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Online-Radio Interview With Dave Scott (Spaced Out Radio)

Genesis-Ark replica in the Netherlands

By (imperfect) living-pterosaur expert Jonathan D. Whitcomb

Late on the night of January 16, 2018, (9:00-11:45 p.m. Pacific time) I, Jonathan Whitcomb, was interviewed by Dave Scott on Spaced Out Radio (online radio broadcasting from British Columbia, Canada). One of my associates phoned me, the next day, unhappy with my neglect: For one thing, I had said nothing about the importance of the Ark of Genesis in living-pterosaur investigations. I am sorry for my imperfections, and I now plan to correct that neglect with the following steps, and possibly with more:

  1. I’ll be prepared to mention the Ark in future talk-show interviews
  2. I’ll mention the Biblical perspective more in my writings, incl. on Flood-of-Genesis (dot-com)
  3. I’ll write at least one book emphasizing the Ark’s importance regarding living-pterosaurs

At the beginning of this interview on Spaced Out Radio, Mr. Scott referred to me as a man of faith. I hope that I, imperfect as I am, will live up to that. Near the beginning of the discussion, I mentioned my Evolutionary Boundary simulation many years ago, although I may not have mentioned the name of it. To be brief, it showed me that Darwin’s concept of survival of the fittest actually makes his concept of evolution impossible: Small simple forms of life cannot evolve into larger complex forms of life BECAUSE of natural selection.

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Genesis-Ark replica in the Netherlands

Replica of the Ark of Noah, in the Netherlands

Biblical Ark and Modern Pterosaurs

Let’s keep this short and simple. The primary foundation for belief in scriptures, and belief in the literal ark of Noah, is in faith. That does not mean blind faith, believing without any reason to believe, but it can mean taking one or two steps onto the path ahead, even when the light does not yet quite reach that far.

The Ark we read about in Genesis was constructed to protect basic forms of life that would not have survived without protection. Birds and pterosaurs could have flown above the flood waters for a time, of course, but they would not generally have been able to survive long without a place to rest. I believe a number of species of pterosaurs were kept on the Ark, as well as a number of dinosaurs.

Why do I believe in modern-day living pterosaurs? Because many persons, from many cultures and backgrounds and from many areas of the planet, have seen those flying creatures.

(The photo shown above is not to be confused with the Ark replica in Kentucky.)

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Spaced-Out Radio interview of Jonathan Whitcomb

(audio) Host Dave Scott and guest (JW) discuss living pterosaurs

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Ark Encounter in Kentucky

Ark Encounter features a full-size Noah’s Ark, built according to the dimensions given in the Bible. Spanning 510 feet long, 85 feet wide, and 51 feet high, this modern engineering marvel amazes visitors . . .

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Where Living Pterosaurs Have Been Reported

  • Africa
  • Australia
  • Canada
  • England
  • Papua New Guinea
  • United States of America
  • and many other countries worldwide

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Reply to a Newspaper Article in North Carolina

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.

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Texas and Living Pterosaurs

They only appear a few times each year, but they always come back. Sometimes a ball of light seems to split into two, with a separation and eventual reunion [Marfa Lights]

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Replica of Noah’s Ark

Asked how Johan’s Ark compares with the Ark Encounter project planned for Kentucky, Zovath said that while both arks are built to biblical measurements, the Ark Encounter project addresses the shipbuilding processes Noah likely used. Huibers utilized steel barges welded together and then covered with wood, and he also modified the design to accommodate a more “free-flowing” crowd.

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Living Pterosaurs – a proclamation

The second part of PLP goes into more details, regarding encounters with apparent extant pterosaurs, compared with DLP, and there is limited overlapping of what sightings are covered. Here in PLP are more of the earlier reports that I, Jonathan Whitcomb, received in my earlier years of my investigation.

Modern-Pterosaurs Creationist Books?

"The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur" by Whitcomb

This post had a major revision on December 7, 2018

The photograph, or apparent photo, which played a major role in the nonfiction cryptozoology book Modern Pterosaurs I no longer support. That’s why I stopped the printing of that book. I still maintain, however, that at least the great majority of sighting reports that I have received over the past 15 years—those are valid cryptozoological evidences for extant pterosaurs. This post now covers the other nonfiction books that I have written and published over the years, and why they are not, for the most part, in the genre of Biblical creationism.

The Living-Pterosaurs Books now Supported by Whitcomb

  • Searching for Ropens and Finding God (fourth edition)
  • Live Pterosaurs in America (third edition)
  • Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea (This is a free online book, not available in print.)
  • The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur (for older kids and teens)

I wrote and published the above four nonfiction books to help readers come to know the truth about these wonderful flying creatures. I believe in allowing people to believe what they will concerning Bible interpretations regarding how long life has existed on this planet. I also believe that we will all, at some time in the future, come to a united knowledge and a common understanding regarding the origin of life on this planet. With that said, I feel that knowledge of modern pterosaurs will help us prepare for the time when we’ll received a greater knowledge about life origins.

In Conclusion

At least up until the end of 2018, none of my books that are still in print are, for the most part, in the genre of Biblical creation-science, although SFRFG (4th edition) and LPA (3rd edition) have some references to the Bible regarding belief in modern living pterosaurs. Nevertheless, each of my living-pterosaur books that are now in print are primarily in the genre of cryptozoology.

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Copyright 2018 Jonathan D. Whitcomb (“Modern Pterosaurs Creationist Books?”)

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New cryptozoology book on modern pterosaurs

My newest nonfiction book, The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur, was published in November of 2018 and is available on Amazon and other online book retailers. It differs from the other nonfiction cryptozoology books I’ve written. . . . [This one is for children and teenagers.]

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Religious Bias and the Ropen

I was asked about the possibility of religious bias in the thinking of those who believe the eyewitnesses of apparent living pterosaurs. I replied that bias is not restricted to those who are religious. Why should Christians be singled out for potential bias? Any person of any philosophy may well be biased about particular ideas.

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Civil War Pteranodon Photograph

On January 14, 2017, the physicist Clifford Paiva, of California, and I (Jonathan Whitcomb) jointly agreed that the image of an apparent pterosaur in this photograph is in fact a valid recording of a modern pterosaur.

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The Flood of Genesis, dinosaurs, and pterosaurs

The combination of a head crest and a Rhamphorhynchoid tail is uncommon in pterosaur fossils (but not totally absent from all types); yet that combination is common in eyewitness reports in the past 100 years. For some reason, long-tailed ropens (like Rhamphorhynchoids but sometimes much larger than fossils) may account for more than 60% of all modern pterosaurs, perhaps much more.

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Old Civil War Pteranodon Photograph

If you had asked me about this old photograph, of an apparent pterosaur, 25 years ago, I would have said that it’s probably a hoax. How much I have learned in recent years!

Carbon-14 Dating and Dinosaurs

dinosaur Scutosaurus

First, radiocarbon (14C) dating has traditionally been done with assumptions outside the Biblical framework, namely this: Interpretations have been without any consideration for the possibility that the Flood of Genesis was an actual event. When we consider the worldwide flood of the Old Testament as part of actual history, the raw data will be seen to be highly inflated for the ages of living things further back in time. In other words, if a tree or animal died only a few centuries after the Flood of Noah, the remains could be radiocarbon dated to be tens of thousands of years old rather than the correct date of thousands of years old. But that’s a long story, not where we’re going with carbon-14 dating in this post.

Radiocarbon Dating Reliability

Radiocarbon dating is the most accurate and most verifiable of the radiometric dating systems. Dates for carbon material can often be independently verified by testing something that is known historically, from records of human observations. Dating with 14C is possible for up to “50 to 80 thousand years” before the present, yet we need to remember that these older dates are under the assumption that there never was any worldwide flood. We generally refer to those numbers as “carbon-14 dates.”

Consider now how the 14C dating method has been used on dinosaur remains. (I would be delighted beyond words if scientists had already begun dating pterosaur fossils through radiocarbon methods, but it appears we need to wait for that.)

Shellac contamination?

A 1990 experiment that involved radiocarbon dating of pieces from two dinosaur bones—that test will not be covered, for it involved a controversy regarding a report of shellac that may have contaminated one of the two sample sources.

Today, I did a Google search with “radiocarbon dating dinosaurs” (not in quotes). The second place position on the first page was an article by an organization that is centered on two goals, one of them being to support traditional ideas about evolution. Unfortunately, that article is outdated, written in 1992, before critical 14C testing was done by members of the Paleochronology group, who presented their findings at a geophysics meeting in Singapore, in 2012.

I saw problems with the 1992 article, more than just its being outdated, but we need to move on. The proclamation that shellac had contaminated dinosaur remains from the Carnegie Museum of Natural History is irrelevant to the many tests on dinosaur bones since 1990. Let’s consider more promising testing that has taken place in more recent years.

dinosaur called Scutosaurus

 

From Site “Carbon-14-dated dinosaur bones are less than 40,000 years old”

Members of the Paleochronology group presented their findings at the 2012 Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting in Singapore, August 13-17, a conference of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS).

Sad to report: Because so many paleontologists have so long assumed that all dinosaurs became extinct many million years old, the abstract of the report by the Paleochronology group was censured, deleted from the conference website because they did not like to consider such an apparently revolutionary discovery. The two chair persons did not challenge the data openly but removed it from public view without notifying the authors.

No investigation was done by those censure officials: no looking at the methods used; no asking any questions of the researchers. It was just crude censuring. Fortunately it was not as devastating as what happened to Galileo, for the members of the Paleochronology group were allowed to leave Singapore and travel home, rather than being put under house arrest in somebody’s house. But that approach to a new discovery is far from what I would call an act of science.

Comment on a Theologyweb Forum

Carbon-14 dating can only extend back to roughly 50,000 years. You will never get a date of millions of years old from it. It is similar to taking a bowling ball and weighing it on one of those old hand held postage scales and triumphantly declaring that the 16 lb. ball only weighs a few ounces. [Theologyweb.com, archive 2792]]

The above comparison is seriously flawed. Weigh an apparent bowling ball on a postage scale that has a maximum capacity of 16 ounces. If the ball weighs only 14 ounces, according to that scale, it is not really a bowling ball but it is probably hollow. In that case, we really can “triumphantly” declare that the ball weighs only a few ounces. The commenter on that Theologyweb discussion was completely wrong.

Does that appear strange? Not if the person weighing the ball already had some evidence that it was a fake bowling ball, one that weighed much less than a real one. In that case, weighing the ball would be a natural way of testing the idea.

Actually, a more realistic comparison would be with what looks like a family car. If you could find a way to put that car onto the postage scales, and it showed a weight of 14 ounces, it would obviously not be a real car. It could be a balloon shaped like a car, and probably filled with hot air, at that. What a critic would not proclaim is that it was a real car but the spring in the postage scale was stuck. No.

Even giving a scientific-sounding explanation for spring jamming, that idea is ludicrous. No family car, if it is a real car, would do anything less than squash a small postal scale. And using the word “science” for a ridiculous idea gives it no credence.

Age of Dinosaurs

Why did I use an example of a car, when it’s over 2,000 times too heavy for a small postal scale? Dinosaur bones that have been carbon-14 dated have been found to be over 2,000 times younger than paleontologists have assumed.

How to Weigh a Giant Dinosaur

Ask politely, “Do you mind using the commercial truck scales?”

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Flood of Genesis (quoting Genesis)

And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

Dinosaur Bones Less Than 40,000 Years Old

Researchers have found a reason for the puzzling survival of soft tissue and collagen in dinosaur bones – the bones are younger than anyone ever guessed.  Carbon-14 (C-14) dating of multiple samples of bone from 8 dinosaurs found in Texas, Alaska, Colorado, and Montana revealed that they are only 22,000 to 39,000 years old.

Dinosaurs Living With Humans

Dr. Dennis Swift has spoken much and written much about the concept that people, in earlier centuries, have lived with dinosaurs. The following is just a brief summary of what he has revealed about evidences that ancient people have lived with extant dinosaurs.

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The Flood of Genesis

An old Bible

I’ve noticed that few of my posts on this blog have related directly to the Bible, at least with Biblical quotations included (except regarding the “fiery flying serpent”). This may have been a major weakness in my writings, in particular for readers who had no previous experience with the writings and lectures of my associates, who sometimes make up for what I have lacked. I’ll take a step to correct that now, since the name of this blog is, after all, The Bible and Modern Pterosaurs.

I have never doubted the Biblical account of the Garden of Eden and the fall of mankind into the mortal condition in which we now live. I have also never doubted the reality of the Flood of Genesis, and that deserves attention here. Yet we need to take all of this in context: The Savior Jesus Christ accomplished the great atonement to save us from all the negative aspects of the Fall, a subject deserving a library of books. With that in mind, let’s now look at the Flood of Noah.

Genesis 7: 1-3 (King James Version)

And the Lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.

Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

Genesis account pictured with the Ark of NoahOld depiction of the animals and birds leaving the Ark, but where are the dinosaurs?

Genesis actually gives us few details about the Ark and how eight humans and many creatures were saved by living on it for many months, at least few details compared with all that must have taken place. Let’s use a bit of human reasoning here, even though our limited abilities make the best of our reasoning inferior to what we can learn from the words of scripture.

Apparently even back in the time of Noah animals were divided into “clean” and “unclean,” meaning some were approved for human consumption and others were not. In the number of creatures to be taken into the Ark, a balance was necessary: predatory animals must be greatly outnumbered by the prey animals on which they would feed after the Flood was abated.

Regardless of what kind of animals Noah’s family ate (if any) before the Flood, and regardless of what they would eat afterwards, prey animals needed to be much more numerous than lions, eagles, and snakes, for example. Otherwise animals like deer, rabbits, and rats might become extinct, an event not completely tragic to all humans.

Details absent in Genesis

Did every variety of every type of creature enter the Ark of Noah? Why should they? Take the obvious example first: Would Noah have taken every breed of dog into the Ark, if all the present-day varieties existed in his day? No. Only a few genetically-healthy dogs would be needed, for they would have all the traits that could later become active in our modern breeds, even though the countless traits would not be outwardly visible in those original ancestors.

What about dinosaurs and pterosaurs? From eyewitness accounts over the centuries, at least some varieties of dinosaurs and pterosaurs must have been preserved on the Ark. For example, one of my associates, Brian Irwin of Australia, spoke with natives in the New Britain area of Papua New Guinea, and they described an encounter with an apparent Therizinosaurus. That is not to say that all types of dinosaurs were preserved from extinction in the Flood of Genesis, but not all of them became extinct.

Many eyewitness reports that I have received, over the past eleven years, suggest a narrow range of characteristics are common in modern pterosaurs. Many sighting reports include descriptions that include two or more of the following:

  • Lack of feathers
  • Long tail
  • Flange (“diamond”) at tail end
  • pointed horn-like head crest

The combination of a head crest and a Rhamphorhynchoid tail is uncommon in pterosaur fossils (but not totally absent from all types); yet that combination is common in eyewitness reports in the past 100 years. For some reason, long-tailed ropens (like Rhamphorhynchoids but sometimes much larger than fossils) may account for more than 60% of all modern pterosaurs, perhaps much more.

Do any of the recently-seen types closely relate to the “fiery flying serpents” of the Old Testament? Who knows? Yet with all of the wonderful possibilities, how much we need to learn by future discoveries, and how dearly we need the help of biologists in the search for these wonderful flying creatures!

Are these dragons flying away from the Ark of Noah?

Are these dragons flying away from the Ark of Noah? Apparently so.

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What was the Fiery Flying Serpent?

Another problem with the snake interpretation strikes me to the heart. What is the usual symbolism here? Who does the snake usually represent in the Old and New Testament? Satan, of course. Does it seem likely that a true serpent would be used to symbolize Jesus Christ? If the “fiery flying serpent” were a snake, Moses would have killed one of them and dragged the dead snake on the ground, to symbolize God’s victory over Satan. He would not have given the Israelites the symbol for Satan, to look up to a common snake for healing or salvation.

Let us be Fair to the Young-Earth Creationist

For years I have worked with Young Earth Creationists in bringing to light evidence for modern living pterosaurs. For years critics have dismissed the possibility of live pterosaurs because the idea is promoted by YEC’s who believe in the Bible. This unfair approach, commonly accompanied by bulverism, now deserves attention.

Honestly, I Told the Truth

For eleven years, I (Jonathan Whitcomb) have been a cryptozoologist, with a special interest in eyewitness accounts of flying creatures that look like pterosaurs, commonly called pterodactyls. I have given my opinions honestly about various levels of credibility in the individual reports that I have received from eyewitnesses . . .

The Ropen and the Fiery Flying Serpent

Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs are well known from fossils: long-tailed . . . If the fossils were really all we had to go by, members of the Rhamphorhynchoidea suborder would be consistantly small; but modern versions of those long-tailed pterosaurs can be almost any size, and that means a few are huge: bigger than fossils yet discovered.

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