I am actually grateful that one skeptic brought up a woodpecker interpretation for sightings of apparent pterosaurs on the west coast of the United States . . . sort of. It kicked me off my comfortable couch, to search for more information about woodpeckers and other birds, and to learn about pterosaurs that perch and birds that do not perch. Thank you for that.

But the problems with that misidentified-bird conjecture are enormous. In fact, a careful examination of details is so damaging to the woodpecker interpretation that I will not even mention that skeptic’s name in this post; I have no desire to appear to insult any person.

So many skeptics have allowed themselves to be blinded! When referring to the sighting of an apparent pterosaur southeast of Griffith Park (May 13, 2013), one skeptic said, “This sounds like possibly another series of sightings of an outsized woodpecker similar to the Ivory-billed woodpecker.” But that remark appears to be a hasty response, without reference to the critical sighting of three “dragons” just ten weeks earlier and just a mile and a half to the north.

Since the skeptic said “series of sightings,” we will take this encounter in context, examining details in other sighting reports in California. But first consider this May 13th encounter and see if a woodpecker is responsible.

Pterosaur Sighting by Devin Rhodriquez, May 13, 2013

Compare these images chosen by Devin Rhodriquez to a large sketch of the Imperial Woodpecker wing shown further below:

The above six silhouettes were chosen from about three dozen images of birds, bats, and pterosaurs. That is the same survey page that was used by Garth Guessman and David Woetzel, in their Umboi Island ropen expedition in 2004 (a few weeks after my own expedition there). Please take note: In that expedition, only two natives, of those natives on Umboi Island who had been given the survey, had a clear view of the shape of the ropen: Jonathan Ragu and Jonah Jim. Both of them chose #13, the Sordes Pilosus, a long-tailed pterosaur.

This #13 is one of the images chosen by the American eyewitness Devin Rhodriquez (May 13, 2013, sighting near Griffith Park). Each of these six silhouettes is of a pterosaur; no bird image was chosen by this eyewitness.

Now let’s compare this encounter with the one ten weeks earlier, only about 1.5 miles to the north, also near Griffith Park. By the way, I choose these reports to be considered together because both eyewitnesses contacted me by email within weeks of each other and the locations were so close.

March 3, 2013, Pterosaur Sighting

Two months before Rhodriquez’s sighting of a “pterosaur,” another lady was driving on the I-5 Freeway in Los Angeles, also in a northbound lane. She observed three “dragons” gliding or soaring over that freeway, just east of Griffith Park and also near the Los Angeles River. The ratio of  head, body, and tail length “was certainly not that of a bird. Their wings were long, angular and pointed and their tails had triangular points.”

That eyewitness was given the same survey form, and she said, “I would say #13 except their heads were bigger.” The Sordes Pilosus was one of the six chosen by Rhodriquez and by the two eyewitnesses on Umboi Island. Is it a coincidence that all of those eyewitnesses chose that long-tailed pterosaur as having a similar wing-shape to what they had seen? No. Could everybody be observing woodpeckers that look like long-tailed pterosaurs? No. Where is even one sighting report of an apparent pterosaur that turned out to have been from a woodpecker?

It’s also no coincidence that so many Southern California pterosaur sightings are near storm channels or near the Los Angeles River (which is actually a giant storm channel). The creatures are nocturnal but on occasion a disturbance in daylight will awaken one of them, causing a daylight flight, resulting in a sighting.

Humans see poorly in the dark sky of night, so the many nocturnal flyovers go mostly unseen or unnoticed, especially when the creatures are flying at night through storm channels. And those flying creatures might indeed become extinct if they were foolish enough to avoid those channels where rats and possums and other yummy animals could be easily captured.

The March 3rd sighting, near Griffith Park, was almost at night: 6:10 a.m., but there was plenty of light for the eyewitness to see the strange appearance of three large long-tailed non-woodpeckers gliding over the freeway—without wing flapping.

June 19, 2012, Pterosaur Sighting: Lakewood, California

An earlier sighting in Los Angeles County, northeast of Long Beach—this might be partially what caused the skeptic to mention perching, but he gives few details about what he is referring to regarding perching. I have tied this Lakewood sighting to the two encounters near Griffith Park, so I assume the skeptic took notice of that.

The lady was observing the creature in her backyard as she was standing less than eighteen feet below it, as it perched on a telephone cable over a storm channel. The lady said that the creature ”had [a triangle] on his tail, like a dragon.” She thought the tail was at least four feet long, maybe five feet. Keep in mind that the end of that tail was only about eighteen feet from the end of the lady’s nose, before the creature flew away from its perch. That was no woodpecker.

Irving, California, Pterosaur Sighting

Take the above in context with another encounter, this one southeast of Los Angeles County. The eyewitness told me that the creature he saw flying not far above the road on which he was driving was the same length as the width of that road. That means the apparent ropen was thirty feet long, for I later measured the width of that road myself, pacing it off with my own feet. No woodpecker, extinct or still living, ever attained a length of 30 feet, not even in the imagination of a skeptic.

When did the skeptic in question ever mention the estimated sizes of what eyewitnesses have reported to me? I don’t recall reading any of his comments in which he mentioned size, perhaps because of the sighting close to the University of California at Irvine in the summer of 2007. No woodpecker could have been misidentified with a size estimate like that. In addition, the eyewitness described the tail as about half that length, or about 15 feet. That was no woodpecker.

Perching Pterosaurs and Non-Perching Woodpeckers

Immediately after mentioning the woodpecker interpretation of pterosaur sightings in California, the skeptic said, “The creature which is reported as a pterosaur perches upright, which no kind of a pterosaur could do.” Well, that old generalization no longer applies, for we now know that one type of pterosaur could indeed perch upright, and that long-tailed variety just happens to be . . . yes, the same general type observed perching upright on a telephone line in Lakewood, California, on June 19, 2012: the long-tailed variety.

I believe woodpeckers are not perching birds, unless I have seriously mistaken what I have been reading lately about birds. I suggest the skeptic has failed to look deeply enough into this subject, but I accept correction if I have misunderstood woodpeckers.

In other words, the kind of bird the skeptic offers to us cannot perch but the Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur observed perching last year in Lakewood is the type of pterosaur that could perch, according to fossils that show the opposing toe-digit on the foot. If that were not damaging enough to the proclamations of that skeptic, the main context of his blog post is regarding a sighting southeast of Griffith Park, on May 13, 2013, in which the creature was gliding or soaring over a freeway, not perching.

Woodpeckers in California

None of the eyewitnesses that I have interviewed, over the past ten years, to the best of my recollection, described the coloring of what they had seen as anything at all similar to the Imperial Woodpecker or the Ivory Billed Woodpecker. It seems to me that the skeptic who has suggested woodpeckers has ignored critical details that eliminate that bird and has distorted, in his own imagination, the head-crest concept.

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Wing of the Imperial Woodpecker

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The Imperial Woodpecker

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Ivory Billed Woodpecker

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“Pterodactyl” drawn by the eyewitness Eskin C. Kuhn (Gitmo Pterosaur of Cuba)

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Sketch by the eyewitness Patty Carson (another Gitmo Pterosaur of Cuba)

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Dragons Around Griffith Park in Los Angeles

Both observations involved a lady alone in a vehicle in a northbound lane of the Interstate-5 Freeway between Griffith Park and Glendale. Both eyewitnesses sent me an email soon after a sighting. Both believed no bird misidentification was involved.

Dragon Pterosaurs in Southern California

The eyewitness of the “Griffith Park dragons” first thought she was observing three non-living things flying over her car (she was driving north on the I-5 at about 6:10 a.m. on a Sunday). She assumed it was some kind of stunt, perhaps with kites, for the three “dragons” looked nothing like birds. When she saw the tails move slightly, she realized that they were alive.

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I don’t usually make a lengthy post, in this blog, on a negative review of one of my books (the book now in question is Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea, Kindle ebook, by Jonathan Whitcomb). But the recent Amazon review by “WS” deserves a response for much of it is patently false and much is distorted or misleading. Here’s a screen shot of the review:

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“More religion than investigation”?

Perhaps 1% of the book mentions two missionaries (one in Africa and another in Papua New Guinea) and a few creationist explorers and how the Biblical creationist perspective made it easier for them to search for living pterosaurs. But that 1% of the book gives no details about any religious beliefs nor does it promote any religion of those men. Their involvement is just a matter of record.

Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea (LPAPNG) does give many details about sightings of apparent pterosaurs and expeditions to search for the flying creatures and interview eyewitnesses. It also investigates why it is so difficult for Australians to report their encounters. Why doubt that LPAPNG is a cryptozoology book or believe it is “more religion than investigation?” Perhaps WS allows only skeptical investigators to count and considers creationist investigators to be incapable of any genuine investigation. But why does WS not give any details or explain what is meant by the title “More religion than investigation?”

“One or two Intriguing Reports”?

Of the many pterosaur sighting reports investigated in this Kindle book, four of them are labeled “key” sightings. Each of those four is given a chapter of its own:

• “The Finschhafen Pterodactyl”
• “The Bougainville Creature”
• “The Lake Pung Encounter”
• “The Perth Creature”

Consider WS’s declaration: “The book really consists of one or two intriguing reports . . .” Without the word “intriguing,” that statement is patently false. With the word, WS is declaring his opinion or his personal interest in a small portion of the sighting reports. But WS’s statement can be misleading, for no mention is made about the many sighting reports investigated in the book, the many reports that he personally does not find intriguing.

Just Vague Lights?

WS mentioned “some vague sightings of lights in the night sky” but drops the subject. Consider what WS failed mentioning:

Jonah Jim saw the creature in 2001, between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., as it flew about 500-550 feet overhead, in the general direction of Lake Pung. The tail was glowing blue.

He estimated the size: The wingspan was six or seven meters and the tail length was three meters or a little less. . . .

Jonah Jim was shown the same pages of silhouettes shown to Jonathan Ragu. From among those thirty-four images, he chose #13, the Sordes Pilosus, the same Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur chosen by Ragu.

That nine-foot-long tail that was glowing blue, flying toward Lake Pung, about 500-550 feet high, connected to an apparent Sordes Pilosus Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur having a wingspan of about twenty feet—that does not sound vague to me. Why fail to mention that light?

“Antiscience Rhetoric”?

WS said that much of the book contains ”the author’s antiscience rhetoric.” If that were the case, it would be easy to find some of it to quote. Let’s examine some of what the book actually contains:

The first discovery of a pterosaur fossil by a Western scientist, in 1784, was decades before Charles Darwin began writing about his ideas on extinctions and evolution. Before Darwin, Western scientists had assumed that all species of pterosaurs were extinct for a simple reason: Those who discovered the fossils had no experience with any similar animal that was living.

Also important, probably no scientist at that time had considered that a few species of pterosaurs might still be alive, rarely seen because they’re both uncommon and nocturnal. Today, some cryptozoologists believe that one or more of their species are indeed uncommon and nocturnal—and still alive. [from early in the first chapter]

Does the above sound like “antiscience rhetoric?” What’s wrong with considering the possibility that a few scientists in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century might not be 100% correct about universal pterosaur extinction?

For “ancient” creatures assumed extinct, post-Darwin scientists were incapable of accepting anything short of an official scientific discovery. But nothing happened. How could living pterosaurs remain hidden, considering all the various scientific discoveries in the twentieth century? It was simple. The uncommon nocturnal flying creatures found it easy to remain hidden: Nobody was looking for them. [from the middle of the first chapter]

Where is the “antiscience rhetoric” in the above paragraph? What is unscientific about the idea that scientists after Darwin were not looking for living pterosaurs?

By the middle of the twentieth century, school teachings had cemented the ancient-extinction idea into Western culture, so dinosaurs and pterosaurs were portrayed as living only in science fiction and dragons only in fantasy. [further into chapter one]

Do you notice any “antiscience rhetoric” in the above sentence? I see nothing unscientific in the statement.

Assumptions About Extinctions

It seems to me that WS became upset that my book appeared threatening to the credibility of generations of assumptions about extinctions. I suggest we take an open mind to the definition of “science” rather than think it equates with such a narrow point of view as the universal extinction of all species of pterosaurs.

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More Religion than Investigation?

This dismantles criticisms, by WS, of the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea.

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Non-fiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea

From the end of the book:

What dictionary defines “pterosaur” without the word “extinct?” There lies the first problem, in Western society, for Australians and Americans are raised from young childhood to believe in the extinction of all species of pterosaurs and dinosaurs, without compromise, and what is the explanation? “Science.”

A critical support for the concept of modern living pterosaurs is the accumulation of sighting reports of those flying creatures. Direct eyewitness testimony of a pterosaur sighting is essential, even if we have to wait many years for photographic evidence.

My associates and I hope that our efforts will someday directly yield photographic evidence and even the capture of one or more of these flying creatures; but for the moment, let’s consider photos that have already been held up as images of possible pterosaurs, notwithstanding my associates and I are not among those who have contributed photographs. (I’m leaving out photos of flying lights, for little or no form or features have been revealed in them.)

Several photos of an apparent “pterodactyl” or Pteranodon are found floating around the internet. Let’s look at three of them, beginning our examinations with a photo of the most questionable of three possible pterosaurs:

Photo #1: Consider why this is probably nothing like a ropen

I found this on a web site that refers to this photo as a ropen in Papua New Guinea; but it looks familiar to me. I propose two perspectives, beginning with a direct examination.

Face value of photo #1

I presume somebody thought that the left side of the object in the sky was of a head on the end of a long neck. I can see that, although by itself it does not convince me that this is a flying creature. I can imagine a bit of the far wing showing on top of what could be the near wing. That apparent tail, however, presents a problem. It’s too fat and turned up far too much. Overall, this could very well be something non-living, something very unlike any flying creature and unrelated to any pterosaur sighting.

My memory and photo #1

This looks much like a photo I received years ago. Somebody (I believe it was a lady) sent me a photo that was taken while she was traveling back east somewhere, I think it was in New England. She took the photo through the window of the vehicle in which she was traveling, but she did not see anything in the sky—not before, during , or immediately after snapping the shot. The object in the sky was not noticed until after she looked at the photo.

In other words, if this photo #1 is the one I remember, it was not recorded in Papua New Guinea but in the eastern United States, and nobody saw any flying creature at the time it was recorded. If could be just a leave blowing in the wind. Case closed.

The next two are related, for #2 appears to be a recent hoax that took photo #3 as a model:

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Photo #2: Imitation of an older photograph

Reputation of photo #2

From what I have read on one post, this is an acknowledged fake by the creators, not necessarily with any Photoshop work but by using Civil War reenactors and a cheap construction to look like a large winged creature, a hoax in more recent years. It is said to have been created for the fourth TV episode (“Coelacanth This!”) of FreakyLinks, which was produced by Haxan (producers of the “Blair Witch Project”) and possibly for one other episode of FreakyLinks.

Face Value of photo #2

I’ve had only limited experience examining genuine photos of Civil War soldiers, but I’ll submit my observations. It’s unusual, though not rare, for a Civil War soldier posing for a photograph to fold his arms across his chest. In this photo, however, two soldiers in a row do just that, making it more strange. In addition, these look like ordinary soldiers, not colonels or generals, so we should expect thin young men, and the one on the left looks to me like he’s too big around the middle: more like a Civil War reenactor soldier in the twentieth century.

Now look at the “creature” at their feet. The wings look more like fabric than flesh, and the head is difficult to make out. I don’t say it’s impossible for a large recently-deceased featherless flying creature to look like that, just that it looks more like an imitation of one.

Unless somebody can come up with some dramatic evidence to the contrary, the combination of rotten reputation and questionable appearance shoots this doctored up photograph right through the heart, although it takes just a little while to finally die.

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Photo #3: Maybe the original photo of Civil War soldiers with a dead “pterodactyl” (click on it for more detail)

This may be the photograph that some people report being in a “believe it or not” kind of publication in the mid-twentieth century. According to one story, the photograph was taken near Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1864. Setting aside the question of authenticity and possible fraud or lack thereof, this appears to have been used as a model for the photo #2 hoax.

I think I’m one of the eyewitnesses . . . I mean I myself may have seen this photo in an old book. But memory can play tricks on us, so I don’t place great emphasis on that; I’ll need to do more research.

Despite the canoe-like wings, photo #3 is the most credible of these three, by far, believe it or not. My intention, however, is not to force this into an all-or-nothing, sure-thing-or-fake, judgment. Assign it whatever credibility you like, after considering the following. (And don’t forget to click on photo #3 when necessary, to get a closer view. Please take your time on this.)

Overall appearance

Overexposure of the tree on the right (photo #3) impresses me; it’s common in Civil War era photography. Compare it with the unquestionably genuine photo below:

Genuine photograph, maybe around the mid-19th century

In the above photograph, look past the old men and past the carriage. Notice the grass that’s pure white. I believe that patch of ground was in sunlight during the photo session, making it over-exposed in the extreme. Photo #3 is far more impressive in this overexposure appearance than photo #2.

Now click on #3 and notice the faces of the soldiers. This clear focus is common in Civil War photography. Even in a far shot of many persons, individuals can often be recognized because of sharp focus. When I blew up photo #2, however, the men were out of focus, probably done on purpose to try to make it look like an old photo.

To construe a canoe (but see also Addendum #1 at bottom of post)

Whenever I see this photo (#3), I think of a canoe. Sceptics probably think the same thing, for those long wings give that canoe-impression. But looking deeper brings up some serious questions.

Just what kind of canoe is that in photo #3? Search Google with “canoe images” and compare. From what I’ve seen, nothing else comes close to it: Partial side-views of real canoes show nothing even remotely like the sharp point at the right of photo #3. Why would any canoe be constructed so long, narrow, and low, and with such a sharp point? If anybody knows of such a canoe, please let me know. I would hate to be a swimmer having an accident with that kind of canoe.

The point is simple: If that long thing is not a canoe, it’s a non-canoe, and our mental processes that bring up “canoe” are irrelevant.

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Canoes on Lake Louise (but see also Addendum #1)

A skeptic might point out that if those wings are not canoes, they look very poor aerodynamically. That’s true. But dead creatures don’t fly, and that curving of the wings might have come from the effects of death.

Wings of the Flying Creature

A skeptic might dismiss photo #3 because the wings are too pointed to be the wings of a Pteranodon. Well, the wings of that type of pterosaur were indeed quite pointed, even if not as much, perhaps, as what is shown in this photo. But why must a huge recently-deceased creature in recent centuries be precisely like a Pteranodon in every way? (We’ll return to the Pteranodon interpretation later.)

A skeptic might ask why soil appears in the indented parts of those wings. Was somebody trying to hide something, trying to cover up a fraud by covering it with soil? Consider a more reasonable explanation. One or more soldiers had started to bury the huge creature by simply digging up nearby soil and throwing it onto the thing. Somebody then learned that a photographer was nearby, so the burial ceremony stopped, the creature was dragged to an open area (where there was better lighting), and a few soldiers gathered around for the photo session. But there’s an even more likely variation of that conjecture.

Notice what appears to be grass in the soil on those wings. What’s going on? When the burial started, what soil would have been used? At first the top-most soil, the shovel would catch, namely soil with grass. I suggest that’s where the soldiers came to a stop. After all, the sergeant never said to give the monster a decent burial, just bury it. Some time could have passed before somebody caught a photographer and the monster was dragged into an open area for a photo session; of course, considering the smell, they might have also dragged the photographer. But the point is this: Who cares if the monster looks monsterously dirty? Why bother to remove the soil from the wings? Think about it and consider if that may be a more reasonable explanation.

How old is the Photograph?

On the surface, it looks like a Civil War photo, which means mid-nineteenth century. What would a skeptic suggest? Perhaps it’s not from the Civil War era but more recently, in other words a hoax created after the Civil War. But that presents a few problems. When was the photo taken?

It’s reported to have been published between 1950 and 1970, which rules out Photoshop forgery, at least for the version of the photo that was published in that printing. I remember something like this photo, probably in a book from the Pasadena (California) public library around the late 1960′s, so let’s examine the following possibilities:

1. Hoax created between 1945 and 1970
2. Hoax created between 1941 and 1945
3. . . . between 1900 and 1941
4. . . . between 1865 and 1900

Regardless of when this photograph was taken, it was done with six men who look like Civil War soldiers, in uniforms and with rifles to match. If these men are imitating a Civil War scene, after 1865, they are making a convincing imitation. I have no doubt this photo (#3) was used as a model for the hoax of photo #2. The question is could #3 also be a hoax.

Here’s the problem with a hoax created between 1945 and 1970. I know that period well, having lived through most of those years. At that time, how could anyone find six men to creature such a hoax? Who would have sufficient motivation? Believe me, hardly one person on the planet would have both motivation and ability to create an elaborate hoax photo, with six apparent Civil War soldiers, that would portray a huge recently-deceased pterodactyl. The only reasonable explanation, for a hoax between 1945 and 1970, is that a film company was making a movie. But in that case, we would have a motion picture, not just one still image, and there would probably be nothing like a mystery to the photo. In addition, we would have nothing like a convincing overexposure of a tree on the right side of a still photo.

For 1941 to 1945, forget it. Everybody was too busy with everything related to World War II.

For 1900 to 1941, a number of problems jump out. We still have a lack of motivation for creating such a hoax, although that’s not as much of an issue. Who would have, and use, the needed resources for creating such a hoax? Some of those years were during the Depression, and some were during World War I, and between those times people were too busy partying.

But seriously, a major issue is technology. Consider the quality of special effects in movies before the Depression; if you’ve seen any special effects in a movie from the 1920′s you’ll understand. Who would be capable of creating a convincing still photo of what we are examining, even if such a person had any interest in doing so?

For 1865 to 1900, we could imagine the possibility of a hoax. In the nineteenth century in general, some newspapers increased circulation, on occasion, by printing a fantastic story that had little or no basis in fact. Old photographic equipment and Civil War uniforms—both were still easily available, surely. Let’s look at this possibility more closely.

In the first three decades following the end of the Civil War, an occasional newspaper article might have originated from questionable sources. But if you’ve ever read some of those old newspaper articles, you’d know that the writing quality was less than what we’re now used to. Look again at photo #3. To create a hoax like that would be quite an undertaking before 1900.

Why would any hoaxer at that time use six men dressed in Civil War uniforms? One man would be plenty, at most two; why go to the trouble of dressing up even three men? And why go to the trouble of finding rifles for six men? It’s too much.

Consider what work would have been entailed in creating anything remotely like that huge creature. It’s out of all proportion to the quickly written sensational stories that we’re now considering, sensational articles in the nineteenth century. The two just don’t fit together: cheap writings and extraordinary photo hoaxing.

Now for another problem: Where is the newspaper article?

I’ve spent considerable time searching archives of old newspapers. It’s part of my occupation, my work in cryptozoology. (I have not limited the searching to words like “pterodactyl” or “pterosaur.”) I have found success in discovering old newspaper articles about apparent pterosaur sightings, including some in the nineteenth century. But I have not yet seen even one article similar to the story of Civil War soldiers who were photographed next to a huge recently-deceased flying creature. Why believe that such an article exists? I would be delighted if anyone else would like to research this; please let me know what you find.

I realize a skeptic could ask, “If the sighting had been real, why did the story not get into any newspaper?” I’ll tell you. It has to do with species. Humans in 1864 were the same species as we are. Why does no newpaper, that I know of, print any article about a significant pterosaur sighting that I publish in a news release, in the twenty-first century? I suggest it may be the same reason that a newspaper in 1864 would not print anything about a dead monster found by soldiers (or killed by them). Of course a convincing photograph would probably have made a huge difference, but what is the history of that photograph? Where did it go or where did it lay hidden? I hope somebody can do the research to discover those answers.

Could it have been a hoax during the Civil War?

We again have the problem with motivation and ability. Who would have both the desire and the means to contrive such an elaborate hoax photograph during the Civil War? It’s just too weird.

I know that a skeptic would wonder at that use of the expression “too weird,” when I promote the concept of modern living pterosaurs. But eyewitnesses of large pterosaur-like flying creatures have been reported to me for nine years now. To me, encountering a report of a huge pterosaur flying overhead is just part of my routine.

More evidence that the photograph is geniune

Look at the positions of the soldiers in photo #3. Notice how they’re spaced. Now see this:

The above drum and fife unit is posed together in a common form of positioning for photography.

The above group is shoulder to shoulder, to include all of them. Note that the main subject is the group of soldiers themselves. Compare it with the following:

The above group of Civil War soldiers are positioned according to the needs of the situation: around and on the big gun. This relates to the positioning seen in photo #3: appropriate to the needs of the situation.

The six soldiers in photo #3 are not lined up shoulder to shoulder, for the main subject is at their feet. The point? Something important is shown in this photo, something around which those six soldiers are positioned. In other words, this photo was not constructed from a Civil War photo of six soldiers posing as the main subject, manipulated by inserting a giant creature image onto the photograph.

So what am I suggesting? What we see at the feet of those six soldiers may be what it appears to be: a dead winged creature with a wingspan of twenty feet or more. I am open to other suggestions. What do you think?

Pteranodon interpretation and hoax possibility

This photograph shows an impressive head that looks like that of a Pteranodon, or at least somewhat like one. If this photo is an accurate version of the original, of a photograph recorded during the Civil War, we have substantial evidence for the recent existence of large living pterosaurs in North America. Why? In the middle of the nineteen century, scientists had no clear idea of how a Pteranodon head would appear, at least not as accurate an idea as we get from looking at that head in photo #3.

But I know of one other possibility, albeit a strange idea. Is it possible that the Pteranodon-like head alone was inserted into this photo? There still may be a hoax-explanation here. But then what was in the original photo? The third-from-the-left soldier has his foot on something. This requires additional investigation, but for now, it seems this photograph might, just might, be genuine.

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Addendum #1

I have since learned that some dugout canoes have pointed ends. But what is shown in photo #3 still appears rather extreme in sharpness. Does anybody have any relevant information on this?

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Live Pterosaurs in America, by Jonathan Whitcomb

From the third edition of this nonfiction book:

I realize that somebody may suggest the eyewitness saw only a model pterosaur; mechanical “pterodactyls” are common. Several details rule out this explanation. The size of the creature was estimated by its appearance when it flew over the road at low altitude; I doubt that he saw a 30-foot-long model. [2007 sighting in Southern California]

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This requires an introduction to eyewitness testimony and this concept: that many professors have been entirely mistaken, for generations, about what could be called the “universal extinction of pterosaurs“ assumption.

[This introduction has become much longer than what I had intended originally: to explain a narrow focus in an analysis meant to judge how much the passage of time may have affected specific descriptions in eyewitness reports of living pterosaurs. For those not needing any introduction to cryptozoological research into eyewitness accounts of apparent living pterosaurs, you may choose to skip down to the subheading "A New Analysis of Eyewitness Testimonies."]

Do we Have Evidence for Extant Pterosaurs?

A biology professor in a major American university recently replied to my survey questions about the ropen of Papua New Guinea:

I would LOVE it if there were living pterosaurs . . . But as far as I know there is zero scientific evidence to support their existence.  Doesn’t mean they don’t exist, just means we don’t have any evidence that they do.

I think I understand that position, although technically his statement is incorrect: We do have substantial scientific evidence for the existence of extant pterosaurs from analysis of 128 of the more-credible reports from eyewitnesses worldwide. The professor might better have worded his response like this: There seems to be no direct (and easily available) physical evidence for a species of extant pterosaur, in particular no recently-expired body or living animal available for examination by the scientific community.

But biologists are accustomed to examining bodies, which explains the words of this particular biology professor: “zero scientific evidence.” I understand.

By the way, that professor is not completely convinced that all species of pterosaurs are extinct. He puts the probability at 1%-5%, low but above zero.

Any evidence, even readily available physical evidence, needs to be evaluated by somebody and reported to those who have not examined that evidence themselves. Before getting into eyewitness evidence, recent analysis of pterosaur sighting reports, let’s consider the general nature of eyewitness testimony.

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The huge featherless creature seen flying just above this road (north of the University of California at Irvine) was as long as the width of the road (~30 ft)

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Eyewitness Reliability in General

Eyewitnesses of crimes can misidentify suspects. This is not at all to say that all eyewitnesses are always unreliable. Human memory in general is often flawed; the main weakness in reliability, however, is in details in which the person was not focused and was not emotionally attached at the time.

The difficulty in identifying a suspect for a court trial often involves separating the appearance of two humans. I don’t recall any trial in which a witness reported a bank robber to be a chimpanzee or a gorilla. Setting aside intelligence, bank robbers appear unlike any other primate, similar to other humans and sometimes similar in appearance to humans who are innocent of any crime.

Take this case. A gorilla has escaped from a local zoo after an animal caregiver was careless. An hour later, a lady in that city opens her front door to see . . . you know what. Unless that lady is blind, she will be able to positively identify what primate was in front of her house, and she will accurately describe not only its appearance but its precise behavior for that brief time before she jumped back and slammed the door. Her emotions and concentration guarantee her memory will be much more accurate than if a common human jogger had been passing by her house instead of a gorilla.

Will the police officer who takes the report assume the lady is insane? That officer may have no doubt about her sanity, but his concrete opinion will likely be one of the following: perfectly sane or completely insane, depending on whether or not that officer knew about the escape of the gorilla. Notice that this has nothing to do with the actual mental health of that lady; it has everything to do with knowledge, in the mind of the police officer, about what had occurred earlier that day at the zoo.

Take the case that the police officer was previously aware of the zoo escape. Would he ask the lady, “Are you sure it wasn’t the mail carrier?” Of course not. But if the officer was unaware of any gorilla escape, what could he say to a lady who seems to be talking nonsense?

So consider these three points:

1. Eyewitnesses remember most accurately what was most unusual.
2. People disbelieve reports that seem too unusual.
3. When the cage door is open, escape is believable, not unusual.

Thus eyewitness reliability is more complicated than one might suppose, for the credibility of an eyewitness, in one sense, depends on the knowledge and preconceived notions of the person who learns about an eyewitness report.

Eyewitness Reliability With Pterosaur Sightings

Significant details, in descriptions given by eyewitnesses, suggest a pterosaur:

• Featherless appearance
• Long tail
• Rhamphorhynchoid-like structure at tail end
• Head crest

To be sure, very few Rhamphorhynchoid fossils include a head crest, but that structure in not entirely unknown on “basal” long-tailed pterosaurs. Many modern pterosaurs, according to many eyewitnesses worldwide, have both horn-like (or cone-like) head crests and long tails, in spite of fossils. This can make many reports appear strange to some skeptics but it makes it more obvious that common birds or common bats are not involved. It’s not misidentification.

If none of the sightings included all of the above four characteristics, we could better understand why biology professors and paleontologists give little attention or respect to the eyewitness accounts. But many of the reports contain three of those characteristics, and some reports contain all four, making misidentifications of classified birds or bats untenable.

Is the Cage Door Unlocked, Open, or Nonexistent?

Symbolically speaking, the cage enclosing the universal-extinction dogma (for pterosaurs) has appeared solid, rock tight against any escape. But the back of the enclosure, what hardly anybody even thinks about, differs greatly from the facade, not that the back door is unlocked or even wide open: There is no back door. But there is a huge hole for animals to escape, and that’s just what those pterosaurs have been doing for centuries.

Setting aside symbolism, soon after the first discovery of a pterosaur fossil (during the lifetime of George Washington), those who searched for and found those bones assumed that they all belonged to a type of extinct creature. For whatever reason, those searchers and researchers assumed that all such creatures were extinct. But the extinction assumption was never tested.

Getting back to symbolism, it’s like the hole in the hypothesis (extinction of all species of pterosaurs) was gradually hidden by vegetation, generations of weeds that covered up the sides of the well-polished display case, making it almost impossible for anybody to know that the back was completely open, allowing anything within that enclosure to escape undetected at night. The decades of weed growth did not block the opening in the back, but it did block from human view the huge opening that allowed animals to escape.

Now to be literal. Charles Darwin was just following the crowd: He also must have assumed all species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs were extinct. The longer that assumption was perpetrated, from one generation to another, the more entrenched it became in Western thinking. By the 1890′s, when newspapers in California were reporting large dragons that killed chickens and mud hens south of Fresno, the extinction indoctrination had made it easy to imagine that eyewitnesses had just gotten hold of some whiskey.

A New Analysis of Eyewitness Testimonies

Now we can examine the scientific analysis itself, regarding the credibility of eyewitness testimonies of apparent pterosaurs. We need to be aware:

• This particular analysis was done on February 11-12, 2013
• The data was compiled late in 2012
• The eyewitness reports were received over many years

This examination was done under the general principle that time can cause degradation of memory. A skeptic may suggest that details suggesting extant pterosaurs may come from such degradation (although most skeptics that I have encountered are not nearly so precise; most of them don’t think so deeply).

To be precise, should we give much less credence to those eyewitness reports that were recorded many years after the sightings? This would be a valid question indeed if there were extreme differences in description details; we might even have to set aside those sighting reports that came to us many years after the encounters, if they differed much from those reports that were recorded soon after the sightings. That is why this analysis was done.

The eyewitness-sighting data was divided into two groups:

1. Sighting in the same year as the reporting of the sighting
2. Sighting at least seven years before the reporting of it

For example, a report that was received or recorded in 2012 regarding a sighting in 2012 would be included in the first part; a report received in 2011 of a sighting in 1986 would be included in the second part; a report received in 2009 of a sighting in 2008 would not be included in either part; a report in which the sighting year was absent would not be included in either part.

The first group (sighting-year=report-year) has 39 eyewitness reports; the second, 38.

Three descriptions were examined:

• A) Long Tail
• B) Tail Vane
• C) Head crest

A) The “long tail” description:

1. First group: 37% Yes (0% No)
2. Second group: 45% Yes (3% No)

The above might suggest a limited memory-degradation regarding reports of long tails, but this is limited evidence indeed, for more than a third of the first group reported a long tail. A significant number of persons report a long tail soon after their encounter, so why have much doubt of long tails in older sightings that have recently been reported? For the limited sampling sizes involved (less than forty each), the difference between 37% and 45% is too small for any drastic conclusions. A long tail does not creep into the memory of an eyewitness, over many years; it was there during the encounter.

B) The “tail vane” description:

1. First group: 36% Yes (0% No)
2. Second group: 25% Yes (0% No)

The above shows a reversal, this time the first group outnumbering the second in “yes.” This definitely does not show any tendency for any eyewitnesses, over many years, to get tail vanes somehow inserted into their memories. It would be more likely, from the above data, that eyewitnesses had forgotten about Rhamphorhynchoid tail vanes that they had actually seen.

Averaging the two types of tail descriptions, the first group is at 36.5% and the second is at 35%, which is practically the same. This strongly suggests that eyewitness do not suffer from any significant memory degradation regarding those two descriptions of the tail.

C) The “head crest” description

1. First group: 12% Yes (0% No)
2. Second group: 42% Yes (5% No)

The above seems to show that there may have been some damage to memory from the passage of time, regarding reporting of a head crest. On closer examination, however, it seems wise not to throw out all reports of a head crest just because of the passage of time from the sighting to the reporting of the sighting, for one of those reports from the second group is the one by Eskin C. Kuhn, and that is the U.S. Marine who sketched his memory of the two “pterodactyls” withing minutes of the sighting.

Kuhn saw two pterosaurs in Cuba, in 1971

The above sketch was drawn by the eyewitness within minutes of the sighting, showing a clear head crest that was NOT from a degraded memory over time

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Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition (learn about this cryptozoology book)

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Pterosaur Sightings Worldwide

A pilot and co-pilot of a small twin-engined plane encountered a giant flying creature 150 miles southeast of Bali, Indonesia, in August of 2008. The pilot put the plane into a dive to avoid a collision with what he at first assumed was another airplane. [The creature flapped its wings.]

Live Pterosaurs and Science

After the addition of data from the many 2012 reports, we have 74 sightings in which wingspan estimates were made numerically. For example, in Hawaii an eyewitness reported “Between 3-4 foot wing span, sharp, long beak, featherless wings more like a bat than a bird.” The wingspan estimate was entered into the database as “3.5″ for that sighting in 2008 . . .

Pterosaur Sighting in Newspaper

“It had round long pointed teeth, jutting out in every direction and [its] snout was long and skinny. . . .”

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