hoax | Live Pterosaur

July 26, 2010August 19, 2011

Challenges to live-pterosaur investigations

What is the biggest problem faced by those who search for living pterosaurs and try to bring their investigations to light? Being attacked by a large ropen—that is not even close to the top of the list. Personal financial sacrifice, as in using personal savings to travel to Papua New Guinea—that is one challenge. The most difficult problem relates to American culture, which is an attitude common in developed countries in general: severe bias against the possibility that one or more species of pterosaur is still living.

A hoax can challenge any serious investigation, whatever is investigated. But one hoax perpetrated by an anonymous person or persons has been especially challenging. Around 2003 or 2004, a web site popped up called “Objective Ministries.” It is now widely believed to be an elaborate hoax. But one page declares much about living pterosaurs, including apparent plans for an expedition in Africa. The “university” named and the persons named now appear to be fictional, part of the joke. The problem for serious researchers and investigators of modern living pterosaurs is this: Some people will be so repulsed by those “objective ministries” pages that they might reject any serious investigation. Tragic!

Another challenge to our investigations is the “tiny minority” position of Wikipedia. This makes any very unusual research or investigation almost impossible to portray in a very positive light on a Wikipedia page. Popular opinions rule on certain web pages and Wikipedia is a good example of that. Of course other wiki’s cover that problem, in particular is this seen on “Creationwiki” (see Pterosaur on their site).

Another problem comes from a few paleontologists who insist dogmatically that fossils, somehow, are evidence that all species of pterosaurs became extinct many millions of years ago. But those critics make no distinction between extinction and near-extinction. And they fail to acknowledge that fossilization is not a common way for a living organism to pass away after death, thereby making a “lack of recent fossils” practically meaningless in the subject of eyewitness accounts of living pterosaurs.

Am I mistake about lack-of-fossils evidence? Then why are there so few pterosaur species that did leave fossils, compared with all the pterosaur species that could have lived during all those supposed millions of years when standard models insist that they lived? No, an apparent lack of “recent fossils” cannot reasonably be used to dismiss eyewitness accounts. To insist that a lack of pterosaur fossils in particular strata is evidence that no species of pterosaur could now live is no more reasonable than insisting that no species of pterosaur could have lived anciently unless we now have a fossil of that species. That kind of faulty reasoning is another problem we face, for educated paleontologists may be assumed to reason reasonably, and sometimes that is far from the case.

April 6, 2010December 8, 2011

Extant pterosaurs and bulverism

C. S. Lewis, in the mid-20th Century, noticed an unfortunate trend becoming popular: Avoid reasoning, on whatever subject, by talking about how your opponent is silly in a mistake. This changes the topic of discussion to an imperfection (real or imaged) in the one who disagrees with you, apparently freeing you from the danger of being found wrong during a potential reasoning discussion. Thus one who never truly reasons about any idea of merit (gossip or nitpicking has no merit) may appear to reason and to be correct, simply by making someone else appear foolish. Lewis gave this habit a name: “bulverism.”

Some critics of the idea of extant pterosaurs have stooped to the lowest form of bulverism. One popular cryptozoology web site (with the subtitle of “The voice of the international crypto community”) included the remark by a commentor that information about the Kor of Papua New Guinea “comes from a creationist blog (though they hide it quite well) so we need to take everything on it with a truck load of salt. Creaionists [read Creationists] will fabricate all kinds of rubbish to back up their fairy tales.” That was basically all the critic had to contribute to the discussion.

Honesty: not telling lies but telling the truth

Regarding the honesty of Creationists who have explored in Papua New Guinea, searching for living pterosaurs, can truth be uncovered by ignoring their findings, accusing them all of fabricating falsehoods, and then dropping the subject? No, accusing everyone who might have the label “creationist” with “liar,” a beggarly excuse for reasoning, covers up the truth. How much better to examine what the investigators have said and done!

How many ropen expeditions have creationists (by whatever definition of that label) led in Papua New Guinea over the past 17 years! How often has a creationist trudged along a jungle trail, hoping to learn about (or even see) a living pterosaur! Yet when did one of us report observing the clear form of a living pterosaur in Papua New Guinea during those 17 years? Never. We had too little time, too little money, and too few resources to mount any major expedition. The point? If even just one of us had any desire to deceive, how easy it would have been to lie about observing a living pterosaur! We honestly admitted that our experiences were with vague distant sightings (when we had that) and clear eyewitness testimonies of those we spoke with. Does it seem likely that liars would spend so much of their time and so much of their own money, only to later admit that they had not clearly seen what they firmly believed in?

Accusing ones opponents of fabricating “all kinds of rubbish to back up their fairy tales” appears to me to be the worst form of bulverism, for it insinuates that a whole group of investigators lie. Perhaps an evidence against that accusation becomes obvious when the accuser has ample opportunity to give specifics and then gives . . . nothing.

Since the eyewitnesses themselves hold various beliefs, I suggest critics examine the testimonies of those who have seen living creatures; don’t rail against those who interview eyewitnesses.

More about Flying Creatures and Bulverism

Slightly off-topic: “Objective Ministries” is a hoax, not actually a creationist site.

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One satisfied reader of Live Pterosaurs in America commented, “The problem with science is that we think we know it all and that is far from reality. This book shows courage to continue the search. If you have an interest in cryptozoology you should read this.” (Dale S. Reeder, Lehighton, PA) Please support the research by purchasing this book on Amazon.com or elsewhere.

From Chapter One: “Susan Wooten was driving east on Highway 20, to the town of Florence, on a clear mid-afternoon in the fall of about 1989 . . . Where the road was surrounded by woods and swamps, Wooten saw something flying from her left, then passing in front of her, behind her friend’s car. ‘It swooped down over the highway and back up gracefully over the pines,’ but its appearance was shocking: ‘It looked as big as any car . . . NO feathers, not like a huge crane or egret, but like a humongous bat.’ . . .”

March 24, 2010February 22, 2011

1971 sighting by Kuhn

Perosaur Sketch by Eskin Kuhn — Kuhn saw two pterosaurs in Cuba, in 1971

The two obvious pterosaurs observed by Eskin Kuhn during his military duty at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 1971, were sketched by him soon after the sighting. I have encountered no contradiction in anything that he has said during the past four decades, nothing to discredit his account. I did interview him by phone just a few weeks ago, and I found his response to my surprise phone call truly enlightening: He was highly credible in his manner of speaking and his answers to my unexpected questions. This mature man has not been playing a hoax for four decades, for everything points to an honest reporting of a real experience. In light of many other sightings, by many other eyewitnesses, Mr. Kuhn’s sketch now deserves serious attention.

Long ago he mailed his sketch to National Geographic, but they returned it with a declaration that all pterosaurs have long been extinct. Mr. Kuhn promptly cancelled his magazine subscription to National Geographic. This man is consistent and maintains the truthfulness of his account.

I have found one critic who simply said that this account was a hoax and that he had no patience to pursue the subject nor to write more about it. He did not give any reason for his opinion. But when he was confronted by Eskin Kuhn himself, he then apologized, apparently admitting that he had no foundation for accusing the marine.

Now is the time to compare this sketch with descriptions given by other eyewitenesses. Consider all the testimonies of all those credible observers who have put their reputations on the firing line, regardless of ridicule. Now is the time to support serious scientific investigations into this extraordinary phenomenon: the existence of modern living pterosaurs. Please be heard.

February 17, 2010May 24, 2014

Strange Rhamphorhynchoid

The dominance of long tails and head crests has caused skeptics to insinuate that hoaxers are creating a hodge-podge of pterosaur characteristics, taking attributes from different types of pterosaurs and constructing a hoax thereby. Those skeptics, however, fail to carefully examine the hoax hypothesis, for there are numerous problems with the idea that hoaxes played a significant role in the overall eyewitness testimonies.

At least one species of Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed pterosaur) known from fossils, the Scaphognathus crassirostris, did have a head crest. The presence of a head crest on a ropen (or modern long-tailed pterosaur) is hardly a sign of a hoax; how many potential hoaxers would know about that fossil? (And how many natives on remote tropical islands would know about any fossils?) Westerners who might consider a pterosaur hoax would most likely use what is well-known in Western culture: stubby-tailed pterosaurs, like those depicted often in movie and television sci-fi. Potential native hoaxers would talk about flying humans that transform themselves into snakes; honest native eyewitnesses talk about a long-tailed feather-less creature, and only some native eyewitnesses have had a good-enough viewing angle to allow them to see the head crest (Gideon Koro, of Umboi Island, was honest enough to admit that he did not have a good view of the head of the giant ropen that flew over Lake Pung around 1994).

The consistency, in eyewitness descriptions from around the world, of the combination of a long tail and a head crest (in a feather-less flying creature) is evidence for a living creature, not a hoax. And why should a modern pterosaur be very much like most pterosaur fossils? Ridicule from skeptics comes from our adopting the obvious interpretation of those eyewitness descriptions: a modern living pterosaur. “Unlike pterosaur fossils” is not just inaccurate: It is irrelevant.

Apparent Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs were observed in Cuba, in the mid-20th century