Tag: hoaxes

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Eyewitness Reports NOT From Hoaxes

“‘Pterodactyls’ are more likely living creatures than hoaxes, according to three separate factors analyzed from eyewitness accounts across the U.S.: Hoaxes have been eliminated as a significant cause of reports.” (Press release in News Blaze and other online news-release pages) I wrote that press release after analyzing the overall eyewitness testimonies in my new nonfiction book Live Pterosaurs in America.

“More likely” understates the case, for no combination of hoaxes can explain the overall data.

Wingspan Estimates

Eyewitness estimates of wingspan “are [27% of them] within . . . 8-10 feet . . . far too small or too big for hoaxers.” Any American trying to pass off a hoax would likely choose standard-model fossil knowledge (Rhamphorhynchoid fossils are small) or ropen reports (mostly much larger than ten feet in wingspan). The peek of eight-to-ten feet is statistical evidence against a hoax or combination of hoaxes.

Details About Featherless Appearance

“Probably” featherless outnumbered “definitely” featherless by about two-to-one, so most eyewitnesses (or supposed eyewitnesses) admitted that they were not certain. This is what we would expect of honest persons who observed something in imperfect (typical) conditions. The point? Why would a hoaxer avoid being positive about featherlessness while trying to convince somebody of a living pterosaur? It is unlikely that even one hoaxer would have thought of that; hoaxers from across the United States, all thinking of that detail–that is unbelievable. So the eyewitnesses (at least as a whole) were telling the truth about what they saw. (Accuracy of interpretation is another subject.)

Long Tails

“The great majority of movie and television portrayals of pterosaurs are of short-tailed Pterodactyloids. In addition, textbooks declare that those were the more-recent pterosaurs.” About 80% of American eyewitness reports of apparent living pterosaurs–that is a lot of long tails, notwithstanding critics’ insinuations of tall tales. If Americans were constantly sending me hoaxes, however, they would be of short-tailed or no-tailed pterosaurs, for that is what is commonly portrayed in our society. That is the third nail in the coffin for the hoax hypothesis.

Refutation of the Pterosaur Hoax Idea (no hoaxes were involved)

Forget about the article in The Illustrated London News (1856) about workmen in a railway-line tunnel in France. It is commonly accepted that the “pterodactyl” that stumbled out of the stone was a hoax. . . . [but] Interviewing eyewitnesses of apparent living pterosaurs, over the past five years, I know that a hoax (or a number of hoaxes) could not have produced the answers they have given me. While writing my book (“Live Pterosaurs in America,” . . .

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“Unlike Pterosaur Fossils” Objection

Eskin Kuhn's sketch of pterosaur that fly over a military base in Cuba
Sketch by Eskin Kuhn: 1971 sighting in Cuba

On occasion, I encounter an objection similar to this: “The eyewitness descriptions are different from fossils.” In other words, pterosaurs thought to have lived millions of years ago (according to standard models) did not have both long tails and head crests; also, long-tailed ones were not giants. But the objection that modern pterosaurs should not look like what is described—that point of view is plagued by a number of problems. It’s now time to put silly objections to rest and bury dogmatic universal-extinction ideas.

First, both the believers in standard models and the believers in Biblical creation accept the kinds of evolution that involve changes in size. Giant Rhamphorhynchoids (long-tailed pterosaurs) in modern times is not refuted by an absence of giant fossils. In addition, the largest ones could have been too rare to have left many fossils.

Second, fossils do not prove that no Rhamphorhynchoids ever had a head crest; in fact, at least one species is known to have had a head crest, at least a small one. A head crest in a modern giant long-tailed pterosaur is not what is revolutionary, for head crests can grow with age, as creatures grow.

But most important is the concept that many species of pterosaurs could have lived in the past, without leaving any fossil that we have yet discovered. The concept that a species that used to be rare somehow managed to survive (while others that left us more fossils, became extinct) and spread over parts of the earth–that concept alone seems reasonable enough to answer this objection.

Shallow thinking seems to be behind this objection, at least sometimes, for the critic’s explanation is that people are making up stories and putting together descriptions from different ideas that they have about pterosaurs in general. But that accusation involves a common knowledge about those characteristics of pterosaurs, and eyewitnesses come from different countries, from different cultures, from different educational backgrounds. Why would natives on Umboi Island describe a long tail on a giant featherless creature? They are not taught about pterosaurs in their tiny schools. And why would Westerners all make the same mistakes about giant size and long tails? These two characteristics are far too common to be a combination of hoaxes among people of different countries.