wingspan | Live Pterosaur

June 11, 2018

Live Pterodactyl in Mississippi

historic trail in Mississippi - The Natchez Trace

By the living-pterosaur expert Jonathan Whitcomb

Early in June of 2018, I began communicating with Ruth Wilson, of Clinton, Mississippi. Here’s part of the first email she sent me (slightly edited for punctuation and spelling), and we continued with more emails about her sighting of an apparent living pterosaur:

Hello, I don’t know exactly if this is where to tell you this. . . . not sure of the exact year but I know it was late 90’s or early 2000’s. I went out to get get in my car and it was warm weather and a bright sunny day. I had opened the car door and a fairly big shadow passed over me and I looked up and saw a very large animal (?) fly over me and it was not a bird because it was way too big.

The wing span was probably about 20 ft tip to tip and it was a dark color and I didn’t notice feathers. I didn’t look up in time to see the head but it didn’t have a tail and the wings were more squared off and not a point like a hawk or vulture. Besides it was way way too big for that. There are woods all behind my house and it was pretty low to be that big. I’m not very good at guessing measurements and the way I’m judging the wingspan is the length of my living room.

I have only told my daughters because even though it was heading towards town I never heard any mention of anyone else seeing anything. I listened to the news for days and read the newspaper but there was never anything.

At the time I had never heard anything about living pterosaurs and still have no idea what it could have been. Until I read your book I would have said giant bat but I don’t think it was a bat.

I replied, “Thank you, Ruth, for telling me about this encounter in Clinton. I know something about that area, having lived a short time in Vicksburg and in Yazoo City when I was a young man. . . .”

I later wrote to her the following: “Before you had your sighting in Clinton, had you ever heard about sightings of these flying creatures? Have any of your daughters heard about similar sightings? Which of my books have you read (and which edition)? Thank you for your help in the investigation.”

She replied:

No. I had never heard anything about these animals at that time and neither of my daughters had. The first we ever heard of them was on Destination Truth when they were searching for the Ropen. After I saw that episode I had a sort of Aha moment.

The book I have is Live Pterosaurs In America. Second Edition. It flew from east to west. I hope this is some help. I’m glad I have someone to tell because I never thought anyone would believe me. Thank you so much for your work.

She then told me:

I want to clarify that I had the sighting years before we saw the episode with the Ropen. . . . after watching that I felt like I finally had an idea of what I had seen.

I replied, “Thank you. I have no doubt: You did indeed see a living pterosaur, even though it may not have been the most common type, which my associates and I call ‘ropen.’ We do get reports of different species, shocking as that may be to most people in Western countries like the USA.

“I forgot an important question: Could you make a rough estimate of
how high it was above the ground? Perhaps the height of the trees
could help in making an estimate. Thanks for all your help.”

She answered:

It was not very high so my guess would be 70 to 100 feet from the ground. Since you’re somewhat familiar with the area, the Natchez Trace is at the end of our street and not far from Big Black River.

There is also a large cemetery up from my house. One part of it has lots of woods even though it belongs to the cemetery. I don’t know if that is significant or not. But I think there are places for it to have hidden. I hope that helps. Ruth

She later allowed me to use her name in publications: Ruth Wilson.

Natchez Trace (this part of the historic trail is in Mississippi)

Regarding the Wingspan Estimate

I consider her estimate of wingspan to be worthy of serious consideration, even though it makes this flying creature much larger than birds. She was using the width of her living room as a reference.

Some sighting reports suggest that some living pterosaurs in North America are even larger than the one described by this lady in Mississippi. The ropen seen in Irvine, California, (as well as others worldwide) was huge: as long as the street over which it flew. I measured the width of that road myself (30 feet).

###

Modern “pterodactyl” in Oklahoma

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 wrinkley, and also the wings were like webbed to its body.

Non-extinct pterosaur in Alabama

. . . on Highway 72, between Madison and Scotsborro, Alabama, when they were startled to see a strange creature fly across the road, about 150 feet in front of their car.

Monster Sightings of Hawaii

Little people, giant octopus, and living pterosaurs

Data on Pterosaur Sightings in the USA

Encounters in many states of the United States:

California
Texas
Indiana
South Carolina
Florida
Kentucky
Wisconsin
Michigan
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Georgia
Rhode Island
Maine
New York
Maryland
Kansas
Ohio
New Mexico
Washington
Pennsylvania
Arizona
New Jersey
North Carolina
Oregon
Mississippi
Idaho
etc.

Non-extinct pterosaurs in North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Louisiana

Also in other states in the South (USA)

Living pterosaurs in the South

It didn’t flap its wings like a bird . . . more like back peddle like a bat, then it soars out and repeats to get more speed.

April 25, 2013May 29, 2014

Why are Some Living Pterosaurs Huge?

Actually relatively few modern pterosaurs grow to become as large as the largest of those flying creatures known from fossils. At least some species probably continue to grow as long as they live, making the giant ones rare, for many things can cause an organism to die; remember the greatest risk one faces in old age: death. Statistics make it clear that pterosaur sightings, at least the more credible reports, show a steady range of wingspan estimates, with a slight drop off in the flying creatures appearing to have a wingspan greater than about thirty feet. Let’s examine that idea first.

Why do so many sightings involve giant pterosaurs?

That’s a better question, for the giant ones are indeed rare. What do I mean? Put yourself in the following situation, and let’s say that you are unaware of reports of living pterosaurs. Walk out your front door to your car as something flies over your house. Whatever that something is, let us say it’s over a hundred feet high and between the size of a sparrow and a crow. Would you look up to see what kind of bird it is? Why bother?

Now keep everything the same except the size: The flying creature has a wingspan of twenty feet. Even at 150 feet above your house, it could very well catch the corner of your eye and perhaps change your life, as you turn your head. Our subconscious has a way of telling us when something is odd.

The point? Modern pterosaurs with wingspans greater than large birds catch the attention of eyewitnesses, even though those larger ones are nocturnal and relatively rare. When one of them takes off into the air in daylight, for whatever reason, how easy we can take notice! That shocking appearance might also increase an eyewitness’s desire to report the sighting to me, increasing the number of giant flying creatures in my reports.

If we could take a census of all modern pterosaurs, of all species now living, I would not be shocked to learn that less than 1% of them have wingspans over twenty feet. Take that in the context of the late-2012 analysis of the 128 most credible sighting reports: Of those estimating wingspans, 26% of the estimates were over twenty feet. But I would guess the actual number of animals (of that size) at much closer to 1% of the total population.

Pterosaur Sightings and Photos

Direct eyewitness testimony of a pterosaur sighting is essential, even if we have to wait many years for photographic evidence.

Was it a Giant Prehistoric Bird?

. . . why is that word used by some eyewitnesses: “bird?” That word comes to mind because birds commonly fly overhead, during the daylight when we notice things in the sky, far more commonly than we notice bats.

Live Pterosaurs and Science

What can we conclude from the evenness of the data on wingspan estimates? No significant number of hoaxes were involved, for expectations regarding pterosaur size would have made one or two peaks; there is no significant peak anywhere that would suggest such a thing.

December 6, 2012May 29, 2014

Live Pterosaurs and Science

years of sighting reports showing wingspan estimates of living pterosaurs

Skeptics have often suggested two explanations for sightings of pterosaurs: hoaxes and misidentifications. Let’s use scientific reasoning by examining the most recent results of data compilations and analysis, for information obtained from eyewitnesses, in particular regarding the possibility of major hoax involvement.

Wingspan Data

After the addition of data from the many 2012 reports, we have 74 sightings in which wingspan estimates were made numerically. For example, in Hawaii an eyewitness reported “Between 3-4 foot wing span, sharp, long beak, featherless wings more like a bat than a bird.” The wingspan estimate was entered into the database as “3.5” for that sighting in 2008 (reported to me in 2012).

Statistical analysis gives us the following (wingspans in feet):

Minimum: 1.3

First Quartile: 6

Median: 11.5

Third Quartile: 20.5

Maximum: 46

Mean 14.472

SD 10.200

SEM 1.186

N 74

90% CI 12.496 to 16.447

95% CI 12.109 to 16.835

99% CI 11.336 to 17.608

There is no outlier.

I believe the data is similar to the data gathered and analyzed for wingspan estimates one year ago, but I am open to comments from anyone who is qualified in statistical analysis.

Most of us prefer to see a graph of the data, so consider this:

What can we conclude from the evenness of the data on wingspan estimates? No significant number of hoaxes were involved, for expectations regarding pterosaur size would have made one or two peaks; there is no significant peak anywhere that would suggest such a thing. Let’s consider two peaks that would come from a number of hoaxes.

Hoax With Bias Towards Huge Pterosaurs

This would be the most likely result of hoaxes, in my opinion. Hoaxers would probably be influenced by film and television fiction, for example the Jurassic Park movies. If many hoaxers were involved, it would create, in the wingspan graph, either a broad peak or a very high peak, somewhere over twelve feet. This is obviously lacking in the actual graph above.

Hoax With Bias Towards Rhamphorhynchoid-Fossil Size

This needs to be taken in context: Many sightings of apparent pterosaurs include the observation of a long tail. Many of those, in turn, include the observation of a vane or flange at the end of the tail, in other words, a tail like that of a Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed) pterosaur. Hoaxers who were attempting to convey precisely-orchestrated lies would give wingspan estimates in keeping with the fossils of that kind of pterosaur, fossils of small pterosaurs, generally less than eight feet in wingspan. If such hoaxes played a major part in the sighting reports, we would see a peak in the graph, somewhere below eight feet or so. That differs greatly from what we see in the graph above.

But what if the construction of the above graph might hide critical information? Let’s look at another graph, made with feet designations by multiples of four feet rather than three:

At the 24-foot mark, the apparent small valley in the first graph becomes a small peak in the second graph. This means that the actual data in this area is rather even. To be precise, here is that portion of the actual data (feet of wingspan): 20, 20, 20, 20, 20.5, 21, 21.5, 22, 24, 25, 25, 25, 25, 27, 29, 30, 30.

Notice the peak in the lower range; this appears to be a genuine peak. But it involves wingspans too large to have come from hoaxers who were influenced by the sizes of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs. To be precise: 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.5, 11, 11, 12, 12, 12.5, 13, 13, 13, 13. Those are far too many estimates over seven feet, were such hoaxers to have become involved.

Why so few Giant Pterosaurs?

So why do both graphs show a steady decline in numbers of sightings, as the wingspan increases into the larger-than-birds range? I suggest that in at least one or two species the creatures continue to grow as they get older. The creatures die off for various reasons, leaving fewer and fewer larger ones to continue to grow. Only a very few modern pterosaurs reach a wingspan over thirty feet, but when one of those giant nocturnal pterosaurs has a reason to fly in daylight, it can hardly avoid being observed by a human, within a few hundred yards, who glances in that direction.

I realize that all this analysis and reasoning hardly compares with darting a modern pterosaur and examining the sleeping creature up close, but for now we need to do the best we can do, with what we have, and we have a lot of data.

Scientific Evidence for Modern Pterosaurs

. . . many Americans think of “pterodactyls” as large or gigantic, similar to what we have seen in movies. That would cause a disproportional number of reports to include wingspans over fifteen feet, even greater than twenty-five feet, if many hoaxes were involved. But there is no such preponderance in the data.

No Feathers on Pterosaurs

A hoaxer would have no reason to show doubt about the lack of feathers, for that would be essential to convince somebody that a pterosaur had been observed . . .

Scientific Paper by Jonathan Whitcomb

David Woetzel of New Hampshore and Jonathan Whitcomb of California may be the only writers who have published, in a peer-reviewed journal, scientific papers supporting the idea of modern living pterosaurs [Creation Research Society Quarterly].

December 26, 2011December 10, 2012

More on Pterosaur Wingspans

Of the fifty-seven sightings of apparent pterosaurs in which wingspan estimates were given (numerically, like “ten feet”), observed around the world and over many years, from the mid-twentieth century to the present, the graph shows longest wingspans to the right (every three feet, beginning with 3.25 feet; the furthest to the right, “p,” is 45.5 to 48.5 feet); the verticle indicating the number of sightings. It appears perfectly harmonious with the idea that at least most modern species experience growth throughout lifespan, with extremely large individuals being rare. The degree of rarity should be much greater than shown, for the largest modern pterosaurs should be noticed by eyewitnesses much more frequently than smaller ones; small pterosaurs can easily be ignored, for they often are not noticed as anything unusual enough to cause eyewitnesses to take a closer look and see that it is no bird.

The Hoax Potential and Pterosaur Wingspan

The peak, ten sightings, is at wingspan estimates between 3.25 feet and 6.25 feet. On the surface, this appears to clearly refute any possibility of a major hoax-influence, for why would hoaxers give such small “estimates” for the wingspan? Looking a little deeper, if hoaxers were trying to convince people that they had seen Rhamphorhynchoids, smaller wingspans would be more in harmony with fossils of those long-tailed pterosaurs. But looking even closer, we see something else.

Look at the raw data for the left and middle of the graph (wingspan in feet):

2 2 4 4 4 4 5 5 5 6 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 9 10 10 10 11 11 12 12 12.5 13 13 13 13 15 16 16 17 17 17 18 — According to standard ideas in paleontology (and that is mostly what is mentioned in Western media when it is mentioned at all), only a small percentage of Rhamphorhynchoids attained wingspans over eight feet. But the data on wingspan estimates does not show any sharp decline above six feet, more of a gentle downward slope (fewer eyewitness estimates) into sizes much larger than standard ideas about Rhamphorhynchoid fossil wingspans. If a significant number of hoaxers made some of these fifty-seven estimates, and a significant number of those hoaxers were trying to portray Rhamphorhynchoids, there would have been a steeper decline above seven feet. But in fact, 26% of reports involved wingspans estimated at 9-13 feet, completely out of line for this particular hoax conjecture.

Another Hoax Potential

Consider the most likely cause for someone to play a hoax. A jokester would likely want to shock somebody. What would be most shocking? Would it not be a huge wingspan? But if hoaxers were involved in this way, the data would not show a rather smooth transition from small wingspans into the giant ones. From a significant hoax factor of this kind, we would expect to see a peak at around 15-25 feet (around f, g, and h, on the above graph); but that is not at all what the data shows.

Pterosaur Wingspan, Recent Statistics, Absence of Hoaxes

But first we review this perspective: A number of species of pterosaurs (more than two) live in many areas of this planet, with at least most of them being at least mostly nocturnal and with some of them being witnessed by people in countries in which universal dinosaur and pterosaur extinction is taken for granted. These species include both Pterodactyloids and Rhamphorhynchoids.

Source of Data

I obtained the 98 reports from years of interviewing and research, accepting data from those reports that had both reasonable non-hoax credibility and reasonable potential for coming from actual sightings of living pterosaurs. In about two-thirds of those reports, I was at least somewhat involved; often I was the only interviewer. One example can be mentioned here:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Pterosaur Sighting

“It was several years ago . . . approximately 5:00 A.M. . . . almost sure it was summer . . . in Philly. [My friend] was dropping me off, and parked. . . . . . about six blocks away . . . we saw something that made our jaws drop. We were like ‘what the h* is that thing?’ This thing didn’t seem to fly quickly. [Its] wingspan was huge. We’d figured at least 20 feet or so. It wasn’t flapping real hard like a sparrow or pigeon does. It almost seemed to sail. It came from the South, and appeared to be heading west [towards the Delaware River].” (From the nonfiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America – third edition)

Live Pterosaurs and Science [updating the above]

Recent compilations of data support the earlier finding of a lack of major hoax involvement.