Papua New Guinea | Live Pterosaur

November 27, 2023November 27, 2023

Video About Support for Modern Pterosaurs on YouTube

eyewitness (portrayed) of a modern pterosaur in Arkansas

By Jonathan Whitcomb

Many videos on YouTube are positive about the possibility that not all “pterodactyls” became extinct millions of years ago. On November 24, 2023, a video was uploaded on the YT channel Protect Animal Life, and it directs viewers to six other videos that are on five channels:

Pterodactyl or Flying Dinosaur NOT Extinct

If you would like to watch it on this WordPress platform, click below:

By clicking on the above image, you can stay on this blog (Live Pterosaur) but still watch the video. You’ll even remain here on this post.

The following are the six videos mentioned in the new video (for links to them, see the bottom of this blog, below the “###”):

“Legend or Lie? Tombstone Thunderbird”

This is the least supportive of the concept that one or more species of pterosaurs may still be living. In fact, if you watch only the first two thirds or so of it, you’ll miss the surprise near the end: Although the newspaper article in The Tombstone Epitaph may have a number of falsehoods, it may be based upon an actual event with two ranchers who tried following a large flying creature before their horses refused follow it.

Ropen of Arkansas Reenactment Living Pterosaur Pterodactyl

Jacob Guerra introduces this video, and after providing basic facts about the state of Arkansas he gets into a dramatic presentation of an encounter a lady had with a gigantic flying creature that flew in front of her pickup truck on a small bridge in a rural area.

Pterosaurs Seen in the United States

Explorers and cryptozoologists Milt Marcy and Peter Beach explain how they witnessed bioluminescent flying creatures at the Yakima River in Washington State and an apparent living pterosaur in Papua New Guinea.

Ropen or Pterodactyl? American Eyewitness Talks

The American World War II veteran Duane Hodgkinson was interviewed, in 2005, by the cryptozoologist Garth Guessman. The resulting video (on the YouTube channel Protect Animal Life) is one of the most popular on YT for supporting the possibility of modern living pterosaurs. The sighting itself was in New Guinea in 1944.

Flying Dinosaur or Pterodactyl Sightings

The investigative journalist Jonathan Whitcomb explains how he can understand the perspective of a typical skeptic: In about 1968, he was a skeptic himself, although he now firmly believes in modern pterosaurs. His sister, who was in high school at the time, had a friend who declared that she had seen a gigantic “pterodactyl” that flew up into the foothills just north of Altadena, California.

Pterodactyl or Ropen on Camera on Flying Dinosaur

Cynthia Lee, in Raleigh, North Carolina, recorded with her cell phone camera two large ropens. Those flying creatures were close enough that she was able to record both of them while the city bus she was on began to pull away. The apparent pterosaur that was flying much lower was being chased by a bird.

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Pterosaurs Seen in the United States

This YouTube video is on the channel Dino Discovery. Milt Marcy and Peter Beach are interviewed concerning their pterosaur sightings and investigation into these flying creatures in the United States and in Papua New Guinea.

Ropen or Pterodactyl? American Eyewitness Talks

In this YouTube video, the flight instructor Duane Hodgkinson reveals what he and his army buddy saw in 1944 in the southwest Pacific: a “HUGE” “pterodactyl” that flew overhead, just west of Finschhafen. The YouTube channel is titled “Jonathan Whitcomb”.

Pterodactyl or Ropen on Camera on Flying Dinosaur

This is one of many videos on Whitcomb’s YouTube channel “Protect Animal Life”. It mostly covers two “pterodactyl” sightings in the United States. One of those encounters was in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Flying Dinosaur or Pterodactyl Sightings

This is also on the “PAL” channel (Protect Animal Life): Jonathan Whitcomb’s confession that he disbelieved a sighting report when he was young (in about 1968). The encounter was in Altadena, California, a little north of Pasadena.

Legend or Lie? Tombstone Thunderbird

This YouTube video leaves a crack in the door for believing that an apparent pterosaur flew near Tombstone, Arizona, in the late 19th century. “KGUN9” is the name of the YouTube channel (Whitcomb is not connected with it).

Ropen of Arkansas Reenactment Living Pterosaur Pterodactyl

The main point in this YouTube video is the sighting of a huge pterosaur that flew over a small bridge in rural Arkansas years ago. The YT channel is THE ROPEN NETWORK (not owned or controlled by Jonathan Whitcomb).

November 22, 2022December 15, 2022

Modern Pterosaurs and Remote Control Pterodactyls

By Jonathan David Whitcomb [contact him]

I recently looked at a web page of a man who is perhaps the world’s most outspoken critic of the possibility that not all species of pterosaurs are extinct. I’ll not mention his name here, for he does not deserve the publicity. For the moment, we’ll look into his idea that radio remote-controlled drones, constructed to look like pterodactyls, are responsible for some of the sightings of apparent living pterosaurs.

I submit that his hypothesis has very little relevance: These kinds of flying creatures have been observed for many centuries, long before either radios or airplanes existed. In earlier centuries, however, they were called “dragons”. In recent decades we sometimes encounter the phrase “flying dinosaur”.

In addition, analysis of wingspans (estimates from eyewitnesses in various areas of the planet) has shown not only a wide range of numbers but a smoothness in statistical shape that makes sense if people were seeing living flying creatures. Those wingspan estimates, however, make no sense if there was any significant number of misidentifications of mechanical drones.

Here’s another way to shoot down remote-controlled planes: They do not do any of the following:

Sit on the ground while pecking a dead fish in southern Minnesota
Sit on a telephone wire by a storm channel in Lakewood, California
Attack fishermen at night on the bank of the Delaware River
Pick up a large dog in a lady’s front yard and try to fly away with the family pet, while the lady chases it with a broom, forcing it to drop the large dog

Lake Pepin, Minnesota, near where a huge pterodactyl was observed

Sighting by Duane Hodgkinson in 1944

One of the clearest answers to the remote-controlled pterodactyl model is the sighting by the World War II veteran Duane Hodgkinson, who had been interviewed many times before his passing a few years ago.

In 1944, in a jungle clearing in the southwest Pacific, two American soldiers witness a huge “pterodactyl” take off into the air, after running for several steps to get airborne. Decades later, in one of his interviews, Mr. Hodgkinson estimated the length of the tail was “at least ten or fifteen feet.”

The flying creature had a horn-like head crest and a wingspan estimated to have been similar to that of a Piper Tri-Pacer private airplane (29 feet). This was obviously not any mechanical pterodactyl drone.

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Living Pterosaurs in Los Angeles

In a period of ten weeks, two eyewitnesses saw a total of four flying creatures: three “dragons” and one “pterosaur.” The three were gliding together early in the morning of March 3, 2013, over the I-5 freeway near Griffith Park. The “pterosaur” was seen gliding over that same freeway on May 13, 2013, just a mile and a half to the south.

Pterosaur sightings worldwide and long tails

How common are reports of long tails on apparent modern pterosaurs! We now begin with a report from Sudan, Africa . . .

19th century “pterodactyl” photo

Featherless flying reptiles appear to live across the globe, shocking and sometimes frightening eyewitnesses of these apparent modern pterosaurs. . . . Recent eyewitness reports of apparent non-extinct “pterodactyls” may now be taken into context with a new assessment of an old photo called “Ptp”.

Living pterosaurs and cognitive bias

For some time, I thought that confirmation bias may have been the most significant of the cognitive biases regarding living-pterosaur investigations during the past two or three decades. I was aware of some of the factors of another bias but did not know it had a name: “availability cascade”.

Press releases on pterodactyl sightings

Reports of living “pterodactyls” in Georgia, during the past seven years, probably relate to sightings of some flying creatures in South Carolina and Florida, according to author Jonathan Whitcomb

Loss aversion and apparent modern pterosaurs

Two decades ago, a man started writing a web page criticizing the idea that not all species of pterosaurs are extinct. He often added to that page and mentioned my name many times. He expanded it so often, over the years, that the word count, as of earlier this week, was 40,676. How gigantic at 40 thousand words on that one online post! And how unique, mentioning my name (“Whitcomb”) 493 times!

Keep in mind that some blog posts contain a total of less than 400 words. It calls to mind the words of Shakespeare: “The lady doth protest too much”, although Whitcomb does not doubt that critics sincerity: He doubts the critic’s objectiveness.

Flying dinosaurs

I am a scientist, and I have discovered that the great majority of eyewitness sighting reports of extant pterosaurs are neither misidentifications nor hoaxes; part of my conclusion is based upon the data from eyewitness estimates of wingspan. Careful analysis of that data has shown me that misidentifications of birds obviously could not have played anything like a significant part in the origins of the sightings in general. Along with two other factors, hoaxes have also been shown to have played no major part in the reports.

November 9, 2022December 15, 2022

Comparing Worldwide Sightings of Living Pterosaurs: Long Tails

By Jonathan Whitcomb

How common are reports of long tails on apparent modern pterosaurs! We now begin with a report from Sudan, Africa, as I wrote in the fourth edition of my book Searching for Ropens and Finding God (page 152):

Flying Creature in Africa

I received another email, one directly from an eyewitness himself:

“In Sudan the classic house is one level made of mud bricks and walls, 3-5 rooms, 1-2 bathrooms and a kitchen, each room being a separate unit, but connected by a roofless hallway that leads to the patios.

“One evening in July of 1988, we had some guest over the house. . . . The guest were in the living room which was at one end of the house . . . I took the tray [of cookies and tea] walked through the open hallway and proceeded to the living room.

“When I got to the patio, I noticed something on the roof of my uncle’s room. . . . I was standing by the bathroom, about 10 feet away from it. . . . I seen it very clearly . . .

“It was very large, about 4 or 5 feet in height. It was an olive brown color, no feathers. It was leathery looking.. . . It had really large black claws and its tail looked like a lion’s tail . . . very long and had a bushy or hairy tip.

Ropen Sightings in Papua New Guinea

During my expedition on Umboi Island, in the southwest Pacific in 2004, I was fortunate to interview three young men deep in the interior of that island. They were in a group of seven native boys, about ten years earlier, who had a shocking encounter with a gigantic ropen. Soon after arriving at the crater lake Pung, in the middle of the day, the creature flew over the surface of that lake.

While questioning Gideon Koro, I asked how long the tail was: He said, “seven meetuh” (7 meters or 23 feet). His brother Wesley later told me that the ropen they had encountered was “too big”.

Non-native eyewitnesses in Papua New Guinea have also described a long tail on an apparent “pterodactyl” or “prehistoric” flying creature. Duane Hodgkinson, in 1944, saw one with a tail he estimated to have been “at least ten or fifteen feet” long. Brian Hennessy’s creature (1971) had a tail that he described as “longish narrow”.

Other eyewitnesses, in many areas of the world, often describe apparent pterosaurs as having long tails. In addition, many of those persons also saw some kind of appendage at the end of the tail.

Conclusion

It seems that at least one species of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur lives in many areas of the planet. These flying creatures are generally nocturnal and rare in any particular area at any particular time.

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Ropen pterodactyl

Within a few weeks after my return to the United States, two other Americans searched that same island for the ropen. They were able to explore areas in the north, where I had not been, and interview natives that I had not been able to contact.

Photo of a living pterosaur

In 2007, a businessman encountered a gigantic pterosaur as it flew in front of his car in Irvine, California, near the university, according to what he reported to me. The tail alone was about 15 feet long . . .

Flying creature with a long tail

Eyewitnesses from around the world testify of the featherless flying creatures that they have observed, unlike any bat and obviously not any bird.

Rhamphorhynchoid sighting in Minnesota

Three of us seen it. It was just turning light and it was gliding over a two lane road in front of the truck headed for a swampy area in Minnesota. . . . The teeth were all sharp, yes that’s how close we were. It had a spade tail as long as its body and a crest on its head with wings like a bat. Its color was reddish brown.

Living pterosaur in the United States

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 animals classified by standard biology as extant.

Cognitive bias and living pterosaurs

Jonathan Whitcomb, executive director of Animal Discovery in Utah, suggests why a few professional paleontologists, along with some amateurs, have loudly objected to conclusions from investigators of eyewitness accounts of apparent non-extinct pterosaurs: “Most likely they’re afraid that public respect for traditional paleontology may be damaged.”

Pterodactyl with a long tail

Eyewitnesses from around the world testify of the featherless flying creatures that they have observed, unlike any bat and obviously not any bird.

Living pterosaur sightings

In 2007, I was on Bragg Street and I heard the trees ruffle and that same thing flew from one side of the street to the other. It was beside the bike trail before you get to Central Women’s Prison. I knew I wasn’t crazy: This time a guy at the other end looking towards me saw it [at] the same time. We just stared and both said, “Did you see that?”

Ropen as a living pterosaur

This page contains hundreds of references to sightings of apparent living pterosaurs, accounts from around the world.

A non-extinct pterodactyl

Featherless flying reptiles appear to live across the globe, shocking and sometimes frightening eyewitnesses of these apparent modern pterosaurs. The animals are also called “pterodactyls” or even “flying dinosaurs” or “dinosaur birds”.

If it has a long tail, it is called “ropen”, but in some areas of Africa this reptile-creature is known as “kongamato”.

Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur

It is a strange description, to be sure, that combination of a head crest and a Rhamphorhynchoid-like tail that has a structure at tail-end. It appears almost as strange as a description of a platypus, to someone who knows about mammals and ducks but who has been ignorant of that strange animal that now lives in Australia.

Contact Jonathan Whitcomb

Communicate with the cryptozoologist

June 30, 2022July 18, 2022

Animal Discovery — Nonprofit

two cryptozoologists who saw pterodactyls

By Jonathan Whitcomb

I am the executive director of the nonprofit Animal Discovery, which emphasizes searching for certain cryptids that have been seen by eyewitnesses. Our motto is “We listen to you.”

From the page About the Ropen “Pterodactyl” on the official blog of this nonprofit organization:

Since the year 2003, I [Jonathan Whitcomb] have held a special interest in eyewitness reports of a flying creature that has become known as the ropen, what some persons have called a “pterodactyl” or a “flying dinosaur”. The word ropen comes from the Kovai language of Umboi Island in Papua New Guinea, although over the past fourteen years it has become known around the world as a word that refers to any modern flying creature that appears to an eyewitness to be a featherless long-tailed pterosaur . . .

Report your sighting of a pterodactyl

Milt Marcy (left) and Peter Beach, in S.E. Washington state

I’m delighted that these two cryptozoologists are on the board of directors for Animal Discovery. Both of them have been on an expedition on New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea, and not only were they searching for a modern living pterosaur but they found and videotaped such a flying creature.

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What is a Ropen?

Reports of smaller ones, less than three meters in wingspan, in the Manus Island area of Papua New Guinea (second-hand accounts) might be juveniles of the same species as the larger ones on or around Umboi Island.

Pterodactyl Sightings

Scott Norman, a cryptozoologist from Southern California, decided to meet with some of his associates in central California, where people had reported living pterosaurs. He was skeptical, thinking that they had videotaped only a bird at night. When he spent a night watching the sky, however, he saw something like a Pteranodon . . .

Ropen Pterodactyl

Hodgkinson was hiking up into the interior, away from Finschhafen, with an army buddy, when the two soldiers encountered the strange flying creature. In a jungle clearing with moderately high grass, a clearing about a hundred feet in diameter, the two men saw something at the far side, something astonishing. From the scientific paper “Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific,” we read . . .

Two cryptozoologists see a modern pterosaur

I was delighted to discover, earlier this week, the Youtube video “PNG Expedition 2015 Documentary (Milt Marcy).” I talked with Milt Marcy and Peter Beach, by phone, soon after they returned to the USA from their expedition on New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea . . .

An eyewitness sees a ropen

From a comment on this Youtube video (ANOTHER eyewitness): “You don’t have to go to New Guinea to see one! I saw one back in 1968 in Lansing, Illinois and in broad daylight! People in the USA are seeing these things more and more . . .”

Ropen animal discovery

How do I know that a ropen with a thirty-foot wingspan, now hunting house cats and killing chickens in Nevada, is the same animal seen in Draper, Utah, a few years ago? The one in Utah was about that size, or a bit smaller, and was there hunting house cats and killing chickens.