The 19th Century Illustrated London News article is irrelevant to the many modern reports of live pterosaurs
Refutation of the Pterosaur-Hoax Idea
By Jonathan Whitcomb
A hypothesis of a hoax (or hoaxes)
fails against modern evidences
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. What is less
well known is that eyewitness accounts, with very
little or no newspaper coverage, come from several areas of the world. And they're unrelated to the 19th Century hoax.
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," predicted to be in print around early June, 2009),
I saw that the data accumulated from descriptions of apparent pterosaurs in the United States showed characteristics not to be expected
from a hoax or hoaxes. Choose a link (upper right) for more hoax information.
Three separate indicators demonstrate that no hoaxes
played any significant part in the over-all eyewitness testimonies: See the press release including "pterodactyls are
more likely
living creatures than hoaxes."
Hoax ideas Disputed
Living Pterosaurs email
newsletters ("Elimination of Hoax-Explanation")
"Whitcomb's
book,
Searching for Ropens, asserts 'pterodactyl' reported in Papua New Guinea" (press release)
Cliff Paiva, a physicist,
certifies that the Paul Nation video was not created by any paste-on
hoax of the video
(Finschhafen, Papua New Guinea area)
who saw what was probably a ropen.
Susan Wooten described the giant featherless creature that flew in front of her car in a remote area of
South Carolina. This is her
sketch.
In the News: Reports
of Modern Pterosaurs
Non-Hoax HOME
The hoax refutation includes three things: estimates-of-wingspans have a peak at 8-10 feet; long tails predominate; feather-less assurity
is often admitted to be probable, not usually definite, as would be given by hoaxer
to bolster the idea of "pterosaur."