Category: Reply to Skeptics

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Yes, Virginia, There is a Ropen

Patty Carson's sketch of a ropen with caption: "Yes, Virginia, there is a ropen"

By the investigative journalist Jonathan David Whitcomb

Introduction

I now respond to countless cries from children around the world, calling out for answers, crying out for help as they try to understand why all dinosaurs must have become extinct many millions of years ago. Consider one answer: the new nonfiction book for kids and young teens: The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur. Now consider another answer below.

This is about an animal that people around the world have seen, a creature whose page was deleted from the English Wikipedia in August of 2014, apparently after a few persons became offended because of what they thought about the religious beliefs of some of the American explorers who had searched for that animal in Papua New Guinea. This nocturnal flying creature is the ropen. I am one of those explorers.

The ropen is not any species of dinosaur, in the strict scientific sense: It’s a long-tailed pterosaur, according to some cryptozoologists, what many people in earlier human history would have called a dragon. Many Westerners, some of them eyewitnesses, now call it a pterodactyl.

An old Newspaper Editorial

What is the most famous newspaper editorial in history? The one most often reprinted seems to be “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.” Here is the untouched first paragraph of that editorial, which was published on September 21, 1897, in New York’s Sun. I suggest reading this within a new light: Let “your little friends” refer to all those who dogmatically insist that all species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs must have become extinct many millions of years ago. Let “Virginia” be every child who asks, “Why did they all die?”

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Adapting the old Newspaper Editorial

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a ropen. He exists as certainly as birds and butterflies exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life great beauty and joy. The sketch of the ropen, drawn by Patty Carson, who was only about six years old when she saw that “pterodactyl,” may look frightening, yet consider what Patty told me decades later, when she was a grownup: It did not attack the children but quickly flew away from them. Maybe it was afraid of people.

Patty Carson's sketch of a ropen with caption: "Yes, Virginia, there is a ropen"

Alas! how dreary would be the world if all the professors needed only to imagine that all species of a particular type were extinct, and—POOF—all of them instantaneously died! Add to that idea an apparent time machine, which takes that extinction back millions of years, be it 65-million or 66-million. How tragic if those professors actually had that kind of power!

Not believe in the ropen! You might as well not believe in the platypus! (I don’t remember the last time I saw one of those; it must have been in a zoo.) Keep in mind that the word strange is non synonymous with impossible. If your little friends told you that the ropen cannot be real because its head crest is like that of a Pterodactyloid yet its tail is like that of a Rhamphorhynchoid, remind them of the mammal having a mouth like a duck’s bill.

I recall one skeptic who declared that no Rhamphorhynchoid ever had a head crest. What nonsense! Paleontologists know about at least two species of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs that had some kind of head crest. And what about the countless long-tailed pterosaurs that never left a fossil, and what about all of them that left fossil evidence that has not yet been discovered?

Remind your little friends, Virginia, of what they believed in many years ago: Santa Claus. As children grow older, they realize they’ve never seen him and none of their friends have seen him. I suggest that’s about the time your little friends began to doubt the stories of Santa.

The ropen, however, flies circles around all those stories about flying reindeer. I’ve never heard about any person, not even one human, who has reported observing Santa Claus in a sleigh being pulled around the world by those animals. Yet over the past 15 years, hundreds of persons from around the world have reported to me that they had observed a living pterosaur.

Not believe in the ropen! Let me tell you part of why I believe. Among all the emails eyewitnesses have sent me, some of them tell me something else. It’s not nearly half of the eyewitnesses; perhaps less than 15%. Yet a significant minority of them tell me about another person who has seen a real living pterosaur. I’m not talking about somebody standing or sitting next to the person at the time of that sighting: I mean a friend or family member who had a different sighting of a modern pterosaur, on a different day and usually in a different place. The implication is huge.

I admit my calculations are crude; I could have missed the mark. If I am correct, however, the number of persons now living in the United States who have had a clear view of an obvious living pterosaur is between 50,000 and 4,000,000. Even taking the lowest figure and assuming I have made an error making it only 10% as many as I have figured, we have 5,000 persons now living in the United States, with each of those persons getting a view good enough to see a flying creature obviously appearing to be a “pterodactyl.”

Yes, Virginia, there is a ropen, and I believe in this animal. If we could get millions of people to search in every bush and hole on the planet, trying to see a ropen, what would that prove? The searchers with closed minds and fear of ridicule, perhaps like your little friends—they might not report finding any ropen, even if they had seen one. And what about those who did report finding a ropen? How would they differ from the hundreds of persons who have already told me about their encounters with living pterosaurs?

Please, Virginia, believe in what the eyewitnesses have already told us. Even though you and I have not seen a ropen, we can perceive it through the eyes of other persons who’ve been more fortunate.

Not believe in the ropen! Thank God this animals lives! Whatever some people think about Santa Claus or about mass extinctions of general types of animals millions of years ago, the ropen will continue to fly through the sky, albeit mostly unseen at night. I pray that knowing about this uncommon creature will lift the hearts of children and of teenagers and adults around the world. What a wonder God has given us! The supposedly oldest of pterosaur types is still flying over our heads at night, calling for us to rise above those dogmas that have long held us down.

Believe in the ropen, Virginia, and in your heart fly with him above villages, lakes, cities, and oceans, above mountains, deserts, plains, and jungles. I’ll be flying by your side.

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Belief in the Ropen

Introduction to an apparent modern pterosaur

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Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

Eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote a letter to the editor of New York’s Sun, and the quick response was printed as an unsigned editorial Sept. 21, 1897. The work of veteran newsman Francis Pharcellus Church has since become history’s most reprinted newspaper editorial, appearing in part or whole in dozens of languages in books, movies, and other editorials, and on posters and stamps.

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Modern pterosaur in Virginia

If apparent pterosaurs observed in Virginia are not the same species as the flying creature called “Gitmo Pterosaur” or “American Hammerhead Ropen,” it may at least be a closely-related species. I recently got another report from Virginia: a sighting just a few days ago in Richmond.

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How many Americans have seen a living pterosaur?

For the moment, we’ll have to be content with a general range. It seems that between 50,000 and 4,000,000 Americans have seen an obvious pterosaur at some time in their human lifespans. It certainly cannot be much below that minimum or much above that maximum.

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What is a Ropen?

Notice the above two sketches: both heads have long pointed head crests. The top image was chosen by Hennessy; the bottom, by Hodgkinson. This does not prove those flying creatures of the southwest Pacific were the same species as the ones flying in Cuba, but it does suggest a similar type.

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Declaration on pterosaurs

The actual number of humans now living worldwide, who have encountered one of these flying creatures, has been estimated, by Jonathan David Whitcomb, at between 7 million and 128 million. That is a conservative estimate, but it includes all encounters, and many of those were brief and at night and many were not recognized by the eyewitnesses as significant or involving anything unusual . . .

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Ropen of Papua New Guinea

Many natives living on the tropical island of Umboi (Siasi), Papua New Guinea, have seen the flying light, the bioluminescent glow of the ropen.

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A Response to an Amazon Customer Review

cryptozoology book, nonfiction, on modern pterosaurs in the USA - "Live Pterosaurs in America"

By the cryptozoology author Jonathan Whitcomb

The following is my reply to some critical remarks from a reader of my nonfiction Live Pterosaurs in America (apparently the third edition). Terry Betts did not give the book an overall poor rating: three stars, yet some of the comments he made, especially in the title of his review, are not actually relevant to the content of the book. He titled his review “A look at a real Cryptid or a dissertation on Creationism?” Any objective reading of this book, however, (with that title in mind) will reveal that this is nothing remotely close to a dissertation on creationism.

Here is my response, which Amazon refused to allow to be published on the book-page for Live Pterosaurs in America:

I’m glad this reader found the sightings interesting. I now comment on part of this reviewer’s title, which asks if my book is a “dissertation on Creationism.” This brings up an important subject that is left out of some other reviewers’ comments: Something about at least one aspect of the book relates to religion. Being in the title of the above review, however, it may be misleading to both creationist and non-creationist potential readers of the book. I suggest we look at the content of the book objectively through searching for relevant words in its interior.

It has 153 printed pages, with 15 of those being pages of the index. The Appendix begins on page 109 and is in nine sections. One of those nine sections is mostly about philosophical or religious aspects of living-pterosaur investigations, although a bit of that is in a few pages in other areas of the Appendix. In brief, outside of the index, the book has 138 printed pages.

The word ‘creationism’ is found eight times in the book, with six of those (75%) being in one section of the Appendix: “Philosophy at the Foundation.” Only once is ‘creationism’ found outside of the Appendix. That alone suggests to me that this book really is mostly about cryptozoology rather than religion, especially before the reader gets to the Appendix.

Searching for the word ‘creationist’ I found 18 instances of this word, but not one of them was outside the Appendix. That seems to me to also indicate that the book is much more about cryptozoology than it is about creationism.

The word ‘Christian’ is found only twice in the book, both times on page 115, which is in the Appendix in the sub-section “Philosophy at the Foundation.” In addition, the word ‘God’ is found 13 times in the whole book, with 10 of those being in the Appendix. The three instances of ‘God’ found on pages 55 and 59 are in quotations from eyewitnesses, with two of those being expressions of gratitude that the person was able to see the flying creature.

The word ‘Bible’ is found only three times outside the Appendix, if my count is correct. Combining that with the searches on the other words related to religion, I submit that ‘creationist’ is good to mention in the body text of a customer review, much more appropriate than in the title of the customer review, for the book “Live Pterosaurs in America” (third edition).

Whitcomb's nonfiction book

Cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America (third edition)

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Another Living-Pterosaur Nonfiction Book

My most recent book about non-extinct “pterodactyls” is The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur, which is for middle-grade children and young teenagers. It’s short, just 56 pages, yet has a number of benefits for the young reader. Here are a few of the benefits, taken from the description on Amazon (although not in precisely this order):

  1. Tells you not WHAT to think, like many other nonfictions, but HOW to think about possibilities
  2. Is understandable yet stimulating for kids and teens of about 8-14 years old
  3. By a positive example, invites you to use critical thinking
  4. Opens up an exciting new world: persons have seen an apparent living pterosaur
  5. Uses sketches, photos, and other images to make things clear

[plus five more listed benefits for the reader]

stack of 14 books: "The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur"

The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur [about modern living pterosaurs]

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‘Dinosaur’ Book for Children and Teens

Why would the new book The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur be the best Christmas or birthday gift for many kids and teenagers? It invites them into a new world of adventure in cryptozoology: true stories of encounters with modern living pterosaurs.

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Book about non-extinct pterodactyls

Live Pterosaurs in America

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‘Dinosaur’ book for a ten-year old

I wrote the nonfiction book The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur for several purposes. As a gift giver for a child or teenager, you need to know what benefits it can give to the young reader. I recommend it for readers between about the ages of eight and fourteen; for some ten-year-olds (and eleven and twelve) it will be exceptionally delightful: easy to understand yet stimulating.

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Do Reports of Live Pterosaurs Come From Lies?

cryptozoology book, nonfiction, on modern pterosaurs in the USA - "Live Pterosaurs in America"

By the modern-pterosaur expert Jonathan Whitcomb

Soon after I had returned from my expedition on Umboi Island, I saw that somebody had published an online article attacking the possibility of modern dinosaurs and pterosaurs, with a URL containing the words “stupid” and “lies.” The following long sentence appears to have been removed from that site, but it illustrates a point: When a critic writes in anger, mistakes are easily made, not just errors of judgment but errors of fact. The following sentence contains a number of errors of fact, at least in this case, indisputable falsehoods:

“Another claim of an alleged pterosaur sighting is made in Africa where a team of explorers led by John Whittcomb who are sponsored by Carl E. Baugh a staunch creationist and other creationists regard him as a kook, just like Baugh they are kooks themselves.”

As best as I recall, that old site also had a sentence declaring that I had led a group of creationists on an expedition, but that is false. Let’s concentrate on the above sentence.

That was on the critic’s web site Stupid Dinosaur Lies, a dot-com, on February 24, 2005, and the following are the most obvious errors, probably made and published because the person jumped into writing before doing reasonable digging to get to the facts:

1. Both my first name and surname were misspelled.
2. Never in my life have I set foot in Africa.
3. Nobody on my expedition was sponsored by Carl Baugh

That critic seems to have become confused in a number of ways. From the above sentence, she (I believe it was a woman; I could be mistaken) appears to have thought that only one alleged sighting was involved and that only one expedition took place. Baugh led a few brief expeditions in the 1990’s, but most expeditions have been in the 21st century, none of which included Baugh. And no ropen expedition was in Africa, only in Papua New Guinea, which is north of Australia.

I see a glimmer of truth in the sentence, for a number of Biblical creationists have been encouraging ropen expeditions in Papua New Guinea. A few weeks after my expedition, the Americans Garth Guessman and David Woetzel, along with the native Baptist minister Jacob Kepas, interviewed natives on Umboi Island. I don’t know of anyone who doubts that Guessman and Woetzel are Biblical creationists, but I’ve never read or heard anything to suggest that some creationists consider such explorers to be “kooks.”

To that critic’s credit, that sentence (beginning with “Another claim of an alleged pterosaur sighting”) was removed from the old site Stupid Dinosaur Lies. In fact the whole site disappeared in 2010 (the old dot-com version). The errors in that sentence, however, show the importance of careful research over a period of time rather than a quick shotgun blast, without any careful aim, at an idea that upsets the skeptical writer. I hope that critic continues to improve in thinking and eventually comes to recognize the truth behind the worldwide sighting reports of these animals.

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Stupid Dinosaur Lies

Within the past few weeks [late 2014], at least two posts have accused me, Jonathan Whitcomb, of deceiving people. The second writer, “idoubtit,” seems to have been convinced by the first one, Dr. Donald Prothero, regarding my online writing behavior. But when Prothero responded to me, he appeared to reveal two sources for his conviction that I have used deception, and the earliest source is the site Stupid Dinosaur Lies . . .

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Modern-pterosaur expert

When a non-scientist observes a featherless flying creature that looks like a pterosaur, that eyewitness might say “pterodactyl” rather than use the correct name: pterosaur.

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Critic of living pterosaurs

Scientific skepticism can be useful, when a scientist is criticized on a particular point. It can sometimes allow him or her to make a needed correction and improve the original idea. But when extreme bias exists in either that scientist or the one doing the criticism, problems arise.

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Bulverism from a critic

Early yesterday morning, November 30, 2010, I posted a short announcement on the “Cryptids on the Wing” forum of Cryptozoology.com [which site has disappeared]. The quick, negative responses were no surprise to me, for I have received similar dismissals, for years, on this forum. The first criticism deserves attention here, as an example of bulverism.

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Do pterosaur sightings come from lies?

The following is in response to a statement about me, Jonathan Whitcomb, published on a web forum: “. . . that he lies about in his book . . .”

I believe that the total number of web pages and blog posts that I have written over the past eight years is well over a thousand, with perhaps more than a quarter of a million words related to the concept of modern living pterosaurs. That is in addition to two editions of one nonfiction book, three editions of another, and a scientific paper in a peer-reviewed journal of science. With hundreds of thousands of words to choose from, why doesn’t at least one of the critics on this forum thread find one or two of my sentences, to quote me? If one of my books includes a lie, why not quote that lie, bringing to light why it is wrong?

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cryptozoology book, nonfiction, on modern pterosaurs in the USA

Live Pterosaurs in America — third edition of this nonfiction book

Live “pterodactyls?” In the United States? Many scientists have long assumed all pterosaurs died millions of years ago. Now take a whirlwind tour of many years of investigations in cryptozoology, and prepare for a shock: At least two species of pterosaurs have survived . . .

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Reply to a Newspaper Article in North Carolina

From a newspaper article in 2018: pterodactyls in Raleigh, North Carolina

By the living-pterosaur cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb

UPDATE: One link on this post (about sightings of living pterosaurs in North Carolina) has been updated with “https” in the URL. It was always safe. This just demonstrates that the security is certified.

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The News & Observer published an article, earlier this week, about a sighting by Cynthia Lee and about my ideas on non-extinct “pterodactyls,” including pterosaur sightings in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was not the first newspaper article on this kind of encounter in the USA and on my work in cryptozoology. In accuracy and objectiveness, it was about average, meaning it had a number of mistakes and was weighted in favor of the old assumptions about universal extinctions of pterosaurs. The two writers (Abbie Bennett and Josh Shaffer) seem to have avoided any deep research into the possibility that eyewitnesses in North Carolina may have witnessed actual living pterosaurs.

Don’t misunderstand me here: I’m glad they published that article on January 11, 2018, for I hoped for something like that, when I contacted them, and I’m not surprised that they took the traditional point of view that all pterosaurs are extinct. After all, the News & Observer is the second largest newspaper in North Carolina, a regional daily source of news, not a paranormal publication.

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“Are there flying dinosaurs in NC? One woman says she’s seen them three times in Raleigh”

See the link “Flying Dinosaur in North Carolina,” at the bottom of this blog post

"Are there flying dinosaurs in NC?" newspaper article

Newspaper article in North Carolina (News & Observer)

A Typical Day in a Newspaper Office

Bennett and Shaffer wrote this article as one would expect the typical American newspaper professional to write. Nobody expected them to try for a Pulitzer Prize. It was probably just another day for them, handling a local and regional issue that would certainly be of interest to the average reader.

I can understand their position. Why risk making a paleontologist, or other scientist, upset with a story that might suggest even one eyewitness, out of many, might have witnessed an actual pterosaur? How much safer to assume that all the eyewitnesses were somehow wrong! Those two writers chose the safe but entertaining approach, like many other newspaper professionals would choose. They ended with this:

“Whether these sky-bound shapes are mythic beasts, ancient reptile survivors or great blue herons playing dress-up, they make for lively conversation.”

That seems like a fair ending to the article, avoiding any offense to anyone: another interesting story on an average day. I would be delighted if many American newspapers would publish stories like that, for I feel sure that someday, in some town or city in America, some newspaper professional will be struck by the possibility that maybe great blue herons are not playing dress-up. Will that article, whenever and wherever it will be published, fly well enough for a Pulitzer Prize? I’m willing to help that writer make a run for it.

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Living Pterosaurs in North Carolina

Jonathan Whitcomb, author of nonfiction cryptozoology books, has suggested that flying creatures reported in Raleigh, North Carolina, over several years, may be related to what Americans in other states have reported to him over the past fourteen years.

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Living pterosaur in an Ohio newspaper article

Something on front page of the Antwerp-Bee Argus newspaper was different, on August 5, 2009. It was the live pterodactyl that made the news.

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Houston Chronicle Denies Dinosaurs in Texas

One of the largest newspapers in the United States, the Houston Chronicle, printed an article dismissive of dinosaurs flying over southwest Texas (mid-December, 2010, by Claudia Feldman).

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Living pterosaurs in a newspaper article

An 1891 issue of the Los Angeles Herald newspaper had an article from an earlier California news publication, about reports of “dragons” flying over an area south of Fresno, around Selma.

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Non-extinct pterodactyls and cryptozoology

“Since the time of Darwin, many scientists have assumed that some general types of animals became extinct long ago. One of the assumptions is that all species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs died off before any humans existed.”

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Flying creature in Raleigh, North Carolina

I saw the shadow of big wings on the ground, so I looked up and I saw a winged, brown, species of [pterosaur] flying in the sky in the afternoon around 6 pm while me and a guy was standing at the bus stop.

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Flying Dinosaur in North Carolina

Newspaper article in the News & Observer in Raleigh, January 11, 2018 [It may be that this page about sightings of apparent pterosaurs is no longer available on this newspaper’s site.]

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