With the right winds, butterflies can sometimes get across the Atlantic Ocean, at least from North America to Ireland. So could a kongamato get across the Atlantic from Africa? I like to think of it from another perspective: Could a species of large pterosaur be prevented from crossing the Atlantic if countless of the flying creatures flew off the west coast of Africa for countless centuries? What could prevent their eventual migration?

One species of crane flies over the Himalayan Mountains regularly, sometimes at an altitude of 30,000 feet. Large nocturnal pterosaurs, under the right wind conditions, could cross the Atlantic, from Africa. As more sighting reports come in from Africa and North America, we need to look at the possibility that some of the flying creatures on different sides of the Atlantic may be closely related or even the same species.

Pterosaurs in Cuba

. . . I had been in Cuba for perhaps four months and the SeaBees were engaged in constructing new barracks for us . . . It was a beautiful, clear summer day . . . I was looking in the direction of the ocean . . . I am an artist with sharp eye for detail and was determined to drink in the visage before me for future recording on paper. I saw two pterosaurs flying together at low altitude, perhaps 100 feet, very close in range from where I was standing, so that I had a perfectly clear view . . . The vertebrae of their backs was noticeable, mostly between the shoulders. I would estimate their wingspan to be roughly ten feet.

Pterosaur Extinction Indoctrination

Standard Western paleontology is based upon assumptions about extinction. When a dinosaur fossil or a pterosaur fossil is discovered in a stratum, that layer of rock may be subject to reevaluation: given a different date based upon the popular ideas about when that species lived and when it became extinct.

But what if a species of pterosaur never became extinct? What would that do to paleontology, in particular with dating a stratum by the existence of a fossil of that species being found in that stratum?

Gitmo Pterosaur

The sketch shown above was drawn by the U. S. Marine Eskin Kuhn, who witnessed two of the long-tailed featherless flying creatures (obvious pterosaurs) flying at “close range” at the Guantanamo Bay military installation in Cuba, in 1971.

Simplicity and Occam’s Razor

In science, Occam’s razor has also been called “the law of succinctness,” but the simplicity of that label can be misleading. It does not really mean “the simplest explanation is most likely correct.” A better definition might include “when competing hypotheses are otherwise equal in explaining something, the simpler hypothesis deserves preference, unless and until the less-simple one is someday found to explain things better.” In other words, referring to Occam’s razor does not excuse somebody for rejecting a complex idea and accepting in its place an apparently simpler idea that does not explain the data as well. The truth about something is not always simple.

Sun-Centered or Earth-Centered Solar Sysytem?

Before Copernicus, what would have seemed the simplest explanation for motions of sun and moon? Ignoring the nocturnal motions of stars and planets, the sun and moon appear to be about the same size; they also move at about the same speed and in about the same trajectory. Perhaps the brilliance and power of the sun could be related to its slightly faster speed across the sky. But observing only sun and moon, how could we have concluded that the moon flies around the earth and the earth flies around the sun? How simple to believe what everyone else believes! Both orbs appear to be the same size and appear to move in about the same way, so why not support the popular view? Surely the sun and the moon both circle the earth, or so it would have seemed.

Before Copernicus, what could have influenced us to suspect something else was happening? I suggest looking at something different, gazing into the sky at a different time, for the apparent motions of countless stars might have taught us something. In the Northern Hemisphere, the North Star remains in the same apparent place all night, while stars further away from it move ever faster accordingly. I don’t know if I would have been intelligent enough and patient enough, before Copernicus, to figure out what we now take for granted: The earth is spinning. But that alone does not automatically tell us anything about any other motions of earth, sun, and moon. We would have needed to dig deeper, and that would have been more challenging a problem than most of us could have met successfully.

But Copernicus met that challenge successfully, although it took him many years. In more recent generations, calculations and spacecraft journeys have validated the model of a sun-centered solar system, notwithstanding the complexities. How does all that relate to pterosaur extinction or non-extinction?

Live Pterosaurs

Before ropen expeditions in Papua New Guinea (late twentieth century through early twenty-first century), how simple it was to believe in the extinction of all species of pterosaurs! How rare were the publicized reports of daylight sightings of apparent “pterodactyls!” But the truth about extinctions is not simple. I suggest looking with a different perspective, considering a different time for the flights of pterosaurs, for sightings in daylight are not from common appearances of extremely rare flying creatures; they are from the uncommon times, the rare appearances in daylight: somewhat rare flying creatures that are nothing other than nocturnal pterosaurs.

Just as the difficulties or complexities of calculations by Copernicus (a rare person who worked in that field for many years) were essential, including observations of the heavens at night, the difficulties of observing living pterosaurs by cryptozoologists requires years of work at night, for the overall evidence points to most, if not all, modern pterosaurs being nocturnal. Few of us cryptozoologists have many years available for that work. (I hope that increasing the numbers of dedicated cryptozoologists will bring us closer to dramatic discovery: the capture of a living pterosaur, with long-term study of the creature in captivity.)

The sun-centered system proposed by Copernicus surely appeared on the surface more complex than the long-accepted system of both sun and moon orbiting the earth. But those detailed observations, carried out over many years, are better explained by his new model, making it actually much more complex to equally-well explain everything by the old.

Of course universal extinction appears simpler than partial extinction, but the many eyewitness testimonies cannot be ignored. Why hold onto the putrid carcass, the antiquated dogma of universal extinctions of all dinosaurs and pterosaurs? Recent human experience should be held in higher esteem than outdated, misdirected imagination that has no basis in human experience. When the overall observations are taken into account, the simplest explanation is modern living pterosaurs, making it actually much more complex to equally-well explain everything and still hold onto the old model of universal extinction.

This requires clear thinking, something we sometimes find lacking.

Pterosaur

Is it really meaningless to the credibility of standard models whether or not all species of pterosaurs are extinct?

“Do nothing to refute mainstream geology” are the words of Glen Kuban. This phrase, however, is a clue that he is actually protecting a philosophy, for science, by its nature, is expected to bring about changes in opinion about what we used to think: changes. To consider “mainstream geology” to be a branch of science, it would need to be capable of change, even major change, should that become necessary.

Pterosaur Book

Living pterosaurs? How could they now be living in California, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Ohio, New York, and many other states? Did not pterosaurs become extinct millions of years ago? Cryptozoology is the study of reports of creatures (or apparent creatures) whose descriptions suggest something other than creatures classified by standard biology as extant.

Experience makes science possible. The sighting of what seems to be a living pterosaur does not force any professor to either ignore it or find a non-pterosaur explanation. When a number of eyewitnesses report the same kind of apparent pterosaur, reason demands that someone investigates why this is so.

Pterodactyls

Are some pterodactyls still living? That idea is controversial, to be sure, for where is the photograph to prove such a bold idea? But wait a moment. What does photography have to do with it? Where is photographic evidence that every kind of pterodactyl became extinct millions of years ago? The fossils say nothing about extinction. A fossil only shows that one particular organism once lived and died. Photographing and analyzing fossils has nothing to do with extinction, so what is this controversy about living pterodactyls?

Bat or Pterosaur

Many species of Flying Fox fruit bat live in the countries that surround Papua New Guinea: Australia and Indonesia, and those further west: Malaysia and India. But none of the big bats have the amazing pterosaur-like characteristics of the ropen: long head crest and Rhamphorhynchoid-like long tail. In addition, at least one species of ropen has a mouth “like a crocodile” mouth.

Giant Bat

“One of the flashes took off from a big tree overhanging the river and made a kind of flashing coma turn. Many flashes were parallel to the river. . . . there were many fish . . . Prime hunting grounds for fish-eating birds. Only these things fish at night with bioluminescence.”

Almost all of the researchers who have studied these accounts for years believe that these creatures are live pterosaurs. Most of the eyewitness accounts include a description of a long tail; some include a structure they have seen at the end of the tail: like a Rhamphorhynchoid tail flange.

Pterosaur Extinction (Indoctrination)

How has anyone now living come to the conclusion that all species of pterosaurs became extinct? From a scientific test? No. From a mathematical formula? No. From a set of statistics? No. From early childhood, Americans and citizens of other Western countries are indoctrinated into universal extinctions of certain general types of animals, dinosaurs and pterosaurs especially. It has become a deeply ingrained assumption of our cultures.

How often are dinosaurs and pterosaurs depicted as ancient creatures that became extinct millions of years ago! It was not from “modern science” that we got the doctrine of universal ancient extinctions of dinosaurs and pterosaurs. Fossils discovered before the nineteenth century (long before any carbon-dating or any other dating method), were unknown to those who dug them up. Since they were not similar to any living creatures known to those persons, they were assumed to be extinct. By the time Darwin’s ideas were becoming popular, the fossils were used as evidence for ancient extinctions. But eyewitnesses from the early twentieth century to the present have seen living dinosaurs and living pterosaurs.

Note that “eyewitness” does not usually mean “anecdotal,” at least with the many credible accounts that I have investigated with interviews, for ”anecdote” does not apply (contrary to top-of-the-head speculations of some of my critics). Neither does cryptozoology always mean unscientific or pseudo-scientific procedures. The real problem is dogmatic belief in universal extinctions of general categories of creatures: dinosaurs and pterosaurs in particular. And eyewitness accounts keep coming in.

Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition, nonfiction

A hoax can challenge any serious investigation, whatever is investigated. But one hoax perpetrated by an anonymous person or persons has been especially challenging. Around 2003 or 2004, a web site popped up called “Objective Ministries.” It is now widely believed to be an elaborate hoax. But one page declares much about living pterosaurs, including apparent plans for an expedition in Africa. The “university” named and the persons named now appear to be fictional, part of the joke. The problem for serious researchers and investigators of modern living pterosaurs is this: Some people will be so repulsed by those “objective ministries” pages that they might reject any serious investigation. Tragic!

Another challenge to our investigations is the “tiny minority” position of Wikipedia. This makes any very unusual research or investigation almost impossible to portray in a very positive light on a Wikipedia page. Popular opinions rule on certain web pages and Wikipedia is a good example of that. Of course other wiki’s cover that problem, in particular is this seen on “Creationwiki” (see Pterosaur on their site).

Another problem comes from a few paleontologists who insist dogmatically that fossils, somehow, are evidence that all species of pterosaurs became extinct many millions of years ago. But those critics make no distinction between extinction and near-extinction. And they fail to acknowledge that fossilization is not a common way for a living organism to pass away after death, thereby making a “lack of recent fossils” practically meaningless in the subject of eyewitness accounts of living pterosaurs.

Am I mistake about lack-of-fossils evidence? Then why are there so few pterosaur species that did leave fossils, compared with all the pterosaur species that could have lived during all those supposed millions of years when standard models insist that they lived? No, an apparent lack of “recent fossils” cannot reasonably be used to dismiss eyewitness accounts. To insist that a lack of pterosaur fossils in particular strata is evidence that no species of pterosaur could now live is no more reasonable than insisting that no species of pterosaur could have lived anciently unless we now have a fossil of that species. That kind of faulty reasoning is another problem we face, for educated paleontologists may be assumed to reason reasonably, and sometimes that is far from the case.

What’s the difference between a fox and a paleontologist? After a successful hunt, one is lick’n bones of chicken; the other is pick’n bones of therizinosaurus. It makes no rhyme, but a paleontologist is not usually associated with light verse: Don’t confuse Darren Naish and Ogden Nash.

How else is a fox like a paleontologist? When fully mature, neither one should be mistaken for a playful puppy, else you may be lick’n your wounds. More important, both of them can sometimes roam outside their proper place.

One Monsterquest episode involved an expedition to New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea. On the surface, it appeared to be a search for giant nocturnal flying creatures that some cryptozoologists believe are modern living pterosaurs (in reality, it was a dramatic production project to make an intertaining show; it was not a scientific investigation). Of all the potential explorers to take with them, Monsterquest chose a paleontologist. What’s wrong with that? It’s like inviting a fox to inspect an electric-fence security system for a chicken yard; you know that the fox will advise you to immediately stop wasting electricity on the worthless contraption. Likewise a paleontologist will be totally predictable, regardless of eyewitness evidence that a cryptid is a “living fossil.”

That brings up another similarity between a fox and a paleontologist: They both have to eat. I condemn neither of them for the need to survive. But I must point out that crytozoology is far outside the realm of paleontology, and any apparent or real lack of known fossils in any particular series of strata is not evidence for the non-existence of life. The world of living organisms is far bigger than all the fossils ever found. When paleontologists dismisses a large number of eyewitnesses with insinuations of misidentifications and improper motivations, those paleontologist have gone far outside the special field in when they are experts. They have no more right to ridicule those specific eyewitnesses than a fox has a right to eat chickens in a specific chicken yard.

The paleontologist Glen Kuban has been associated with a mild case of bulverism because of his web page criticizing the concept of modern living pterosaurs. I have known of some non-paleontologists who seem to be trying to defend traditional models of that field by using extreme bulverism. I invite all critics to keep to the issues involved: Avoid personal attacks such as insinuations of lies. Kuban has at least used a number of examples of eyewitness cases, even though he has avoided the more important cases. His portrayal of problems in the objectiveness of investigators or their lack of clear thinking seems to be in the background rather than the foreground, so I classify his page as using mild bulverism.

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Child Care in Long Beach, California

Pterosaur Sighting in Ohio (Antwerp, Ohio, sightings and the minister near Mount Vernon, Ohio)

Darren Naish criticized the idea of extant pterosaurs in a late-2007 online post. He believes that there are ”no indications from the fossil record that pterosaurs survived beyond the end of the Cretaceous . . .” He also proclaims that “the fossil record convincingly demonstrates that pterosaurs became extinct . . .” What he fails to include in his long post, however, is an explanation for how any fossils can demonstrate the extinction of even one species, let alone all species of a general type.

Mr. Naish seems to have failed to apply simple clear reasoning. Fossils tell us nothing about true extinction, notwithstanding one  worldwide catastrophe that killed many individual creatures; near-extinction is a world apart from true extinction. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the difference between extinction and near-extinction is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

But Naish is not the only paleontologist to miss this critical point. Glen Kuban also appears dedicated to ridiculing living-pterosaur investigators or at least actively fighting against any hope that pterosaurs still live; he also appears to believe that fossils are evidence for the extinction of all species of pterosaurs. But his long web page bears a striking resemblance to the one written by Naish: Both paleontologists concentrate on old questionable accounts, avoiding the critical eyewitness sightings that most heavily support the concept of modern extant pterosaurs.

See “Extinction or Near-Extinction, What Distinction?”

See also Live Pterosaurs

“Superstitious” cannot reasonably be used to dismiss native-eyewitess testimonies; their superstitions are left out of their testimonies. “Religious bias” cannot be reasonably used to dismiss American-eyewitness testimonies; the creationist researchers are not, for the most part, the eyewitnesses, but the creationists interview and quote those of various beliefs who describe obvious pterosaurs. And the testimonies of natives of Papua New Guinea coorelate with those of Americans and Australians: mostly large or giant flying creatures, with no sign of feathers and with very long tails.

Let us promote scientific investigations of reports of modern pterosaurs.

The sketch above was drawn by the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn, who observed two long-tailed pterosaurs flying in daylight over the Guantanamo Bay military station, in 1971.

More: Scientific Paper on Living Pterosaurs

We need to listen with open minds to eyewitnesses who have seen creatures that cannot easily be explained as non-pterosaurs. This will eventually free us to discover and classify modern living pterosaurs.

Third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America – true, nonfiction

At least one species of Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed pterosaur) known from fossils, the Scaphognathus crassirostris, did have a head crest. The presence of a head crest on a ropen (or modern long-tailed pterosaur) is hardly a sign of a hoax; how many potential hoaxers would know about that fossil? (And how many natives on remote tropical islands would know about any fossils?) Westerners who might consider a pterosaur hoax would most likely use what is well-known in Western culture: stubby-tailed pterosaurs, like those depicted often in movie and television sci-fi. Potential native hoaxers would talk about flying humans that transform themselves into snakes; honest native eyewitnesses talk about a long-tailed feather-less creature, and only some native eyewitnesses have had a good-enough viewing angle to allow them to see the head crest (Gideon Koro, of Umboi Island, was honest enough to admit that he did not have a good view of the head of the giant ropen that flew over Lake Pung around 1994).

The consistency, in eyewitness descriptions from around the world, of the combination of a long tail and a head crest (in a feather-less flying creature) is evidence for a living creature, not a hoax. And why should a modern pterosaur be very much like most pterosaur fossils? Ridicule from skeptics comes from our adopting the obvious interpretation of those eyewitness descriptions: a modern living pterosaur. “Unlike pterosaur fossils” is not just inaccurate: It is irrelevant.