image_pdfimage_print

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

###

.

Ropen Videos on Youtube

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

.

Youtube Again: “Were Dragons Real?”

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

.

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]

.

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? . . .

.

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.

.

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.

.

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.

.

Recent Sightings of Pterosaurs, Including Ropens (Long-Tailed “Pterodactyls”)

"Over 200,000 views of posts on this blog"

Before getting into these recent encounters with “pterodactyls” or “dragons,” as some call them, I’d like to express my gratitude that this blog now has received over 200,000 views worldwide, over the years. Over 100,000 of these have been from readers in the United States. That means the word is getting out about these sightings of strange featherless flying creatures. Please continue to contact me if you are one of those who has seen one of these flying creatures.

"Over 200,000 views of posts on this blog"

Some of the following excerpts from email reports have been edited for spelling and punctuation, etc. Each one appears to have significant potential as a valid sighting report of a modern pterosaur. Not all of these reports has been followed up by phone conversations, so credibility may be less certain than older reports that have passed the test of time and phone interviews and/or face-to-face interviewing. Nevertheless, as of mid-March of 2016, the following accounts each appear to be probably genuine encounters with a ropen or other type of pterosaur.

Oklahoma (Broken Arrow) early 2016

I was at a funeral that took place at Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, [at] around 2:05/2:10. While the pastor was speaking, I saw what I thought was a raven, crow or eagle. As I observed this I noticed it had a long neck, long tail and a ball at the end of the tail. I know it was not a know bird. . . .

. . . I searched for flying dragons in Oklahoma and this web site came up. I do not drink or do drugs!!! Plus my daughter also saw this thing too, so I was not seeing things.

Oklahoma City on February 2, 2016

This appears to have no direct relationship with the sighting in Broken Arrow. Both encounters just happen to have been in the same state, early in 2016.

I believe I saw one of these the other day. . . . I was driving down the highway and noticed what first looked like a big bird flying over lake Hefner in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The highway runs right along the lake. I was staring at it for a good three to five seconds before passing by it. . . . It looked way too big to be an eagle or hawk . . . I distinctly remember no feathers and it’s skin, which reminded me of one of those hairless cats it was all tan and wrinkly, and also the wings were like webbed to its body. . . .

I was in disbelief I remember saying out loud to myself, “did I just see a . . . dragon?” I was alone but it was right beside the highway so there had to be a few if not many others that saw it.

Oregon (Medford) in June of 2015

This encounter was not so recent (mid-2015), but I got the report in March of 2016. This is the first publication of this Oregon sighting report, to the best of my knowledge.

I wanted to let someone know that I saw one of these creatures last year at around 6:45 PM, in June, 2015. I’m positive it was not a bird because it had a long tail with a triangular thing on the end that bounced as it flapped it’s wings. My husband and I were standing outside. . . .

. . . this thing flew toward the house pretty high up. I could clearly see the protrusion on the back on the head from the angle we had, as well as the tail bouncing in flight. . . . this didn’t look like any feathered creature. It absorbed more light. I couldn’t tell exactly how big it was, but we have golden eagles out here and it was around 3 times as long as a golden eagle flying at the height I usually see them. The only other bird we have that is that size would be a buzzard, but they don’t look anything like this.

###

.

Recent Pterosaur Sightings (including in Oklahoma)

This morning at around 8:30 it went from bright morning to a black sky in just a few minutes. . . . it was such a freaky change in weather . . . On my way back from the store, I was watching the sky and saw a few birds and this really big bird with leathery wings and a long tail with a lion tuft type of thing. This is what the shape suggested. I didn’t see any feathers.

.

Ropen Sighting in Oregon

Another report of flying lights has surfaced, this one from a wilderness area of Oregon. It seems that the mysterious lights that have been reported to fly over the Yakima River in the state of Washington—those are also seen to fly over a river in Oregon, reported by two cryptozoologists from the Portland area.

.

Sighting of a Ropen by an American

Video of an interview between cryptozoologist Garth Guessman and the pterosaur eyewitness Duane Hodgkinson (sighting itself was in 1944 in New Guinea)

.

Support this research by purchasing a book:

Live Pterosaurs in America

.