Paranormal researcher Stephen Wagner relates the story of a man who, while brushing his teeth, heard something hit his window screen.  When he looked out the window, he saw a bat with a wingspan of over six feet.  The funny thing is, mainstream science tells us that this is the span of the world’s official largest bat.  However, there are reports of bats with wingspans reaching 12 feet.

There are even reports of a large European bat that plucks migrating birds right out of the sky.  The giant Noctule bat is one of Europe’s biggest bats.  It comes complete with a mouth full of horrifying looking teeth.  It might be the only bat that snatches birds on the wing.  The Noctule uses sonar to lock in on a songbird beneath it.  Then it swoops in for the kill and snatches the bird.  When it gets close to the ground, it opens its wings and drops the bird’s carcass.  Scientists hope to capture one of the bats as it homes in on a songbird by using electric radars.

Giant bats have been around for at least 35 million years.  Paleontologists have recently discovered six new bat species dating back to the Eocene period.  These discoveries give science new information for understanding the evolution of modern bat families.  The new study indicates that many bat families modified and spread after their first dispersal into Africa.  Scientists took over 25 years of field work to collect the 33 specimens that form the basis of the new study.  Rare in Africa,  only a few fossil bats of the Eocene age from Tunisia, Tanzania, Morocco and Egypt were known.  Modern bat families and anthropoid primates may have entered Africa at the same time. 

A group of large bats is the mega bat.   Also known as fruit bats, they lick nectar from flowers or eat fruit.  Their teeth are modified to bite through hard fruit skins.  They carry the fruit with them and spit or eliminate the seeds elsewhere.  They thus help the spread of plants.  Fruit bats act as reservoirs for several diseases that can be fatal to humans and animals.  These bats are occasionally used in horror movies to represent vampires.  This is due to their ghostly appearance and large size.

I believe giant bats can explain many of the “flying monster” sightings which are rampant around the world.  Examples include the Moth Man, the Jersey Devil, even the flying humanoids.  This does not mean that these are not “monsters”.  A monster is merely an animal that has not been classified yet.  And remember: even a bat with only a six foot wingspan can mess up your whole day.