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Free Book on Modern Pterosaurs

nonfiction cryptozoology book in electronic format - living pterosaurs

Think of a friend who needs to be informed about sightings of modern pterosaurs. Perhaps think of yourself, too. The nonfiction digital book Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea is now available FOR FREE, no strings attached, to let the world know about these astonishing nocturnal flying creatures.

This short book says little about the Bible, so why is it promoted on The Bible and Modern Pterosaurs? Here is what it says:

Expeditions and Bible-Believers

Who could organize any expedition to search for living pterosaurs? Only an official discovery could awaken Western scientists so they could search for extant pterosaurs, but discovery normally comes after searching, not before. Looking back at this problem, from the time of Darwin until 1990 it appears to have been an almost hopeless atmosphere for a discovery. But a solution eventually appeared . . . from an unexpected source.

It was only a partial solution, to be sure: only cryptozoological. But in the 1990’s a few American Biblical creationists began intermittent light expeditions in Papua New Guinea, investigating reports of possible living pterosaurs. This led to more expeditions, from 2002 to 2007, by cryptozoologists who were better prepared and who had more success with interviews and observations.

But why Biblical creationists? For the moment, lay aside any judgment of any concept of earth-age; look only at the recent history of expeditions in Papua New Guinea. Who would be more likely to search for living pterosaurs, those who believed in a major extinction event 65 million years ago or those who believed in many pterosaurs living 6,000 years ago? How much easier to organize an expedition when the organizers are convinced of the recent existence of what is being sought!

Before considering what those Biblical creationists discovered, we need to go back into history a bit more. How deeply extinction ideas had been ingrained into Western culture!

The above does not directly relate to evidence that the Bible is true; these few paragraphs only briefly explain why Biblical creationists became involved. Yet the book as a whole does suggest that the world should listen to what these few American explorers, Christian men, discovered for themselves, even though their first discoveries were limited to within the realm of cryptozoology.

Consider the following excerpts.

Preface (second paragraph)

I believe in living pterosaurs and hope they will soon be officially discovered. More important, I believe in you, that you can soar above dogmatic assumptions about extinctions. I hope that you already understand that we are more than a by-product of culture: Our existence transcends the boundaries of the human cultural assumptions that have shaped our beliefs.

What is a Pterosaur (from the Introduction)

We must begin with the basics: What is a pterosaur? It’s not really a type of dinosaur, although it’s associated with them. The flying creature is called “pterodactyl” by many non-scientists; some Americans call those featherless fliers “dinosaur birds” or “prehistoric birds.”

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Now consider excerpts from a much larger book, in print format.

Searching for Ropens and Finding God (third edition)

We live in a world in which modern Westerners, at least many respectable or respected ones, have believed all magical dragons to be only legendary and all pterosaurs to be extinct and even more ancient; also in this world, many natives, whom we had assumed more primitive or less gifted than us, have believed all dragons to be real and either magical or spiritually gifted. In some areas, they believe dragons to be both ancient and modern. What if all of us have been only partially correct? What if flying dragons are not so much ancient as modern, not so much magical as physically gifted, not so much legendary as real? [From Introduction]

The existence of life I credited to God, from childhood choosing to respect the Bible as nonfiction. When I was ten, my father, psychologist for the San Bernardino School District in California, showed me the largest collection of bird eggs in the Western United States, in the museum in our own little town of Bloomington. The variety of eggs and birds, all dead, fascinated me. Then I read the labels. Non-birds becoming birds discomforted me, for each type of life appeared to have a role in its own basic form. [first page of the first chapter]

Jim Blume, a missionary in Papua New Guinea for thirty years, had interviewed about seventy nationals (we call them “natives”) who had seen the creatures in many coastal areas, and the eyewitnesses gave similar descriptions. I obtained an audio recording of Blume himself being interviewed: astonishing details from Garth Guessman questioning him by telephone. Within a year, Garth would become an associate of mine and a treasured friend.

The wingspan is said to be twenty feet, on the mainland and on some islands, according to natives who spoke with Blume, but only three to four feet around Manus Island. They have “hands” about halfway up their bat-like wings and tails having flanges that are “almost eel-like.” The bill is somewhat like a pelican’s, and a comb-like structure on the head has been described like a rooster’s comb, “only stiffer.” Flying at night, it glows. [from second chapter]

Apparently, those estimating how much gasoline we would need to take were unaware of the significant difference between nine passengers and the usual three to five. I was ten pounds lighter than I was two weeks earlier, and my luggage was only half as heavy, for I left many things in Gomlongon (or ate them), but it was insufficient: The boat was still low in the water, which took more fuel.

We were only a few hundred meters from the shore of Umboi Island, so what was the problem? I thought we could get to land somehow and hike through the jungle up to the main trail that leads to Lab Lab. The natives knew better.

For one thing, this coast is a mangrove swamp. Should we abandon the boat, it would be a horrible trek to trudge through the muck, inching toward the main road—a poor option. Soon, we would be in the swamp but for a different reason. [from Chapter 14]

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Live Pterosaurs in Australia E-Book

This digital book is now ready for you to easily download FREE, to promote worldwide public awareness of modern living pterosaurs. You are free to download and read the book, with no obligations, but consider telling a friend about this free book, at least one or two friends and relatives, so that others may know the wonderful truth about modern living pterosaurs.

Modern Pterosaurs and Suicide Prevention

Like many others, I was sad to learn of the passing of Robin Williams. Yet I suggest we each now focus on someone, among the billions of persons now living, who can benefit from something we can do or say positively. My own part may seem especially weak and indirect to some skeptics, perhaps, but I’ll be satisfied if only one person will benefit.

Evidence for Pterosaurs and Honesty

I’ll answer your last question first, but I feel it needs to be taken in context: There is no physical evidence for the universal extinction of all pterosaurs. In addition, there is no eyewitness evidence for their complete extinction. In other words, there is NO EVIDENCE, of any kind, that all species of pterosaurs became extinct.

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Dinosaur and Pterosaur Extinction

In the Sesame Street song “I’d Like to Visit the Moon,” sung by Ernie, what do we hear about dinosaurs? “I’d like to . . . go back in time and meet a dinosaur.” In Western society, at least in my experience in American culture, universal-dinosaur-extinction indoctrination seeps into many aspects of our lives, flooding us from all directions, beginning in early childhood. How does that relate to modern pterosaurs? Most of us have tied pterosaurs to dinosaurs, as if they were two versions of the same thing: “prehistoric” animals.

I do not mean to imply that no species of dinosaur or pterosaur has become extinct. If they were now as common as they once were, without any extinctions at any time, this world would be a different place indeed: not so safe a place for humans. But there is a world of different between the extinction of a species and the extinction of a general type.

From the third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America

Regarding the 1944 sighting of a “pterodactyl” near Finschhafen, New Guinea:

Both Americans, before their experience, assumed universal pterosaur extinction, but the biology student apparently held it dogmatically. That soldier was probably so firmly entrenched in the extinction dogma, so rigidly trained to obey its command, that he rebelled against his personal experience with a giant Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur. It was Hodgkinson who accepted the truth of what both of them experienced. . . .

Where did we get the idea of pterosaur extinction? Early discoverers of pterosaur fossils had no knowledge of living pterosaurs; they assumed they were looking at the remains of extinct creatures, and that assumption has been magnified for two centuries. I believe that the idea was cemented into Western thought when Darwin’s General Theory of Evolution became popular in the nineteenth century, but search textbooks in vain for solid scientific evidence of pterosaur extinction, for the conjecture itself is more philosophical than scientific. It is an assumption.

Live Pterodactyl

Around 1965, young Patty Carson, daughter of the commander of the Guantanamo base in Cuba, was walking home one day. She and her little brother were shocked to see a large winged creature pop up its head and upper body above the nearby tall grass. Patty knew what she saw flying away that day, but she was not believed by her parents.

Pterosaur Extinction Indoctrination

I hestitate using the word “propaganda,” for it suggests deliberately misinforming. I do not accuse anyone of lies, although that accusation has been thrown at me and my associates by one critic. But generations of continuous indoctrination into universal extinctions of all species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs—that has left our Western society with a devastating weakness: Human experience and clear thinking have been kicked off the stage in favor of elaborate imaginative speculations.

How has anyone now living come to the conclusion that all species of pterosaurs became extinct? From a scientific test? No. From a mathematical formula? No. From a set of statistics? No. From early childhood, Americans and citizens of other Western countries are indoctrinated into universal extinctions of certain general types of animals, dinosaurs and pterosaurs especially. It has become a deeply ingrained assumption of our cultures.

Let’s try some critical reasoning, using basic assumptions common among biologists who live by popular models, namely Neo-Darwinism. In the book The Pterosaurs From Deep Time, the author, David M. Unwin, says, on page five:

“Pterosaurs have successfully defied more than two centuries’ worth of scientific probing for several reasons. The most obvious is the problem of trying to understand animals that are known only from fossils. Just a tiny proportion of all the pterosaurs that ever existed, probably less than one individual in a million, has actually made it into the fossil record.” (PI Press, New York, 2006)

I agree with those who take issue with using the word “record” when referring to fossils, and I suspect “one individual in a million” exaggerates the rarity of fossils, but we’ll leave those ideas alone for now. Mr. Unwin is probably supported by many paleontologists, perhaps nearly all of them, when he describes the rarity of the fossilization process. Let’s examine the consequences of this one-in-a-million fossil-to-non-fossil estimate.

Darren Naish and Pterosaur Fossils

In “Pterosaurs Alive in, like, the Modern Day,” Darren Naish takes a dismissive perspective toward modern-pterosaur suggestions, not by analyzing those critical eyewitness accounts emphasized by me and my associates: by avoiding critical accounts and emphasizing trivialities. But please note what seems to be his main point:

“The fossil record convincingly demonstrates that pterosaurs became extinct at the end of the Maastrichtian in the Late Cretaceous (65 million years ago).”

I suggest that no accumulation of fossils, not even all the fossils ever discovered, is ever capable of proving the extinction of even one species of anything, let alone all species of a particular type of animal. Naish seems almost to suggest that discovered fossils give a literal recording of precise times when various species lived. More to the point, he also proclaims that the fossils paleontologists have, combined with those they do not have, not only suggest extinctions but “convincingly demonstrate” extinctions. How rash!

Would Naish dare suggest that all pterosaur species that ever lived have left fossils that we have already discovered? I doubt he would think that. How easy to imagine that some species left no fossils that have been found by paleontologists! How did Naish arrive at the conclusion that all of those undiscovered pterosaur species became extinct long ago? Think about it. Could fossils of wolves prove that domesticated dogs are extinct? It makes no difference how fossils are dated, for fossils, regardless of when those species lived, never can prove any extinctions.

I know that Mr. Naish could reply with something like this: “We know that domesticated dogs now exist; but modern pterosaurs do not exist.” Really? How do we know that modern dogs exist? Human experience with modern dogs makes the case. With modern pterosaurs, we do have a difference, but it is subtle: Human experience demonstrates they exist, even though those flying creatures seem to be less common, elusive, and probably mostly nocturnal. Nevertheless, human experience prevails.

Related posts and pages:

Darren Naish in the Modern Day

His lengthy writings, on that one page, about questionable reports—they ring like strawman arguments to me, for the credible accounts are entirely neglected by Darren Naish. I appreciate his worthy contributions to paleontology, especially in regard to pterosaur fossils; but it seems . . . he has gone far afield in wandering into cryptozoology, and he seems unaware of how serious investigations of living pterosaurs are actually progressing.

Pterosaur Extinction . . . or Non-Extinction

I do not set myself up to be more intelligent than the paleontologists who disagree with me. But investigating reports of living pterosaurs is outside the speciality of paleontology, and I have probably spent more hours on this obscure branch of cryptozoology than all the paleontologists in the world combined. Please, if you doubt that any species of pterosaur could be now living, at least consider the length of my experience, before dismissing this idea outright, and look at the eyewitness accounts that I have analyzed.

What’s New With Living Pterosaurs?

Let’s consider some recent blogs and other web pages relevant to living pterosaurs research and investigations.

Life, Not Extinction, Is What Fossils Mostly Reveal

The paleontologist Darren Naish commented on the blog posting “Fossils are evidence of life, not extinction.” He supports the standard models that include universal extinctions of general types of organisms, namely pterosaurs. His lengthy web page “Pterosaurs alive in, like, the modern day!” bebunks many questionable older reports, and I believe some of his opinions have merit . . . But critical eyewitness sightings are absent from his blog post, and to those who have closely followed living-pterosaur investigations this neglect is obvious.

Flying Dinosaurs

Called by some Americans “flying dinosaurs,” pterosaurs, in modern times, appear to be at least somewhat rare, for they are rarely reported by eyewitnesses. . . .  the rarity of reports of eyewitnesses is from the ridicule that many of them face after telling people what they saw; it is not generally from insanity or dishonesty. . . . The “flying dinosaur” of Papua New Guinea is often called “ropen.” It seems to be a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur of immense size, far larger than any of the fossils of Rhamphorhynchoids . . .

Texas Pterosaur in 1995

. . . nobody forces any adult to disbelieve any story of a child. Several things have led me to believe that Aaron Tullock, as a child, saw a living pterosaur, regardless of American indoctrinations into universal extinctions, and I submit this account as credible. . . . “This thing flew over my head, about eight feet off the ground, and stopped and hovered in mid air. . . . flapping its featherless, bat-like wings, which were about four feet in span, maybe five. It had a tail about three feet long, with the . . . flange on the end . . . no head crest and no feathers at all . . .”

“Pterodactyl” Flies Over Military Ship

. . . a sailor on the U.S.S. Jouett (guided missle cruiser), CG-29. He told us about the night when he was surprised by an excited shipmate who summoned him out of his bunk. Many sailors had just witnessed a giant “pterodactyl” that had flown directly over the ship . . . If anyone has information on this, please send me an email . . .

Strange Flying Creatures and Bulverism

I understand that not all sightings of apparently strange flying creatures must be modern living pterosaurs; I understand how eyewitnesses can misidentify something briefly flying by in the dark; I understand the possibility of fear influencing a person’s interpretation of an experience. But I do not understand how a critic can fail to see the fallacy of avoiding eyewitness-report details: More than once I’ve noticed a critic will invent an eyewitness scenario and appear to assume that the reported sightings of apparent pterosaurs fit into the critic’s fabricated outline. How dogmatic are some advocates of universal extinction of pterosaurs! When several characteristics of a description suggest a living pterosaur more than anything else, why insist that the strange flying creature must have been something non-strange? And why ignore the most credible eyewitnesses who have most clearly seen what was most obviously a modern living pterosaur?

“Bulverism” C. S. Lewis labeled the slick ploy of avoiding reasoning on a subject by pointing out the reason ones opponent is so silly. Do some criticisms of living-pterosaur investigations qualify as bulverism? I believe so. The case I here present may be a mild case of bulverism, but the ramifications, for logical or foolish conclusions, appear significant.

The paleontologist Glen Kuban, on his web site, makes some good points about the weaknesses in the 1856 railway tunnel “pterodactyl” story from Europe (paragraphs six through twelve on his site); I agree that the story appears to be some kind of hoax. But why take seven paragraphs to disprove that 1856 story, then ignore the many credible eyewitness accounts from the past seven decades? He demonstrates a weakness in the judgment of Carl Baugh, one of the early investigators of reports of living pterosaurs and then ignores critical details of investigations by Baugh’s associates who have long ago taken over where Baugh left off, improving the quality of the investigations.

If those seven paragraphs were all that Kuban had written, then bulverism would not apply; he would have made his point about that questionable 1856 story and any mention I would make about his motivations would have made me guilty of bulverism. But he wrote much more, appearantly doing all he could to discredit all living-pterosaur investigations.

I agree with Kuban that the 1856 story should not be used as if evidence for living pterosaurs (indeed that story gives little if any evidence for any strange flying creatures). But that old story should also not be used as if evidence that recent sightings are just as questionable. Using explosives to blast away rock to create a tunnel—that sometimes throws rocks into the air; but that is not evidence that meteors falling from outer space are fictional. It matters not how many tunnels are created by however many explosions, and it matters not how many old stories of living pterosaurs are questionable. Twentieth-century (and recent) sightings, by eyewitnesses like Duane Hodgkinson and Brian Hennessy—those deserve attention, Mr. Kuban.

He acknowledged that I had interviewed local natives of New Guinea. But he emphasized the crudeness of the sketches that one of the eyewitnesses and I had drawn. Why, Mr. Kuban, did you ignore a seven-meter-long tail? What need have we of a professional artist? I am not offended at his point that I am not a realistic artist; I am shocked that he would either carelessly miss critical points or purposefully leave them out of his writings.

Kuban wrote about thirty-one paragraphs to disparage the c0ncept of modern living pterosaurs. His web site is copyright-labeled “2004-2007,” so why did he write nothing about the 2006 expedition of Paul Nation? That explorer’s name is never mentioned, even though Paul went on more living-pterosaur expeditions in Papua New Guinea than any other American cryptozoologist. I suspect that Kuban has no desire to acknowledge that the two lights videotaped by Paul were later analyzed by a physicist and found to be anything but ordinary: solid support for the concept of a large unclassified bioluminescent flying creature.

Kuban’s thirty-one paragraphs say nothing about the American World War II veteran Duane Hodgkinson. How many web pages are written about that 1944 sighting! Could it be that this man’s account is too detailed and too credible? Nothing obstructed Hodgkinson’s view and the strange flying creature was only about a hundred feet away with it took off into the air and flew off, then flew back over that jungle clearing in New Guinea; the two soldiers had a second look and Hodgkinson was clear about the long tail: “at least ten or fifteen feet” long.

One of Kuban’s thirty-one paragraphs mentions a possible explanation of sighting reports: “It’s likely that at least some southern hemisphere sightings of “pterosaurs” are explained by fruit bats.” It also says that those bats, when “seen in silhouette (which would be the case at night) can present a pterosaur-like profile, especially to nonscientific observers.” But Hodgkinson’s sighting was in the middle of the day. In addition, how can anyone explain how a bat-tail about an inch long could appear in clear daylight to be “at least ten or fifteen feet” long. It seems that Kuban is far too intent on dismissing the general concept of modern living pterosuars, for he ignores the reports that would make his interpretation appear ludicrous.

Kuban’s thirty-one paragraphs say nothing about the Perth, Australia, sighting of 1997. How deeply has he researched eyewitness reports? The Australian couple have been interviewed and their accounts published online and in a book. Was Kuban aware, when he referred to “nonscientific observers” that the man in Perth, the man who described a flying creature with a wingspan of 30-50 feet, was a scientist?

Kuban’s thirty-one paragraphs say nothing about the Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) sighting of 1971. He wrote nothing about Brian Hennessy, although the Australian’s interview has been published in many web pages and in a book. Would Kuban consider Hennessy to be a “nonscientific observer?” His sighting was analyzed in a scientific paper published in a scientific peer-reviewed journal. Would Kuban consider Hennessy to be crazy for reporting an obvious “prehistoric” flying creature? That would indeed by unwise, for Mr. Hennessy is himself a professional psychologist.

Kuban’s thirty-one paragraphs give no details of what Gideon Koro and his friends saw flying over a lake one day. Kuban does mention my interview with Gideon, he just gives no details about what Gideon saw. Could this neglect relate to how difficult it would be to suggest a commonplace interpretation? Think about this. How could seven native boys (the older ones perhaps in their mid teens) have seen a flying fox fruit bat, flying over a lake, and then run home in terror, because they mistook it for a ropen that had a tail “seven meters” long? Please! How natives love to eat fruit bats! But how those boys would hate to be eaten by a ropen! And think about this: How difficult it is for a knowledgable, intelligent person to imagine seven teenaged boys running away, in terror, from their favorite dinner!

Why do I write about bulverism, when I am criticizing the writings of one who has pointed out apparently-real weaknesses in some reports that support modern living pterosaurs? It may be only a mild case of bulverism, for Kuban says, in paragraph three, that “most advocates of living pterosaurs are strict creationists or cryptozoologists.” He then points out a weakness in one of the writings of one of those creationists, implying that all living-pterosaur investigations are flawed. But why, Mr. Kuban, have you so strongly emphasized the questionable evidences and ignored the many compelling eyewitness testimonies? You may have given your readers the impression that no living-pterosaur investigator should be taken seriously. If that is what you intended, Mr. Kuban, then you have been guilty of bulverism.

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Live Pterosaurs in America, by Jonathan David Whitcomb, is a nonfiction book in the true genre of cryptozoology. The Christian beliefs of most of the living-pterosaur investigators are not hidden, neither are they trumpeted, but acknowledged in the appendix, let readers believe as they will.

Please support living-pterosaur investigations by purchasing this book about amazing eyewitness accounts of pterosaurs in many parts of the United States over many years. See Live Pterosaurs in America. (third edition — yes, this is NON-fiction)

From the Appendix of the third edition:

What would be the ideal documentary on living pterosaurs? One of two directions: searching for the truth in eyewitness testimonies or searching diligently for the creatures themselves. The “Flying Monsters” episode of MonsterQuest did neither, stumbling by stepping on the edge separating one stair from another.

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Flying creatures resembling pterosaurs

Science and Clear Thinking