talk show | Live Pterosaur

August 18, 2013December 20, 2014

Blog Radio Broadcast on Aug 18, 2013

Susan Wooten's drawing of the large pterosaur she saw in South Carolina

I am scheduled to talk on Monster X Radio this afternoon at 4:00 p.m. California (Daylight) time (11:00 pm, UTC, Coordinated Universal Time):

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/mxr/2013/08/18/living-pterosaurs-with-jonathon-whitcomb

Possible subjects could include one or more of the following (although I may have only limited control):

Pterosaur Sightings Worldwide
“Pterodactyl” Encounters in the United States
The Ropen of Papua New Guinea
Common Characteristics of Descriptions
Bioluminescence of Modern Nocturnal Pterosaurs
Sizes of Reported Pterosaurs
Credibility of Sighting Reports
Origin Philosophies, Religion, and Science
Extinction of Pterosaurs or not
Possible Hoaxes
Possible Misidentifications

I would be delighted to talk about pterosaur sightings in Papua New Guinea and how they may relate to encounters in other parts of the world. The ropen has been my specialty for years.

For those who would like to ask questions of me, on this online radio show, I believe you can call in at around 5:00 p.m. (California time) at this number: (347) 326-9859 (“Press 1 to talk.”)

This seems to be a New York area code, so here is the Eastern Daylight Time when the show starts: 7:00 EDT. Calls for questions may be made in the second hour, if I understand correctly.

Addendum

The two-hour interview last night went well. The first hour covered expeditions and sightings in Papua New Guinea and typical sighting descriptions of apparent pterosaurs in the United States. In the second hour, Susan Wooten and Laura Dean called in and gave their sighting reports, with descriptions of the flying creatures they had observed in South Carolina and Arkansas respectively.

Bioluminescence and flying lights were discussed in both hours of the interview.

The title of the interview talk show is “Living Pterosaurs with Jonathon Whitcomb” (my first name is really spelled “Jonathan.”)

Host Shane Corson afterwards told me, “. . . it was a fabulous and very informative show thanks to you! We have had great feedback so thanks again!” I am grateful to Shane and Johnny and to Susan and Laura for making this talk show a success.

Wooten’s sketch of the creature she saw in South Carolina

###

February 8, 2013December 20, 2014

Part Three of Radio Podcast Interview

cover of ebook - Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea - ver-25

See Part One of Whitcomb-Syrett radio interview, for the beginning of the discussion. This third part of the series is not the end of the interview, which is lengthy. It is continued from the second part. (A fourth part may or may not be added later.) This post includes a quotation from the digital book Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea. Richard Syrett:

How did that skill help you in [interviewing] witnesses?

Jonathan Whitcomb:

Well, I noticed on the videotapes (I got from Paul Nation from Texas, who went on a couple of expeditions before I did), and I noticed on the videotaped interviews of the natives, and I looked at that . . . I realized that the natives are not trying to convince anybody of anything, they’re just casually relating what they saw, and most of them saw just a light in the distance, a flying light, because we believe its bioluminescence from the creature. And most of them saw that, and they admit they didn’t see anything about the form; it’s just a few of them that saw the form like a pterosaur. So I was convinced that they’re telling the truth . . .(in particular one named Gideon Koro—he saw it in the day time: astonishing, frightening creature).

Syrett:

Why do they seem to be so prevalent in Papua New Guinea? Is it because it’s remote, or is there a food source there? Why so many ropens in New Guinea?

Whitcomb:

Well, generally all over the world, for eight and a half years or so I’ve been researching this, and I get a lot of emails from people all over the world [even] phone calls. Generally most of them are long-tailed creatures, no feathers. I don’t know for sure that they’re more prevalent; I believe they’re more prevalent in Papua New Guinea because there’s a variety of different food sources they have in the reefs, for example, [on] Umboi Island, while I was exploring, a creature was dominant there on the island, will go to one reef one night, and then he’ll get food there, giant clams or whatever it is . . . and then he’ll go to the mountain that’s closest to it, and then he’ll go to another mountain and then fly off on another night to a reef that’s adjacent to that mountain.

[May or may not be continued in another post] . From the nonfiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea: Introduction

. . . In modern eyewitness reports, long-tailed pterosaurs outnumber short-tails, at least four-to-one. Standard models of extinction make this ratio appear strange, for the long-tailed variety were thought to have dwindled before the short-tailed pterosaurs became dominant, at least that’s the theory. Nevertheless, the ratio is significant in modern sightings, appearing consistent regardless of the culture or beliefs or education of the eyewitness. Furthermore, many of those long tails are reported to have tail vanes that suggest Rhamphorhynchoids. A common word used by eyewitnesses, to describe the shape of the structure at the end of the tail, is “diamond.”

First Chapter: “How can Pterosaurs be Alive?”

. . . Some eyewitnesses fear discovering the monstrous possibility of personal insanity. Others fear not insanity itself but the opinions of anyone who might think them insane. Others fear discovering that some of what they had been taught about science was false; they prefer to believe that scientific proclamations must always be true. How grateful I am for those who, in spite of their fears, report to me their encounters! Of course we’re talking about Western eyewitnesses here. Some Americans and Australians fear what neighbors might say to other neighbors, so some eyewitnesses keep quiet. Natives in Papua New Guinea, on the other hand, might fear the creature itself. Who cares if your closest neighbor is thirsting for gossip? That huge long-tailed flying thing north of your village might become a close neighbor . . . and it might become hungry. You’ll see an example of that kind of fear in the chapter with the interview of Gideon Koro.

$3.99 (U.S. dollars) .

January 24, 2013December 20, 2014

Part two of Radio Podcast Interview

A few months after his expedition in Papua New Guinea, Garth Guessman interviewed eyewitness Duane Hodgkinson near Livingston, Montana

See Part One of Whitcomb-Syrett radio interview. This continues quoting from the interview I had last year, over the phone, with Richard Syrett.

Richard Syrett:

Jonathan Whitcomb has been to Papua New Guinea and talked to the aboriginals there, and others who claimed to have seen what they call (it goes by a number of names) . . . the “ropen,” a flying cryptid which bears a striking resemblance to a creature we’ve all told become extinct some sixty million years ago: pterosaurs. And, as he says, there’s been a recent sighting in Southern California, and we’ll get some more details on that, although I understand details are a little scarce at this time, but we will discuss that.

Jonathan, back to Papua New Guinea and Duane Hodgkinson, back in 1944: Who was he and what did he see?

Jonathan Whitcomb:

He was a farm boy in his teenage years in Ohio, and he was in the . . . World War II in 1944, he was in Finschhafen area. (At that time, the Japanese had already moved on . . .) And he [Hodgkinson] and his army buddy, they decided go visit a village . . . [west of Finschhafen]

They were in a jungle clearing, in the middle of the day, clear weather, no obstruction to what they saw, and when they were in this jungle clearing, which was about 100 feet across (in diameter) . . . a wild pig ran through there, and it startled them for a moment, until they realized it was just a pig.

And then what happened was astonishing, because something began flying up out of the clearing . . . running at first, and they were astonished because at first they thought it was a bird or something and they realized it was much too big, and as it got airborne, it flew right over the clearing. And they were astonished and thinking it was gone.

And then it came back over the clearing, the opposite direction, . . . it had a head crest . . . like a pterosaur, and a very long tail. Hodgkinson estimated the tail at ten to fifteen feet at least . . . in length.

Syrett:

And the wingspan?

Whitcomb:

About twenty-nine feet . . . and the two men and the animal were in the same clearing, which was 100 feet across, so there’s no reasonable way that they could have misunderstood the size of it. And they weren’t expecting anything like that; they thought it was, at first, just a bird, but it was just far too big.

Syrett:

And did this creature have feathers?

Whitcomb:

. . . He didn’t notice any. Now this is an interesting point: He said he saw no feathers, but he was not adamant saying there couldn’t possibly be any feather on the whole creature, because he was concentrating on the head.

But basically we know from that the type of head it was; he got a very clear view of the head, and we believe it was a giant Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur.

Syrett:

And I guess the obvious question the skeptic would ask is, “Why should we believe Duane Hodgkinson? How do we know he’s not just pulling our collective leg?”

Whitcomb:

Yea, there are a number of reasons for that. He’s a flight instructor for many years now; he has many thousands . . . of hours of flight time, and he teaches people how to fly. He wouldn’t be conducting a hoax for sixty years, with the possibility that people could just mistrust him and not become clients.

There’s other reasons too. He’s not alone . . . in 1971 there’s Brian Hennessy, an Australian; he saw a similar creature, quite similar, because I gave him a test similar to Hodgkinson’s in identifying sketches and comparing lengths of the head crest, and so on. He saw the same species, I believe, [as Hodgkinson] in New Guinea, but on an island to the east—Bougainville Island— . . . I believe is the same species.

Syrett:

We should point out, Jonathan, that . . . your vocation is an independent forensic videographer for attorney firms.

Whitcomb:

I’ve been doing that for many years except for recent years when I’ve been much too busy writing and investigating these creatures.

To be continued

Garth Guessman (left) interviewed the eyewitness Duane Hodgkinson (right) in 2005, near Livingston, Montana — See Youtube video Pterodactyl Eyewitness

Podcast-Radio Interview: Whitcomb & Syrett (Part One)

When you have a sighting that’s way over twenty feet, it’s obviously not a Flying Fox fruit bat, not a bird like an eagle. And we do have sightings [with] very high credibility . . .

Listen to the interview between Jonathan Whitcomb and Richard Syrett

Richard speaks with cryptozoologist, Jonathan Whitcomb, who specializes in living-pterosaur investigations. He has traveled to Papua New Guinea in an attempt to verify sightings of this creature by the local indigenous people. . . .

October 3, 2012December 20, 2014

Whitcomb on Radio Talk Show in Australia

On September 25th, I was interviewed, by telephone, by Aaron Wright of Mysterious Universe, in Australia. It was not a live radio show but was audio-edited and broadcast (or published) on a podcast around September 28th.

The interview lasted about an hour, as I remember, but because of audio problems only a fraction of it was used in the podcast (online radio broadcast). Here is part of the beginning:

Aaron: Joining me today is Jonathan David Whitcomb, author of Live Pterosaurs in America and a new book which has just come out: Live Pterosaurs in Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Thanks for joining us, Jonathan; how are you today?

Jonathan: Oh, great! Thanks very much for inviting me.

Aaron: Oh, you’re very welcome. So let’s just talk about ropens . . . and pterosaurs. What are these creatures? I thought they were extinct.

Jonathan: Most species of pterosaurs have become extinct at some time in the past . . . What we’re trying to portray to the world is that we’ve discovered a large number of eyewitnesses, from different parts of the world, who testify of something that couldn’t be anything other than one or more species of living pterosaur.

I’ll give you an example. In Papua New Guinea, some of the villagers, the language that they speak, they have a word called “ropen,” and that designates a large nocturnal flying creature. And we know from eyewitnesses that it has a long tail, and it has a bioluminescent capacity. It glows for a few seconds at a time at night, as it’s flying.

Aaron: So how large are these creatures?

Jonathan: The largest ones are very rare. But they’re so large that they cannot be mistaken if a person sees one. I’ll give you an example. In Perth, Australia, (I believe the year was 1997), it was in December, a couple was taking a walk. . . . They saw a creature flying up, and eventually they came to the conclusion that it could be as large as fifty-foot wingspan, from tip-to-tip of the wings.

Aaron: Fifty foot!

Jonathan: But we have a number of other sightings across the southwest Pacific and in other parts of the world, including California in the United States, in which there are rare cases of a very large creature being sited in the daytime.

Just a few years ago, a man was driving in the daylight, in clear daylight, in Orange County, in Southern California, and he was startled to see this creature fly up from the marshy area on his left. It flew over the road—it’s . . not too far above the road in front of him. And he says that the length from the nose (the front of the beak or whatever it was) to the end of the tail was the same as the width of the road. Now I went out there and I measured it: It was thirty feet. And he said about sixteen feet of that length was tail.

Jonathan Whitcomb Interviewed for Canadian Television Show

For many years my associates and I have searched for living pterosaurs and interviewed many eyewitnesses. . . . Those who believe in modern pterosaurs have been ridiculed for years, with no end in sight for the ridicule. But cutting down ridicule by cutting down one of these amazing animals [shooting an animal for evidence] would be wrong. We need to protect precious life, not destroy it.