newspaper | Live Pterosaur

January 13, 2018January 16, 2019

Reply to a Newspaper Article in North Carolina

From a newspaper article in 2018: pterodactyls in Raleigh, North Carolina

By the living-pterosaur cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb

UPDATE: One link on this post (about sightings of living pterosaurs in North Carolina) has been updated with “https” in the URL. It was always safe. This just demonstrates that the security is certified.

. . .

The News & Observer published an article, earlier this week, about a sighting by Cynthia Lee and about my ideas on non-extinct “pterodactyls,” including pterosaur sightings in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was not the first newspaper article on this kind of encounter in the USA and on my work in cryptozoology. In accuracy and objectiveness, it was about average, meaning it had a number of mistakes and was weighted in favor of the old assumptions about universal extinctions of pterosaurs. The two writers (Abbie Bennett and Josh Shaffer) seem to have avoided any deep research into the possibility that eyewitnesses in North Carolina may have witnessed actual living pterosaurs.

Don’t misunderstand me here: I’m glad they published that article on January 11, 2018, for I hoped for something like that, when I contacted them, and I’m not surprised that they took the traditional point of view that all pterosaurs are extinct. After all, the News & Observer is the second largest newspaper in North Carolina, a regional daily source of news, not a paranormal publication.

“Are there flying dinosaurs in NC? One woman says she’s seen them three times in Raleigh”

See the link “Flying Dinosaur in North Carolina,” at the bottom of this blog post

Newspaper article in North Carolina (News & Observer)

A Typical Day in a Newspaper Office

Bennett and Shaffer wrote this article as one would expect the typical American newspaper professional to write. Nobody expected them to try for a Pulitzer Prize. It was probably just another day for them, handling a local and regional issue that would certainly be of interest to the average reader.

I can understand their position. Why risk making a paleontologist, or other scientist, upset with a story that might suggest even one eyewitness, out of many, might have witnessed an actual pterosaur? How much safer to assume that all the eyewitnesses were somehow wrong! Those two writers chose the safe but entertaining approach, like many other newspaper professionals would choose. They ended with this:

“Whether these sky-bound shapes are mythic beasts, ancient reptile survivors or great blue herons playing dress-up, they make for lively conversation.”

That seems like a fair ending to the article, avoiding any offense to anyone: another interesting story on an average day. I would be delighted if many American newspapers would publish stories like that, for I feel sure that someday, in some town or city in America, some newspaper professional will be struck by the possibility that maybe great blue herons are not playing dress-up. Will that article, whenever and wherever it will be published, fly well enough for a Pulitzer Prize? I’m willing to help that writer make a run for it.

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Living Pterosaurs in North Carolina

Jonathan Whitcomb, author of nonfiction cryptozoology books, has suggested that flying creatures reported in Raleigh, North Carolina, over several years, may be related to what Americans in other states have reported to him over the past fourteen years.

Living pterosaur in an Ohio newspaper article

Something on front page of the Antwerp-Bee Argus newspaper was different, on August 5, 2009. It was the live pterodactyl that made the news.

Houston Chronicle Denies Dinosaurs in Texas

One of the largest newspapers in the United States, the Houston Chronicle, printed an article dismissive of dinosaurs flying over southwest Texas (mid-December, 2010, by Claudia Feldman).

Living pterosaurs in a newspaper article

An 1891 issue of the Los Angeles Herald newspaper had an article from an earlier California news publication, about reports of “dragons” flying over an area south of Fresno, around Selma.

Non-extinct pterodactyls and cryptozoology

“Since the time of Darwin, many scientists have assumed that some general types of animals became extinct long ago. One of the assumptions is that all species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs died off before any humans existed.”

Flying creature in Raleigh, North Carolina

I saw the shadow of big wings on the ground, so I looked up and I saw a winged, brown, species of [pterosaur] flying in the sky in the afternoon around 6 pm while me and a guy was standing at the bus stop.

Flying Dinosaur in North Carolina

Newspaper article in the News & Observer in Raleigh, January 11, 2018 [It may be that this page about sightings of apparent pterosaurs is no longer available on this newspaper’s site.]

January 21, 2015

Flying Creatures and Missing Persons

medium-large front cover of book by David Paulides "Missing 411"

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.

Over the past eleven years, I have received emails from eyewitnesses from five continents, not persons who have witnessed a pterosaur carry off somebody, not that. But ordinary persons who have seen extraordinary flying creatures that appear to be, strange as it may sound, modern pterosaurs.

A small portion of those reports relate to possible attacks or near attacks on humans, only a very small portion. Yet some reports of missing persons, compiled by the investigative journalist David Paulides, suggest a connection with unidentified flying creatures (UFC’s). Please be aware that these connections are only circumstantial, at least for the moment, that is, from what I have so far read in two books by David Paulides:

Missing 411 Western United States & Canada
Missing 411 The Devil’s in the Detail

Yet not all evidences of attacks from unidentified flying creatures are circumstantial:

Owl or Massive Bat in Salem, Oregon?

Later in this newspaper article, it refers to a statement by an animal behavior specialist:

” . . . either a barred owl or a great horned owl.”

I spoke with the victim by phone on January 21, 2015, and he told me he did not get a good look at the flying creature. He could not tell if it had a tail or not. What then is the relevance? A bird will sometimes defend an area around its nest, even dive bombing people who walk too close. It seems that large owls may go as far as tearing off a hat from a human head. So what is to prevent a hungry ropen from attacking a small human, when the ropen is large enough?

Data from two books by David Paulides

From the two missing-persons books (by Paulides) that I own, I have compiled data on the ages of those who have disappeared. Of the 386 missing persons (ages from early infancy to advanced old age), 12% were two-year-olds. That’s a very heavy share for those little ones who are between twenty-four and thirty-six months old. Children 2-8 years old make up 36% of all of these missing persons, which is also a big share, considering all the older children, teenagers, young adults, middle-aged, and senior citizens who live in the United States and Canada, compared with the number of little ones.

With that said, be aware that Mr. Paulides does not mention any flying-creature explanation for these disappearances. I take responsibility for that concept. But I believe that much of the data he has gathered suggests unidentified flying creatures are involved.

These cases mostly involve wilderness areas or places near wildernesses. So what’s so strange about people wandering off and getting lost? These cases are different. From the data I have gathered from Missing 411 Western United States & Canada, being carried away by large flying creatures is not so strange as it may first appear. For one thing, the younger the person is, the further away he or she is found, that is, when a living person or body is found. Two-year-olds are found furthest away from where they went missing. And finding a two-year-old fifteen miles away, in a cave no less, after a relatively short time missing—that is not from a toddler wandering away.

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Garrett Bardsley Missing

The case of missing-child Garrett Bardsley has barely enough evidence to even mention [regarding] a North American ropen. But even if only one child can be saved from being a victim, it will be worth [it].

Dinosaurs of Acambaro

Julsrud at age sixty-nine was on the brink of making a discovery that may prove to be the greatest archaeological discovery ever made. . . . Sculpted in various colors of clay were figurines of dinosaurs, various races of people Eskimos, Asians, Africans, bearded Caucasians, Mongols, Polynesians, and objects that had cultural connections with the Egyptians, Sumerians as well as others.

Living Pterosaurs Video

This ~13 minute mini-documentary gives key points about a few of the key sighting reports of apparent pterosaurs, AKA “pterodactyl.”

Missing 411 Book

Missing-411 is the first comprehensive book about people who have disappeared in the wilds of North America. . . . people routinely get lost, some want to disappear but this story is about the unusual. Nobody has ever studied the archives for similarities, traits and geographical clusters of missing people, until now.

Ropen Attacks

I recently received an eyewitness report from a man who was one of many children, many years ago, who had seen a giant flying creature in Canada.

November 17, 2012

Truth and Error in Pterosaur Endeavor

Media Coverage Welcome

I am grateful that some news professionals have written and published some details of living-pterosaur investigations. Whether in a prodigious newspaper like the Houston Chronicle or a small weekly community paper like the Antwerp Bee-Argus, I welcome coverage of what my associates and I have done and what eyewitnesses have seen. (See the “Pterosaur Media Center“) I am grateful that Terrence Aym felt a need to write, in a positive way, about the possibility of extant pterosaurs. It’s not easy for news professionals to do that. Thank you, Mr. Aym for that endeavor.

But when serious problems arise in reporting, including the lack of accuracy, I respond; how dearly we need the truth in details!

“Dinosaur Found Alive: Two Species Recorded in Papua New Guinea”

Terrence Aym wrote an article about live-pterosaur investigations, published online on August 12, 2010, by the Salem-News (Pacific Northwest area). Let’s begin with what was reported correctly.

“Determined exploration teams” have indeed sought for evidence to confirm reports of large flying creatures in Papua New Guinea. Mr. Aym mentions two of them: David Woetzel and Jim Blume; he calls them “daring researchers” because they have traveled to remote isolated areas, and I agree with him there. He is correct in mentioning that pterosaurs have been assumed (by scientists in Western countries) to have become extinct by 65 million years ago.

Several other points he has reported with some accuracy; but many serious problems need to be addressed. To begin, the news article starts with “(PAPUA, New Guinea)” and that can be misleading. In traditional news reporting, the body of the article is preceded by the location of the reporter when the story was written. For example, my news releases begin with something like “LONG BEACH, Calif,” because that is where I write my news releases (and almost everything else I write). But Mr. Aym, as far as I know, has never been in Papua New Guinea. In that case, the article should not have started with “(PAPUA, New Guinea).”

Two Species of Pterosaur?

He made the same mistake, in his 2010 article, that was common before the many news releases of recent years, before the ropen expeditions of 2004 and 2006, before the nonfiction books on live pterosaurs. He repeated the same old blunder about the duah” and the ropen, as if those names designate two types of flying creatures.

The islands of the nation of Papua New Guinea (Mr. Aym may have confused the name of the nation with the name of the main island), have many isolated villages, with hundreds of languages. One language uses the word “duwas” for the same basic kind of creature that is called “ropen” by many villagers of Umboi Island. It seems that one or more English-speaking researchers became confused, many years ago, thinking that “duah” is the singular for “duwas” and that it represents a different kind of flying creature than the one that some islanders call “ropen.” Nothing of the kind.

Mr Aym mentions neither “duwas” nor “indava” nor “seklo-bali” nor “wawanar,” names used by natives of various village languages. Countless other names probably could be found by researchers, but my associates and I had limited time and resources during our expeditions in Papua New Guinea. The variety of names reflects the variety of languages, not any variety in characteristics of the flying creatures themselves, the ones described like pterosaurs.

We have noticed two basically-different forms of pterosaur-like flying creatures in Papua New Guinea, but they have no relationship to the word “duah.” (In fact, I suspect there is no such word as “duah,” in any language in that part of the world, that refers to a flying creature.) The two types are long-tailed (we call it “ropen”) and the less-commonly seen short-tailed (perhaps like a Pteranodon).

Frigate Bird or Ropen?

Perhaps the most serious blunder in that 2010 article, however, is in the image of a Frigate bird, an image that has the caption “Amazing amateur daylight video of a ‘Ropen’ (Dimorphodon pterosaur) hunting for fish off a Papua New Guinea beach.” How serious is that blunder!

Frigate bird close up

Another Frigate bird, from another angle

The above two photos of oceanic birds have one thing in common: They both show Frigate birds. But the ropen of Papua New Guinea differs greatly in appearance, having a long neck and a long horn-like head crest.

I don’t seen any significant difference betwee the above two common birds and the bird shown on Mr. Aym’s 2010 article. But I have encountered a good number of other persons who have made that same misidentification. Mr. Aym is certainly not alone; but I am grateful that he chose to be different enough to support the revolutionary idea that some species of pterosaurs are still living. He was perfectly correct there.

November 7, 2012

Influence of the News

Some time ago, a well known cryptozoologist attributed many sightings of live pterosaurs to a news frenzy. I don’t recall the details, so I won’t mention the name of the cryptozoologist. But it was around the mid-1970’s and perhaps into the early 1980’s, in Texas.

Newspapers in Eastern Texas were often reporting the encounters people were having with winged creatures, and some people assumed that all of the reports were from sightings of live pterosaurs. But a few persons (perhaps more than a few) may have reacted to the news reports by letting their imaginations cause distortions. Not all winged creatures that may surprise us at night are unclassified flying creatures; some of them are just too deep in the dark to be recognized. A few birds may have played a part, after everybody had become excited about the news reports.

I don’t mean to imply that none of the sightings in Eastern Texas, three decades ago, were from encounters with live pterosaurs; I believe that some of them were just that. But some persons may have become overly excited because of numerous local news reports.

Skepticism

Since that excitement in Texas, the cryptozoologist who doubted living pterosaurs in Texas became doubtful of all similar reports. He accepted the standard model of universal pterosaur extinction and suspected that the late-twentieth-century and early-twenty-first-century cryptozoological investigations were misguided religious excersizes, not worthy of scientific examination.

Recent Sightings

But recent sighting reports that I have received were not from any particular region: I receive emails from around the world. Almost without exception, the eyewitnesses were not looking for living pterosaurs in their areas; they were shocked to see what they had never imagined was possible to see.

Let’s now consider some of the recent reports that I have received by email and by blog-post comment.

Kona, Hawaii, (Big Island); about 2008 — report rec’d in fall of 2012

“Between 3-4 foot wingspan; sharp, long beak; featherless wings”

Vandalia, Ohio, area; about 1989 — report rec’d in Oct-2012

“I saw a pterodactyl up across the river on a tree branch.”

Near Tucson, Arizona; about late-2011 — report rec’d early Nov-2012

“I have seen one of these creatures under a bridge”

Alabama; 2010 — report rec’d in fall of 2012

“Its wingspan was probably between 8-10 feet.”

Washington State; Oct-2012 — report rec’d in Oct-2012

“I know pelicans and this was much larger . . . and appeared to have little to no feathers. Freaky!!!!”

Birmingham area of England; June-2012 — report rec’d in July-2012

“dark, black even. No visible flapping of wings.”

The above sighting reports are a representative sampling, received from the summer to the fall of 2012. Like other periods of time from early 2004 until the present, there seems to be no relationship between where a sighting took place and when it was reported. In addition, I don’t remember ever noticing any relationship, during the past nine years, between sighting location and sighting date. No local news coverage had any influence on any eyewitness objectiveness, to the best of my knowledge (regardless of what happened in Texas, years before I began my investigations).

Pterosaur News

This Houston Chronicle [TX newspaper] article deserves attention, although I had previously written about it briefly on this blog.

Flying Pterosaur, not a Leaping Ray

Mr. Drinnon insists that any extant pterosaur on this planet must resemble pterosaurs known from fossils that have been discovered and that any deviation in appearance means the creature observed cannot be that type of flying creature.

Pterosaurs Across the Pacific

What could prevent such huge flying creatures from eventually expanding their habitat across the planet?