criticism – Live Pterosaurs in America

November 28, 2014

Dr. Prothero Attacks Living Pterosaurs

Jonathan David Whitcomb in 2004, near Gomlongon Village, Umboi Island

Readers of a recent post by Dr. Donald Prothero may think that I, Jonathan Whitcomb, have single-handedly deceived ignorant people into believing that pterosaurs are still alive. The paleontologist seems upset that my web pages dominate Google searches (and they used to dominate, years ago, on words like ropen.) Let’s look deeper.

Why use the Words “Apparent Pterosaur?”

Google “apparent pterosaur” (within quotes) and all nine non-image pages on the first Google-page are my publications, at least on November 28, 2014. What other search terms result in such a domination by my writings? My postings do not even come close to that dominance with the following terms used:

ropen
pterosaur
pterodactyl

In fact, today the word ropen brings up “Don’t Get Strung Along by the Ropen Myth,” on the top non-image first-page position, and that article is extremely critical of living-pterosaur ideas. In addition, pterodactyl did not bring up even one of my posts on the first-page listing on Google.

So why do my blog posts and other web pages dominate when googling apparent pterosaur within quotation marks? I often use those words when referring to an eyewitness report of a flying creature. In other words, I try to be objective and allow for the possibility that a particular encounter was not from observing a living pterosaur.

Bulverism in a post by Prothero

A major problem with Dr. Prothero’s post is in the idea that I, Jonathan Whitcomb, have used deception in promoting my ideas, thus flooding the internet with my supposed error in believing in modern pterosaurs. I will not link to “Fake Pterosaurs and Sock Puppets,” but it’s easily found. In reality, I used two pen names, in a minority of my writings, to allow readers to learn about eyewitness sightings without becoming distracted by my common name, which had been used in ridicule years earlier. I used those two pen names because of earlier false accusations about dishonesty; I did not use them to deceive.

Sock puppetry accusations pull readers’ attention away from the point, which is eyewitness testimony. Prothero has fallen into bulverism, but in a more pernicious form than the one described by C. S. Lewis decades ago.

Men of action, who search remote jungles for modern pterosaurs but who return home admitting they saw no clear pterosaur—they do not lie about their failures. They do, however, tell the truth about what natives tell them. Men who go nowhere to look for any living thing—they may be least qualified to accuse men of action of deceiving.

Objective Investigation of Reports of Living Pterosaurs

Getting back to the words apparent pterosaur, an individual eyewitness of one sighting of a flying creature can be mistaken in thinking a bird or bat or unknown non-pterodactyl was a pterosaur. Dr. Prothero and I agree on that. But that paleontologist appears to be completely ignorant of the overall sighting report details, in particular the similarities that cross cultural boundaries and cross religious differences.

Long tails on featherless flying creatures dominate reports from around the world, even in Western countries where short-tailed Pterodactyloid pterosaurs dominate in fictional television and in films. I have found practically no difference between American sighting reports and in the reports from third-world countries where cultures and traditions are greatly different.

Common kind of image seen by Americans in fiction (no long tail)

Compare the above with the sketch by Eskin Kuhn:

This is much more like what both Americans and jungle natives actually see

If a cryptozoologist becomes over-exuberant in trying to persuade the Western world that one or more species of pterosaur is alive, and loses all sense of objectiveness, would that radical person use the phrase “apparent pterosaur” so often that his pages would dominate when a Google search were done with it? Of course not. The point is that I am honestly trying to know and understand the truth about these sightings. I am trying to be objective.

I hope that many readers will come to understand that I have not spent over 10,000 hours, in the past eleven years, on a personal project to deceive people. This is not actually about me, however; it’s coming to that understanding so people can awaken to listen to the eyewitnesses with an open mind. The overall report-details make the case.

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Honesty in Ropen Searching

A different kind of attack has been launched, as an American paleontologist has dismissed the ropen as a “fake” pterosaur and dismissed me, Jonathan Whitcomb, as one who practices deception.

Whitcomb interviewed on Monster-X Radio

“Maybe, Shane, I should go a little bit into some of the ideas that have been floating around and thrown out by skeptics . . . One of them is about, well, people are just misidentifying flying foxes. That’s one of the oldest: I heard of that way back in 2004; I think that was already an old idea. But this is one of the examples: You see, these seven boys were terrified at this creature that was not a flying fox because they would not have been scared of it. . . .”

Ropen in Papua New Guinea

Hodgkinson continues to give a powerful testimony of his 1944 encounter with a huge flying creature that is an obvious live pterosaur, notwithstanding the Western dogma about universal extinction.

C. S. Lewis and Bulverism

When someone publishes a web site with a URL that includes the words “stupid” and “lies,” and the point of the site is to ridicule those who promote the idea of living dinosaurs or living pterosaurs, “bulverism” probably fits . . .

The quest for discovering modern pterosaurs – nonfiction book

Searching for Ropens and Finding God – fourth edition

August 29, 2014April 14, 2015

Is the Ropen a “Stupid Fantasy?”

Professor Peter Beach is interviewed by cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb, on the banks of the Yakima River in Washington state

It began after the online publication of a photo of a biology professor from Oregon; he was standing by the Yakima River in Washington state. Professor Peter Beach (who has taught at a small college in the Portland area) was being interviewed by me, Jonathan D. Whitcomb (an American cryptozoology author), on August 6, 2014, with Milt Marcy (also from Portland), another cryptozoologist. The controversy related to what Beach and Marcy believe they may have seen: bioluminescent pterosaurs, perhaps even ropens.

Peter Beach explains how the flying light left this tree at night

As this interview became publicized online, another biology professor, this one in Minnesota, became upset and wrote his own blog post, ridiculing the idea of modern pterosaurs. The content of the post by the skeptical professor, however, was weak; it relied on words like “stupid” (in the title) and with “turds” to describe the many writings of a cryptozoologist with whom the Minnesota professor disagrees. I think it would have been more intelligent to rely on reasoning or facts, rather than on bulverism.

The skeptic proclaimed the absence of any evidence for modern pterosaurs (ropen or not) and used his imagination to come up with various faulty motivations for the one that he concentrated on criticizing.

No Evidence for Living Pterosaurs?

Do cryptozoologists really have no evidence for the bioluminescent ropen? It depends on how one defines “evidence.” One thing is certain: There is no evidence of any kind for the universal extinction of all species of pterosaurs.

So what about modern living ones? The great weight of evidence for extant pterosaurs lives in eyewitness testimonies and the statistical analysis of the compiled data from those records. Hoaxes have been eliminated as a significant possibility for the overall case of 128 sighting reports compiled at the end of 2012, by several methods.

In other words, ropen searching and research still lives within the realm of cryptozoology, with no dead or living body of this flying creature to examine in a laboratory or in a zoo; yet scientific methods have been used in examining the eyewitness evidence. Biologists need not worry that cryptozoology is trying to break down a back door or to sneak through a crack in the wall of biology; thus far, it’s just a few scientific tools being borrowed from science, to be used in this narrow field of cryptozoology: Nothing is stolen. When a ropen is caught, dead or alive, it will be brought in through the front door. (Once it’s inside, however, the philosophical case will be opened wide.)

What is a Ropen?

The title of the skeptic’s post was “There are no living pterosaurs, and ‘ropen’ is a stupid fantasy.” So what is the definition for this flying creature whose existence the skeptic-professor in Minnesota disputes? The third edition of my nonfiction book Searching for Ropens and Finding God gives it thus: “A modern pterosaur with Rhamphorhynchoid characteristics.” In other words, a long-tailed featherless flying creature that many American non-scientists would call a “pterodactyl.”

Yet we need to clarify the difference between “Rhamphorhynchoid” and “ropen.” At least as of August 27, 2014, “ropen” refers to a cryptid, and the longer name refers to a type of pterosaur known from fossils. The relationship between them, however, is critical: worldwide, the resemblances are astonishing: featherless flying creatures that have long tails that end with a “diamond” (or a similar description for a tail flange).

On a book cover: sketch of an apparent pterosaur seen by Patty Carson in Cuba

Definition of “Stupid”

One dictionary defined it as “lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind.” Take that simply in the literal sense and the biology professor in Minnesota has a problem in making that word useful to his case. A closer look reveals that “stupid” problem.

The cryptozoologist criticized by the professor in Minnesota has worked in his specialty (of sighting reports of apparent pterosaurs) for eleven years, with many thousands of hours of experience with the overall subject; the critic, probably less than ten serious hours. Even if the skeptic in Minnesota were ten times as smart (or less stupid) than the cryptozoologist he criticized, the professor would be at the wrong end of the resulting ratio, 60-to-1. Those are not good odds for the man who teaches biology in Minnesota. This is not to say that the professor is stupid. He is just not likely to be many hundreds of times smarter than the cryptozoologist who has written several nonfiction books on the subject, in addition to a published scientific paper in a recognized peer-reviewed journal of science.

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Ropen – A Modern Pterosaur

Countless eyewitnesses, in many countries across the planet, have pondered what it was they had seen. But ropens continue to fly overhead, continuing to shock humans who had assumed that all pterosaurs had become extinct millions of years ago.

Destination Truth Ropen Episode

I’m thinking about a particular native who was interviewed by Josh Gates, during the Destination Truth expedition of 2007: Fabian. In spite of Fabian’s assurance, however, the expedition team was probably skeptical, at least to some extent, for those visitors to Papua New Guinea were, after all, Americans. They may have thought, “How could a large long-tailed pterosaur be still alive, without the knowledge of any of our scientists?”

Bioluminescent Pterosaurs

There is a species other than a pterosaur that is purported to have intrinsic bioluminescent capability, namely the common barn owl, Tyto Alba.

Evidence for Pterosaurs and Honesty

For modern living pterosaurs, however, we have BOTH physical evidence and eyewitness evidence. The difficulty some persons have with it, however, is that reported eyewitness encounters with living pterosaurs dominate the physical evidence, in both quantity and quality.

February 23, 2012July 18, 2013

Attack on the “Pterodactyl Expert”

One of the problems with the cryptozoology.com forum thread discussion titled “Jonathan Whitcomb: Pterodactyl Expert” is this: Most of the comments involve attacks against me personally (the exception being comments from the person who seems to have initiated the discussion). I now answer two criticisms.

From “Ape Man”

“Johnathon Whitcomb IS NOT a pterosaur or pterodactyl expert. He is a CREATIONIST who did minimal research about legendary creatures and fossil flying reptiles . . .”

Reply

In the sense of being a paleontologist, I am not a pterosaur expert; but many paleontologists do not seem to even consider the possibility that any pterosaurs are extant. “Ape man” seems to rebel against any idea involving any modern living pterosaur. But in another sense—some living pterosaurs (AKA “pterodactyls”)—I am probably one of the leading “pterodactyl experts” in the world, having written more than any other cryptozoologist on this subject, perhaps more than all other cryptozoologists in the world combined, regarding sightings of apparent modern pterosaurs.

Earth Age and the “Creationist” Label

I consider myself a creationist in the sense that I believe the Bible is literally correct in the first few chapters of Genesis. But I am not a Young Earth Creationist (YEC) in the sense that I insist that the days spoken of in the first chapter of Genesis are 24-hour periods. I have no problem with a literal “old” earth, setting aside all concepts about life on earth; this world, in its bare form, may very well be much older than 6,000 years. But I believe that the life that we see around us is descended from similar life-forms, in original ancestors that lived about 6,000 years ago and that those original ancestors had no ancestors on this earth. In that sense, I am a creationist, and accept that label, for I give God the credit for the origin of earth life.

Have I done “minimal research?” From what I have read of “ape man’s” comments on this forum thread, I doubt if he has read more than 1% of what I have written about modern living pterosaurs. Where does he get his concept of how much research I have done? How did I write over one thousand online pages (blog posts plus web pages)? How did I write two editions of one nonfiction book and three editions of another nonfiction book? How did I write a peer-reviewed scientific paper that was published in a journal of science? How did I write about a quarter of a million words, online, (not counting the books) on the subject of extant pterosaurs? With many thousands of sentences to choose from, why does “ape man” not quote something that I have written and then explain how I was wrong? Has “ape man” himself done “minimal research” and then carelessly proclaimed that I have done “minimal research?” He gives me no reason to doubt that possibility.

From Gerry Bacon

“I don’t believe Whitcomb is a scientist . . .”

Reply

Defining “scientist” is off-topic, I believe, and too deep for this reply; but I will stress this point: I have interviewed eyewitnesses, from around the world, for eight years, accumulating more data on this phenomenon of pterosaur sightings, perhaps, than anyone else, regardless of whether or not other investigators have the undisputed title of “scientist.” I have published an article in a journal of science—a peer-reviewed journal—and have copyrighted an earlier scientific paper on another subject. I consider myself a scientist.

I take no offense at somebody who doubts I am a scientist, and I admit that in regard to paleontology I may be the most ignorant scientist in the world, among those who have published a scientific paper (in peer-reviewed journal) on the subject of pterosaurs. But why emphasize a label for a person rather than the reasoning and writings of that person? I feel that the eyewitness sighting reports, of apparent living pterosaurs, are far more interesting than speculations about a label.

Conclusion

Call me a non-paleontologist if you like, but beware of assuming I must be a non-pterodactyl-expert (or more technically accurate: a person who is not a pterosaur expert). Let’s get back to the subject, please.

Pterodactyl Expert

What “invented monster” is “ape man” referring to? My overall conclusion, after more than eight years of research, is that there are a number of species of pterosaurs living in various parts of the world, with various differences in appearance. What do the important sightings have in common? Descriptions of the flying creatures (often called “pterodactyls”) suggest a modern pterosaur far more than they suggest any misidentification or hallucination or hoax.

Jonathan Whitcomb: Pterodactyl Expert

It is true that I do not study fossils directly. I am not a paleontologist. But modern “pterodactyls” need not closely resemble any fossils, whether or not they are descended from older species that left fossils that are now studied by paleontologists. I study eyewitness reports. For some reason, my critics often neglect that point.

April 5, 2010April 7, 2010

“Radar Criticism” of Live Pterosaurs

Less common than most objections, the “radar criticism” of modern pterosaurs is easily refuted. Regardless of how often specific airport radars pick up flocks of birds, how would an operator deal with a blip that was made by a live pterosaur? Remember, blips have no labels; they’re interpreted according to common interpretations. Then how could any radar operator report a living pterosaur?

One critic pointed out that a radar system can “spot a flock of birds, yet no pterosaurs ever.” Where did the critic get that idea? There is no hardware or software that signals “no pterosaur” on the radar screen; there is no radar-procedure for concluding that no blip from a live pterosaur ever appeared on a particular radar screen. Radar systems are not put together to disprove live pterosaurs; it’s not their function.

To illustrate the nonsense of the radar objection, what if an airport radar system picked up the flight of a large pterosaur? How would “pterosaur” ever enter the mind of the radar operator? Even if the operator heard a report that somebody had seen what he only observed as a blip, and they had seen an obvious pterosaur, and they had immediately reported the pterosaur sighting to the airport tower, how could the operator report anything other than an unusual blip?

The idea that radars disprove the existence of living pterosaurs is ludicrous.

January 22, 2010April 7, 2010

Circular Reasoning: Example #2

I have encountered criticisms something like this: “If pterosaurs were still living, we would have seen them before now.” Part of the problem with that reasoning is that the critic seems to assume that he personally would have encountered news of living pterosaurs earlier in his life, had there been any truth to it. (If he had read about eyewitness accounts throughout his life, he would not object to it now.) How subjective! It is hardly a scientific objection.

And if the critic meant that there should be older reports to go with recent reports, well . . . pay attention, please. Some of the recent reports are of sightings decades ago; other reports are examinations of apparent sightings centuries ago, with labels that include “dragon.” Accounts of living creatures with features that suggest various species of pterosaurs–those accounts flow through history, up to the first decade of the 21st Century.

Beware of potential circular reasoning in this objection to the possibility of living pterosaurs: “Nobody can see a living pterosaur because they are extinct; pterosaurs are extinct because nobody can see one.”

January 21, 2010April 7, 2010

Circular Reasoning, Example #1

From page 83 of Live Pterosaurs in America:

“One critic . . . said, ‘. . . if pterosaurs [were] still around, they would be extremely obvious.'”

This criticism deserves a brief answer here (my book goes into detail regarding circular reasoning). Professional wildlife photographers sometimes look for the rare White Rhinoceros in Africa; in an area where there are few trees to hide behind, this rhinoceros can still be elusive. Why, then, must a rare nocturnal flying creature be “extremely obvious” to those who are not looking for them?

Has the critic thought carefully? It seems unlikely, for what does it mean for a creature to be “extremely obvious?” It means that the creature will be seen, at least by somebody. And what do we call somebody who sees something? An “eyewitness,” of course. The point? The critic was trying to dismiss eyewitness testimonies. So how does that differ from proclaiming, “Nobody could have seen them because they do not exist; they do not exist because nobody has seen them.” Although not explicitly stated by this critic, it seems to be the “reasoning” involved: circular reasoning.