Live Pterosaurs in America – Page 12 – Non-fiction cryptozoology book by Jonathan David Whitcomb

February 12, 2010September 18, 2010

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,” . . .

February 9, 2010May 12, 2010

Brownsville, Texas, 1995 Sighting

I just received a report from a young lady who lived in Texas as a child; she reports a giant flying creature she saw in her neighbor’s backyard.

“. . . our dog hadn’t touched her dog food and . . . I found her cowering around the side of our house . . . In the open backyard next door was what looked like a 9 or 10 ft tall man . . . I realized that this man didn’t have a face like a man at all! I froze in fear trying to figure out what I was staring at. Then slowly I watched what looked like disgusting black leathery . . . bat-like wings unwrap from around the man . . . [I] realized this “thing” had kind of been perched on one leg like a heron would and so my mind said it must be a strange species of blue heron which I had heard [were] rather large. . . . it turned its head . . . and that’s when I realized the shape of its head and that it somehow looked like a pterodactyl. I thought that was crazy . . . and then the thing appeared to just lift off the ground and it swooped, only it looked like it was floating, gliding at me and I ran into my house and slammed the sliding glass door behind me . . . Well, my parents never believed me. They thought I had made it up! My dad showed me pictures of blue herons and how big they could get, but they looked nothing like what I had seen!”

I have asked the eyewitness for more information (Feb 8, 2010).

Do not confuse this sighting with the 1995 sighting by another child (a boy) in 1995. That was in Marion County, Texas, and seems to have been a different species of pterosaur.

February 6, 2010May 19, 2010

Eyewitness Fear

On pages 23 of my non-fiction book Live Pterosaurs in America, the eyewitness DF (anonymous) said, “The threat felt from this thing is what bothers me the most. Once . . . I encountered a cougar . . . That did not scare me. This thing did.” She is not alone.

In late 2004, I interviewed three eyewitnesses in a remote village near Lake Pung (Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea). Gideon Koro, and his brother Wesley, appeared calm during their interviews; they admitted that they were afraid during their sighting (they were with friends, including Mesa Augustin, at Lake Pung). Mesa, however, stood almost petrified as I videotaped and questioned him. I came to realize that he was still frightened, ten years after his encounter with the ropen.

But for most eyewitnesses of pterosaurs (or apparent pterosaurs) in the United States, the fear is not of the creature: People fear ridicule, for observing a living pterosaur, in our culture, is taboo. That makes the investigations challenging for me and my associates who interview eyewitnesses.

January 27, 2010May 8, 2010

“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.

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.

October 12, 2009October 12, 2009

Giant Bats?

The fruit bat that is called Flying Fox is hardly a candidate for what has caused reports of giant pterosaurs in tropical countries in the Southwest Pacific. Many descriptions shoot down the fruit-bat theory: extremely long tails, head crests, and fish-eating; if those were not enough, what fruit bat glows brightly at night? No, the reports are not from misidentifications of some big bat.

October 12, 2009April 12, 2018

Live Pterosaurs In America, nonfiction book

Updated early in 2018:

Excerpts from the book’s title page:

Eyewitness Reports of Pterosaurs in the Contiguous United States

Reports of huge flying “pterodactyls” in American skies have floated around the internet for years; but before about 2005, details were scarce. When an eyewitness was named, the interviewer was often anonymous; even when an eyewitness was credible, and the account published in a newspaper, the story was ridiculed, discouraging others who had also seen strange flying creatures. . . .

How are sightings in the United States related to those in the southwest Pacific? How do some apparent nocturnal pterosaurs pertain to bats, and how are bats irrelevant? How could modern living pterosaurs have escaped scientific notice? These mysteries have slept in the dark, beyond the knowledge of almost all Americans, even beyond our wildest dreams (although the reality of some pterosaurs is a living nightmare to some bats). These mysteries have slept . . . until now.

From the third chapter of the book:

The longer we watched, the more spooked we became. It was as though a giant vampire bat (like Dracula-style) was there, but neither of us thought it really looked like a bat, either, even a big one. Also, all the bigger bats are fruit-eaters and not scary at all. This was frightening. I get little chills just writing about it now.

Excerpts from the book’s Appendix:

Philosophy at the foundation

Charles Darwin chose an extreme dedication to Naturalism philosophy; his Common-Ancestry ideas seem to make God unnecessary. He chose atheism, but most Americans reject the idea that life arose without any creative act of God.

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Live Pterosaurs In America (third edition, print) by Jonathan Whitcomb

“The Truth About Pterosaurs” — They are not all extinct