Washington | Live Pterosaur

August 16, 2014April 14, 2015

Bioluminescent Pterosaurs in Southeast Washington State

Tree near some of the sighting places (flying lights), Yakima River, Washington state

On Wednesday, August 6, 2014, Peter Beach, Milt Marcy, and I drove together from Portland, Oregon, to the Yakima River in southeast Washington state. Before getting into interview details, I discourage anyone from searching for living pterosaurs in this area by the Yakima River. The flying creatures are nocturnal, not usually seen there in daylight, and Peter told me that men have been shooting off their guns at night along this part of the river. I myself saw spent shell casings on the ground while I was interviewing Peter and Milt. In addition, a local farmer is against any out-of-towners roaming around there and is not shy about phoning the local police to report strangers. In addition, this is on a busy country road on the way to a nuclear generating plant. The location details I reveal are for documentation and research, not for encouraging any expedition.

I emphasize that sightings of apparent living pterosaurs are throughout the states of Washington and Oregon, and it now appears that other areas will be better and safer for future expeditions in those two states. For research (not future expeditions) I reveal the approximate location of sightings by Peter Beach, Milt Marcy, and others: 46°, 20′, 56″ North; 119°, 27′, 59″ West. This is off U.S. Reservation Road (highway 225), near the Tri Cities Shooting Association target range.

I had no idea, when my wife and I went on a vacation to the Portland area, just before arranging for a one-day drive into Washington with Peter and Milt, that the daylight sighting of a pterosaur in a tree (on the Yakima River), years ago, related so closely to the night sighting of a flying light (on a later date) by Peter: Leaping lizards, it was the same tree!

Professor Peter Beach tells Whitcomb how the bright light quickly flew up from the tree

From the book Live Pterosaurs in America (3rd edition), the words of Peter Beach:

We were unable to get a picture but we saw many . . . flashing lights. I would have assumed that [they] were fireflies but we [don’t] have them in Washington. One of the flashes took off from a big tree overhanging the river and made a kind of flashing coma turn. Many flashes were parallel to the river. . . . there were many fish . . . Prime hunting grounds for fish-eating birds. Only these things fish at night with bioluminescence. At first I thought I was just seeing shooting stars, but they were all parallel to the river and close to the horizon. Next I noticed that when the cloud cover came in, I could still see the flashes. They were under the cloud cover.

Car Crash From Pterosaur Sighting

Late one night in 2007, a young man in Wenatchee, Washington, drove his car into a light pole because he was distracted by a “pterodactyl.” That was about 83 miles from the reported sighting area on the Yakima River.

Two Pterosaurs in Southwest Washington

In the farmlands south of Chehalis, Washington, many years ago, a 15-year-old boy encountered two apparent pterosaurs. This is about 60 miles north of Portland, Oregon, and about 160 miles from the Yakima River location, as the ropen flies. From the third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America:

I saw two ropens together sitting on a fence. I was riding my bike home from a friend’s house around 5 pm in . . . I lived in the country with my parents on a . . . ranch. [About] 1/2 mile from home, riding down an old country road . . . I heard a strange noise [a kind of] screech. . . . on a wood plank fence were two of the biggest bird-like creatures I could ever imagine! I almost crashed my bike! They were about 50 ft from me; the first thing I noticed was their heads, then I thought this can’t be! Could they be dinosaurs?

Washington State Pterosaurs

We have seen and heard a strange nocturnal, bat-like creature . . . huge, light grey, skin with no fur, feathers or scales. It silently swoops down at you with giant bat wings. . . . We keep our chickens and goats, small dogs and cats safely housed at night, however . . .

Yakima River, near sighting area in Washington (photo by Whitcomb, Aug 6, 2014)

April 22, 2013December 30, 2013

Scientists and Live Pterosaurs

tree-lined Yakima River in rural Washington state

What do scientists think about pterosaur sighting reports? Many of them have probably never heard about any relevant research. We need to remember that searching for live “pterodactyls” is still within the realm of cryptozoology, for we don’t yet have any living or recently-deceased animal to examine. For now, let’s see what one biology professor has done in searching for a bioluminescent living pterosaur and then consider the origin of the extinction idea and then see what scientific analysis has been done on recent data from pterosaur sightings.

Bioluminescent Flying Creatures in Washington State

From the third edition of my book Live Pterosaurs in America:

Late in 2007, I received an email from Peter Beach, a biology professor . . .

“I went on a short trip to the Yakima River this summer . . . because there was a [sighting]. We were unable to get a picture but we saw many . . . flashing lights. I would have assumed that [they] were fireflies but we [don’t] have them in Washington. One of the flashes took off from a big tree overhanging the river and made a kind of flashing coma turn. Many flashes were parallel to the river. . . .

. . . “Prime hunting grounds for fish-eating birds. Only these things fish at night with bioluminescence. At first I thought I was just seeing shooting stars, but they were all parallel to the river and close to the horizon. Next I noticed that when the cloud cover came in, I could still see the flashes. They were under the cloud cover. Whatever they are, I suggest that they are at least unknown to science, night flying, bioluminescent, flying creatures about the size of an eagle or big hawk . . .”

In August of 2008, I received another email from the professor:

“During the short expedition I led with the O’Donnells, mid-July [an expedition more recent than the one mentioned above], we saw three hours of bioluminescent ‘shooting stars.’ The last hour was the most interesting in that there were two light blasts about 200 ft. apart, about 50-100 ft., above the river. The blasts were followed by screeches from about a dozen or so agitated nighthawks in the general area. I think the Rhamphorhynchoids, if that is what they were, were feeding on the nighthawks as the nighthawks were feeding on the flying insects.”

Yakima River, in the state of Washington

Origin of Universal-Pterosaur-Extinction Axiom

Many scientists take this axiom for granted, but pterosaur extinction, regarding every species, is clearly a basic assumption, not a proven fact. In the ebook Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea, I wrote:

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.

Since 1784, universal-pterosaur-extinction has been taken for granted, as the years turned into decades, throughout the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century. The breadth of this assumption expanded, from generations of regurgitated proclamations, but the depth has always been shallow, with no real evidence of any kind.

I know that some paleontologist will point to fossils as if their specimens prove the extinction of all species of pterosaurs that ever lived upon the earth. Nonsense! Not only are new species or organisms being discovered in fossils but new species are also being discovered in living creatures. Regarding pterosaurs, nobody, not even a paleontologist with a university diploma, can reasonably display their fossils as if that display were proof of extinction for species for countless species for which we have no fossils.

Statistics on Credible Pterosaur Sightings

Long tails dominate. Of those eyewitnesses who specified tail length or the presence or absence of a long tail, 95% reported a long tail. This alone discredits any skeptic’s insinuation that the sightings are mostly hoaxes, for few, if any, hoaxers would report a long-tailed pterosaur. Films and television have given us images of pterosaurs without long tails, with few exceptions. Hoaxers would not likely report something contrary to what is commonly seen in film or on television.

Overall statistics for wingspan estimates also count against any major hoax involvement. For those eyewitnesses who made estimates of wingspan, 31% (23 out of 74) reported sizes greater than seven feet but less than fifteen feet. If many hoaxes were involved, this range (7-15 feet, non-inclusive) would have been much less . . . [7-15 feet is much too big for Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs but too small for a hoaxer to use to shock anybody or to convince many persons that a non-bird was reported.]

. . . Of all the sighting reports compiled into the database by the end of 2012, those in which eyewitnesses were sure of the lack of any feathers was 21% but those eyewitnesses who thought it only probable (that there were no feathers) was 25%. . . . If hoaxes played a major role in the sighting reports, an insistence on lack of feathers would dominate. This is the opposite of what the overall data shows for this characteristic. Eyewitnesses who are positive about featherlessness are outnumbered by those who are not positive about it. . . .

From these three factors, we see that no hoax or hoaxes played any significant role in the 128 reports analyzed.

Live Pterosaurs and Science

This goes into details about scientific analysis of wingspan estimates.

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Nonfiction cryptozoology book; paperback; third edition

How are sightings in the United States related to those in the southwest Pacific? How do some apparent nocturnal pterosaurs pertain to bats, and how are bats irrelevant? How could modern living pterosaurs have escaped scientific notice? These mysteries have slept in the dark, beyond the knowledge of almost all Americans, even beyond our wildest dreams (although the reality of some pterosaurs is a living nightmare to some bats). These mysteries have slept . . . until now. [From the Title page of Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition]

March 4, 2010December 8, 2011

Marfa Lights of Texas

I recently interviewed a man who observed several strange lights near Marfa, Texas. Driving across the country, two days earlier, Mr. Greene decided to stop at the Marfa observation station, having previously read of the strange lights. He watched the sky for hours, grateful that the flying lights were active that night. [details became available in late 2010, in the nonfiction book on cryptozoology: Live Pterosaurs in America.]

Why consider that American “ghost lights” relate to live pterosaurs? Consider the ropen light of Papua New Guinea. From them we can learn that at least some living pterosaurs are bioluminescent, in particular the apparent Rhamphorhynchoids of the Southwest Pacific. Now consider how many strange lights are reported across the United States: North Carolina (Brown Mountain Light), South Carolina (Bingham Lights), Arkansas (Dover Lights), Washington state (Yakima Lights)–those are only a sample. Strange lights have appeared across the United States for decades or centuries; apparent pterosaurs have also appeared across the United States for decades or centuries.

A bioluminescent flying creature much larger than a firefly I label “B.F.C.” Of course, not all strange flying lights are BFC, but I will also use this term to refer to ones with reasonable potential, from the perspective of my associates and I (who are convinced that the ropen is a bioluminescent Rhamphorhynchoid).

I took special interest in one of the lights that Mr. Greene described to me. It flew around for over two hours, until the sun was about to come up. At least once, it dived down, at a speed apparently consistant with what I would expect of a B.F.C. that is hunting bats, diving after one bat.

[The special characteristics of Marfa Lights should not be confused with ghost lights that may be barn owls.]

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