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Honesty in Reports of Modern Pterosaurs

Jonathan Whitcomb on his 2004 expedition in Papua New Guinea

Introduction

Within the past few weeks, three web sites have caught my attention, each with a page accusing me of dishonesty. Two of them appear to be based on the other: the one first published online, a post by the biology professor P. Z. Myers; at least the other two writers appear to have been influenced by that professor before they wrote their own accusations against me. We’ll look at what dishonesty is and examine the credibility of those three proclamations about my guilt.

Starting with a bit of humor

The web browser I used yesterday had a weakness that amplified a funny result of looking at that post by Professor Myers. That page froze, allowing me to see only a small portion of his page that ridiculed the idea that any pterosaur could still be alive. I could view only the top of the page titled “There are no living pterosaurs, and ‘ropen’ is a stupid fantasy.”

Now see what I saw. Do you notice what’s so funny?

Life is funny: ad for a "live pterosaurs" book on blog post ridiculing living pterosaurs

It’s not so obvious in the above image, so look at the full size of what’s on the left side:

ad for third edition of "Live Pterosaurs in America"

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The site FreeThoughtBlogs appears to be one of the countless online publications that allow advertisers like Amazon to put up ads. As I understand it, the big advertisers have a way to catch pages that have words relevant to what is being sold. “living pterosaurs” caught Amazon’s automatic searcher, resulting in the ad insertion for my book, the third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America. I doubt that many of my books will be sold from that brief appearance of the ad on that page, but I thought it was funny. (By the way, I had nothing to do with causing that ad insertion by Amazon.)

What is “dishonest?”

The word dishonest can refer to three improper activities:

  • deceive
  • steal
  • cheat

Let’s confine ourselves, for the moment, with the concept of deceiving; much of what is written against me relates to this concept. The word deceive means to purposefully lead someone away from the truth. A word associated with it is lie: to say or write something deceitful. Now consider the details.

What does it mean to deceive?

A deceiver intends to lead someone away from truth; intention is a critical ingredient of the poison. Nobody can accidentally deceive anyone, as in carelessly typing on a keyboard and hitting “Tr” instead of “R,” resulting in a sentence about “Troy” instead of “Roy.” Someone can be mislead by a mistake like that; one cannot be deceived by that.

That is why I do not accuse those three skeptics of deceit in accusing me of deception. I understand the concept of the word, so I am responsible: I cannot properly accuse someone of telling a lie until I can see into that person’s heart and know of an improper intention there. I can look into my own heart, however, which brings up the key point of all this.

Did Jonathan Whitcomb deceive anyone?

I traveled to Papua New Guinea in 2004 and spent two weeks on Umboi Island. Skeptics who mention my name in the same paragraph where they write something like deceit—those critics don’t usually say much about my expedition in September and October of 2004. Consider what I said after I had returned to my home in Long Beach, California: I saw nothing like a pterosaur in Papua New Guinea.

Consider all the opportunities a liar would have in spending two weeks on a remote tropical island. The ropen is said to glow at night, while it flies from a mountain to a reef surrounding the island (or back again to a mountain). How easy it would be for a liar to later report an encounter of some kind! Yet I admitted that I did not see even a strange light in the sky. The first edition of my first book included, as I recall, the admission that I was asleep while my interpreter and another man saw the brief glow of the flying ropen. Nobody accuses me of lying about that, for obvious reasons.

For the past ten years, I have never gone back on that admission that I had seen nothing pterosaur-like in Papua New Guinea.

I have received many eyewitness reports, in fact from not only the southwest Pacific but from North America, Europe, and Africa. When publishing (online and in my nonfiction books) details about those many reports, I sometimes imply that a particular sighting might not have been a pterosaur encounter. Google “apparent pterosaur” right now, if you like, putting those two words within quote marks. Notice, on the first Google-page listing, that my name “Whitcomb” is found on each of the nine non-image pages. My own posts also dominate on the second Google-page listing. Now look at the third page of the Google listing: six of those posts are written by me.

How do my critics agree with me? We all seem to know that I passionately write about the concept of living pterosaurs. I sometimes consider the following possibility: Not only have I written more original material about this concept, over the past eleven years, than anyone else in the world; I seem to have written more original-sentences on this than all other writers in the world combined, at least according to a casual investigation with Google. So why does a search, within quote marks, using “apparent pterosaur” result in such a dominance from so many of my blogs? It’s because I so often admit the possibility that an individual sighting may have been of a modern pterosaur, but it could have been something else. Does that sound like I have been trying to deceive people?

Why believe in living pterosaurs?

So why do I so passionately proclaim that pterosaurs are still living? Well, I’ve never proclaimed that any significant numbers of species closely resembling many of those known from the fossils are still living; extinction seems to be an appropriate word for almost all of those species. In addition, I sometimes point out that a standard dictionary definition of pterosaur includes a word like “extinct,” so by the usual meaning no pterosaur can be alive, within that narrow viewpoint. I do proclaim that at least a small number of species of flying creatures are still alive, and they are descended from species related to pterosaurs known from fossils, with basic wing structures closely related to those of the fossils.

In other words, I promote the idea that some species of flying creatures, not yet classified in Western science, at least acknowledged as still living, do indeed still fly, and they deserve to be called pterosaurs. I call those flying creatures modern pterosaurs. Let that suffice for the moment.

Why do I have no doubt that such creatures still fly through the sky? The overall data from 128 sighting reports prove there was no major hoax involvement, and careful comparisons between detailed descriptions make it obvious that it is practically impossible that none of those 128 sightings were from an encounter with a modern pterosaur. Remember: All it takes is for one of those sightings to have been an encounter with a modern pterosaur, to shoot down that universal-extinction dogma.

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Donald Prothero and “Fake” Pterosaurs

Consider this: Not all online accusations of deceit are accurate.

Investigation by Whitcomb

. . . the “pterodactyl” described by the World War II veteran Duane Hodgkinson is a real creature that lives in coastal areas of Papua New Guinea.

“Dinosaur Birds” writings by Jonathan Whitcomb

For the news media

Goodreads books on living pterosaurs

In Papua New Guinea and in the United States

Writings of Jonathan Whitcomb on Modern Pterosaur

Archives of posts by the cryptozoologist

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“No New Evidence” for Living Pterosaurs?

Whitcomb's nonfiction "Searching for Ropens and Finding God" 3rd ed.

I’ve just been notified of a post on “Doubtful News” in which I am accused of deceiving people and then admitting the deceit. What nonsense! For the moment, set aside the “sock puppet” accusation, reference to the self-publishing of one of my books, and my religious beliefs; just look at what’s in the third sentence of that post:

“… the same stories get recirculated repeatedly to make up for no new evidence …”

I continue to receive eyewitness reports of apparent living pterosaurs, as I have for the past eleven years. The following are some of the more recent emails:

West Virginia, October of 2014

Ricky Kearns and family members witnessed a large flying creature at night, and it had wings that were glowing. This was in Point Pleasant, although Ricky mentioned to me that what he saw did not look like what the Mothman is reported to look like. Nevertheless, there may be a relationship with some sightings of what has been labeled “Mothman.”

Notice that this is not a repeated sighting report. The flying creature appeared on a night in October of 2014 and was immediately reported to cryptozoologists who specialize in modern-pterosaur accounts. It has limited resemblance, in the details, with other records in previous sightings, yet the glowing wings suggest a connection with ropen sightings.

Ricky reported, “. . . I’m still bugged by all this [trying to learn what he saw]. . . . having the Mothman and festivals and stuff being the only tourist attraction for my small community, it’s hard to tell. But it was way high up, definitely bioluminescent, a light orange.”

Minnesota, reported in early November of 2014

The sighting itself was about twenty years ago; eyewitnesses sometimes don’t report an encounter until years later. Here’s a bit of the email:

I don’t want to sound crazy, and I know you will keep an open mind about it, but it still seems crazy after 20 years. . . .  In 1995 I had a very close encounter with something similar to a Pterosaur in southern Minnesota. The day started off as a normal summer day for us kids. My older brother went out fishing early in the morning and came home about noon, but for some reason I decided to try to one up him that day.

. . . I headed down to “my” fishing spot. After several small fish and a decent sized bass I decided to call it a day. . . . I decided to head back home there was an outcropping or a cave (you could honestly classify it as either it was either a shallow cave or a deep outcropping) on my way back home and as I got near it I heard something . . .

I got within 15 feet of the mouth of the cave I see this beautiful burgundy thing standing near the opening. It was smooth with no feathers, and a large horn out of the back of it’s head. I could see that as it was pulling meat off of a fish it’s beak was making the tapping noise I heard.

Why does that “Doubtful News” bog post say “no new evidence?” I got up early this morning, as usual, and before 6:00 a.m. I had found three separate online sighting evidences: Florida, Illinois, and Minnesota (not the report mentioned above about a boy who had seen a flying creature in something like a cave in Minnesota but another sighting in that state). I had no previous knowledge of any of those three encounters with apparent pterosaurs; each of the three reports was completely new to me.

Dubious “Doubtful News” Post

That post by someone calling herself “idoubtit” quotes Donald Prothero, who wrote the post “Fake Pterosaurs and Sock Puppets.” I found many errors in Prothero’s accusations. He said,  “Whitcomb admitted the deception in July, 2014.” I’m glad he included a link for that sentence; if only every reader would click on that link and read my own words! It’s my explanation for why I was HONEST, not an admission of dishonesty. I explained why I used two pseudonyms in a minority of my online writings. Reading only that skeptic’s post—that can easily lead readers into thinking I tried to deceive people. It was, in reality, the only way I could find to emphasize the eyewitness testimonies, for my name was already becoming a target for mud-slinging in 2005, after my expedition in Papua New Guinea. Perhaps I made a mistake in using two pseudonyms for several years, but then it would be an honest mistake. The point about honesty is leading people to the truth, not in technical definitions of sock puppet and pen name; the point about dishonesty is leading people away from the truth, even when a few accurate statements may be inserted.

In other words, Donald Prothero properly linked to the relevant web page where I explained my use of pseudonyms, yet he proclaimed the opposite of what I thought I had clearly stated. Why become overly focused on the possibility that a person one disagrees with is a liar?

I am not accusing idoubtit or Donald Prothero of intentionally deceiving their readers; it’s quite likely that those two were somehow deceived themselves. Please read the words of the more credible eyewitnesses, for the truth will eventually come to light, regardless of what some skeptics say about my honesty and my religious beliefs.

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Ropen book, non-fiction, by Whitcomb

Cross-genre: cryptozoology, true-life adventure, spiritual, inspirational

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Cover, back and front, of Live Pterosaurs in America - nonfiction book

Pure cryptozoology and more compact than Searching for Ropens and Finding God

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Look Overhead, not Underfoot

Perosaur Sketch by Eskin Kuhn

On page 191 of the fourth edition of Searching for Ropens and Finding God I wrote:

You cannot see what’s overhead when you focus on what’s underfoot, and you cannot perceive what you believe cannot be seen. C. S. Lewis was aware it’s not “seeing is believing:” Believing allows us to see.

“Extinction” – Really?

A skeptic may look down on those of us who publicize reports of apparent modern pterosaurs, yet where is the explanation for universal extinction of all species of those flying creatures? Consider the following, quoting from three nonfiction books on these extraordinary flying creatures:

From the Book Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition

My experience interviewing natives [in Papua New Guinea] and reviewing interviews done by other explorers—that suggests it’s easier to catch a giant ropen in a fishing net than to find a native eyewitness who disbelieves personal experience because of what American professors assume. Eyewitnesses in a culture that dogmatically teaches pterosaur extinction—they sometimes have problems dealing with an experience that they feel should not have been experienced; native eyewitnesses in New Guinea have no problem. [from page 95 of the book]

From Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea

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 Searching for Ropens and Finding God, fourth edition (Chapter 23)

The paleontologists are rare who take notice of my associates and me, at least through mid-2014. When one has commented on what we declare about modern pterosaurs, it’s usually with a word like “extinction” but in a difference sense: the demise of all species of pterosaurs. Am I slicing quarks? I know of nobody who denies that many pterosaurs may have lived without leaving any fossil. Beware of the fog around two meanings of a word. Even if all species of pterosaurs known from fossils had become extinct long ago, we live in the real world of the present, a world in which people report encountering living pterosaurs.

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Why do I often use the phrase “apparent modern pterosaurs?” Since I firmly believe that some species of these flying creatures are still living, why do I use the word apparent? Take any particular sighting as an example: We probably cannot come to any certain conclusion if that one encounter was with a modern pterosaur. But the overall reports worldwide, over years, over decades, and over generations—they prove the case, for it is practically impossible for all of those countless sightings to have come from non-pterosaurs, when so many descriptions so clearly point to pterosaurs.

Consider sighting reports of a rare bird that may become extinct. One reported encounter alone, in a particular location, is not proof that the species is living there. But a number of reports can make it obvious.

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Perosaur Sketch by Eskin Kuhn
Kuhn saw two pterosaurs in Cuba, in 1971

Sketch drawn by eyewitness Eskin Kuhn

Extraordinary Declarations Demand Extraordinary Evidence

Why should any paleontologist insist that all species of pterosaurs must have become extinct many millions of years ago? That’s an extraordinary assumption, an extreme position that demands explaining. Remember, this is not about one or two or fifteen species or varieties of pterosaurs but ALL of them that ever existed.

How many species of them have lived on this earth? It’s impossible to say, but the experts believe that most of them left no fossil evidence for their existence. Taking that point of view, how can anybody point to fossils as if they are evidence for universal extinction?

Is Pterosaur Extinction for Real?

I have estimated that millions of eyewitnesses, worldwide, have seen a modern living pterosaur, perhaps as many as 128 million persons. How can I make such an extraordinary statement? From the number of eyewitnesses who have contacted me, over the past eleven years, from around the world. Only a tiny fraction of the world’s population has the knowledge, desire, and ability to communicate with me about the flying creatures that they have encountered in their lifetimes. Consider some of the reasons so few of them have contacted me:

  1. Natives of Africa, Papua New Guinea, and elsewhere have no internet access
  2. Where pterosaurs are more common—that’s where people don’t talk much about them
  3. Eyewitnesses who have a computer—they have other things to talk about
  4. Most eyewitnesses do not know English
  5. Most of them do not know a few Americans are looking for pterosaurs
  6. Few eyewitnesses can afford to communicate by email

Please be aware: When I say that few eyewitnesses have contacted me, I mean compared with all of the probable eyewitnesses worldwide. I continue to get emails from those who have encountered these flying creatures, and the great majority of them hold up under my credibility examinations. So how do fossil experts reply?

One prominent paleontologist explained, during an interview, that the reason pterosaurs are extinct is that people would have seen them, if they still existed. Unfortunately, that paleontologist seems to have neglected to question any of the cryptozoologists involved. He seems to have assumed their investigations are somehow invalid or of little or no consequence. He has mentioned misidentifications to explain native testimonies, yet he has kept quiet about critical non-native testimonies of giant flying creatures that could not have been birds or bats. He says nothing about Duane Hodgkinson or Brian Hennessy or the couple in Perth, Australia.

Conclusion

Look overhead, rather than underfoot, for these worldwide sightings of modern pterosaurs refute the old universal-extinction proclamations. Take a break from swimming in your imagination, Mr. paleontologist, and open your eyes to the real world of the present, where people see these extraordinary flying creatures.

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Searching for Ropens and Finding God, fourth edition (2014)

pre-publication version of the front cover of this nonfiction book

Nonfiction paperback on modern pterosaurs worldwide

This overshadows common true-life adventures, revealing the early stages of what may become the most unsettling scientific discovery since Galileo and Copernicus. It soars above disputes about religion, revealing why an official discovery of an extraordinary animal was delayed for so long. Above all, this explores human experiences—of eyewitnesses and those who interviewed them. People have become connected by common encounters: Persons of various faiths, with various levels of education, from various countries and cultures, have seen a living pterosaur. [From the title page of the book]

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How can you Miss Photographing a Modern Pterosaur?

clip art of a ropen pterodactyl - long-tailed ropen

Why do we not yet (as of mid-2014) have a good photo of a ropen? A skeptic may ask that, as a rhetorical question, but it’s answered by human experiences.

My wife Gladys and I took an early walk yesterday morning. In a shady area, narrowly enclosed by chain link fences on both sides of the sidewalk, we saw some beer cans and a torn paper bag on the ground; we started to walk past them before noticing more. The cell phone on the ground—that stopped us. We then noticed that the beer cans (about three cans) were full. This was not a case of littering.

It does relate to the absence of photographs of modern pterosaurs, indirectly; bear with me. My wife and I realized something bad may have happened to somebody. I first thought that somebody may have had a heart attack and dropped the groceries, including the cell phone that was in the grocery bag. I then thought somebody may have been attacked, causing that scattering of groceries. The point is this: My wife and I immediately continued our walk, determined to get home quickly to phone the police. That’s how it relates to photographing living pterosaurs.

Ropen Sighting Near Finschhafen in 1944

Remember the experience of Duane Hodgkinson during World War II, when he and his army buddy saw the huge “pterodactyl” fly up from the other side of a jungle clearing. What Hodgkinson first assumed must have been a bird, within a few seconds revealed itself to be something far different.

The shocking creature flew out of sight but soon returned, flying in the opposite direction and over that same clearing. That gave those two soldiers another view of it, before it again flew out of sight. It also gave those two soldiers another chance to use the military camera they were carrying. They missed both chances.

The Cell Phone and the Cryptozoologist

So why was I, Jonathan Whitcomb, carrying an old iPhone in my pocket as I was walking with my wife yesterday? It no longer functioned as a phone, but the camera still worked. Why did I not photograph the scene of a possible crime before rushing home to call the police? I carry the old iPhone in my pocket almost everywhere, almost every time I leave the house. Regardless of the rarity of clear sightings of modern pterosaurs, I cannot risk having my own sighting without a camera handy.

In other words, I carry around a camera for the tiny chance of photographing a living pterosaur; I do not carry it for photographing beer cans on the ground.

Critics fail to see an obvious reason for the lack of photographs of modern pterosaurs. People carry around cell phones to make phone calls or communicate by texting, with occasional use of the camera. The last thing on the mind of an eyewitness of a ropen—that’s the possibility of grabbing a cell phone to get a photo of a flying pterodactyl.

Getting Back to the Beer Cans

After talking with the police, I thought of another explanation for the scattered groceries. But why did Gladys and I first imagine a crime? We mostly gave up watching old episodes of Sherlock Holmes (having seen each episode many times), yet we’ve recently been watching old Miss Marple—almost the same thing.

The scattered beer cans lay near a zigzag in the walkway, the perfect place for an ambush. It’s the ideal place for a criminal to attack an innocent person who is carrying a grocery bag, yet there’s more.

It was after the second phone call with police, when I realized the greatest danger. Most of the walks Gladys and I take are on the trails along the Jordan River in the Salt Lake Valley of Utah. The big risk is on the narrow paved trails, for it’s not just for joggers and walkers; it’s for bikers. Our big concern on those paved trails is getting hit from behind by a bicycle. Now we can get back to the beer cans.

The ideal place for a bicycle to run into an innocent person who is carrying a grocery bag, yes it’s the same place: at the zigzag in the walkway where my wife and I saw potential evidence for a crime. If anything serious happened there, it was probably a biker colliding with a pedestrian, causing one of them to drop a bag of groceries, including a cell phone which was also in the bag.

Now, if only a ropen would collide with a net put up by cryptozoologists!

I’ll continue to carry around a cell-phone camera, but not for beer cans.

clip art of a ropen pterodactyl - long-tailed ropen

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Ropen on Destination Truth TV Show

I thought [I] remembered advising the production team “do not” enter a cave that might contain a ropen; oh well, it is a Hollywood production: The audience enjoys risk. . . . Jonathan Whitcomb has written extensively about the ropen of Papua New Guinea and was the first Western explorer to interview three native witnesses of the Lake Pung ropen sighting on Umboi Island . . .

Ropens in Papua New Guinea

Duane Hodgkinson, now a flight instructor  in Livingston, Montana, in 1944 was  stationed near Finschhafen, in what was  then called New Guinea. . . .  they were  amazed as a large creature flew up into  the air. The men soon realized that it was  no bird that started to circle the clearing.

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