The Ropen and “Hunting Monsters”

Gitmo Pterosaur of Guantanamo Bay Cuba, sighting in 1965
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Is the ropen a real animal, a modern living pterosaur? We now look at part of a Kindle book written by Darren Naish: Hunting Monsters – Cryptozoology and the Reality Behind the Myths. I’ve not read the whole book, so I’ll review only part of it, from the paragraph that begins with “moving away from tropical Africa” to slightly beyond the paragraph that ends with “how not to do an interview.” I personally deemed this book not worth purchasing, so I have to be content with reviewing only the portion that I can see on the Google-books page. Fortunately for me, much of the book’s content on living pterosaurs and the ropen seems to be available in Google-books.

I believe this portion of Hunting Monsters is in the fifth chapter, “Mokele-Mbembe, Ropen and Other ‘Prehistoric Survivors.’” If it turns out that significant content on living pterosaurs is in another part of the book then consider that my evaluation might need to be updated or modified. At any rate, this is not a standard book review, only an examination of a small part of this nonfiction by Darren Naish.

And yet this post you have just begun reading, long as it may be, is my response to only part of that small portion of the Kindle book by this paleontologist. Other points must be set aside for other blog posts.

Whitcomb vs Naish on Living Pterosaurs

We need to be clear about one point, something Dr. Naish and I (Jonathan Whitcomb) agree upon: that many varieties of pterosaurs known from fossils are extinct. The ones known to paleontologists outnumber the types known from sightings. We disagree completely, however, on the meaning of eyewitness sightings, for he believes that none of them were the result of a non-extinct pterosaur. I believe that some of them were precisely that: modern living pterosaurs.

Even the most optimistic cryptozoologist, after careful research, should come to realize that many species of pterosaur have probably become extinct. Exactly when they became extinct is open to questions that paleontologists like Naish appear unwilling to ask, yet the long tails with Rhamphorhynchoid-like flanges and the pointed head crests dominate too many eyewitness reports to ignore. Because of the great variety of forms known from fossils and the narrow range of descriptions in many reports of modern flying creatures, it seems obvious: Most species of pterosaurs are surely extinct.

We also agree that not all reports of a modern pterosaur come from encounters with living pterosaurs. This has probably often been overlooked, this point of agreement, perhaps overlooked even by Naish himself. I have found that at least a small portion of accounts appear to be one of the following:

  1. Misidentification of a non-pterosaur
  2. Hoax (including some YouTube videos)
  3. Mental health problem of the one reporting the encounter

Yet Naish and I appear to have taken different routes entirely. I dig into the details to get a better understanding of each report. I have spent well over 10,000 hours on the total sightings, including the many cases appearing to be unrelated to the three types shown above. I doubt that Dr. Naish has spent even 1% as much time on pterosaur sightings, for why would a typical paleontologist spend 100 hours objectively researching something that appears to undermine the foundation of his or her beliefs about when such flying creatures lived on this planet?

Yet we agree on some things. Dr. Naish and I agree to some extent on the quality of interviews of eyewitnesses. He mentioned my name but did not go into details about any particular interview that I conducted (he seemed to have been referring to my evaluation of an interview done by one of my associates when he mentioned “Jonathan Whitcomb”). If he had mentioned the details in my interviews with three young men (Gideon, Mesa, and Wesley), he would have been correct in saying that a number of factors were far from ideal.

But to sweep aside two whole expeditions on Umboi Island in 2004, because of perceived imperfections in interviewing technique in some of the interviews—that appears to be too extreme. I don’t expect Dr. Naish to invent a perfect time machine to take scientists millions of years into the past to prove his theories about ancient pterosaurs; my associates and I should not be expected to kidnap all the wildlife photographers in the world to force them to go with us to Umboi Island to get perfect video footage that proves the ropen is a modern pterosaur. So how often has an witness in a court been given perfectly conducted questioning? We need a practical approach, not an extreme dismissal of everything that might appear imperfect and contradicting our previous assumptions. If a particular interview had serious problems then those particular problems in that interview should be discussed. Dr. Naish appears to prefer to avoid bringing any such details to light.

Beware of jumping to the careless conclusion that a few pages in Hunting Monsters prove that all the expeditions and interviews and research of living-pterosaur investigators over the past 22 years is worthless. And those few pages in HM do not come close to refuting what is found in four scientific papers (three of them published in peer-reviewed journals), articles that are clearly in defense of modern pterosaurs. I see nothing in Naish’s book that even hints that any of those four scientific papers exist.

An Overview of Book Reviews of Hunting Monsters

Seventeen Amazon customer reviews of this new book, as of May 23, 2016, should give us enough to judge its popularity.

  • Five Stars: 70%
  • Four Stars: 12%
  • Three Stars: 12%
  • One Star: 6%

Many books on Amazon do worse than getting 70% top ratings from readers. I recommend going over these Amazon customer reviews of Hunting Monsters to learn the details. Before moving on, please be aware that I do not suggest that most potential readers will be disappointed after purchasing this book. Amazon suggests at least 70% will be satisfied with their purchase. But a small part of Hunting Monsters has major weaknesses; I cannot speak for the rest of the book.

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Gitmo Pterosaur of Guantanamo Bay Cuba, sighting in 1965

Sketch by an eyewitness (sighting in Cuba in 1965)

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Quetzalcoatlus and Sightings of Flying Creatures in Texas

Hunting Monsters, in this part of the book, has with a statement about sightings of apparent pterosaurs (ropen or otherwise) in the USA, in particular Texas. But do “most” sightings of apparent pterosaurs actually date to the “1970’s” as Dr. Naish declares? Not necessarily. Closer examination reveals that the actual sightings are spread out over decades.

But what’s so important to Naish about the 1970’s in Texas? It’s the discovery of Quetzalcoatlus fossils, beginning in 1971. The conjecture is hardly new. Other skeptics have also stumbled into this assumption: that news reports either caused or contributed to citizens in Texas believing they had witnessed living pterosaurs when they had actually not. The conjecture fails to include any details about exactly how it takes place, so skeptics can chose which explanation they like:

  1. Foolish Texans see ordinary birds and think they are seeing pterosaurs
  2. Hoaxers want attention, so they give false reports

Naish does not come close to proving either of the above, however, only suggesting that those are proper explanations for pterosaur sightings in Texas soon after the discovery of the Quetzalcoatlus. So where are the details that would give credence to the above two explanations for those sighting reports? Naish gives no detail at all, at least not in this part of his book: No particular sighting report is examined for judging the plausibility of those two explanations. Real science thrives on details and on numbers, but the number of analyzed reports he gives is zero.

Please be aware that I’m not out to make Dr. Naish look foolish. Yet a careless acceptance of his suggestion about reports of flying creatures in Texas—that can make quite a few citizens of Texas appear foolish. I will not use the word fool for anybody, for I have personally qualified for that adjective too many times in my own life. In this case, with eyewitnesses in the southern United States, I take the side of the majority: citizens of Texas versus Darren Naish. But still I prefer avoiding pushing individuals into one of two boxes with labels of fool and non-fool. Let’s just see which point of view is more realistic:

  • At least some Texas eyewitnesses reported sightings reasonably accurately
  • No Texan saw a living pterosaur, for Quetzalcoatlus news tainted their thinking

I submit that the first point of view is far better than the second.

At the end of 2012, I compiled a list of sightings: 128 reports, each of which I deemed more likely than not to have been from an encounter with a living pterosaur (worldwide sightings). I never said that it was close to a complete list, but I personally interviewed or questioned the eyewitnesses in close to 74% of these sightings.

This was more than just a simple listing, however, for the compilation had details like the following, with many of these involving a yes or no answer:

  • Definitely no feathers
  • Only probably no feathers
  • Long tail
  • Tail but not long
  • Head crest
  • Feet
  • Teeth
  • Wingspan
  • Tail straight
  • Tail flange
  • Tail length
  • Head-crest length
  • Total length
  • Clear sky
  • Cloudy sky
  • Clear view of creature
  • Length of sighting in seconds
  • Number of witnesses
  • Height flying (when closest to the ground)
  • Distance from eyewitness to flying creature
  • Any soaring or gliding
  • Any slow flapping
  • Any fast flapping
  • Near swamp or marsh
  • Over water
  • Near water
  • Any change in direction (of flight)
  • Year of sighting
  • Year of interview or year when interviewing began
  • Daylight
  • Night
  • Twilight
  • Country (if not in USA)
  • State (if in USA)
  • Number of creatures
  • Long neck
  • Neck length
  • [plus about a dozen other types of data or questions]

Of those 128 sighting reports, eight were in Texas, with these sighting years:

  • 1976
  • 1976
  • 1976
  • 1982
  • 1983
  • 1986
  • 1995
  • 1995

Please keep in mind that this is hardly a complete listing of sightings in Texas. These are the ones in Texas that attracted my attention and each appeared unlikely to have been from a hoax or misidentification or mental-health issue. Also be aware that I have been involved in sightings worldwide, while the cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard has investigated flying-creature sightings that were mostly in Texas. We’ll soon get to Gerhard’s writings.

Dr. Naish mentions “flaps,” which I interpret as temporary but concentrated interest in a subject of local or regional news. In Hunting Monsters, he says that they usually go away within a few weeks, and this is in the context of sightings of apparent pterosaurs in the state of Texas. But how do news reports of Quetzalcoatlus fossils relate to sighting reports of apparent pterosaurs in Texas? Let’s look at that.

The first fossil discovery of that species of pterosaur was in Texas in 1971. What an excitement that would have caused for paleontologists! Yet not every citizen of Texas is a paleontologist like Dr. Naish. So let’s examine all the pterosaur sighting reports that came out immediately after that exciting fossil discovery . . . well, actually not one sighting report seems to exist for within a few weeks of that discovery, at least not among the reports that I had compiled at the end of 2012.

Yet what if my reports from Texas are too limited? After all, they number only eight. Look at Big Bird – Modern Sightings of Flying Monsters by Ken Gerhard, which was published in 2007. Here are the sighting years for Texas:

  • 1945 to the “present”
  • Pre-1958
  • 1970
  • 1971 (Harlingen)
  • 1975 (Robstown)
  • 1975 (Rio Grande City)
  • 1975 (San Benito)
  • 1975 (near Los Fresnos)
  • 1976 (five miles south of Harlingen)
  • 1976 (two police officers see “white bird with 15′ wingspan”)
  • 1976 (near Brownsville)
  • 1976 (ranch north of Poteet)
  • 1976 (Raymondville: wingspan=10-12 feet; leathery featherless skin)
  • 1976 (Loredo)
  • 1976 (northeast of Brownsville: resembled “Pteranodon“)
  • 1976 (near Olmito)
  • 1976 (San Benito)
  • 1976 (Del Rio)
  • Late 1970’s (Brownsville and Edinburg)
  • 1976 (near San Antonio: three eyewitnesses)
  • 1976 (Montalba)
  • 1976 (Bethel)
  • 1981-1983 (Houston)
  • 1983 (east of Los Fresnos)
  • 1983 (Hondo)
  • 1990’s (Rangerville)

Of the above twenty-six Texas sighting reports listed in pages 77-79 of Gerhard’s book, which ones might have been caused by 1971 news reports of the Quetzalcoatlus? Well, maybe one, and that one is questionable. On page 77, it says, “unusual, brown bird.” That sounds like a puny “flap” to me. Why should anybody assume that news of a fossil discovery would cause that one eyewitness to think that an unusual-looking brown bird would be a non-extinct pterosaur? And even if it did, it would not explain the many other sighting reports.

I’m not saying that Dr. Naish is 100% wrong about news reports having a relationship to eyewitness accounts of apparent living pterosaurs, but I see a better suggestion about how it works.

What would citizens of Texas see in those news reports in 1971? Scientists found some fossil bones of a pterodactyl. How could anybody conclude from that news report that such flying creatures might still be alive? Suggesting such a conclusion appears to me to be insulting Texans. Perhaps one person might find a bone somewhere and wonder if it might be from that flying creature in the news, but even that possibility is questionable. To think that a newspaper or television news story would cause a considerable number of Texans to see ordinary birds and think they were “pterodactyls”—that strikes me as ridiculous.

I see a better explanation for any correlations that may become apparent between news reports of the Quetzalcoatlus fossil discovery and eyewitness accounts: News professionals are much more likely to publish reports of pterosaur sightings when such flying creatures are, or have recently been, in the news. Its the job of newspaper reporters to get relevant, timely news into their papers, so they are much more likely to publish stories about encounters with possible live pterosaurs when the that kind of flying creature has recently been in the news. In other words, the statistics of those sightings indicate they may happen in any year and in any decade, but they are published and brought into public attention much more when news professionals see timely news and then publish the encounters.

Indeed there may have been more news reports published and presented on television in the mid-1970’s in Texas, regarding the Quetzalcoatlus discoveries, for more fossils were found in 1972 and 1974. As I understand, Douglas A. Lawson published something about these discoveries in the journal Science in 1975. This is perfectly in harmony with the idea that an increased number of living-pterosaur sighting articles in Texas came from an increased awareness by news professionals, not from any increase in the number encounters themselves.

Something else may have completely passed by the attention of Darren Naish. Valid eyewitness encounters with actual living pterosaurs may not have increased after the Quetzalcoatlus fossil discoveries but the eyewitnesses themselves may have been more likely to recognize the significance of what they had seen after they read about those fossils in the newspapers. In other words, actual sightings of non-extinct pterosaurs could have been reported much more frequently when the fossil discoveries were in the news, but the numbers of actual encounters did not change.

Before leaving this examination of sighting reports in Texas, let’s consider a brief Google search that I conducted on May 23, 2016. The following phrase was used: pterosaur sightings in Texas. Of the ten results on the first page, one was for images, but the other nine revealed some interesting facts on the years of reported sightings of living pterosaurs:

Six were in 1976 and eight were in other years, as follows:

  • 1982
  • 1982
  • 1986
  • 2007
  • 2008
  • 2008
  • 2011
  • 2013

In other words, most of the sighting years do not appear to correlate closely with discoveries of Quetzalcoatlus fossils, and even if they did, it could easily be explained by an increased openness of news professionals to publish those sightings when the fossil discoveries of such flying creatures were already being published in newspapers and presented in television news broadcasts.

It may appear, on the surface, that the year 1976 may be significant, with all those reported encounters with apparent pterosaurs in Texas, yet it’s not likely anything close to what Dr. Naish declared in his book: He said that the “flaps” die down after a few weeks. In reality, reports of living pterosaurs in Texas not only do not die down within a few weeks, but they continue for years. In addition, they are seen to have arisen even before the first discovery of a Quetzalcoatlus fossil in 1971, according to Ken Gerhard’s research.

In Defense of the Ropen

One more detail on which Dr. Naish and I agree: The ropen is not a Quetzalcoatlus. In fact, the descriptions of the modern long-tailed flying creature correlate with the features of a Rhamphorhynchoid (“basal”) pterosaur, not a Pterodactyloid short-tailed pterosaur.

From the end-of-2012 compilations of data from the more-credible sighting reports, we learn that the ratio of long-tail to no-long-tail is close to twenty-to-one (41% to 2%). That’s a clearly significant statistical fact, for the 41% is for the entire 128 sightings. So why do so many eyewitnesses, worldwide, report long-tailed pterosaurs when the media and fiction films and television science fiction shows have so many short-tailed pterosaurs? The long-tailed ropen is the dominant type of pterosaur now living on this planet.

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The Long Tail of the Ropen

The Fiery Flying Serpent of the Bible may have been a long-tailed Rhamphorhynchoid, related to the modern-day ropen.

Pterosaur Sightings Data for the USA

This includes the sightings in Texas, but also it has many other states, including Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, etc.

Fossils are Evidence of Life, not Extinction

The Mesozoic Objection for live pterosaurs and Darren Naish (a paleontologist)

Ropen Sighting

Peter Beach and Milt Marcy, both of the Portland area of Oregon, led an expedition in Papua New Guinea, in March and April of 2015, searching for a living pterosaur . . .

Ropen in Texas and in New Mexico

. . . modern pterosaurs in the United States, in spite of extinction dogma. Marvel at eyewitness accounts in many of the states: California, Texas, New Mexico, Florida, and in other states.

Pterosaur Sighting in South Carolina

Susan Wooten, of Greenville, South Carolina,  was driving from home to Florence (about  1989) when she saw a giant creature glide  over the highway in front of the car.

Marfa Lights in Texas – a Ropen?

A few American cryptozoologists, including the Californians Jonathan Whitcomb  and Garth Guessman, and the Texan Paul Nation, have searched for nocturnal  bioluminescent flying creatures described like Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs. . . .

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“Unidentified Flying Creatures” on Monsterquest (Flying Rods)

common video artifact
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This is not primarily about living pterosaurs or long-tailed ropens or flying dragons. We now disrobe video artifacts called flying rods, strange-looking objects that are not visible, as such, to the naked eye. Why examine such a subject on the Live Pterosaur blog rather than on a video-technology blog? This post does indirectly relate to modern pterosaurs. The television show Monsterquest may have made an error of judgment in two episodes, one of which was about reports of living pterosaurs.

  • “Unidentified Flying Creatures” (Season 1, Episode 11) examines videotaped “rods,” which some persons believe to be paranormal
  • “Flying Monsters” (Season 3) expedition on New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea (with a pterosaur-expert of a paleontologist)

Before we get into the nature of that error of judgment, and how it is common to both TV episodes, we need to carefully examine the one about “flying rods,” from the first season of Monsterquest.

Video Artifacts Called “Rods”

I was a forensic videographer in 2003, when I started a serious investigation into eyewitness reports of apparent pterosaurs. I understood the basics of NTSC video technology, which technology was still relevant at the time.

Jonathan David Whitcomb, certified legal videographer

Jonathan Whitcomb, certified forensic videographer

Many persons may have both of the following misconceptions about video recording, and even some professional videographers may have a problem with one of them:

  1. Video accurately records appearances of all objects in moments of time
  2. Video often records what the human eye cannot see

Both of those concepts are generally wrong, or at least of limited value, although we can find exceptions. The problem with a paranormal interpretations of flying rods, however, is that it may require assuming we’re dealing with exceptions involving both of the above ideas. Please note:

Beware of putting too much confidence in the strength of a chain of connected assumptions.

common video artifact

“Flying rods” are NOT video recordings of creatures with more than four wings

Before digging more deeply into the apparent mystery of flying rods, let me give examples of images captured by my game camera a few years ago, in Lakewood, California. For information on the sighting that inspired me to put up that deer camera over a storm channel, see Flying Creature in Southern California.

bird sits in front of a game camera over a storm channel on a summer day

#1 Common bird on a fence by a storm channel in Lakewood, California

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Lakewood, California, game-camera photo

#2 What are those horizontal lines on the right?

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photo of a flying humming bird

#3 What is that thing in front of the camera lens?

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Game-camera shot of a flying hummingbird

#4 Now it’s possible to see a hummingbird (Lakewood, California)

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head and beak of a hummingbird

Head and beak of the hummingbird (from #4)

Notice how much easier it can be to discern the hummingbird head when the strange horizontal wing-flap lines are removed: The beak is no longer camouflaged. By the way, the above images, from the game camera in Lakewood, California, are not from a video camera but are still photos. Both kinds of cameras can record anomalies.

Remember misconception #1: “Video accurately records appearances of all objects in moments of time.” Neither photographic stills nor video stills are recordings of instantaneous moments. It always takes time for a number of photons of light to enter the camera lens and make the necessary impression on the recording device. No recording is instantaneous, no matter how fast the device may be, even with the most-high-speed equipment.

Whether we use a still camera or a video camera, when the relative speed of an object is great, in front of the lens, strange recordings can take place. These weird images are not limited to hummingbirds, for some insects flap their wings very rapidly, and that’s where “flying rods” come into view. Insects that are flapping their wings very quickly—they can make for some strange recordings on video, especially when an insect has flown close to the lens of the camera.

Insect Wing Flapping

According to Teacher-Scholastic (“How Insects Fly”):

Large-bodied insects lift off by flapping their wings very rapidly: for bees and flies, about 200 times per second. Some midges and wasps flap their wings up to 1,000 times per second!

What impressive wing-flapping rates! So what would we expect a common video camera to record, when such an insect flies across the field of view, relatively close to the lens? On playback, we should see a flying rod, either straight or curved, with many wing-like appendages on the sides. In fact, that’s what some persons show us while supporting a paranormal interpretation of such images from video footage.

The commonsense interpretation, however, is that those images are recordings of common flying creatures such as insects and birds. Some of those common creatures just flap their wings faster and fly closer to the camera.

Now let’s examine the common error in the two Monsterquest episodes, a fundamental error.

Bias Favoring Popular Imagination

What do these two Monsterquest episodes have in common? The obvious relationship is in the possibility of strange flying creatures, found in both episodes. The less-obvious similarity is found after digging deeper.

Bias in favor of one extreme or another—paranormal or commonplace explanation—that’s not the common problem. In the first-season episode “Unidentified Flying Creatures,” both extremes are given attention, ending with a wishy-washy appeal to each viewer to make a personal choice of preference; in the third-season episode “Flying Monsters,” both extremes are also given attention, ending with a ridiculous conclusion: Eyewitness accounts of giant flying creatures (at least some of which reportedly glow), including unidentified flying creatures that can carry away humans—those unclassified apparent gigantic animals relate to a tiny bat that one of the explorers was shown to hold in his hand. But the drum roll in the music background failed to convince many viewers that catching that tiny bat answered all questions about reports of giant flying creatures.

Now to the point about a similar bias in both television episodes of Monsterquest: They both give preference to popular imagination over human experience.

In the “flying rods” first-season episode, undue credit is given to the opinions of those who imagine an other-worldly cause of the strange images. What about the humans who were present at the time of the video recordings? They noticed nothing unusual, although some of them were aware of common birds and insects flying around at the time. Why assume that the flying rods were invisible to those humans? Why not consider that nothing unusual was flying around, just birds and insects?

In the “Flying Monsters” third-season episode, undue credit is given to the opinions of those who image universal extinctions of all species of pterosaurs. What about humans who witness living pterosaurs? In Searching for Ropens and Finding God, it says, “Trust one eyewitness of a plane crash over the imaginations of a hundred professors who’ve agreed how that kind of plane should fly.” Keeping within that symbolism, we should reject the proclamation of a hundred professors who believe that the plane could not possibly crash, and we should accept the eyewitnesses who saw the crash. By so doing, we can see clearly enough to recognize the smoke from the crash and rush to the scene, with hope of rescuing survivors.

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Monsterquest versus Destination Truth

Regarding searching for the ropen with an open mind, Destination Truth wins easily against Monsterquest. Josh Gates interviewed a number of native eyewitnesses, one of them twice.

Unidentified Flying Creatures and Missing Persons

People go missing for a number of reasons. The following relates to some of the strangest cases, with an explanation that may shock many and appear unbelievable to others.

Sightings of Live Pterosaurs

Many of the eyewitness reports come from the Southwest Pacific,  including Papua New Guinea, Australia, and Indonesia; but some  come from Africa, South America, North America, and Europe.

Pterosaur Sighting in Texas

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. That’s a lot, considering some eyewitnesses concentrate on the head or wings and don’t remember for sure if there was a long tail. Also significant is how few report the absence of a long tail: only 2%. That makes a 20-to-1 ratio in favor of long tails.

Fiery Flying Serpent of the Bible

Was the deadly “fiery flying serpent” of the Bible related to the modern ropen? That’s a difficult question, but it’s worthy of consideration.

UFC – Unidentified Flying Creature

Concerning the disappearance of eight-year-old Dennis Johnson, in Yellowstone National Park in 1966, a newspaper quoted one of the searchers: “It was nearly as if he had been snatched from the face of the earth.” Others have made similar statements about strange disappearances.

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Potential Attacks on Domesticated Animals, by Ropens

old newspaper sketch of a giant dragon in Utah
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I recently got a question from a member of a Facebook group: “Living Pterosaurs of the World.” It was in response to a Youtube video of two interviews I had with eyewitnesses last year. These two young men testified that the local farm animals went “crazy” with fright, making a lot of noise, when a very large glowing flying creature flew overhead one night.

Rather than dive into details about this particular sighting (which was in Grantsville, Utah, around the fall of 2001), let’s consider the question on the Facebook group discussion:

Jonathan, have you noted these animal reactions in these type of sightings before?

Let’s begin with dogs. Man’s best friend seems to consider large ropens or pterodactyls to be very dangerous.

Behavior of Dogs

From page 200 of the fourth edition of Searching for Ropens and Finding God:

. . . it scared the hell out of me, also scared my dog so bad that she had her tail between her legs and ran into her dog-house and would not come out for over an hour. The feeling I got was that whatever it was it was really big . . .

From page 242 of that cryptozoology book:

At 11:45 [a.m.] [I was] sitting under my gazebo playing on my computer in Lakewood, CA. My dog started going crazy barking and whining. I started hearing what sounded like him having really deep burps and I got up after 30 seconds or so because I knew the sounds were not coming from my dog . . .

From page 249 of Searching for Ropens and Finding God:

Early on the night of August 3, 2012, according to John, Rex ran out to the back, near the camera, barking wildly. He then made a sound that he rarely makes: a sort of whimper. The dog then ran into the house and did not respond when John called him; that non-response to John’s call is very strange.

From page 35 of the third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America:

She was twelve years old, at most (around 1995), when she walked out into her backyard one morning to check on the dog, for the dog food was untouched. GR found the poor animal cowering around the side of the house, apparently trying to hide behind a banana tree. The girl had no idea what was wrong, at that time, and called the dog, but it would not move. . . .

She turned her head and saw what it was that had terrified the dog. Next door, in the neighbor’s backyard, was what she first thought was a tall man; but he was about as tall as the house, too tall. He was “draped in a long black coat or cape,” facing away from her. “Dracula” came to mind as GR tried to understand what she was looking at. The “man” turned, and revealed a face that terrified the child: It was non-human.

Slowing the creature (revealing itself to be neither human nor bird) unwrapped its bat-like wings, dark leathery wings. The girl had never seen anything remotely like them. . . .

Farm animals and strange flying creatures

From page 88 of Live Pterosaurs in America (3rd edition):

He [David Woetzel] quoted a passage from a book by Marie Trevelyan (1909), who interviewed an old man who remembered “winged serpents” that lived in the mid-1800’s around Penllyne Castle, Glamorgan, Wales. I quote part of Woetzel’s quotation of the book: “The woods around Penllyne Castle, Glamorgan, had . . . . winged serpents . . . An aged inhabitant of Penllyne, who died a few years ago . . . said it was ‘no old story,’ invented to ‘frighten children,’ but a real fact. His father and uncles had killed some of them, for they were ‘as bad as foxes for poultry.’ This old man attributed the extinction of winged serpents to the fact that they were ‘terrors in the farmyards and coverts.’”

Conclusion

The farm animals in Grantsville, Utah, went “crazy” with fright one dark night around the fall of 2001, making lots of noise in their fear. I believe that those farm animals were in real danger from that flying creature, and I believe that the source of that terror was a very large bioluminescent ropen.

Reptile monster flies away with a horse

Old newspaper account of a giant flying creature over Stansbury Island, Utah

Although the newspaper account of a giant flying reptile carrying off a full-grown horse is very likely exaggerated, it seems to relate to the sighting by three boys in Grantsville, Utah, in 2001. Please note that Grantsville is only about eight miles south of Stansbury Island.

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Cryptozoology book about pterodactyls

“Neither my brother or I was prone to being scared . . .  This night was different. . . . the creature was flying just  above the phone lines. It would go one direction, turn, and  swoop back. . . . The wingspan was huge, anywhere from  6-10 feet across.” (Texas)

Ropen pterosaur

American eyewitness of a living pterodactyl

Book on the ropen

It [the nonfiction cryptozoology book Searching for Ropens and Finding God] soars above disputes about religion, revealing why an official discovery of an extraordinary animal has been delayed for so long. Above all, this explores human experience: eyewitnesses and those who interviewed them.

Pterodactyl Attacks in Yosemite?

These weird disappearances are not confined to Yosemite, nor even to the United States. Several factors do seem to tie together cases that are separated by long distances and sometimes separated by decades. To understand what may be happening in Yosemite National Park, we need to see in a broader sense. Look to Canada and to Mexico.

The nocturnal ropen

Eyewitness testimonies suggest that the ropen is a Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed) pterosaur. According to the investigators this criteria is based on several consistent patterns such as the featherless appearance, long tail that ends in a flange or diamond shape . . .

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Whitcomb Interviewed for the Travel Channel – Mysterious Missing Persons

Bass Lake, California, April 4, 2016
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This past Monday, April 4, I was interviewed at Bass Lake, south of Yosemite, for a Travel Channel episode of “Mysteries at the National Parks.” It should be broadcast around January of 2017. Living pterosaurs will have only a minor role in this TV show.

Ben Hansen interviewed near Yosemite

Paranormal investigator Ben Hansen is interviewed at Bass Lake, California

This particular episode covers a number of paranormal interpretations of why so many persons have gone missing from Yosemite National Park. The possibility of attacks from large flying creatures is only one point of view. Ben Hansen, a paranormal expert who was interviewed before I was, suggested other things that may play a part, or be part of the explanation, including something like time transport.

I was delighted to work with Mr. Hansen and hope to be involved in another TV show with him some day. I would also be delighted if I could again work with the director Eric Blouin. Who could ask for a better director?

Large Flying Creatures and Missing Persons

I don’t know how much of what I said in the interview will get through the editing. Perhaps the producer will use only a minute or two of my perspective in this episode, but I’ll try to recall some of what I said and summarize it here.

In reports of missing persons (the strangest cases investigated by David Paulides) I see three signs that  point to a huge flying creature:

  1. The missing person, or the body, is found miles away
  2. One or more pieces of clothing, or one or both shoes, are missing
  3. A found person may be asleep or have mental stupor or appear forgetful

In addition, during my interview by the director Eric Blouin, I mentioned why tracking dogs will sometimes fail to track or will soon stop tracking: When a human victim is carried up into the air by a large flying creature, his or her body is dragged along the ground for only a short time. Where the person leaves the ground—that is where the tracking canines can track no further.

I cannot vouch for my exact words, but during my interview I said something like, “The body of the 12-year-old Kenny Miller was found  1,400 feet higher than where he was last seen, found on one of the highest ridges in this part of the California. Some of the clothing was missing from the body. No mountain lion or bear would drag a person for miles, up to a much higher elevation, then take the jacket and shoes and leave the body on that high ridge. No. It was no bear or mountain lion.”

Large Flying Creatures: Ropen or Thunder Bird?

My interview at Bass Lake ended with my admission that I do not have any certain knowledge of what has been causing these mysterious disappearances in Yosemite National Park. We still have much to learn.

With some of these cases of missing persons, I mention “flying creature.” It’s quite possible that an unknown species of giant bird is responsible for some of these disappearances. Yet a few large ropens may be to blame. Whether bird or pterosaur, something appears to be carrying away some of these persons, and these weird human disappearances are not limited to Yosemite. These kinds of cases are found in other areas of North America and even in other parts of the world.

Whatever is responsible, we puny little humans need to keep our eyes more on the skies.

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Bass Lake, south of Yosemite

Unfortunately, many pine trees are killed by pine beetles, like these trees near Bass Lake, California, just south of Yosemite – another kind of killer in the Sierra Nevadas

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Pterodactyl Attacks in Yosemite?

These weird disappearances are not confined to Yosemite, nor even to the United States. Several factors do seem to tie together cases that are separated by long distances and sometimes separated by decades. To understand what may be happening in Yosemite National Park, we need to see in a broader sense. Look to Canada and to Mexico.

Missing Persons and the Ropen

If people are in danger in national parks and other wilderness areas of North America, they have the right to be informed about the potential risks and what may be involved.

Jonathan Whitcomb and living pterosaurs

From “fiery flying serpents” of  the Bible ages ago, to strange flying creatures  called “dragons” in England and other European  countries a few centuries ago, to a huge pterosaur  flying across a country highway in South Carolina  in 1989, descriptions of these “flying dinosaurs,”  commonly called “pterodactyls,” make if obvious  that they are non-fictional and non-extinct.

Missing Persons in Alaska – strange cases

This is especially about a giant bird and a missing young woman in Alaska.

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