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Respecting Eyewitness Testimony

Another still image from the video "Why You Are NOT Crazy" on the channel "Protect Animal Life"

By Jonathan Whitcomb

How strange is this title for a video: “Why You Are NOT Crazy“! At only two and a half minutes long, it pleads for people to keep an open mind about those who declare that they have seen an apparent primitive flying creature.

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Still from the YouTube video "Why You Are NOT Crazy"

Here is the first paragraph of the narration:

No Problem! You are NOT crazy to believe someone who reports seeing a living pterodactyl — Many thousands of Americans have seen something that at least LOOKS like a non-extinct pterosaur, during the past 79 years, if we begin with a sighting by the late Duane Hodgkinson, during World War II.

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Another still image from the video "Why You Are NOT Crazy" on the channel "Protect Animal Life"

From this video on the YouTube channel Protect Animal Life

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Missing Persons in USA – Attack from a Ropen?

The following Youtube video covers three possible “pterodactyl” attacks against children, during the past 80 years, in the United States.

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Loss Aversion and Living 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!

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Youtube Videos on Living-Pterosaurs

As we approach the 15-year anniversary of my ropen expedition on Umboi Island, I’ll share my views on some Youtube videos and playlists: about these amazing flying creatures. You choose which ones to watch.

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Newly-Acquired Reports of Pterodactyl Sightings in the United States

The following are some of the *more-recently received sighting reports of modern pterosaurs in the USA. We’ll start with two Youtube videos on the channel Protect Animal Life (PAL) and then get into two emails. At least one report seems to have been about a ropen. (*The encounters themselves may be older.)

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Pterodactyl “Civil War” Photo

Rectangular belt buckles were not, apparently, worn by common Union soldiers during the American Civil War, as I understand. Is this just a rare exception shown in this Ptp image? Look at other men in Ptp:

Apparently not one of the six men has a rank even as high as a sergeant, and not one of them seems to have an oval belt buckle, which has been called the standard buckle shape for common Union soldiers during the American Civil War. So what are we to conclude? [They were very likely photographed shortly AFTER the end of the American Civil War.]

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The Ropen and an Alligator Story

ropen sketch over the Continental USA map

By Jonathan Whitcomb

The following comment I found under one of my videos on my Youtube channel Protect Animal Life. (This comment is edited for correct English.) I’ll include a bit about the video and a link to it at the bottom of the comment.  For a recent video on this subject, see “Ropen or Alligator Belief“.

From nix-cipher (about mid-2021):

The video above this comment is “Pterodactyls Living — Deceased Eyewitnesses“, although it is not close to being one my better videos. Feel free to go there and reply to that comment.

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Missing Persons in the United States

The following Youtube video covers three possible “pterodactyl” attacks against children, during the past 80 years, in the United States.

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Pterodactyl or Ropen on Camera

[Youtube video] How is a sighting of two “pterosaurs” in North Carolina, both caught on camera, related to a sighting of two “pterosaurs” in Minnesota? . . . It’s possible that the four flying creatures are all of the same species, and both encounters were only a few years ago.

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Pterodactyl – ROPEN – Expedition in a Jungle

Much has been written, over the past 19 years, about the first year-2004 ropen expedition on Umboi Island in Papua New Guinea; not so much, however, has been written about the second expedition of that year. [another Youtube video on the channel Protect Animal Life]

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Flying Dinosaurs – Modern Pterodactyls ALIVE!

TWENTY pterodactyl sightings from excerpts of eight videos on the channel “Protect Animal Life”—those shocking encounters from around the world correlate with large flying creatures that can fly great distances around the world.

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Ropen sightings

Encounter, in Georgia, USA, with a Ropen

. . . entering an area of thick woods, around a mild downhill curve, with high banks and brush on each side of the road, when an animal suddenly flew from the right, just over the front of her car. Although alone, she yelled, ‘What the— what — what is that?’ She was stunned.

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Civil War Dinosaur – Pterodactyl Photo

This ropen-pterodactyl-photo video has far more detail on the photograph itself, MUCH more information about Ptp image and how it very well may be a genuine photo of a modern pterosaur, recorded at around the year 1867.

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Living Pterosasurs and Alligators

Two animals that are called “prehistoric”

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What is a Ropen

After exploring Umboi Island in 2004, Jonathan  Whitcomb (author of Searching for Ropens and Finding God) concluded that there is only one large ropen living continuously in the interior of Umboi Island, but many live on the mainland of Papua New Guinea.

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Modern Pterosaurs and Remote Control Pterodactyls

mechanical pterodactyl remote-control

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”.

mechanical pterodactyl remote-control

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:

  1. Sit on the ground while pecking a dead fish in southern Minnesota
  2. Sit on a telephone wire by a storm channel in Lakewood, California
  3. Attack fishermen at night on the bank of the Delaware River
  4. 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

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Lake in Minnesota - near sighting location: huge pterodactyl

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

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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.

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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 . . .

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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”.

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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”.

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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

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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.

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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.

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Freakylinks “Civil War” Pterodactyl Photo and Ptp

six men and a large pterodactyl in an old photo

By Jonathan Whitcomb

In recent years, a few skeptics have suggested that the Ptp image originated with the TV show FreakyLinks with “Coelacanth This”, which was the fourth episode of the first season (year 2000). Unfortunately for the skeptical side, they have not provided any direct evidence but rely on second-hand or third-hand accounts and the skeptics’ unverified imagination.

Those critics do not mention any person who worked on any supposed computer model (or physical model) or who worked with supposed actors in the supposed creation of Ptp. In fact, as best as I can tell at present, they have not mentioned even one person who witnessed anyone working on such a supposed digital  or physical model, since they seem to imply that there was either a 3D computer model or a physical model.

By the way, the FreakyLinks TV episodes were scary science-fiction supernatural-themed stories on the Fox network, broadcast from October of 2000 until June of 2001. You might call it a series of hoax shows, except that most viewers are aware, or should be, that they are watching fiction.

The complete image that is now called “Ptp”

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“Coelacanth This!” FreakyLinks Episode

The story does not begin with a pterodactyl; that comes later. A group of young investigators dive into a mysterious death from something that could have been a monster of some kind. The drama then evolves into a pterodactyl-like flying creature that keeps coming back every few decades, seemingly because of long periods of hibernation.

car crash on the sci-fi TV episode "Coelacanth This!"Near beginning of this TV episode on the Fox Network

A key point in this fictional story is the discovery of an old photo of six “Civil War” soldiers posing beside the body of a huge Pteranodon-like animal. This is not just implied to be a photograph from the American Civil War: That point is clearly made in the communications between investigators.

The image shown several times in that episode appears to be identical to Ptp. With a deeper examination, however, it is clear that the bottom part of the picture is missing in that episode. Yet the complete image can now be found on a number of web sites, apparently none of which are directly related to any of the production companies involved, twenty-two years ago, in the creation of the TV episode in question.

FreakyLinks TV episode with photo of a pterodactylMost of the Ptp image is seen in this TV episode of FreakyLinks

In other words, where did the complete image of Ptp come from? There seems to be no evidence it came from any production company associated with the episode “Coelacanth This!”. It definitely did not come from anyone capturing the image from any portion of the episode itself. Most likely the producers realized that it was in the public domain, because of its age. They then used it in the production, even though they had used a fake photo in the pre-production web page that promoted the episode.

Let’s now get back to the “Civil War” aspect of the case. This must have been written in the script. So why do the men in Ptp have only a superficial resemblance to Civil War soldiers?

More to the point, why do we see an extraordinary apparent pterosaur, with details that include muscle structure in the neck? If this was a physical model or a computer model or a drawing, created by FreakyLinks, why do the soldiers have uniforms and equipment that are so UNLIKE what non-officer Union Civil War soldiers had? Why should the creature be so accurately portrayed while the men look so much like they lived AFTER the Civil War?

And why do five of the six men have right-handed pistol holsters while one has a left-handed holster? That detail is exactly what we could expect if these men were NOT Civil War reenactors or any other kind of actors. Very likely is this: They were photographed between about 1867 and 1880.

six soldiers are right-handed; one is left-handedProper ratio of right-handed to left-handed men

And why were those men standing like that, with one of them having a boot resting of some kind of object? Try this answer: Those men were standing around the large flying creature that we see in Ptp. Apparently this is not a hoax-pterodactyl but a genuine recently-deceased flying creature.

By the way, many persons have reported that they saw Ptp in an old book or magazine decades before the end of the 20th century. Of course, memory can play tricks on us, yet those declarations fit perfectly well with the concept that those six men appear very much like they lived before the beginning of the 20th century. And it’s not just their uniforms and equipment:  Each has a beard or mustache style that fits that time period and those men have similar body builds, like they had been eating together for a long time or at least under similar conditions. What are the chances that six actors from the year 2000, chosen randomly, would fit together so well?

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Addendum

There’s more to the mystery. What about the fake photo used in the pre-production web page? It was very likely intended, before filming, to be the image used in the episode itself. Here is a likely explanation, one that harmonizes with the details seen in the six men of Ptp and the detailed image of an apparent modern pterosaur in Ptp. It’s not the only possibility, just the most likely.

comparing two photos of possible modern pterodactylsThe pre-production image (“AP”) is on the left; Ptp, on the right

As of mid-November, 2022, I (Jonathan Whitcomb) believe that AP was staged by Haxan Films, and the arrangement of the actors and fake “pterodactyl” was an imitation of what is now called Ptp.

In other words, it is no coincidence that both images have the soldier in front with one boot on the beak or head of an apparent creature. I believe that Ptp existed first and AP was created to imitate it.

Keep in mind that the special effects company that worked with Haxan Films at that time was E=MC2 Digital. It is possible that the original image that was transformed into Ptp was obtained by E=MC2 Digital and assumed, at first, to be under copyright protection.

In other words, as of mid-November, 2022, I do not know if Ptp, with its discoloration and white blotches and scratch mark, is what E=MC2 Digital obtained from some old publication or if that original image was altered by E=MC2 Digital to make it appear older before giving it to Haxan Films for that episode of FreakLinks.

Regardless of whether E=MC2 Digital altered the original (that became Ptp) or not, I believe that Ptp (or the original of it) became the model for the creation of the AP photo: Ptp existed first. Nobody that I know of has any doubt about AP: It was a hoax created by using actors and a crude model that was supposed to look like a dead pterodactyl. If fact, that crude fake pterodactyl has been owned by a well-known cryptozoologist for some time, kept as part of his collection.

I believe that two things happened before filming began on the episode “Coelacanth This!”:

  1. The AP photo was found to be poor in quality
  2. Ptp (or the original version of it) no longer had a copyright issue

The main problem with #1 was the “pterodactyl”, which looked not only unconvincing as such an animal but was ludicrously so: If nobody told you that it was supposed to be a pterosaur, you might not guess what it represented.

The main solution with #2 may have been this: The production team or teams came to realize that there was no actual copyright issue, at least if they handled it carefully. They could have come to realize that it was now in public domain, because of its age, or they could have managed to alter it and present it in such a way that it would not have any reasonable way allowing anyone to make a copyright claim on it. Yet there is another explanation.

I believe that the most likely possibility is this: The production teams came to realize that the men who were photographed would no longer be living, so release forms would not be needed from them. In addition, there would not be any issue with copyright, for Haxan would make limited use of the Ptp image, and E=MC2 Digital could have further manipulated it. This would allow Haxan to invoke “fair use” with Ptp.

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Apparently a real photo of a pterodactyl

If evidence shows that it was a physical object [pterodactyl or hoax], rather than only a digitally created non-real object, then we can look deeper into what that strange-looking thing might have been.

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YouTube video on pterosaur eyewitnesses and Ptp

See how eyewitness testimony relates to video footage regarding modern living pterosaurs, a.k.a. “pterodactyls”. Also see the Ptp image whose origin comes not from modern actors or Civil War reenactors but from a photograph AFTER that war but before the beginning of the 20th century.

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Missing Persons in USA – Attack from a Ropen?

 I was 4 years old . . . I was heading to the house from the chicken house [at] about 8 a.m. when a large flying creature tried to grab me . . . The body (about the size of a Volkswagen bug) was covered in hair. . . . It had a beak with teeth . . .

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Cognitive biases and modern pterosaurs

Dr. Laurie Santos, a cognitive scientist and professor of psychology at Yale, has commented on the bias called loss aversion: “We don’t like losing stuff . . .”

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The Ptp “Civil War” photograph in context

In 2007, a businessman encountered a gigantic pterosaur as it flew in front of his car in Irvine, California, near the university . . .

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Pterodactyl photo Ptp

. . . the image we have: apparent American soldiers, dressed like men of the Union army of the Civil War, at least with uniforms that suggest such to the casual observer of the apparently old photo.

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The old flying dinosaur photo

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.

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Apparent modern pterosaur in Mexico

I’ve been talking to my mother about the pterodactyl like creature she saw about 15 years ago. . . . in Lázaro Cardenas, Michoacán (Mexico) . . . Small pterodactyl like animal. Leathered. . . . Wingspan, as they weren’t completely open, could be a meter (bit more or less) . . .

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Marfa Lights and flying predators

What kind of flying creature is the ropen? When eyewitnesses describe the features of this creature, it becomes obvious: The ropen is a large long-tailed pterosaur, AKA “pterodactyl.

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The flying creature “ropen”

What do we know about the ropen? It is not confined to Papua New Guinea, which makes sense when we consider that the largest ones have wingspans greater than twenty feet. Flying creatures similar to the ropen of the southwest Pacific have been reported in Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America.

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