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The Discovery of Modern Pterosaurs

By Jonathan Whitcomb

Why it’s important to report a pterodactyl sighting

I just read a comment under my recently-produced Youtube video “Three Pterodactyls and the Oregon Surfer” on my channel Protect Animal Life. I now refer to the writer of that comment as BW.

He said, at first, “Large flying animals CANNOT go unfound in the modern world”. What a strong declaration! Yet he immediately modifies it: “its [sic] exceedingly difficult if not impossible for large flying animals to avoid detection.” Even the second statement, however, has a serious flaw.

Look at the context: The short video he comments on reveals how one person, while surfing off the coast of Oregon, “found” that not all pterosaurs are extinct. The surfer saw three “large flying animals”. In other words, this was a case of the “detection” of an animal that BW assumes cannot exist. BW seems intent on convincing people that such flying creatures do not exist.

Title of a Youtube video, with surfer in background

One of many videos on the Youtube channel Protect Animal Life

We could stop there, stating that BW was guilty of circular reasoning. It’s something like this: “The animals cannot exist because they have not been detected, so the surfer could not have seen them because they do not exist.” The point is that some persons DO SEE what other persons have not yet seen. And yet there is much more.

The case for the discovery of modern pterosaurs does not rest only on the word of one surfer in Oregon. For countless centuries, countless eyewitnesses of large flying creatures have proclaimed what they have seen. In other words, long before BW was born, people have seen things that BW has not yet seen with his own eyes.

Modern pterosaurs were known as dragons long ago. Perhaps none of the drawings and paintings of them were done by eyewitnesses. Artists surely relied on earlier artists, and even the oldest depictions may have been drawn or painted from secondhand reports at the very best. The old dragon images we now see may contain many errors yet may provide glimpses into some truth about those flying creatures. Many serious researchers might even come to discover for themselves that the general case is this: Those large flying creatures from earlier human history were real animals.

old drawing of a dragon with wings and two feet

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Ropen Videos on Youtube

On the Youtube channel Protect Animal Life, you can find well over 200 videos on modern pterosaurs . . .

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Youtube Again: “Were Dragons Real?”

. . . other countries where the flying creatures have been reported: Australia, the Philippines, Sudan, Namibia, etc.

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The discovery of modern pterosaurs

“. . . the expedition led by Peter Beach and Milt Marcy in 2015 resulted in what may have been the first video footage of a living pterosaur being recorded in a remote jungle and carried back to the United States for distribution on Youtube and elsewhere.” [other than just flying lights]

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An Individual Ropen is Identified

How do I know that a ropen with a thirty-foot wingspan, now hunting house cats and killing chickens in Nevada, is the same animal seen in Draper, Utah, a few years ago? . . .

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Modern pterodactyls

I am a scientist, and I have discovered that the great majority of eyewitness sighting reports of extant pterosaurs are neither misidentifications nor hoaxes; part of my conclusion is based upon the data from eyewitness estimates of wingspan.

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Dragon Almost Everywhere – Bat-Like Bird or a Ropen

Pterodactyl sightings in various parts of the world—this includes video footage of a ropen flying over Raleigh, North Carolina, in recent years.

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Discovery of living pterodactyls

“For decades, reports of “pterodactyls” in New Guinea (the country later renamed Papua New Guinea) were dismissed with the explanation that people were just observing flying foxes.” We now know that idea is false, for that kind of bat is not nearly large enough and it does not have a long tail.

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Pterodactyl Sightings – how can they be?

old sketch of a mad man with a knife: chasing a ropen

By the investigative journalist Jonathan Whitcomb

Eyewitness report (Use that link to communicate with Whitcomb about a sighting of an apparent living pterodactyl.)

This answers a skeptic who made a comment on one of my Youtube videos; it’s a rhetorical question:

“Why is it that ever since smart phones came out, people continue to claim they saw this type of flying animal but not one single person has video taped it?”

I don’t say that a person making this kind of statement has a split-personality disorder, but he or she appears to be sitting on a fence, ready to hop off into either of the following positions:

  1. God-like omnipotent knowledge
  2. Puppet-like regurgitating of what others have said

Should that skeptic be challenged, he or she can take the role of #2, and if nobody makes a challenge then role #1 is taken, although omnipotence is never stated: Only a knowledge of something is implied.

In this case, role #1 means that the critic knows about every person who has ever lived on this planet who has ever held a smart phone and the critic knows with god-like certainty that not one of those persons has ever recorded video footage of a modern pterosaur.

Here is part of my response to the rhetorical question:

Let’s take that phrase “people continue” and look at it more deeply. For countless centuries people have continued to talk about flying dragons around the world. These are people from various cultures and various languages and various traditions, yet they report seeing the same, or similar, large featherless flying creatures. In old art, they are often depicted with long tails.

Those sightings have continued into recent decades and recent years and recent months; in other words people have always reported seeing these reptilian-like winged creatures. Yet more recently, especially since around the mid-1800’s, eyewitnesses sometimes use the word “pterodactyl”.

In general, eyewitnesses in Western cultures have smart phones, yet those persons live within those Western cultures: They have been raised with the idea that all dinosaurs and pterosaurs became extinct long ago. That means that when the person sees what appears to be a living pterosaur, he or she stares at the thing, trying to figure out what it is or how it might be something other than a “pterodactyl”. In that state the person remains until the creature flies away. Even if the person had enough time to get out the smart phone and set it up for videotaping, that never entered the mind until it was too late.

Most persons living outside Western cultures do not have smart phones, and rarely have a camera of any kind ready at hand should they witness something strange.

Has Anybody ever Videotaped one with a Smart Phone?

I know of a lady in North Carolina who videotaped, with her smart phone, an apparent modern pterosaur, but that is another subject for another time.

old sketch of a mad man with a knife: chasing a ropen

Thumbnail image for the Youtube video “Pterodactyl Sightings – secret pterosaur FEAR” (on the channel Protect Animal Life)

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Pterodactyl Sightings in North America

A Youtube video on the channel Protect Animal Life

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Strange flying creatures

Nocturnal pterosaurs have always lived among us, but hidden by something. Enter now the realm of a new branch of cryptozoology, a branch overshadowed by the dogma of a “universal extinction.” How did scientists miss living pterosaurs? Get the answers here . . .

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Videos about living pterosaurs

This is the #1 channel on Youtube for videos on these amazing featherless flying creatures, apparent modern pterosaurs.

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Apparent living pterosaurs in the USA

Jonathan Whitcomb, of Murray, Utah, has been receiving emails, and an occasional phone call, over a period of 13 years, from eyewitnesses from five continents, and most reported sightings are in North America.

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The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

Patty Carson was a child when she witnessed a large flying creature at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in around the year 1965. This Youtube video gives some of the details on that “pterodactyl” sighting.

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Flying creatures without feathers

For the protection of human life, I now publish a portion of the email communications I had with a lady who lives in Long Valley, New Jersey.

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Pterodactyl sightings

The nonfiction author Jonathan Whitcomb, of Murray, Utah, in 2017 and 2018, interviewed four eyewitnesses of an apparent “pterodactyl” in central Utah. He now declares that those reports from Draper, Salt Lake County, help distinguish Utah in a map showing where similar sightings have been reported across the United States.

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The Youtube Channel “Protect Animal Life”

banner for the Youtube channel "Protect Animal Life"

By Jonathan D. Whitcomb

If you, or someone you know, has seen an apparent living pterosaur, please contact me, Jonathan Whitcomb.

With only one exception, all of my videos on this channel are entirely about modern pterosaurs. Protect Animal Life has grown slowly over the first ten months, since its inception early in 2019, as devoted followers subscribe one by one, yet the great majority of comments have been positive, and comments number in the hundreds.

Of the forty videos on this channel as of January 16, 2020, some of them are about sightings of non-extinct “pterodactyls” in the United States, including (but not limited to) the following states:

Pterosaur Sightings in South Carolina

The four reports from S.C.:

  1. Bishopville, 1984: wingspan about 10-14 feet; no feathers; standing in the middle of a country road, it appeared to be at least 10 feet tall.
  2. In that same general area, about two years later, Susan Wooten witnessed a huge flying creature: “as big as any car and had NO feathers.”
  3. Clinton, about 1994: “I saw a pterosaur as big as a plane, and looked very similar to the sketch created by Susan Wooten.”
  4. Rock Hill area of South Carolina, 2000: “It flew over me & my dog & made a terrifying call.”

evening darkness approaches in South Carolina

Youtube video “Pterodactyl Sightings in South Carolina”

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Ropen in New York – pterosaur seen by a policeman

This short music video has text that includes:

“The policeman was interviewed by Jonathan Whitcomb. . . . Officer William Lashomb saw a very strange flying creature. bulbous head, no feathers . . .”

a bridge in Massena, upstate New York, where a police officer saw a living pterosaur

Youtube video “Ropen in New York”

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Pterodactyl Sightings in Los Angeles

The five reports from L.A. County:

  1. Lakewood, California, June 19, 2012: The lady clearly saw the flying creature . . . The “dragon-pterodactyl” sat on a phone line near a storm channel.
  2. Same location as #1 above, 2009: The sister of the eyewitness of #1 sighting saw a dragon-like flying creature near the same location. She told nobody about her sighting until after she had learned about her sister’s encounter.
  3. Three “dragons” flew over the I-5 freeway in Los Angeles, just east of Griffith Park, in March of 2013.
  4. Just a few weeks after sighting #3, and less than two miles away, Devon Rhodriquez saw a strange flying creature: “not a feather in sight.”
  5. To the west of Griffith Park (on the other side of it), on March 24, 2018, another eyewitness encountered what may have been the same species as was seen by eyewitnesses #3 and #4. “I saw what I would call a pterosaur.”

downtown Los Angeles from a distance of many miles

Youtube video “Pterodactyl Sightings in Los Angeles”

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Modern dragon in the USA

LDS author Jonathan David Whitcomb wrote the revised and enlarged fourth edition of the book Searching for Ropens and Finding God [nonfiction, in print]

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Ropen Bioluminescence (Youtube video)

You can watch this short video (3 min, 20 sec), so rather than list what’s in it, I’ll go into more details about these flying lights by answering three questions that are based upon comments people have sent me over the years.

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“Dinosaur” Book for Children and Teens

"The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur" - a paperback nonfiction book

By the nonfiction cryptozoology author Jonathan Whitcomb

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.

I know that those flying creatures are not actually dinosaurs. But when little Patty Carson saw one of them poke its head above the tall grass on a U.S. military base, in 1965, the first thing she probably said to her family was something like this: “I saw a flying dinosaur.”

Even when she soon changed her approach by using a word that was more precise—’pterodactyl’—they still would not believe a six-year-old. . . . at least not until other members of the family started to see similar animals at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

I know that sounds like a fiction, something for kids much older than those who delight in Danny and the Dinosaur. (Six million copies of that children’s book have been purchased since 1958, yet it’s not the right gift for most youth from eight to fourteen years old.) The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur is not only what the older ones will enjoy but what they need: a NON-fiction that can inspire youth to look deeper than many adults have looked. It allows them to freely come to their own conclusions, yet the book invites them to consider how eyewitnesses feel when people don’t believe them and how they feel when someone does believe them.

The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur is not confined to the story of one little girl in the 1960’s but compares little Patty’s encounter with those of many other eyewitnesses: in Papua New Guinea and in the United States. Those ordinary persons who have seen extraordinary flying creatures—those eyewitnesses have been not only children but teenagers and adults. Yet important details have come up in their testimonies: long tails on large featherless flying creatures, for example.

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Gitmo Pterosaur of Guantanamo Bay Cuba, sighting in 1965

Sketch drawn by Patty Carson when she was an adult

More than that, it explains why we need to believe what other persons tell us about what they have seen, at least sometimes. We need to consider that some people might be telling the truth even when it sounds strange:

“With a person who reports observing something, I give this reason for believing what was said: When we believe that person, he or she might tell us more. That can help the other person be happy and it can help us be happy. There’s more: We can learn from each other.

“For that to always work, however, everyone needs to tell the truth all the time. That does not always happen. Not everyone is always nice, so we live in a world that is imperfect. Yet each of us can make the world a little better in small steps.” [from Chapter 7: Why Believe People?]

The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur, however, does not preach but simply invites children and teenagers to consider what only a few scientists had previously thought about: that a wonderful new discovery in biology may soon be made and that science truly can advance in an exciting new way.

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The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

This book is for readers between the ages of about eight and fourteen. [official home page for this nonfiction]

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Some dinosaur bones have been dated to have lived more recently

Since carbon dating became available, in the mid-20th century, many scientists had assumed that the new method for determining ages was inappropriate for dinosaur fossils. They took it for granted that no carbon-14 could be left from those bones, for radiocarbon dating should detect no radioactive carbon from anything that had lived many millions of years ago. [That now seems to not be the case.]