Reply to Skeptics | Live Pterosaur

June 27, 2011November 19, 2011

Evolution, Religion, and Extinction of Pterosaurs

Some skeptics of living-pterosaur investigations (including searches for the ropen), well quite a few of the skeptics, have dismissed our work because they assume that our religious bias makes us incapable of objective scientific investigation. But those skeptics may have their own bias, especially if they take it for granted that Darwin’s General Theory of Evolution is a proven fact.

Eyewitnesses of Pterosaurs

My associates and I are not members of the same church; I even doubt if two of us are members of the same religious organization, although we are Christians. But our critics seem to have missed a critical point about the possibility of religious bias: The eyewitnesses make the case for modern living pterosaurs, and they are of various faiths and non-faiths, various opinions about evolution, various cultural backgrounds, various countries, and various native languages.

Over several years, I have noticed a common weakness in criticisms of our investigations. Those eyewitness reports that we have upheld as critical and most credible to our work—those have mostly been ignored by most critics. Why do those critics write paragraph after paragraph about old sighting reports that neither we (the recently active cryptozoologists who investigate reports of living pterosaurs) nor our critics consider very credible? Why do not our critics spend much time on those reports we have presented as most critical? Why not analyze in detail the report of Duane Hodgkinson, for example? What about Brian Hennessy? What about Gideon Koro? What about the couple in Perth, Australia?

When critics do mention a critical eyewitness, it is taken as if an isolated case. Why not compare at least two reports that we have presented as critical? The only reasonable explanation for that neglect seems to me to be that critics want only to dismiss, as quickly as possible, any thought about modern living pterosaurs; they are not searching for the truth about that possibility.

Evolutionary Boundary

This simulation is with a hypothetical planet with at least the water content of the earth. Beginning with simple one-celled organisms . . . as the only life forms, simulations are made on the growths of sub-populations. These groups are characterized by several general types of non-harmful mutations. They are categorized by the general effects of those mutations. . . .

“An Evolutionary Boundary” involves simple math, for a biologically saturated environment . . . the population calculations are simple. . . . After about six months of calculations, using computer programs I wrote myself, the original population of organisms of 10e29 (the number having “1″ followed by twenty-nine zeros), after only a few generations, had only a minute fraction of viable candidates for macro-evolutionary change. But the critical point is this: Those competitive populations that did not have any macro-evolutionary potential vastly outnumbered those that did, and their competitiveness was at least equal to the “Darwinian” candidates.

My calculations (referred to above) show that Darwin’s General Theory of Evolution fails miserably in just a short time, with the possibility of macro-evolution becoming even more unlikely as time goes on. Survival of the fittest (also called Natural Selection) actually makes his idea of evoluti0n impossible, the exact opposite of what Darwin had assumed.

My mathematical simulations (in Evolutionary Boundary) were not conducted with any religious or scriptural basis: only with the Natural Selection process that has been accepted in standard biology models since Darwin.

Religion and Modern Pterosaurs

At least some of the critics of our investigations have their own unstated religion or pseudo-religious beliefs, in particular strict Naturalism philosophy. They cannot reasonably insist that those whose philosophy differs from their own philosophy must be biased.

Extinction of Pterosaurs

“A psychologist at a university in Central China asserts that he saw, in 1971, a prehistoric-looking creature flying in Papua New Guinea. Brian Hennessy . . . described the creature as black or dark brown with a ‘longish narrow tail’ and a beak that was ‘indistinguishable from the head.'”

During World War II, the American soldier Duane Hodgkinson saw a living pterosaur (he called it a “pterodactyl”) in New Guinea. It was no hoax, according to the American forensic videographer and cryptozoologist Jonathan David Whitcomb.

There are, in fact, reports of living pterosaurs from eyewitnesses in various parts of the world, and some eyewitnesses have been interviewed and have been found credible. On one island in Papua New Guinea, the flying creature of the night is called by the natives “ropen.”

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Read the amazing but true stories that newspapers almost never tell their readers: eyewitness reports of living pterosaurs in the United States. Learn for yourself the astonishing secret: Flying creatures, many of which are huge and featherless and many of which have long tails, are not extinct but still living. Be among the less than 1% of Americans who know about these amazing encounters across North America. Read Live Pterosaurs in America.

This nonfiction cryptozoology book will enlighten you about these living “pterodactyls” that sometimes are seen to fly at night. One chapter is devoted to the Marfa Lights of Texas, but many of the 48 contiguous states of the U.S.A. are included: California, New Mexico, Arkansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, Kansas, etc. Find out for yourself about the sighting by Eskin Kuhn, the U.S. Marine who witnessed those two pterosaurs in Cuba, in 1971. Find out for yourself about the credibility of the many other eyewitnesses of these amazing flying creatures.

June 11, 2011November 19, 2011

Science and Pterosaur Extinction

During my eight years of investigating reports of living pterosaurs, I never suggested that no species of pterosaur is extinct, that all of them are alive; I have simply maintained that not all species are extinct. The fossil evidence of many species (however long ago those flying creatures flew), combined with the rarity of sighting reports, makes a strong case for many extinctions at some time or times in the past; but the simplistic dogma of universal extinction of all pterosaur species—that assumption has no support from those many fossils.

Simplicity and Occam’s Razor

In science, Occam’s razor has also been called “the law of succinctness,” but the simplicity of that label can be misleading. It does not really mean “the simplest explanation is most likely correct.” A better definition might include “when competing hypotheses are otherwise equal in explaining something, the simpler hypothesis deserves preference, unless and until the less-simple one is someday found to explain things better.” In other words, referring to Occam’s razor does not excuse somebody for rejecting a complex idea and accepting in its place an apparently simpler idea that does not explain the data as well. The truth about something is not always simple.

Sun-Centered or Earth-Centered Solar Sysytem?

Before Copernicus, what would have seemed the simplest explanation for motions of sun and moon? Ignoring the nocturnal motions of stars and planets, the sun and moon appear to be about the same size; they also move at about the same speed and in about the same trajectory. Perhaps the brilliance and power of the sun could be related to its slightly faster speed across the sky. But observing only sun and moon, how could we have concluded that the moon flies around the earth and the earth flies around the sun? How simple to believe what everyone else believes! Both orbs appear to be the same size and appear to move in about the same way, so why not support the popular view? Surely the sun and the moon both circle the earth, or so it would have seemed.

Before Copernicus, what could have influenced us to suspect something else was happening? I suggest looking at something different, gazing into the sky at a different time, for the apparent motions of countless stars might have taught us something. In the Northern Hemisphere, the North Star remains in the same apparent place all night, while stars further away from it move ever faster accordingly. I don’t know if I would have been intelligent enough and patient enough, before Copernicus, to figure out what we now take for granted: The earth is spinning. But that alone does not automatically tell us anything about any other motions of earth, sun, and moon. We would have needed to dig deeper, and that would have been more challenging a problem than most of us could have met successfully.

But Copernicus met that challenge successfully, although it took him many years. In more recent generations, calculations and spacecraft journeys have validated the model of a sun-centered solar system, notwithstanding the complexities. How does all that relate to pterosaur extinction or non-extinction?

Live Pterosaurs

Before ropen expeditions in Papua New Guinea (late twentieth century through early twenty-first century), how simple it was to believe in the extinction of all species of pterosaurs! How rare were the publicized reports of daylight sightings of apparent “pterodactyls!” But the truth about extinctions is not simple. I suggest looking with a different perspective, considering a different time for the flights of pterosaurs, for sightings in daylight are not from common appearances of extremely rare flying creatures; they are from the uncommon times, the rare appearances in daylight: somewhat rare flying creatures that are nothing other than nocturnal pterosaurs.

Just as the difficulties or complexities of calculations by Copernicus (a rare person who worked in that field for many years) were essential, including observations of the heavens at night, the difficulties of observing living pterosaurs by cryptozoologists requires years of work at night, for the overall evidence points to most, if not all, modern pterosaurs being nocturnal. Few of us cryptozoologists have many years available for that work. (I hope that increasing the numbers of dedicated cryptozoologists will bring us closer to dramatic discovery: the capture of a living pterosaur, with long-term study of the creature in captivity.)

The sun-centered system proposed by Copernicus surely appeared on the surface more complex than the long-accepted system of both sun and moon orbiting the earth. But those detailed observations, carried out over many years, are better explained by his new model, making it actually much more complex to equally-well explain everything by the old.

Of course universal extinction appears simpler than partial extinction, but the many eyewitness testimonies cannot be ignored. Why hold onto the putrid carcass, the antiquated dogma of universal extinctions of all dinosaurs and pterosaurs? Recent human experience should be held in higher esteem than outdated, misdirected imagination that has no basis in human experience. When the overall observations are taken into account, the simplest explanation is modern living pterosaurs, making it actually much more complex to equally-well explain everything and still hold onto the old model of universal extinction.

This requires clear thinking, something we sometimes find lacking.

June 3, 2011June 3, 2011

Frigate Bird in Australia

Pterosaurs, also called “pterodactyls,” especially the long-tailed ones, live in Australia and in other countries of the southwest Pacific. In November of 2010, an eyewitness observed something flying high in the sky one night, in northern Australia, and he concluded “pterodactyl.” Later, after looking at a photograph of a Frigate bird, he changed his mind.

I have encountered many comments on Youtube, over several years, from those who have mistaken images of a Frigate bird for a ropen, but this late-2010 experience is an actual sighting of that bird, not viewing an image. I believe that few persons see a live pterosaur compared with the many who see common Frigate birds; nevertheless, the existence of one type of creature does not prove the extinction of another type, regardless of how humans can make misidentifications.

But something else caught my attention on this forum (Battlefield Heroes, Nov 21, 2010). Until the eyewitness submitted his own sketch of what he had seen, nobody mentioned the possibility of a Frigate bird. Those commenting on the sighting only ridiculed the possibility of a living pterosaur or threw out careless conjectures to explain it away. In other words, all those who assumed the eyewitness was mistaken about seeing a pterosaur were correct only in that detail; in many ways they were wrong: It was not that he needed to “lay off weed,” or that he was “hallucinating,” or that “[all] pterodactyls are extinct,” or that he should “watch less TV,” or that “if these types of dinos where still alive u wouldnt be the only 1 to see something tht big.”

When I saw the eyewitness’s sketch of what he had seen, I thought it resembled a Frigate bird. But misidentifying a bird does not make an unrelated type of creature extinct. When somebody sees the planet Venus and assumes it is a bright star, that does not mean that all stars are planets, even if that person lives in a society in which almost everybody believes all stars are planets.

How Absurd! A Frigate Bird!

The beginning of that video shows an obvious Frigate Bird soaring as Frigate Birds will soar. I’ve lost count of how many times I have responded to that video footage, explaining that it does not show any ropen but only a common ocean-going bird.

Non-Extinct Pterosaurs in Australia

“In the state of Victoria near the Dandenong Ranges about 25 klms east of Melbourne. I was standing outside about nine o’clock one night. It was full moon and very bright with a cloud bank . . . . I glanced to the south and [saw] . . . something flying that appeared to be at the height of light planes that fly around here . . . This thing was at least as large as a light plane, say a Cesna. It was about 5 klms away and was lazily flapping it’s wings . . . It appeared to be lit up by the moonlight and shining as if it had no feathers.”

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Kuhn pterosaur in Cuba — pterosaur U. S. Marine Eskin Kuhn saw in Cuba in 1971

This sketch of the “Gitmo Pterosaur” shows a flying creature very unlike any Frigate bird. It could be called “North America ropen.”

Eyewitnesses in Papua New Guinea (north of Australia) have described similar long-tailed featherless flying creatures.

May 21, 2011November 19, 2011

More Insight on Gitmo Pterosaur

Recently, Eskin Kuhn has provided us with more detail about the long tail of the two pterosaurs he saw at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. (I now call this cryptid the “Gitmo Pterosaur.”) He describes the end of the long tail: “long strands of hair in a tuft . . . a brush, not flesh covered as the rest [of the creature].” This reminds me of the description of the pterosaur seen by a boy in Sudan, for that boy mentioned being reminded of the tail of a lion.

Kuhn also said, “That detail has become muted by the many copies of the drawing, the original newsprint type coarse paper and pencil.” In other words, the original sketch better showed a hairy appearance of the ends of the tails. That certainly counters the objection of a few critics who declare that eyewitnesses of apparent pterosaurs do not see anything like fur or hair so those sightings cannot be valid.

In addition, he has also recently said, “The fleshy hide would probably be more akin to a bat’s than any other creature.” That statement also discredits the objection of some critics who imply that any modern pterosaur should be covered with fur that would be obviously seen as fur by any eyewitness. It reminds me of the testimony of the scientist in Perth, Australia, who carefully observed a giant flying creature with a long tail and a texture that could have been something like fine fur (he was just too far away to tell for sure about fur).

In a recent letter to me, Kuhn also said the following.

On my way home . . . this morning I turned the corner at the base of my property . . . and saw a relatively familiar sight . . . a Great Blue Heron in flight. . . . The Heron in flight would make many a person wishing to see a pterosaur think they had. It’s great wings, short body, long heavy beak and crooked neck, prow-like chest and very long legs trailing behind with curved toes resembling a tail . . . it puts you in mind of such creatures as pterosaurs . . . unless you have actually seen pterosaurs. Then the differences are dramatic.

That dismisses any potential suggestion that Kuhn saw two herons in flight.

The following old photo shows Kuhn at Gitmo, Cuba, probably in 1971.

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Cryptozoology Book (Live Pterosaurs in America)

Southeast of Fresno, several eyewitnesses reported two featherless flying creatures with wingspans of fifteen feet. Reportedly reputable residents around Reedley described the two “dragons” for the newspaper.