"Dinosaur" Sightings in Cortez Colorado?
It may sound almost beyond belief. Don't miss a Special Report Monday and Wednesday on KSL 5 Eyewitness News at 10 p.m. November 4, 2002
News Specialist John Hollenhorst reporting
It's astounding -- if it's true. But, is it true? Recently, reports have surfaced of several strange sightings of a bizarre "mystery lizard." Witnesses in Colorado, near the Utah border, say believe it or not, it looks like a small dinosaur! As we learned in the Washington, D.C. sniper investigation, eyewitness reports can be be problematic. Sometimes fraudulent. Often deeply mistaken. ALWAYS incomplete. But, you simply have to hear what witnesses around Cortez, Colorado are saying about the mystery lizard.
Is something out there? Is there something bizarre that shows itself only once in a while to a few astounded human beings?
"It was a Jurassic Park flashback. I mean I was -- I couldn't believe it," says Shannon Ystesund. Ystesund and a girlfriend were driving down this road the night of July 5. She says a creature ran in front of the headlights, a very big lizard, nearly vertical, running on its hind legs. "We were, you know, freaked out. Immediately we thought it was some kind of dinosaur or a huge lizard. So we came home," she says. "They just walked in and they were real excited and they said, 'we just saw a little dinosaur run across the road,'" says Ystesund's husband, Keith.
"Looked like the little dinosaurs in Jurassic Park that surrounded everybody in the tall grass fields," says Shannon. This lady gives only her first name, Bea, because she's been reluctant to go public with her story. "Yes, I have, because people think you're nuts," Bea says. "Like a miniature dinosaur, you know. That would be as close as I can come to describing it. And I've never seen anything like it."