain that she wasn't mistaking deer or some local animals for these things. The only mammal that came close to her descriptions was a giant anteater but she insists there wasn't any hair. The fact that she was creeped out and remembers the details like the reptilian necks and their movements convinces me that she definitely saw something special.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any related stories using Google but there must be some somewhere if she, grandpa and that cafe owner all saw it. Also, about two years ago my brother-in-law's neighbor, an old retired lumberjack, told me a story where he says he saw a "white dinosaur" in the Palm Springs desert that ran on its hind legs and was about 3-feet tall. I never forgot that but I always doubted him until I heard Grandma's story.

Lots of weird animals out here in CA - hee hee

With all of the research U's in the area and lots of folks out in that area on picture trips and the like I doubt it. Could have been someones wildlife collection - Giraffes, llamas, etc... Could have also been a bad movie production/product shoot as well....

Like I said, lots of weird animals in the area..!!

They only live in New Zealand and all species apart from the tuatara declined and eventually became extinct about 60 million years ago.

It ain't that big.... just quoting some history.

Tuataras Third Eye

ps they have a perinneal third eye!

You know some other guy yesturday posted something weird like this to. He said His parents found a forest behind a house and that a bug shot a laser at an elephent. Are you sure ur Grandma wasnt on LSD. It was the 60's after all.

heh i believe this a tiny bit more then the forest behind a rotten house near a mainstreet story cause many creatures can be that size and rare creatures considering the year could of still been around then but not now .

The lasttime i drove thru palm springs i recall two dinosaur statues on the side of the road... may-be thats wat ur grandmother saw...

the only other dinosaur i have heard of is nessie..and she is in scotland, sooooooooo, yeah. but i still believe you

I somewhat believe that just because others havent seen,or are skeptics-doesnt mean existance is impossible!

lots of people say theyve seen UFO's, but were led to believe they dont exist

lots of people believe in God, yet have never seen God.

the list goes on....

Well I asked my Grandma for more information and printed out several pictures for her of things like anteaters, deer and two different velociraptor images that looked to me what like she described. She said the creatures looked the most like the raptor from Jurassic Park that has the shorter nose, except she said the neck was thinner. She definitely said it didn't have a long bird-like beak.

This was high in the mountains and the only known animal that she might have seen would have been two emus, which were probably quite rare back in the 1960s although I know people now raise them out in those areas.

Next step is to post classified ads in Palm Springs area papers and ask others if they've seen anything.

That was 45 years ago, if there were any dinosaurs they would be gone by now.

well, the only animals that your grandmother could've seen according to that description were either:
A) A Utahraptor, the REAL dinosaur equivalent to the JP raptor, but those died out early creataceous, and like the name says, lived near Utah
B) Some sort of Frogman, Lizardman, Reptileman, or (GASP!) a reptilian?!(Icke believers suck!)
C) An iguana or other reptile that was metamorphed into a strange creature due to your grandma's unstoppable hallucinagenic drug taking
or
D) Your grandma saw this:



BARNEY!!!!!

George Noory of coast to coast was saying the other night about some people seeing a dinasaur lately...unfortunately, i fell asleep.

Maybe it was purple and green. Barney? nah!

I siding with Granny on this one. I believe her. If she says she saw two dinosaurs than bygolly she saw two dinosaurs.

I was driving thru the forest one night and saw a Bigfoot.

Everybody called me a nut too!

Love and light to each of you,

Wupy

Well once I was driving through Japan and I ran over Bigfoot.
I then took him to the Loch Ness Monster Doctor and he gave me an Ogopogo. He then said I had to find the North wind, which he needed to stop the Skunk Ape smell from drifting over to his house. Wow, I could be the next Icke!
But seriously, granny's delousional. My granny says starts give birth to rainbow babies, and she was a scientist whne she was younger.
See? I just made that up, too.
This entire thread could be lies, you could not even have a grandmother. We don't know. I don't care. And Barney's goin' back in the box.

There are no Monsters.

Shure, they *only* survived the catastrophic events which ended the large portion of Dinosaurs 60 million years ago. To ask they could survive another 45 years would be impossible

BTW Cool story. Thank you and your granny for sharing.

Well the dinosaurs that survived weren't these dinosaurs. Not to mention, since we aren't seeing dinosaurs all that often I can safely assume that they are reclining in numbers. If they did have large numbers then don't you think we(the human race) would have these things written down as factual animals, instead of just a few million people who believe they still exist?

hey 60 million years of walking around can be very tiring.

With that kind of reasoning, why are you even here on ATS?
I don´t believe all that is posted here on the forums, but posting as you did only leads to people not daring to share their interesting stories.

I think its ok to show that you dont believe in certain stuff, but its wise to chose the correct words when you do that. That means you dont try to make it sound as the other guy/gal is either a delusional lunatic or a liar.

Well, thats my thought anyway.

Hmm i'm a bit skeptical about dinosaurs existing in CA. However there is evidence that a species of dinosaur does exist in the rain forests of Congo. Has anybody else heard of this ? People have described seeing a creature which fits the description of a brontosaurus but a 7 feet tall species. I strongly believe that you can find many undiscovered species in rain forests.

I dunno about that does lazy-boy make a reclner with a tail hole? I mean even in california (those people are crazy) a large number of dinosaurs in easy chairs would cause a stir.

[edit on 12-1-2005 by mwm1331]