The Old Pterodactyl Photo

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By Jonathan Whitcomb

I processed the Ptp image and cropped it to help people avoid distractions. Why did I alter the “Civil War flying-dinosaur photo”? I wanted to present it in a form that would most likely be closer to the original image than what we see in Ptp. The most important points, however, have not been altered: only those things that were most likely to have been altered many years ago (to make the photo appear older). Here is the result, “Ptp-R-3”:

Ptp photo of an apparent pterosaur - enhancedThe photograph of an apparent 19th-century pterosaur: “Ptp-R-3”

The soldiers in the photo

Recently I’ve been emphasizing the importance of that lefty of the far right: that one soldier who is left-handed. The other five men are right handed, and their handedness is shown by their pistol holsters.

Statistics tell us that American men living in the second half of the 19th century were not rare, but if six of them would be chosen at random then one of two things are very likely: one left-handed or none a lefty.

That means that the precise handedness shown in Ptp is too precise to be likely a coincidence, at least when observed in relation to other factors. It requires an explanation.

The most persuasive objection to the authenticity of Ptp, in recent years, has been the declaration that it was created for a TV episode of Freakylinks in the year 2000. That theory, however, has problems.

Controversial photograph of six Civil War soldiers next to the apparent body of a recently deceased giant pterodactyl or pterosaur, maybe a PteranodonPtp was apparently manipulated to appear to be old

The TV episode in question, “Coelacanth This!”, appears to have come from a script that included a conversation about an apparent photo that has apparent Union Civil War soldiers posing next to a gigantic pterosaur. For many persons, it would suggest that those men with rifles shot down the flying creature.

So what’s the problem? The belt buckles and pistol holsters show that those men were NOT photographed during the American Civil War. Keep in mind that the theory that has been most persuasive in dismissing Ptp has been that it was created for that TV episode which aired in the year 2000. So why does Ptp not show even one man who is dressed and equipped appropriately? Not one of these six men has an oval belt buckle and all six of them have pistol holsters.

Those two points about uniforms and equipment—that alone puts at least some doubt in the Freakylinks theory. But that one lefty, the man on the far right, shoots that theory dead out of the sky, at least when we look only at the men.

Remember that, according to the theory, the story in the episode called for a photo of a large pterodactyl and some Civil War soldiers. So how could things get messed up so badly (men NOT from Civil War), but the men are shown to have precisely the left-handed ratio that would be expected for men living in the second half of the 19th century?

Explanation of Ptp

This image is most likely to have come from an actual photograph that was recorded between about the year 1866 and 1880. When the producers (in the companies involved with that TV episode) realized that the image was indeed old enough to be in the public domain, then they decided to use that image rather than create an imitation of it. That’s probably what happened.

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Flying Dinosaur in “Civil War” Photo

. . . a new significance in an observation made by Tom Payne some time ago: One of those six apparent Civil War soldiers is left handed.

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Pterodactyl Sightings in North America

Youtube has more than 37 million channels, and the one with the most videos on sightings of modern pterosaurs appears to be Protect Animal Life. As of January 6, 2021, of the 113 videos on this channel, 111 of them were about these amazing featherless flying creatures.

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Two types of living pterodactyls

Her husband was raised in the Southern Highlands Province, without contact with Westerners for some time, and knows about the two kinds of modern pterosaurs.

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Modern pterosaurs

Sighting reports of pterosaurs make this a study in cryptozoology. . . . Large featherless flying creatures of the night—they’r e not bats; most of them are much too big.

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Pterodactyl sightings while driving

“In 2010 I saw a flying dinosaur. I was driving a car alone . . . behind a man who is driving a mini-van . . . I see the man looking out of his window which made me look up. . . . and there was a huge flying bird-like animal above us. I looked back at the road and witnessed the man swerve off the road and flip his van into [a field next to the road]. . . .”

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Living pterosaurs

. . . become aware that at least three scientific papers have been published on the subject of modern pterosaurs. In addition, many nonfiction books have been written on these flying creatures . . .

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Sightings of dinosaur birds

. . . two weeks ago we moved into a new home in Kona [Big Island of Hawaii] about 2 miles south from our other home and my husband and son saw the Pterydactyl [pterosaur] fly over our house and circle around.

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