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Two Types of Pterosaurs Still Living

Two types of modern pterosaurs - long tailed from Cuba and one in Papua New Guinea without any long tail

By modern-pterosaur investigative journalist Jonathan Whitcomb

Modern pterosaurs come in two flavors, apparently similar to what scientists have found in fossils of those featherless flying creatures from the past:

  1. Long-tailed Rhamphorhynchoid-like
  2. Short-tailed Pterodactyloid-like

Contrary to the surface appearance from looking at a statistic in my compilation of data early in the year 2013, extant pterosaurs in modern times do not likely actually involve a 20-to-1 ratio of long-tails to short-tails. The long tails catch the attention of the eyewitness, riveting that feature in the memory of the person who sees it. It could be a ratio of 5-to-1 or even 3-to-1, but long tails unquestionably dominate sightings, compared with short tails.

With 41% of the 128 sightings including descriptions of a long tail, the Rhamphorhynchoid-like ones surely outnumber the Pterodactyloid-like ones. Shocking as the existence of a species of modern pterosaur may be to peoples of Western cultures, this statistical fact gives a whole new level of shock, for it strongly suggests that evolution has not taken place in these featherless flying creatures in anything remotely like what’s been portrayed.

In the image shown below, the left side is the sketch drawn by the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn in 1971 at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the right side is a still image from a video recorded by the biologist Peter Beach, during an expedition on New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea, in 2015. Both sightings appeared to have been of modern pterosaurs.

The left side shows an obvious similarity to end-of-tail flanges of Rhamphorhynchoids; the right side shows the absence of any long tail on the huge featherless flying creature that was seen clearly in daylight by two American explorers.

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Two types of modern pterosaurs

Rhamphorhynchoid-like in 1971 (left) and Pterodactyloid-like in 2015

We need to keep an open mind to the possibility that we should set aside old ideas about the origins of pterosaurs known from fossils, including popular concepts from previous centuries. This field of cryptozoology needs to graduate into a new field of investigation in biology.

About Jonathan Whitcomb

I’m an independent investigative journalist, having spent more hours in this narrow field of cryptozoology, during the past fifteen years, than any other person in the world, to the best of my knowledge: well over 10,000 hours.

Some of my work has been interviewing eyewitnesses of apparent living pterosaurs, sometimes by phone but usually by emails. On occasion I visit the location of a sighting, and I sometimes travel to interview eyewitnesses face-to-face. Most of my time, however, has been with analyzing, comparing, and writing about the sightings. I’ve had direct contact with eyewitnesses from five continents (not counting second-hand and third-hand accounts).

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Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs

Those interviews in Papua New Guinea in 2004 do not scientifically prove the ropen is very closely related to the Sordes pilosus, but it gives strong cryptozoological evidence that it may be related to that pterosaur known from fossils.

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Pterosaurs Still Living

About twelve cryptozoologists who have played a major role in this field of cryptozoology: modern non-extinct pterosaurs

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Unicornorism and Living Pterosaurs

Protecting old ideas by appealing to how long they have been popular or to how popular they are. This is the main enemy to objective living-pterosaur investigations, this dogmatic position of many Westerners.

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Pterodactyloid

Late in 2006, Garth Guessman, a living-pterosaur investigator, interviewed three Americans who had worked in or visited a medical mission in Central New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea. The three had separate sightings, in daylight, of what may be extant (non-extinct) Pterodactyloids. (short-tailed pterosaurs, a.k.a. “pterodactyls”)

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No tail on flying creature – expedition in 2015

. . . two Americans, Milt Marcy and Peter Beach, were searching for a living pterosaur. They spent quite a few weeks on that remote tropical island [New Britain, Papua New Guinea] in 2015, but they were rewarded with a sighting of a flying creature that others had previously seen in that area: a non-extinct pterosaur.

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Modern long-tailed pterosaurs

How common is a long tail on a modern pterosaur! Of the 128 more-credible sighting reports compiled at the end of 2012, 41% reported a long tail.

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Pterodactyl sightings

Many years ago, I tried (without success) to get in touch with Allison Jornlin, the writer of an article on a pterosaur sighting in Wisconsin: “PTERODACTYLS OVER WISCONSIN — STRANGE THINGS ARE HAPPENING IN THE SKY!”

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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100 Posts on Live Pterosaur

This post, number 101 on Live Pterosaur, should list the best of the first one hundred posts, and it will; but first we go to the Santa Clarita Valley, California, in particular in the 1880’s. From a 2007 article in the Signal newspaper (of Santa Clarita Valley):

The creature, according to Lyon, was “as big as a horse, had wings like an oversize bat, big bulgy eyes the size of mushmelons that glowed like Southern Pacific headlights, and a long, woolly tail.”

Well, most Californians, at least in the twenty-first century, would doubt that all those description details would be accurate. But what if they were exaggerations or modifications of an actual flying creature in California, in the 1880’s? What if some of those descriptions had some basis in fact? Try to think of a scientifically-classified bird or bat, in California, that could have been anything like what was seen; regardless of the degree of exaggeration, it seems more like something unclassified, pterosaur or not.

Now to some of the best posts on Live Pterosaur, from September of 2008, to August of 2011.

Hoax Insinuations

Why should a modern living pterosaur be very much like most of the pterosaurs that left fossils that paleontologists have already discovered? This post briefly illustrates this point.

At least one species of Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed pterosaur) known from fossils, the Scaphognathus crassirostris, did have a head crest. The presence of a head crest on a ropen (or modern long-tailed pterosaur) is hardly a sign of a hoax; how many potential hoaxers would know about that fossil? . . .

Ridicule from skeptics comes from our adopting the obvious interpretation of those eyewitness descriptions: a modern living pterosaur. “Unlike pterosaur fossils” is not just inaccurate: It is irrelevant.

Kongamato and Bird Watching in Africa

[Regarding sightings of possible pterosaurs in one area of Africa] No “pterosaur” category can be found on any birdwatcher’s report form, and no lack of pterosaur sightings by organized birdwatchers counts against the many reported sightings of living pterosaurs. This Wikipedia implication could just as well be used as if evidence against the existence of bats (or against UFO’s or against Fourth-of-July fireworks displays).

Cuba Sighting of 1971

I did interview him by phone just a few weeks ago, and I found his response to my surprise phone call truly enlightening: He was highly credible in his manner of speaking and his answers to my unexpected questions. This mature man has not been playing a hoax for four decades, for everything points to an honest reporting of a real experience.

American Ghost Lights

Prosecution: To get to the point, some time ago you scared some people in Gurdon.

GL: Sorry, sir. I meant no harm.

Prosecution: Did you know that they thought they’d seen a ghost?

GL: Heck, I aint no ghost. I didn’t even see ‘em ’til they started a-hollerin’.

Prosecution: But just one night earlier, in that same neighborhood, near the railroad tracks, you were involved in a killing weren’t you?

Defense Attorney: Objection: irrevelant.

Judge: Sustained.

Objective Investigations

When Woetzel had his sighting one night, he described the strange flying light that he had observed. He did not imagine any shape to the light, no form that would suggest a modern pterosaur. He only reported what he had seen.

When Jacob Kepas climbed up a mountain ridge with a local guide, their first viewing location was insufficient for Kepas to be sure that what he was observing was a large winged-creature. Only after the guide had climbed up to a higher viewing location was it ascertained to be what they had suspected.

. . . when Paul Nation videotaped the two strange lights on the ridge, he did not say that he had observed the shapes of two pterosaurs. He described the lights that he had seen; he admitted that no shape was observed.

Fossils are Evidence of Life, not Extinction

Darren Naish . . . believes that there are “no indications from the fossil record that pterosaurs survived beyond the end of the Cretaceous . . .” He also proclaims that “the fossil record convincingly demonstrates that pterosaurs became extinct . . .” What he fails to include in his long post, however, is an explanation for how any fossils can demonstrate the extinction of even one species, let alone all species of a general type.

Both paleontologists concentrate on old questionable accounts, avoiding the critical eyewitness sightings that most heavily support the concept of modern extant pterosaurs.

How Absurd! A Frigate Bird!

I’ve lost count of how many times I have responded to that video footage, explaining that it does not show any ropen but only a common ocean-going bird.

I am concerned that some of the 176,000 viewers may have been mislead in some way, for that Frigate Bird looks nothing like the descriptions that I have received from eyewitnesses of the ropen, regardless of what beach is in that video. Ropens are nocturnal creatures, for the most part, appearing dark and featherless, not with a white throat-chest common for some Frigate Birds

Smithsonian Attacks Ropen “Myth”

I came across a Smithsonian blog post by Brian Switek. I do not question the honesty of Mr. Switek; in fact I agree with his point that an amateur video of a Frigate bird is not evidence for a living pterosaur, namely the cryptid called “ropen.” Nevertheless, a number of problems appear and they are serious.

Switek gives no evidence against any of this, apparently only mentioning the religious nature of Woetzel’s beliefs, as if that were enough to dismiss his ideas about living pterosaurs. I suspect Switek has never thought about Isaac Newton’s relationship to this, for Newton had religious beliefs similar to those of Woetzel.

Bulverism Revisited

When someone publishes a web site with a URL that includes the words “stupid” and “lies,” and the point of the site is to ridicule those who promote the idea of living dinosaurs or living pterosaurs, “bulverism” probably fits . . .

Is it reasonable that everyone who disagrees with us, on any subject, must have unworthy motivations? Why should the subject of living pterosaurs be different, with only believers having an “agenda?”

Evolution, Religion, and the Extinction of Pterosaurs

My associates and I are not members of the same church; I even doubt if two of us are members of the same religious organization, although we are Christians. But our critics seem to have missed a critical point about the possibility of religious bias: The eyewitnesses make the case for modern living pterosaurs, and they are of various faiths and non-faiths, various opinions about evolution, various cultural backgrounds, various countries, and various native languages.

Over several years, I have noticed a common weakness in criticisms of our investigations. Those eyewitness reports that we have upheld as critical and most credible to our work—those have mostly been ignored by most critics. Why do those critics write paragraph after paragraph about old sighting reports that neither we . . . nor our critics consider very credible? . . . Why not compare at least two reports that we have presented as critical? The only reasonable explanation for that neglect seems to me to be that critics want only to dismiss, as quickly as possible, any thought about modern living pterosaurs; they are not searching for the truth about that possibility.

Pterosaur fossils and eyewitnesses

Fossils are evidence of life, not extinction.” This deserves more attention, in light of the many testimonies of many eyewitnesses. Here is part of the text from the page Live Pterosaurs:

How often are dinosaurs and pterosaurs depicted as ancient creatures that became extinct millions of years ago! It was not from “modern science” that we got the doctrine of universal ancient extinctions of dinosaurs and pterosaurs. Fossils discovered before the nineteenth century (long before any carbon-dating or any other dating method), were unknown to those who dug them up. Since they were not similar to any living creatures known to those persons, they were assumed to be extinct. By the time Darwin’s ideas were becoming popular, the fossils were used as evidence for ancient extinctions. But eyewitnesses from the early twentieth century to the present have seen living dinosaurs and living pterosaurs.

Note that “eyewitness” does not usually mean “anecdotal,” at least with the many credible accounts that I have investigated with interviews, for “anecdote” does not apply (contrary to top-of-the-head speculations of some of my critics). Neither does cryptozoology always mean unscientific or pseudo-scientific procedures. The real problem is dogmatic belief in universal extinctions of general categories of creatures: dinosaurs and pterosaurs in particular. And eyewitness accounts keep coming in.

Third edition of "Live Pterosaurs in America"
Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition, nonfiction