New Comment on “Live Pterosaurs in America”

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Although the third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America has been available for a year now, the most recent comment on this crypotozoology book is for the second edition:

Some of the words of Lisa Roark

Dear Sir, Thank you for writing such an interesting and well-documented book on pterosaur sightings in America! I literally danced down to the mailbox when it arrived, and hardly put it down until I had finished the last page. . . .

I loved your cautious, yet enthusiastic writing style. Thank you so very much for all your good work. I read parts of it aloud to my family, and they seemed to enjoy it, too. Whereas I would love to encourage others to read your wonderful work, I am not currently allowing my own particular copy of your book to leave my house! It is just too important to lose! May God richly bless you!

From the book itself:

Acknowledgements

In the United States of America—that’s where Scott Norman, in 2007, became the first American cryptozoologist to see a clear form of a living pterosaur while searching for one: a large flying creature with a head three to four feet long. We mourn the passing (from natural causes) of our young friend who is deeply missed in the cryptozoology community.

Introduction

During those years of expeditions in the southwest Pacific, reports in our own country became impossible to ignore; I received many emails from eyewitnesses across the United States, and the reports kept coming in. Pterosaur-like creatures are not all confined to the tropics. As we began to listen to those Americans, we noticed report-similarities: long tails (often) and apparent bioluminescence (sometimes). We began to believe.

Chapter Two – California Sightings

In the summer of 1891, southeast of Fresno, several eyewitnesses reported two featherless flying creatures with wingspans of fifteen feet. Reportedly reputable residents around Reedley described the two “dragons” for the newspaper: broad heads, long bills, and large eyes. “On the night of July 11 . . . their peculiar cries and the rustling of their mammoth wings were heard as late as 10 o’clock.”

Chapter Three – Other U.S. Sightings

. . . it is the eyewitnesses who see apparent living pterosaurs, and many of them, when they first noticed something flying, assumed “a bird.” The point? Eyewitnesses are not biased in favor of living pterosaurs, yet details of appearance caused them to conclude that they had seen pterosaurs: the diamond-shaped end-of-tail, or featherless-creature-with-headcrest. Nobody “wants to see” these pterosaur-features on what is first assumed to be a bird. The explanation? Maybe they really did see living pterosaurs.

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Live Pterosaurs in America - back cover of book

Back cover of the third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America

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Another review, this one quite lengthy, comes from a WordPress blog post:

A Whole new Level of Weirdness

. . . it could be that Whitcomb’s writing style (generally readable, occasionally jars, perhaps a cultural thing) without all the usual journalistic fluff  like “Ada was just putting the kettle on as sunshine played across the blinds…” — none of that in Whitcomb’s reports, just his questions asked and the answers rendered verbatim — does not really sell the witnesses. He is definitely sceptical of the testimony he receives, and shows critical thinking about testimony issues, and I must say is an intelligent bloke by the sound of his book. . . .

. . . why do I think Whitcomb’s book is worthwhile and interesting? Because while the individual cases are perhaps weak, he draws a good statistical case that something is going on from his tiny sample. Put simply, the physical traits of the pterosaurs described by the witnesses do not seem to reflect the Hollywood stereotype of the pterodactyl we all know. There are different types of creature which emerge from the data, and the majority have attributes which are surprising.

Cryptozoology Book on Pterosaur Sightings in USA

I couldn’t put this book down. It is absolutely fascinating to read about eyewitness accounts of the people who have seen these creatures. To learn about these testimonies from such an open minded perspective is refreshing in the extreme! . . . Jonathan Whitcomb needs to write more books!

Science and Pterosaur Sightings

Averaging the two types of tail descriptions, the first group is at 36.5% and the second is at 35%, which is practically the same. This strongly suggests that eyewitness do not suffer from any significant memory degradation regarding those two descriptions of the tail.

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Live Pterosaurs in America -third edition of the nonfiction book - covers