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Modern Pterosaurs

Pre-publication version of book's front and back covers

By the investigative journalist Jonathan Whitcomb

Not all pterosaurs are extinct. Considering all the investigations and research done over the past two decades, it is practically impossible for all their species to be extinct, unless hundreds of thousands of persons worldwide have been encountering flying creatures that are not descended from ancient pterosaurs yet have appeared to have inherited a significant number of their obvious characteristics. That seems unlikely.

“Scary Flying Creatures in the Southwest Pacific” (video)

The video above is mostly on a few sightings of apparent living pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea, including some of the more frightening encounters.

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Modern Pterosaurs in Australia

From the nonfiction book Searching for Ropens and Finding God (fourth edition), by Jonathan David Whitcomb:

Pages 31-33:

The couple was taking a walk in December of 1997, at 10:30 p.m., (in Southwestern Australia, probably a pleasant evening) between the suburbs of Ocean Reef and Heathridge, on Marion Avenue, when they saw, about half a mile inland, something in the sky. As it drew closer, gliding south, parallel to the coast, it shocked them with a “lizard appearance” and a wingspan of thirty to fifty feet. . . .

[in the words of a scientist (one of the two eyewitnesses)]

We had been walking in the evening and had just crested a hill and were on the down slope along a major thoroughfare. In the distance, I perceived an object in the sky. . . . its progress had brought it closer and while its shape did resemble a bird, I thought by now that from its apparent distance, it must be the largest bird I had ever witnessed.

It did not appear to be covered with feathers but had a leathery texture. Soon after it passed us, it flew over a more brightly lit sports area which highlighted even more the leathery appearance, also bringing more detail to view. . . .

I . . . estimated the size to be in excess of thirty foot, possibly as great as fifty foot. My eyes told me it was nearer the greater of these, my rational mind wants me to believe the lesser, since either of these is astounding for a flying creature . . .

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Modern living pterosaurs

A modern pterosaur!? How could it be? Extraordinary but true, huge flying creatures, with no feathers yet unlike any bat, live among us, although they mostly fly at night.

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Pterodactyl sightings in South Carolina

I never heard of Charlamagne tha God (CTG on this blog post) until I read the new comments under my video.

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Not all pterosaurs are extinct

. . . if my assessment of each of those 128 reports was anywhere near the mark, it is practically impossible for all of those reports to have come from non-pterosaurs: Not all pterosaurs are extinct.

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Pterodactyls alive

Eleven sighting reports of ropens, a.k.a. flying dinosaurs, in North Carolina, including Raleigh, Durham, Conover, Wilmington, Guilford County, Kernersville, and Charlotte . . .

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Living pterosaurs in a newspaper article

“As a self-described ‘modern pterosaur expert,’ the Utah-based author is circulating news and running websites that describe encounters with prehistoric, flying reptiles that scientists classify as thoroughly extinct.” [referring to Jonathan Whitcomb]

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Modern pterodactyls

The nonfiction author Jonathan Whitcomb, of Murray, Utah, in 2017 and 2018, interviewed four eyewitnesses of an apparent “pterodactyl” in central Utah. He now declares that those reports from Draper, Salt Lake County, help distinguish Utah in a map showing where similar sightings have been reported across the United States.

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Strange flying creatures in North Carolina and Utah

A nonfiction-cryptozoology author has analyzed eyewitness accounts of apparent non-extinct pterosaurs, commonly called “pterodactyls” or “flying dinosaurs,” and found that several states in the USA stand out, including Utah.

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Flying creatures in the southwest Pacific

Ropens and other modern pterosaurs live in and around Australia and Papua New Guinea . . . Reports of Live Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific

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Youtube Video “The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur” (a mini-documentary)

the late Patty Carson - "We will always remember you" Patty Carson

By the LP cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb

Let’s begin with the good news: I uploaded a new video to Youtube yesterday, about the sighting at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in about the year 1965, and about how it relates to other sightings. In my opinion, this is the best mini-documentary ever produced on the subject of modern living pterosaurs, at least as an introduction to the encounters people have had with these shocking flying creatures and how a number of sightings relate to Patty Carson’s observation of the “dinosaur” seen in 1965. Take my opinion in context, however: I am the producer and director and narrator for this video, which I titled “The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur.”

Now for the bad news: A few days ago I learned that my friend Patty Carson had passed away. I was not expecting that; I am her senior by many years. Hearing that bad news inspired me to set aside plans for another Youtube production and focus on Patty and on her sighting. It took more than two weeks of hard work to complete the 16-minute video, but I wanted it to have both the quality and length that would honor Patty.

Some persons might wonder how sixteen minutes could be an honorable length for a documentary. Take it in context: On Youtube, a typical video that gets many thousands, or millions, of views is often one of the following:

  1. Very short but extremely shocking or extremely funny or extremely . . .
  2. Between five and fifteen minutes long

Neither of the above two, however, generally have high production values that we take for granted in television and film productions, usually nothing remotely close to that. “The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur” does not have that high of a standard but it’s a lot closer than a typical popular Youtube video, and it is longer than many of them.

I acknowledge the exceptional qualities in some Youtube videos, but those are the exceptions.

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"We will always remember you" Patty Carson

From near the beginning of the video (from a family photo)

“The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur” shows how Patty Carson’s sighting in 1965 relates to encounters with strange flying creatures in Australia, Papua New Guinea, and the United States.

Please view this video and feel free to make comments on that page on Youtube.

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An introduction to living pterosaurs

This Youtube video, published in 2015, is almost 13 minutes long.

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Book The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

This is the official home page for the nonfiction cryptozoology book for older kids and younger teens. It should soon be updated to include information on the Youtube video of that same name.

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Pterosaur sightings in Cuba

Eskin Kuhn and Patty Carson are given much attention, yet more eyewitnesses are mentioned [in the non-fiction book], including three siblings of Carson.

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Pterodactyl seen by Patty Carson

Shows the sketch drawn by this eyewitness

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Pterosaur sightings in the United States

Over the past 15 years, I’ve seen hundreds of reports of non-extinct pterosaurs, often called “pterodactyls.” Most of those have been direct contact with eyewitnesses, often emails that they send me. The great majority of those have been from ordinary Americans who have seen extraordinary flying creatures.

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Sighting of a flying creature in Australia

This includes the Perth pterosaur sighting of 1997, among a variety of encounters in Australia.

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Nonfiction Books About Living Pterosaurs

side-by-side front covers of two cryptozoology books by Whitcomb - "Modern Pterosaurs" and "Searching for Ropens and Finding God"

By the living-pterosaur cryptozoologist Jonathan David Whitcomb

Quotations from three nonfiction cryptozoology books

Searching for Ropens and Finding God (4th edition)

. . . avoid ridiculing those labeled creationist. . . . When in human history has one person always been wrong? [Introduction]

Albert Schweitzer inspired me, earlier in my teenage years, when I read of his unselfish missionary labors: He gave natives medical treatment in Africa; he also treated injured animals. I imagined myself as a missionary, helping natives in a jungle. Only later did Sanderson’s books steer my imagination into jungle explorations in search of undiscovered animals. [page 14]

After my own expedition in Papua New Guinea, I pondered how I had become involved and how those videos had touched me. What were the early signs that there were living pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific? [pg 22]

With Mary Blume’s help with interpreting, Guessman then interviewed Jacob Kepas [He was a Baptist minister at the time of this interview], who was twelve years old, living in the Wau area of the mainland, when he saw what we believe was a ropen. He heard a “whoosh” of wind, one night, and ran outside to see the seklo-bali that had just flown over his village. [pg 94]

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non-fiction 360-page paperback "Searching for Ropens and Finding God"

The “Bible of modern pterosaurs”

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Live Pterosaurs in America (3rd edition)

Could it have been a giant mechanical model? This mechanical idea breaks down. Why would a model fly from one swamp into another swamp? Why would it be so much bigger than the known mechanical models? How could it dive down to just above the highway and then ascend to fly over trees tops on the other side, without any acceleration of wing flapping and without even any mechanical appearance of wing flapping? And why would a mechanical model closely resemble a giant flying creature that catches fish on reefs in Papua New Guinea? They’re both too much alive. [pg 12]

I found it interesting that she asked if a “society” existed for receiving her report, and that the word “pterodactyl” gave her, at first, embarrassment. In Western society, including the United States, dogmas of extinction cause eyewitnesses of live modern pterosaurs problems: “Who do I tell?” is common; recognizing and verbalizing “embarrassment” is uncommon. I am grateful for the broadcasts of Destination Truth and Monsterquest, for they revealed the possibility of flying creatures like “pterodactyls” (even though pertaining to New Guinea). I hope many American eyewitnesses will thereby come to trust their senses, even without embarrassment. [pg 53]

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Third edition of "Live Pterosaurs in America"

Live Pterosaurs in America (revised, third edition)

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Modern Pterosaurs

I remember the experiences of a boy in Irving, Texas, in the 1970’s. A “very scary looking” flying creature had a big beak like those of fishing birds, but this thing had no feathers. It did have “claw hands” on top of its wings. Later, the boy’s teacher told him to be quiet. [pg 14]

Sometimes a sporting event brings many people out for a potential sighting. In 2010, I got an email from a man who was a teenager at a soccer camp at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, in the mid-1990’s. He told me that the flying creature “was huge, as big as a plane.” At least five parents and students watched it fly into a cloud. The teenager shouted, “That was a pterodactyl!” but the adults decided to keep quiet. [pg 15]

One stumbling block is this: Paleontologists, whether professional or amateur, have a habit of mentioning the supposed religious beliefs of those who promote the possibility of extant pterosaurs. In fact, in at least one or two posts, an expert on fossils ridicules a religious belief without even mentioning the word fossil. How easy it is for some readers to see only one of those posts and conclude that religious fanatics have been carried away by religious bias! [pg 66]

Small nonfiction paperback about modern pterosaurs

Modern Pterosaurs (published in the spring of 2017)

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Living pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea

Three Americans explored a tropical rain forest in Papua New Guinea, within the past few weeks, and two of them succeeded in observing an apparent living pterosaur.

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Living pterosaurs for LDS readers

In a broad perspective, the reality of modern non-extinct pterosaurs is more in harmony with a belief in the Flood of Noah, with preservation of species on the Ark, than it is with the origin philosophy of Charles Darwin.

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Book about modern pterosaurs

For countless years, an old photograph has been seen on the internet, and some persons report they had seen it in a book decades before there was an internet.

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Book about the ropen

The fourth edition of another nonfiction book “Searching for Ropens and Finding God” can be classified in cryptozoology, yet it’s also a spiritual book, not much about any particular religion but asking for religious tolerance.

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Non-extinct pterodactyls

Are they still alive? Can reports of flying dragons be more than legends? . . . Pterosaurs, the technically correct name for what many call “pterodactyls,” are known by Western scientists through their fossils.

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Baptist minister searches for a living pterosaur

Late in 2006, Pastor Jacob Kepas (a Baptist minister) was interviewed by Paul Nation, in a hut in Tawa Village, deep in the mountainous interior of the mainland of Papua New Guinea. Kepas had recently climbed up a hill adjacent to a cliff where some of the nocturnal flying creatures sleep during the day.

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LDS Author Jonathan Whitcomb

Nonfiction dragons, or “pterodactyls,” as described by eyewitnesses around the world, beginning in Papua New Guinea

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A long review of Live Pterosaurs in America

. . . as I [was] browsing I spotted a book “Live Pterosaurs in America” by Jonathan David Whitcomb, a nonfiction analysis of actual sightings in the USA. This I had to own, so I immediately ordered it from Amazon, and a few days later it was mine! And you know what — I’m glad I bought it, and have enjoyed reading it.

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Nonfiction books on living pterosaurs

I have written four nonfiction books about living pterosaurs, in a total of nine editions.

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Flying Dinosaur

Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur sketch

Of course we mean “pterosaur” when we say “flying dinosaur,” but people use various words and phrases when they refer to this featherless flying creature, and “pterosaur” or “pterodactyl” can be hard to spell. Other common words and phrases people in English-speaking countries use are these:

  • dragon
  • dinosaur bird
  • prehistoric bird

Here is a living-pterosaur sighting report in which the phrase “flying dinosaur” was used:

Pterosaur Sightings in Georgia (USA)

Let’s consider some sightings mentioned in the second edition of the nonfiction book Searching for Ropens. (The 4th edition of this nonfiction book is shown below:

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Whitcomb's nonfiction "Searching for Ropens and Finding God" 3rd ed.

Fourth edition of Searching for Ropens and Finding God

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Funeral Gathering Included a Ropen

Eunice, a school teacher’s wife, described to Carl Baugh [who led at least two ropen expeditions, in the 1990’s, in Papua New Guinea] an attempted grave robbery. One night, in April of 1993, near the northwest coast of Umboi Island, after a large funeral procession arrived at the burial location, a creature with a glowing red tail came from the sea. . . . About two hundred mourners were awake when the creature flew overhead. The villagers banged pots and yelled, whereupon the intruder flew into a nearby swamp and the light disappeared.

Ropen Said to Live in Caves on Umboi Island

[A man] interviewed by Jim Blume, examined a magazine-cover illustration of a pterosaur. [The missionary James Blume has interviewed many eyewitnesses of apparent pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea.] The man said that he had seen those creatures himself and that they eat fish “out of the water.” He estimated their size (either wing or wingspan) at six to seven feet, “bigger than a man,” and said that they live in caves (on Umboi Island).

Duane Hodgkinson’s 1944 Sighting

“. . . it was in 1944 that I was stationed in Finschafen, New Guinea, with the U.S. military. While there, I made several trips into some of the surrounding native villages with a friend of mine and a native guide (provided by the Australian government). On this one particular trip, we had the wonderful opportunity to witness a pterodactyl take off from the ground and then circle back overhead and to the side, giving us a perfect side view which clearly showed the long beak and appendage protruding from the back of its head.”

Perth, Australia, Sighting

“We had been walking in the evening and had just crested a hill . . . In the distance, I perceived an object in the sky. . . . I watched it as it approached. Soon I was able to determine that it was some sort of flying creature, and my first thought was that it must be some very large bird. . . .

“By this time, its progress had brought it closer and while its shape did resemble a bird, I thought by now that from its apparent distance, it must be the largest bird I had ever witnessed. . . .

“Within a minute or so it had reached our position and was about 250 or 300 feet above us and slightly inland. The area was moderately well lit and I saw that it seemed to be a light reddish-tan color. It did not appear to be covered with feathers but had a leathery texture.

“Soon after it passed us, it flew over a more brightly lit sports area which highlighted even more the leathery appearance, also bringing more detail to view. The wings were the most definite leathery feature. They were shaped in a triangular arch, similar to a very elongated shark fin. The body also still appeared leathery, though textured as though possibly covered with fine hair or small scales . . .

“The head was close to the body, though whether from a short neck or from having its head drawn in, in the manner of some long-necked water fowl, I cannot say. . . .

“The creature, during the time we observed it, was mostly gliding. There was some wing movement as in a hawk or other bird controlling its flight path, but did not flap as a sparrow or other small bird. . . .

“Size is, of course, hard to determine accurately at a distance, since even a small miscalculation in distance can magnify any error in the estimate. I, at the time, however, estimated the size to be in excess of thirty foot, possibly as great as fifty foot. My eyes told me it was nearer the greater of these, my rational mind wants me to believe the lesser, since either of these is astounding for a flying creature . . .

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Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur sketch

A long-tailed Rhamphorhynchoid (“basal”) pterosaur

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Flying Dinosaurs (for mobile devices)

Two sightings of pterosaurs in Cuba and one sighting in New Guinea

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Ropen Eyewitnesses

Credibility of natives on Umboi Island in Papua New Guinea

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Flying Creature Like a Dinosaur in U.S.A.

Sightings in many U. S. states, including Georgia, Texas, Arizona, and Virginia, etc.