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Modern Pterosaur or Dragon in China

I just received my first report of a possible modern pterosaur in China. I don’t know Mandarin or any other Chinese language, so struggling with online translation sites has been difficult; Mandarin and English are very different kinds of languages, not easily translated from one to another by machine, at least not with any reasonable result. But we have just enough help from machine translation to look into this sighting with a possibility of understanding something about it.

By the way, the Mandarin for “pterosaur” is 翼龍

The Mandarin for “wing” is 翼

And the Mandarin for “dragon” is 龍

Apparently, combining “wing” with “dragon” creates “pterosaur.”

Mandarin "wing" and "dragon" - together meaning "pterosaur"Chinese Mandarin for “pterosaur”

I’ll put the brief excerpts of the original sighting report at the bottom of this post. Here is some of the English as it was translated by the MDBG site (it appears to translate from Mandarin to English better than Google Translate or the Babylon online translator).

When I read the one or two grade, probably so big, about 10 years old. One day, me and a friend, both in us downstairs and jump rope, at that time the Sun was good, I was tired, squinted toward the sky, I see exactly one creature, like birds, but grow up to be like that is rare.

I believe an adult is recounting a childhood sighting, an encounter when he (or she) was ten years old. I suspect that the first few words simply refer to the grade level the child was in at the time. I believe the eyewitness refers to the sun as bright (a later part of the report seems to say that it was at about noon time). The child was skipping rope when he (or she) became tired. (It seems from later in the report that the other child is a girl; I don’t know the sex of the one reporting this.) Up in the sky, something was flying, something bigger than a bird.

As I was a kid’s point of view, it’s volume is very large. Then I describe to others is that it has a number of times as big size about 20 square meters of a room.

Here is my be estimate for the above: “From my perspective as a child, I saw it as very large. . . .” He then compares the area-size of the creature to the size of a room that would have dimensions, in feet, of 13′ by 17′, although he gives no indication of shape for the room. (He later compares the creature’s size to being larger than the area of a roof.) I find it interesting that the eyewitness does not estimate wingspan or length but compares the flying creature (whether dragon or pterosaur) to something in two dimensions, the size in area.

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Lush mountains in China

A delightful scene somewhere in China

Portions of the original pterosaur sighting report:

在我读小学一、二年级的时候，大概就这么大，10岁左右吧。有一天，我和一个小伙伴，我们两个人在楼下跳绳，那时太阳还是不错的，我跳的累了，就眯起眼睛朝天空看，正好被我看到一个生物，应该说是鸟，但是长成那样的实在是少见了。

照我小时候的的观点看，它的体积是很大的。此后我数次向别人形容的是它有一个房间大概20平方米的大小那么大；

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Are Dragons Pterosaurs?

What do old dragons and old pterosaurs have in common? Celtic dragons had arrows at the end of their tails; they may relate to pterosaur tails. What about those Rhamphorhynchoid  pterosaur tails? Are not dragon tails also long? Perhaps most noteworthy  are the wings: both  pterosaurs and common artistic portrayals of big flying dragons have featherless wings.

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Cryptozoology Book by Michael Newton

Of the many nonfiction cryptozoology books written by Michael Newton, one stands out: Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology—A Global Guide to Hidden Animals and Their Pursuers. Of the many hundreds of cryptids mentioned, two jump out for us: ropen and kongamato.

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cryptopzoology book - nonfiction - by Michael Newton - published early in 2005

Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology by Newton

We would not expect a large reference book on cryptozoology to contain information about two expeditions late in 2004, when the book was published early in January, 2005. That is not the case here; in fact, so much has been learned about the bioluminescent flying creatures of Papua New Guinea, in more recent years, that much of Newton’s book is outdated in its entry “ropen.” For now, let’s look at what this encyclopedia says about the kongamato.

Flying Cryptid in Africa: Kongamato

The Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology has a major entry for the kongamato of Africa. It mentions Frank Melland, whose memoirs (published in 1923) include reports of a flying creature in what was then Northern Rhodesia.

. . . ‘a lizard with membranous wings like a bat.’ . . . Kongamato’s ‘wing-spread was from four to seven feet across . . . the general color was red. It was believed to have no feathers but only skin . . . [and] to have teeth in its beak . . .’

When Melland displayed a drawing of a pterosaur, ‘every native present immediately and unhesitatingly picked it out and identified it as a kongamato.’

Newton’s book also mentions G. Ward Price, who interviewed an eyewitness of a kongamato in 1925. The native had been attacked by one of the creatures and when shown a picture of a pterosaur, “screamed in fright.” It seems the kongamato at least resembles a pterosaur, if it’s not actually a modern species of that flying creature.

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Michael Newton’s Encyclopedia of Cryptozoology

[Answering some statements in Newton’s book] Some species of animals continue to grow as they mature, differing from common species of birds which have a particular maximum size; it seems that the ropen is one of those that keeps growing with age. Regarding the “Duah,” there is probably no such name, in Papua New Guinea, for any flying animal; the proper name is “duwas.”

Cryptozoology Book on Live Pterosaurs [not the book mentioned above]

“He has focused on the accounts of witnesses who saw something, and that adds credibility. The writing is easy to read and he adds comments and analysis to make it all more useful. Mostly, the author lets the sightings speak for themselves, which is good. A worthwhile book.” [Amazon review of the first edition of Live Pterosaurs in America – It is now in its third edition]

Pterosaur Sighting Reports

I live in Lamero, Kentucky. Its a small, rural area located along the Daniel Boone National Forest. . . . a lot of caves . . . seriously like swiss cheese . . . [In July of 2012] It was just a little after sunset . . . we were outside, sitting on his deck . . . I was looking northward when Brandon, my friend, shouted . . . Approaching us from the east . . . were two very large animals. . . . They appeared to be a brownish color and had every characteristic of a pterodactyl, from head to tail. I’d say they were roughly 15+ feet long and were flying at least 40 mph . . . [pterosaur sighting reported to Jonathan Whitcomb]

Pterosaur Sightings – not Extinct

He was interviewed by Jonathan Whitcomb, who found the man’s testimony credible, even though the sighting was extraordinary: The length of the pterosaur-like flying creature, from end of tail to beak, was about the width of Campus Drive, about thirty feet . . .

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book cover "Live Pterosaurs in America" - third edition in cryptozoology nonfiction genre

Cryptozoology book: Live Pterosaurs in America (3rd edition) by Whitcomb

From the Title Page of Live Pterosaurs in America (third edition):

How are sightings in the United States related to those in the southwest Pacific? How do some apparent nocturnal pterosaurs pertain to bats, and how are bats irrelevant? How could modern living pterosaurs have escaped scientific notice? These mysteries have slept in the dark, beyond the knowledge of almost all Americans, even beyond our wildest dreams (although the reality of some pterosaurs is a living nightmare to some bats). These mysteries have slept . . . until now.

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Scientific Evidence for Modern Pterosaurs

Do we have anything scientific to back up eyewitness reports of modern pterosaurs? As of early December, 2012, I know of no body or photograph or video footage that would make a good scientific case, among scientists; but we do have much data gathered from the eyewitnesses, and some of that information can be analyzed for various purposes.

The following is from the most recent (late-2012) compilations of data, adding information from previous years to that of 2012 reports.

Wingspan Estimates

Most of the eyewitness reports include a numeric estimate of the wingspan. Before proceeding, we need to be aware of the possibility of a number of species of pterosaurs living in various parts of the world, extraordinary as that may seem to many Westerners.

Here is the raw data, for what it is worth—wingspan estimates in feet:

1.3, 2, 2, 2.5, 2.6, 3, 3.5, 4, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7, 7, 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 9, 9, 9, 9, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10.5, 11, 11, 12, 12, 12.5, 13, 13, 13, 13, 15, 16, 16, 17, 17, 17, 18, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20.5, 21, 21.5, 22, 24, 25, 25, 25, 25, 27, 29, 30, 30, 33, 33, 35, 35, 40, 46

But what do all those numbers mean? What can we learn? Perhaps the most important is that no hoaxes played any significant role in the sighting reports. Any major hoax involvement would have caused at least one obvious peak in wingspan estimates.

For example, many Americans think of “pterodactyls” as large or gigantic, similar to what we have seen in movies. That would cause a disproportional number of reports to include wingspans over fifteen feet, even greater than twenty-five feet, if many hoaxes were involved. But there is no such preponderance in the data.

What if hoaxers relied on fossil knowledge of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs, the long-tailed ones (that type dominates the sighting reports)? They would then have given many wingspans less than eight feet, if many hoaxes were involved. But there is no such preponderance in the data.

But what else can we learn? Look at the extraordinary range of these wingspan estimates. Could a few species of various sizes cause such an even distribution? Not likely. But there is another explanation. Perhaps adults of all the modern living species have less wingspan variety than is shown in the data. The explanation is simple: Eyewitness error probably evens out the data; this is amplified by the various circumstances in the various sightings, conditions that cause various errors in estimations. I believe the combination of these estimation errors and the various species (of various sizes) may be enough to account for the evenness of this data. But smaller sizes of juvenile pterosaurs may play a part, too.

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Newly Analyzed Data on Modern Pterosaurs

What’s the point of this featherlessness question? The overall results strongly support the concept that no hoaxes played any significant part in the sighting reports.

Live Pterosaurs in America

What do fossil hunters do when they begin to make an apparently important discovery? Is it strange that they would keep the location secret? Many of the expeditions of my associates have been extensively published, with many details coming out within days of the completion of an expedition.

Scientific Papers on Modern Pterosaurs

David Woetzel of New Hampshore and Jonathan Whitcomb of California may be the only writers who have published, in a peer-reviewed journal, scientific papers supporting the idea of modern living pterosaurs. Both of the American cryptozoologists explored Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea . . .

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Flying Creature Identification

I’ve been writing about modern-pterosaur sightings, regarding misidentification potential, for years, with new critics bringing up old objections. Let’s now consider the words of a skeptic who calls himself “Mullerornis.”

“Most pterosaur sightings turned out to be ducks or bats.

“Indeed, many reports fail spectacularly at pterosaur biology. Pterosaurs didn’t had bat-like leathery wings, for starters.”

Ducks?

I have over a hundred sighting reports compiled in a data base that includes many details (wingspan estimate, surety of featherlessness, location of sighting, time of day, presence or absence of tail, etc); it is still expanding, now with year-2012 reports being entered. Let’s consider the skeptic’s remark about ducks, using the data base, since he gives no examples of any particular sightings.

How many sighting reports were kept out of the data base because they “turned out” to have been misidentified ducks? I believe that number is “zero.” How many entries in the data base “turned out” later to have been misidentified ducks? I believe that number is also “zero.” How many reported sightings does this skeptic give to us, that is . . . specific sightings? Zero. The value of his speculation about ducks that look like pterosaurs? You be the judge.

But I found this critic’s addition of “ducks” to the misidentification possibilities interesting. I did communicate, earlier this year, with a man who had a skull of something that appeared to have teeth (he wondered if it might be the remains of a pterosaur). I eventually concluded it was probably the skull of a duck, after careful investigation and many emails between me and the owner of the skull (the photo reminded me of the pseudo-teeth of some ducks). But there was no sighting associated with that skull. In addition, little (if anything) was written about it in cryptozoology blogs. So why did the critic mention “duck?” It must have been something else.

I remembered the nineteenth century newspaper account of a tunnel out of which a strange winged creature was said to have escaped from stone—the French word for “duck” was included in that newspaper article—but that’s irrelevant, for the story was surely a hoax.

I then remembered a sighting in the United States, in which the flying creature dived down to a pond and caught a duck (or other water fowl) in its mouth before flying off with it. But the flying creature that preyed upon that bird was not itself duck-like, so that sighting is also irrelevant. What are we left with, other than the word of a person who calls himself “Mullerornis,” who insinuates that he might know something about some undisclosed sightings in which ducks looked like pterosaurs?

Bats

How outdated that generalization! Even the Monsterquest television episode “Flying Monsters” (2009) was caught in that intellectual trap, as the producers attempted to pin “bat” on flying-creature sightings that serious investigators know could not have been from any bats. They included the account of the “pterodactyl” seen by the American World War II soldier Duane Hodgkinson; but they failed to disclose his estimate of the length of the tail on that flying creature: “at least” ten or fifteen feet long. [sighting in Papua New Guinea]

“Mullerornis” gives us no particular sighting report, not even a hint of anything specific. His credibility fails to impress me enough to continue writing about the “bat” misidentification speculation. Read any of my three nonfiction books on modern pterosaurs.

Did Pterosaurs Have Bat-Like Leathery Wings?

The skeptic seems to have made the same mistake that I encountered from a paleontologist with whom I was communicating. Beware of the paleontologist who steps outside his field of expertise to speculate about eyewitness accounts. Let’s look into this.

Most flying creatures larger than butterflies we call “birds.” When an eyewitness of an apparent living pterosaur describes it, the word “bat” sometimes comes out. Closer examination, if the skeptic “Mullerornis” had looked closer, reveals why an eyewitness would say “bat-like.” The flying creature appeared to have no feathers. That’s it.

In general, when an eyewitness says something like “bat-like,” details in the description make it obvious that the creature was no bat. But the person viewing the apparent pterosaur did not notice details in the bones in the wings and use the word “bat” because of the fanning out of bat “fingers” in the wings. With few, if any, exceptions, the point is this: lack of feathers. We usually associate that with bats, when the subject is flying creatures (larger than butterflies) living today, so large featherless flyers remind us of bats.

When the word “leather” is used by an eyewitness, we need to remember what happened. The person did not examine a flying creature in a laboratory, like a paleontologist would do with a fossil. It was an observation at a distance, for most sightings involved being more than twenty feet away (on occasion, closer). The combination of lack of feathers and a general color similar to leather could easily cause an eyewitness to say “leathery.” The precise nature of pterosaur skin is irrelevant.

It’s that simple. The proclamations of this critic have no foundation.

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Flying Creature

So who do you call? I hope you’ll contact me, Jonathan Whitcomb. As far as I know, I am the only person on earth who has devoted anything like a full-time effort, over years, to interview eyewitnesses of apparent living pterosaurs and promote the concept that these flying creatures are not extinct . . .

Pterosaur Flying Creatures

. . . to document, then analyze, eyewitness accounts of living pterosaurs or pterosaur-like creatures and to support expeditions and investigations . . .

Pterodactyl Hoax

The French railway-tunnel pterodactyl of 1856 is finally getting its obituary, albeit The Illustrated London News has no such obituary. [The report appears to have been a hoax.]

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Creationists are Interviewed for a Canadian Television Show

Richard Syrett interviewed Jonathan Whitcomb in Long Beach, California, in 2012

Living-pterosaur expert Jonathan Whitcomb was interviewed for “The Conspiracy Show” on May 5, 2012, to be broadcast later this year in Canada. Richard Syrett questioned him on reports of pterosaurs or dragons in history and about his expedition in 2004.

I also mentioned the possibility that some of the Marfa Lights in Texas are the bioluminescence of nocturnal flying creatures that may be related to the ropen of Papua New Guinea. I mentioned how the light splittings and rejoinings may be large flying creatures hunting the Big Brown Bat at night.

Syrett also asked me about my creationist beliefs. I mentioned my differing view of the first part of Genesis: I don’t think it refers to the creation of the universe. Regarding the meaning of living pterosaurs, I referred to the Flood of Noah, that it demonstrates how God protecting the basic types of life, protecting life from extinction.

Canadian Television Show

The questions included the subject of how modern pterosaurs have remained hidden from general knowledge for so long and how they have survived until the present.

From the book Searching for Ropens, second edition:

As the ship plowed through the temperate night, I began talking with those around me. They were curious why an American was going to Umboi Island. When I told them I was looking for a creature called ropen, they became interested. Some had heard about the creatures, and Gibson Kuvurio, from Pilio Island (off the southern coast of West New Britain), told me of the legend of wawanar, the dragon that flies around at night: It “owns the land and the sea.” Many gathered around us as I related what I knew about the ropen and shared my belief that the creature glows at night to catch fish.

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Pterodactyl Hoax in The Illustrated London News

Not many newspaper hoaxes survive for many generations. The French railway-tunnel pterodactyl of 1856 is finally getting its obituary, albeit The Illustrated London News has no such obituary. Not that France is a fairy-tale country or that railway tunnels are figments of the imagination or that all nineteenth-century newspaper articles are always filled with lies; but a pterosaur that survives for ages embedded in rock and then survives a blasting explosion that knocks it out of that rock . . . well, that pterosaur is fictional. [Correction: it may have been reported as a discovery while workers were digging by hand, not from any blasting excavation.]

Not that it’s impossible for a flying creature to find its way into a railway tunnel and then vacate the premises after a blasting explosion; but the original newspaper article included, if my source is correct, something about the pterodactyl’s image being imprinted into the rock formation, thereby removing all doubt about where that creature had lived for millions of years (I’m joking).

I know that blasting explosions can cause clouds of dust, but the original story is said to have included a strange fragment on the demise of that pterodactyl: Immediately after expiring, its body turned into dust. Taken in context with the behavior of the creature right before its death—It fluttered its wings and made a croaking noise—turning into dust from extreme age . . . well, it makes the story extremely unbelievable.

Taken in context with other hoaxes in popular newspapers of the nineteenth century, this article in The Illustrated London News gives us no serious cause for believing in the “tunnel pterodactyl” of 1856. If that were not enough, there seems to be no source for the story, nobody who can verify anything about any pterosaur coming out of any tunnel in France.

Having blasted that old pterodactyl fiction, however, I recommend we keep an open mind to the truth when an eyewitness account shows evidence of credibility, just as we close a case when the falsehood of a story is shown by evidences of a hoax. I once played a joke with my wife, startling her with a realistic toy snake; but that joke did not make all snakes extinct (although my own existence could have become threatened).

I am sorry for the many Christians who may have been mislead by that hoax in The Illustrated London News, but we can learn from our mistakes and be more careful in reading old newspaper accounts of strange events.

The Illustrated London News Hoax

I have read that the original newspaper article included something about the creature’s image being found imprinted in the rock formation. I see several bits of evidence that point to a hoax, each one valid in itself. With no original source available, we can safely assume that this story is a hoax.

Pterosaur Hoax or Not?

I found that for those who could see the presence or absence of a tail (night sightings are often insufficient), 84% reported a tail that was long. If hoaxers played a major part, they would have described Pterodactyloids more than Rhamphorhynchoids, so the overwhelming preponderance of long-tails discredits any hoax hypothesis.

Why a Hoax Fails

Regarding hoax potential, perhaps the most obvious refutation of a combination of practical jokes is this: American hoaxers would most likely emphasize very large wingspan, to avoid any possibility of suggestions of misidentification of a large bird. But the data shows many estimates within the range of medium-to-large bird wingspans.

Hoax Potential – Pterosaur Wingspan

If some hoaxers gave “estimates” based on standard beliefs about long-tailed pterosaurs, and some hoaxers gave “estimates” based on standard beliefs about giant pterosaurs, the graph would have shown two peaks, with a deep valley in the top graph around “d,” (“e” and “f” in the lower graph), far different from the actual data collected.

cover of nonfiction cryptozoology book "Live Pterosaurs in America"

Third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America (nonfiction/cryptozoology)

From an Amazon review of the second edition of this book:

This is an updated review of the book and I am changing my rating to 5 stars. This book has been on my shelf for almost a year now. I pick it up every now and then and a part of me becomes more impressed by the book every time. . . .  I highly recommend this.

From a review of the third edition:

Mr. Whitcomb does a thorough job questioning indoctrination and the close-mindedness of the Western world. Reading so many eye-witness reports of people who have seen living pterosaurs in America was mind-opening, to say the least. . . . The passion that Whitcomb and the pterosaur witnesses feel about these investigations make this book a great read and keep the pages turning. If you are prepared to question the indoctrination society has imposed on you since childhood, you are ready for Live Pterosaurs in America.