Hodgkinson | Live Pterosaur

November 9, 2022December 15, 2022

Comparing Worldwide Sightings of Living Pterosaurs: Long Tails

By Jonathan Whitcomb

How common are reports of long tails on apparent modern pterosaurs! We now begin with a report from Sudan, Africa, as I wrote in the fourth edition of my book Searching for Ropens and Finding God (page 152):

Flying Creature in Africa

I received another email, one directly from an eyewitness himself:

“In Sudan the classic house is one level made of mud bricks and walls, 3-5 rooms, 1-2 bathrooms and a kitchen, each room being a separate unit, but connected by a roofless hallway that leads to the patios.

“One evening in July of 1988, we had some guest over the house. . . . The guest were in the living room which was at one end of the house . . . I took the tray [of cookies and tea] walked through the open hallway and proceeded to the living room.

“When I got to the patio, I noticed something on the roof of my uncle’s room. . . . I was standing by the bathroom, about 10 feet away from it. . . . I seen it very clearly . . .

“It was very large, about 4 or 5 feet in height. It was an olive brown color, no feathers. It was leathery looking.. . . It had really large black claws and its tail looked like a lion’s tail . . . very long and had a bushy or hairy tip.

Ropen Sightings in Papua New Guinea

During my expedition on Umboi Island, in the southwest Pacific in 2004, I was fortunate to interview three young men deep in the interior of that island. They were in a group of seven native boys, about ten years earlier, who had a shocking encounter with a gigantic ropen. Soon after arriving at the crater lake Pung, in the middle of the day, the creature flew over the surface of that lake.

While questioning Gideon Koro, I asked how long the tail was: He said, “seven meetuh” (7 meters or 23 feet). His brother Wesley later told me that the ropen they had encountered was “too big”.

Non-native eyewitnesses in Papua New Guinea have also described a long tail on an apparent “pterodactyl” or “prehistoric” flying creature. Duane Hodgkinson, in 1944, saw one with a tail he estimated to have been “at least ten or fifteen feet” long. Brian Hennessy’s creature (1971) had a tail that he described as “longish narrow”.

Other eyewitnesses, in many areas of the world, often describe apparent pterosaurs as having long tails. In addition, many of those persons also saw some kind of appendage at the end of the tail.

Conclusion

It seems that at least one species of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur lives in many areas of the planet. These flying creatures are generally nocturnal and rare in any particular area at any particular time.

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Ropen pterodactyl

Within a few weeks after my return to the United States, two other Americans searched that same island for the ropen. They were able to explore areas in the north, where I had not been, and interview natives that I had not been able to contact.

Photo of a living pterosaur

In 2007, a businessman encountered a gigantic pterosaur as it flew in front of his car in Irvine, California, near the university, according to what he reported to me. The tail alone was about 15 feet long . . .

Flying creature with a long tail

Eyewitnesses from around the world testify of the featherless flying creatures that they have observed, unlike any bat and obviously not any bird.

Rhamphorhynchoid sighting in Minnesota

Three of us seen it. It was just turning light and it was gliding over a two lane road in front of the truck headed for a swampy area in Minnesota. . . . The teeth were all sharp, yes that’s how close we were. It had a spade tail as long as its body and a crest on its head with wings like a bat. Its color was reddish brown.

Living pterosaur in the United States

How could they now be living in California, Texas, Florida, South Carolina, Ohio, New York, and many other states? Did not pterosaurs become extinct millions of years ago? Cryptozoology is the study of reports of creatures (or apparent creatures) whose descriptions suggest something other than animals classified by standard biology as extant.

Cognitive bias and living pterosaurs

Jonathan Whitcomb, executive director of Animal Discovery in Utah, suggests why a few professional paleontologists, along with some amateurs, have loudly objected to conclusions from investigators of eyewitness accounts of apparent non-extinct pterosaurs: “Most likely they’re afraid that public respect for traditional paleontology may be damaged.”

Pterodactyl with a long tail

Eyewitnesses from around the world testify of the featherless flying creatures that they have observed, unlike any bat and obviously not any bird.

Living pterosaur sightings

In 2007, I was on Bragg Street and I heard the trees ruffle and that same thing flew from one side of the street to the other. It was beside the bike trail before you get to Central Women’s Prison. I knew I wasn’t crazy: This time a guy at the other end looking towards me saw it [at] the same time. We just stared and both said, “Did you see that?”

Ropen as a living pterosaur

This page contains hundreds of references to sightings of apparent living pterosaurs, accounts from around the world.

A non-extinct pterodactyl

Featherless flying reptiles appear to live across the globe, shocking and sometimes frightening eyewitnesses of these apparent modern pterosaurs. The animals are also called “pterodactyls” or even “flying dinosaurs” or “dinosaur birds”.

If it has a long tail, it is called “ropen”, but in some areas of Africa this reptile-creature is known as “kongamato”.

Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur

It is a strange description, to be sure, that combination of a head crest and a Rhamphorhynchoid-like tail that has a structure at tail-end. It appears almost as strange as a description of a platypus, to someone who knows about mammals and ducks but who has been ignorant of that strange animal that now lives in Australia.

Contact Jonathan Whitcomb

Communicate with the cryptozoologist

May 19, 2017May 30, 2017

Living Pterosaurs and the 1944 Sighting

side-by-side front covers of two cryptozoology books by Whitcomb - "Modern Pterosaurs" and "Searching for Ropens and Finding God"

By modern-pterosaur researcher Jonathan Whitcomb

For a moment, let’s set aside my recently published book Modern Pterosaurs and see what one skeptic has written about a few pages in my older book Searching for Ropens and Finding God.

A critic of our investigations has written that the army buddy of the late Duane Hodgkinson (DH) was a “biology professor” who denies seeing a pterosaur in that jungle clearing in New Guinea in 1944. How misleading are those statements! To begin, consider the following points:

I interviewed DH a number of times
Garth Guessman also interviewed him a number of times
The critic never interviewed DH
Nobody, apparently, has ever interviewed the army buddy of DH

Reference to Searching for Ropens and Finding God (fourth edition)

The critic refers to my book, declaring that it says that the army buddy of DH was a biology professor. That is patently false, even though the critic uses that reference with pages “24-28.” Not once is the word professor found in any of those pages of my book. Read pages 24-28, if you have a copy of the fourth edition. Notice that the mistake in not a simple error in the critic’s referencing page numbers: Those pages are about that subject at hand. Any person who will carefully read my nonfiction Searching for Ropens and Finding God should not insert a word from his or her imagination into a published comment, as if that word were in one of those pages in my book. That critic has done just that, falsely called that soldier a professor.

I mentioned that the army buddy of Duane Hodgkinson had some education in biology, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt when I called him a “biologist.” I did not know, when I wrote that word in that page of my book, that a skeptic would some day see biologist on page 28 and take the word professor from his imagination and declare that professor was in that page of my book. I now wish that I had written “biology student” rather than “biologist,” but that editing will have to wait for the next edition. Yet the other blunder made by the critic, which seems technically less glaring a mistake, is far more toxic in leading people away from the truth about what happened in that jungle clearing in 1944: what was observed by those two soldiers.

Was it a Ropen in New Guinea in 1944?

I believe that Garth Guessman and I see this in the same light, having both interviewed the World War II veteran a number of times over a period of years. DH’s army buddy saw the same thing that DH saw, on that day in 1944 in a jungle clearing west of Finschhafen on the island of New Guinea. That biology student just did not want to talk about it.

I have seen this reluctance often, during my investigation over the past 14 years. American eyewitnesses are usually hesitant to admit that they saw a living pterosaur. Some cases are extreme, including this one.

Contrary to what the critic has written in his online publication, I never said or insinuated that DH’s army buddy was distracted and so did not see the animal. Anyone who carefully reads those pages in my book should not make that mistake made by that critic. Let’s look at what is actually printed in Searching for Ropens and Finding God (4th edition) rather than what swims around in the imagination of one skeptic:

What if Hodgkinson had seen something other than what he thought he had, for some unknown reason. A strange bird or bat, however, fails to explain the strange reaction of the other soldier, the man who was educated in biology; it fails to explain why “Well, George, we saw it,” was answered with, “No, we didn’t!”

What I did not include in the book was what DH said right after his buddy again apparently tried to deny what they had seen. DH said something like, “How stupid can you get?” That was said within seconds of so of the sighting.

In other words, if the thing that flew up from that jungle clearing could have been some kind of bird or bat then the biology student would surely have suggested that possibility. Apparently that man decided to pretend that they had seen nothing at all, and the reason is obvious: Why invite people to call you “crazy” or “liar?”

That is not a recent idea I’ve had. Here’s the next paragraph in my book:

Notice that he [the soldier who had some education in biology] did not say it was a bird or a bat; he just denied that they had seen it. A generalized misidentification fails to lift off but a giant long-tailed pterosaur flies perfectly well here, even if it does drop a bomb on standard biology.

In other words, the critic fell into a confirmation bias. He was looking for anything he could find that would discredit the idea that pterosaurs are still living on the earth. When he found out that a man appeared to deny that he had seen a pterosaur, the critic jumped to the conclusion that the man had not seen what the man next to him declared they had seen. The truth, however, is far different from what the critic wants to believe.

Garth Guessman (left) and the World War II veteran Duane Hodgkinson (videotaped interview in 2005)

Confirmation Bias Against the Possibility of Extant Pterosaurs

I’ve seen other examples of confirmation bias that this critic has fallen into. It comes up repeatedly in his online page. One simple example is in his belief that a word that exists in two different languages in Papua New Guinea (the word ropen) appears to be relevant. He says, “This seems like a very relevant piece of information.” In reality, it is entirely irrelevant, and here is why:

In one language, ropen means a nocturnal flying creature that glows at night (in the Kovai language of Umboi Island); in another language, in another area of Papua New Guinea, ropen means “bird.” In the real world, when one word exists in two languages, the meaning can differ; it often does. Even in the same language, a word can be used very differently for people in different areas. How surprising for an American to hear an English citizen call a column of children walking down a sidewalk a “crocodile!” And that is in the same language: English.

Confirmation Bias and a Photograph of a Modern Pterosaur

For many years, the critic had an image of Ptp on his online page. He declared that it was a hoax from a television show. I communicated with the critic, earlier this year (2017), and revealed to him his mistake: Two photographs are somewhat similar, but the other one came from a TV show, not the photograph he displayed. He then corrected the long-standing error.

The photograph that we now call “Ptp” is not the same photo that was created for the Freakylinks TV show. That hoax photo, however, was modeled after the older photograph, with apparent reenactor Civil War soldiers playing their acting parts to help make the fake image.

But the critic may have then fallen into belief perseverance, or something like it, assuming that Ptp was also a hoax. A person can sometimes fall into both confirmation bias and belief perseverance.

For years, his web page declared that the Ptp photograph was a hoax from a TV show. After learning his mistake, and correcting it on his online publication, however, he held onto his idea that Ptp was a hoax. He searched for every possible thing that could cast doubt on its authenticity. I strongly suspect he had fallen into belief perseverance.

I don’t recall seeing any transition stage of his updating his critical online article. I did not see any version of his page that simply admitted his mistake about confusing the two photos, a version that did not proclaim that Ptp was a hoax. That in itself is suspicious.

Research by Paiva and Whitcomb

My fellow researcher Clifford Paiva suggested that I write a small book about Ptp. The result was Modern Pterosaurs. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

We have found much evidence for authenticity for Ptp, over a period of months.

The photograph now known as “Ptp” – declared authentic by two scientists

Conclusion

Keep an open mind regarding evidences for modern pterosaurs, and beware of shallow half-truths that appear to be evidences against the possibility that not all species of pterosaurs are extinct.

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Photograph of a “Pterodactyl”

In my recently published nonfiction book Modern Pterosaurs, I refer to that long online article that is extremely negative towards living-pterosaur investigations. I labelled that page BAMPP (big anti-modern-pterosaurs page), which is how I refer to it now.

Book about modern pterosaurs

Once you know what’s been flying overhead, what people around the world have been encountering, you’ll be better prepared to see and understand the details in Ptp. You should then appreciate what has always been available to those with eyes to see. . . .

Scientists examine a photograph of a modern pterosaur

Cliff Paiva found the two evidences shown above [in an image]: shadows that were consistent (yellow arrows) and a vertical eye slit (vertical pupil like in a cat or a reptile)

New nonfiction cryptozoology book Modern Pterosaurs by Jonathan Whitcomb

From the first chapter in Modern Pterosaurs:

In the summer of 2014, a well-known biology professor at a Midwestern university wrote a scathing blog post about my online writings concerning apparent modern pterosaurs. It included ridiculing the lack of photos of the creatures on my web pages. Whatever pages he had seen, it appears he failed to notice the ones that examined the photo now called Ptp.

January 8, 2015

Passing of Duane Hodgkinson

I’m sad to report the passing of the World War II veteran Duane Neil Hodgkinson, who took his big flight home on September 19, 2014. Our condolences go to his family and friends. He will be missed.

I began communicating with Duane around the beginning of August, 2004, a few weeks before my expedition on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea. He was always happy to tell us about his encounter with the “pterodactyl” that he and his army buddy saw in a small jungle clearing just west of Finschhafen. He helped me to find the courage I so desperately needed in 2004, the courage to travel alone to Papua New Guinea, where I would get the help I needed in searching for the ropen and interviewing natives.

Within the past twelve years or so, the testimony of Mr. Hodgkinson has been vindicated by reports from other eyewitnesses in the southwest Pacific, many others. For the moment, however, let’s concentrate on what this World War II veteran has given to us.

Email to Jonathan Whitcomb in August of 2004

[some punctuation added]

I tried calling today but this being Sunday I really didn’t expect an answer. Anyway, as I remember, it was in 1944 that I was stationed in Finschafen [often spelled Finschhafen], New Guinea, with the U.S. Military. While there, I made several trips into some of the surrounding native villages with a friend of mine and a native guide (provided by the Australian government.)

On this one particular trip we had the wonderful opportunity to witness a pterodactyl take off from the ground and then circle back overhead and to the side, giving us a perfect side view which clearly showed the long beak and appendage protruding from the back of its head (just like the ones that Fuzzy used to ride in the comic strip Ally Oop). It was a big one! I have a Piper Tri-Pacer airplane which has a wing spread of 26 feet [He later corrected that, for 29 feet is the wingspan of that airplane] and it appeared to be about that size.

The frequency of its wing flaps was estimated about 1 or 2 seconds. With each flap, we could hear a loud “swish, swish,” and the plants and brush immediately beneath its take off path were deflected by the down rush of air. I have not told many people about this as, of course, prehistoric creatures simply don’t exist! I did tell the owner of the company that manufactures the Pterodactyl ultra-light aircraft and to my surprise his only comment was, “Now tell me what you were drinking?” [Mr. Hodgkinson has never been a drinker.]

Duane Hodgkinson (1925-2014)

About the Piper Tri-Pacer comparison

In the above email, he mentioned owning a Piper Tri-Pacer. I assume this means he still owned it in mid-2004. As I understand, the PA-22 Piper Tri-Pacer was manufactured from 1950 to 1964. In his videotaped interview with Garth Guessman, in 2005, he said, “At that time, I owned a Piper Tri-Pacer.” I assume he was referring to that general time in his life, as a young man, not to the precise time he was serving in the armed forces in 1944.

The point, however, is the size, and that aircraft has a wingspan of about twenty-nine feet, far more than the wingspan of any bird or bat classified as extant by Western zoologists.

Guessman interviewed Hodgkinson in 2005

From a published scientific paper

I had a peer-reviewed scientific paper published in the journal Creation Research Society Quarterly: “Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific.” Here is a brief summary of some of what I there mentioned about the sighting by Mr. Hodgkinson:

In 2004 I interviewed Duane Hodgkinson, of Montana, by e-mail, survey form, and telephone. He was then videotaped by Guessman in 2005. . . .

The creature ran to their left, taking six to ten steps to get airborne and ascended at an angle of about 30 degrees (similar to an airplane taking off). It then disappeared over the dense brush but soon returned and flew over the clearing, presenting a “perfect side view” of its features before again flying out of view. . . .

The girth of the body at the chest was about 2 ft (0.6 m). He estimated the legs to be 3–4 ft (1–1.2 m) long. The top of the back was 5–6 ft (1.5–1.8 m) above the ground just before takeoff. Although he did not notice details of the tail, he estimated it was “at least” 10–15 ft (3–4.6 m) long.

[CRSQ, Volume 45, Number 3, Winter of 2009]

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Sightings by Duane Hodgkinson and Eskin Kuhn

Hodgkinson was hiking up into the interior, away from Finschhafen, with an army buddy, when the two soldiers encountered the strange flying creature. In a jungle clearing with moderately high grass, a clearing about a hundred feet in diameter, the two men saw something at the far side, something astonishing.

Obituary of Duane Neil Hodgkinson

. . . passed away Friday, September 19, 2014, at Livingston Health and Rehabilitation Center. The family appreciates the personal care the staff provided during his stay.

Ropen definition

The above images relate to four sightings, two in Cuba and two in Papua New Guinea. Brian Hennessy saw a “prehistoric” flying creature on Bougainville Island, in 1971. About twenty-three years later, the Umboi Island native Gideon Koro saw a similar creature, many miles to the west of Hennessy’s ropen sighting.

Whitcomb interviewed by Dave Scott

“People between the United States—right now—towards South America, over in New Guinea believe that the pterodactyl is still alive and that they are breeding. . . . This is why tonight we’ve brought Jonathan Whitcomb aboard. He’s a cryptozoologist and he’s on the hunt for the pterodactyl.”

January 24, 2013December 20, 2014

Part two of Radio Podcast Interview

A few months after his expedition in Papua New Guinea, Garth Guessman interviewed eyewitness Duane Hodgkinson near Livingston, Montana

See Part One of Whitcomb-Syrett radio interview. This continues quoting from the interview I had last year, over the phone, with Richard Syrett.

Richard Syrett:

Jonathan Whitcomb has been to Papua New Guinea and talked to the aboriginals there, and others who claimed to have seen what they call (it goes by a number of names) . . . the “ropen,” a flying cryptid which bears a striking resemblance to a creature we’ve all told become extinct some sixty million years ago: pterosaurs. And, as he says, there’s been a recent sighting in Southern California, and we’ll get some more details on that, although I understand details are a little scarce at this time, but we will discuss that.

Jonathan, back to Papua New Guinea and Duane Hodgkinson, back in 1944: Who was he and what did he see?

Jonathan Whitcomb:

He was a farm boy in his teenage years in Ohio, and he was in the . . . World War II in 1944, he was in Finschhafen area. (At that time, the Japanese had already moved on . . .) And he [Hodgkinson] and his army buddy, they decided go visit a village . . . [west of Finschhafen]

They were in a jungle clearing, in the middle of the day, clear weather, no obstruction to what they saw, and when they were in this jungle clearing, which was about 100 feet across (in diameter) . . . a wild pig ran through there, and it startled them for a moment, until they realized it was just a pig.

And then what happened was astonishing, because something began flying up out of the clearing . . . running at first, and they were astonished because at first they thought it was a bird or something and they realized it was much too big, and as it got airborne, it flew right over the clearing. And they were astonished and thinking it was gone.

And then it came back over the clearing, the opposite direction, . . . it had a head crest . . . like a pterosaur, and a very long tail. Hodgkinson estimated the tail at ten to fifteen feet at least . . . in length.

Syrett:

And the wingspan?

Whitcomb:

About twenty-nine feet . . . and the two men and the animal were in the same clearing, which was 100 feet across, so there’s no reasonable way that they could have misunderstood the size of it. And they weren’t expecting anything like that; they thought it was, at first, just a bird, but it was just far too big.

Syrett:

And did this creature have feathers?

Whitcomb:

. . . He didn’t notice any. Now this is an interesting point: He said he saw no feathers, but he was not adamant saying there couldn’t possibly be any feather on the whole creature, because he was concentrating on the head.

But basically we know from that the type of head it was; he got a very clear view of the head, and we believe it was a giant Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur.

Syrett:

And I guess the obvious question the skeptic would ask is, “Why should we believe Duane Hodgkinson? How do we know he’s not just pulling our collective leg?”

Whitcomb:

Yea, there are a number of reasons for that. He’s a flight instructor for many years now; he has many thousands . . . of hours of flight time, and he teaches people how to fly. He wouldn’t be conducting a hoax for sixty years, with the possibility that people could just mistrust him and not become clients.

There’s other reasons too. He’s not alone . . . in 1971 there’s Brian Hennessy, an Australian; he saw a similar creature, quite similar, because I gave him a test similar to Hodgkinson’s in identifying sketches and comparing lengths of the head crest, and so on. He saw the same species, I believe, [as Hodgkinson] in New Guinea, but on an island to the east—Bougainville Island— . . . I believe is the same species.

Syrett:

We should point out, Jonathan, that . . . your vocation is an independent forensic videographer for attorney firms.

Whitcomb:

I’ve been doing that for many years except for recent years when I’ve been much too busy writing and investigating these creatures.

To be continued

Garth Guessman (left) interviewed the eyewitness Duane Hodgkinson (right) in 2005, near Livingston, Montana — See Youtube video Pterodactyl Eyewitness

Podcast-Radio Interview: Whitcomb & Syrett (Part One)

When you have a sighting that’s way over twenty feet, it’s obviously not a Flying Fox fruit bat, not a bird like an eagle. And we do have sightings [with] very high credibility . . .

Listen to the interview between Jonathan Whitcomb and Richard Syrett

Richard speaks with cryptozoologist, Jonathan Whitcomb, who specializes in living-pterosaur investigations. He has traveled to Papua New Guinea in an attempt to verify sightings of this creature by the local indigenous people. . . .