United States sighting – Page 5 – Pterosaur Eyewitness

April 10, 2015January 16, 2019

Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaurs

By the nonfiction cryptozoology author Jonathan Whitcomb

UPDATE: “https” has been added to the links on this post (about long-tailed modern pterosaurs). This demonstrates that those posts and pages are safe (internet security).

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For many years, many scientists have assumed that the Rhamphorhynchoidea suborder of pterosaurs was an early “primitive” type, ancestral to the Pterodactyloidea (the shorter tailed ones depicted in movies). Yet modern sightings of long-tailed featherless flying creatures suggests many older ideas need to be examined in a new light. Remember that real science allows progress in discoveries, allowing new interpretations as well.

The point comes from the many eyewitness sighting reports from around the world.

Two apparent “pterodactyls” observed in Cuba, in 1971, by Eskin Kuhn, who drew the sketch

From nonfiction book Searching for Ropens and Finding God (4th edition)

“Before scientists created words like Rhamphorhynchoid for long-tailed pterosaurs, common folk used the word dragon for large destructive creatures, including those with long tails and wings but no feathers.” (page 8)

“Maybe some stories of fire-breathing flying dragons were mostly based on giant bioluminescent Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs. That’s what I believe.” (page 9)

“Prior to September of 2004, I had assumed what other ropen investigators had assumed regarding two pterosaur types: Rhamphorhynchoids, small and long-tailed, rarely have head crests; Pterodactyloids, large and short-tailed, commonly have head crests. But this perspective, based on standard knowledge of pterosaur fossils, by the end of 2004 we found was too simplistic. [regarding modern sightings]” (page 26)

“The interviews revealed many details about the ropen and gave us hope that future investigators may videotape and photograph a ropen by camping near Lake Pung. I believe these testimonies suggest this creature is a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur, in spite of the giant size.” (page 82)

“Guessman estimated the distance: nose-to-tail length was eleven feet. From thirty-four silhouettes of bats, birds, and pterosaurs, Ragu chose the Sordes pilosus, a Rhamphorhynchoid (“basal”) pterosaur.” (page 96)

“What about the tail? When asked about its movement, villagers said that it never bends; Dickson, however, added a critical detail: The tail is stiff except where it connects to the body. . . . Guessman was thrilled, for pterosaur fossils indicate that the tail could not bend much except at a few vertebrae near where it connected to the body. Guessman took this as strong evidence that the ropen is a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur.” (page 98)

“I analyzed data from the late-2012 compilation of more-credible sightings and learned that 41% of eyewitnesses saw a long tail and only 2% noticed the absence of one. I know that leaves 57% of the 128 reports in doubt regarding that one evidence for Rhamphorhynchoids, but a twenty-to-one ratio leaves no doubt: Long tails dominate.” page 178)

Apparent Sordes Pilosus of Umboi Island

Silhouette chosen by two native eyewitnesses on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea

In the second ropen expedition of 2004 (led by David Woetzel and Garth Guessman), several natives were interviewed, eyewitnesses who could have seen the creature well enough to choose from among 34 silhouettes shown to them by the two Americans. Yet when I examined the reports brought back to the United States by Guessman, it appeared to me that only two of the native eyewitnesses had good-enough views to reliably choose which image was closest to what was observed. Those 34 silhouettes, by the way, were of birds, bats, and pterosaurs.

Jonah Jim and Jonathan Ragu both choose the image of a Sordes pilosus, which is a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur. That appears to relate to the three eyewitness reports from my own expedition on Umboi, a bit earlier in 2004, when both a long tail and “diamond” were mentioned (Gideon Koro, Wesley Koro, and Mesa Augustin).

Those interviews in Papua New Guinea in 2004 do not scientifically prove the ropen is very closely related to the Sordes pilosus, but it gives strong cryptozoological evidence that it may be related to that pterosaur known from fossils.

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End of tail on Rhamphorhynchoid

. . . a reference to what I have long presented as evidence for a Rhamphorhynchoid tail in featherless flying creatures that are observed worldwide: a structure at the end of a long tail, sometimes called a “diamond.”

South Carolina Pterosaur

The strange creature flew gracefully over the highway, right in front of the car Susan Wooten was driving to Florence, South Carolina. Other drivers stopped their cars on the side of the road (in the general area of Bishopville) but Susan drove on . . .

Tail Vane Orientation

According to at least a couple of key eyewitnesses, it is horizontal. Patty Carson was sure of this in [creature] she had observed in Cuba in 1965; an anonymous eyewitness in Lakewood, California, was sure of this in the “dragon” she had observed on June 19, 2012, at mid-day. Both of these persons had a close encounter in clear daylight.

Ropen Still Living

How often we’ve been taught that all dinosaurs and pterosaurs became extinct millions of years ago, as if that were proven! But what if some are still living? Before you dismiss the concept of a modern pterosaur (in particular, of a long-tailed featherless Rhamphorhynchoid), consider the many eyewitness testimonies of those flying creatures.

Nonfiction Books Mentioning Non-Extinct Pterosaurs

. . . the ground was difficult to be passed over, because of the multitude of serpents . . . some of which ascend out of the ground unseen, and also fly in the air, and so come upon men at unawares . . . [Moses led an army from Egypt before he became a prophet]

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Live Pterosaurs in America – true-nonfiction by Jonathan Whitcomb

This cryptozoology book about extant pterosaurs is probably both the most popular and highest rated nonfiction, on this subject, on Amazon. One critic mentioned its weakness: It gives limited space to disproving extinction ideas; it simply reveals to the readers what Americans have encountered. Here’s an example of part of one eyewitness report:

In July of 2008, I received a phone call from a man who reported a very large flying creature, seen one year earlier, in Orange County, less than one mile north of the University of California at Irvine. He described the dark gray or black animal as 30 feet long, with 15-16 feet of that being a tail. He saw the creature fly “at low altitude,” in front of his car, over the road (Campus Drive), into the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, in daylight.

March 7, 2015

Reflecting on the Brown Mountain Lights of North Carolina

In this first week of March, 2015, I am now beginning to dig more deeply into reports of strange flying lights around Brown Mountain in Burke County, North Carolina.

Brown Mountain, NC, is a long flat ridge with few distinguishing characteristics

Comparing Marfa Lights With Brown Mountain Lights

The strangest flying lights of southwest Texas, the Marfa Lights that fly just a few feet above the desert soil and appear to have something like chemical-electromagnetic properties—those flying lights rarely appear in that area of Texas, maybe only about six nights of each year. I’ve learned much about those from reading the book Hunting Marfa Lights, by the scientist James Bunnell. Well, it seems that the most mysterious flying lights around Brown Mountain, North Carolina, also only appear on occasion.

I have researched the most mysterious of the Marfa Lights, concluding that they are from bioluminescent flying predators (BFP) that return to the same general area of Texas every few weeks, as they roam around that part of North America, including Mexico. They may very well be related to the glowing nocturnal ropen of the southwest Pacific.

If I find that those more mysterious of the Brown Mountain Lights behave in similar ways, I may conclude the same thing for them. Let us look at the whole picture before jumping to conclusions, especially if those conclusions are based upon a few observations of lights that are easily explained: those common lights that have common explanations.

Beware of making the same error with Burke County, North Carolina, that some skeptics make with Presidio County, Texas. When a group of university physics students turned their cameras toward a highway at night, near Marfa, Texas, they recorded automobile headlights, which proves nothing about strange lights that fly a few feet above desert bushes where there are no roads. When a geologist in 1922 has two good nights to look for the Brown Mountain Lights, he reported nothing strange, which proves nothing about strange lights that rarely appear.

Caves in North Carolina

The Western NC Attractions web site calls the Linville Caves “North Carolina’s only caverns.” That seems hard to believe, considering how many caves are known in this part of the country. Finding no source to back up that statement, I suspect it would have been more accurate to say that Linville Caverns are the only ones in North Carolina that have organized tours for the public. Whatever the case, I wonder if it’s only a coincidence that these caves are only a few miles from Brown Mountain (a few miles as the pterosaur flies).

Why do I bring up caves in the eastern United States? Caves are where bioluminescent flying creatures are sometimes said to stay during daylight hours, whether in North America or in the southwest Pacific. So these unusual lights in North Carolina really do deserve more attention.

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Mystery Lights of Marfa, Texas

What is guaranteed to shock most Americans who hear about Marfa, Texas? It’s not stories of the ghost lights or scientific speculations on earth lights. A nonfiction book on living pterosaurs in America—that is shocking, including the chapter on Marfa Lights.

The Ropen and Brown Mountain Lights

Research by the physicist Clifford Paiva of BSM Research Associates

December 17, 2014

Don’t get Carried Away with Large Pterodactyls

Hill Avenue and Altadena Drive, Altadena, California

Ropens in general mostly eat fish, birds, bats, and carrion, to the best of my knowledge. I believe that modern Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs (AKA ropens) live in a number of species, probably specializing in a variety of uses of bioluminescence and in what each type of ropen eats. Humans are not a common prey for any species of modern “pterodactyl,” but the apparent exceptions now deserve attention.

The investigative journalist David Paulides wrote Missing 411 – Western United States & Canada, a captivating nonfiction that I am now reading. In fact I am compiling data that seems to strongly suggest that some of the strange missing-person cases have no reasonable explanation except for one: A person can get carried away by a large flying creature.

Strange cases of missing persons

Please be aware that these are my own conclusions. In my reading of Mr. Paulides’s book, I have not yet seen anything that even hints that the author believes that any flying creatures were involved. As far as I can tell at present, he may be completely unaware of the large-flying-predator interpretation. And I have no present plans to communicate with him until I have finished compiling and analyzing data from at least one of his books.

The following are my preliminary conclusions:

The disappearances compiled by Paulides are from wilderness areas or their proximity. Why are they strange? Commonplace explanations fall flat. Human predators would not kidnap a person and then drag that person for miles up into a higher elevation, even when a snow storm starts to make such a journey life-threatening to the kidnapper.

What about animal predators like bears and mountain lions? Look at the more-likely of the two: mountain lions (AKA cougars). Some of the found persons (dead and alive) do have scratches, it’s true. But how do you explain the details?

Could you expect a cougar to carry away a human child, far away, miles from the capture location, up to a high mountain ridge, and then remove some of the clothing, have second thoughts about the meal, and leave that human child up on that high mountain ridge? If you can believe that, you may not have a problem believing the mountain lion was only stealing human clothing, for the missing clothing is not found anywhere near where people find the body of that child.

What about Bigfoot kidnappers? That’s sounds much more likely than bears or mountain lions. Yet that makes no sense for the overall cases, which include human bodies often being eaten, but survivors being found in reasonably good condition at other times. Something is carrying humans long distances, over many decades of cases, over much of North America. If a Bigfoot could fly, we might make a good argument that the big fella was responsible, but the overall evidence is that people are being carried away through the air more than over the ground.

Sometimes a survivor is found alive on, or in, bushes such as berry bushes. Those are some of the lucky ones, apparently dropped by the flying creature and landing where the fall was cushioned by the underbrush. So how was the large flying creature careless enough to drop the meal? It grabbed hold of one or both shoes or articles of clothing. That’s why living and dead humans are found with odd clothing and shoes missing. It’s not uncommon for the clothing to be found some distance from the found person and sometimes it’s one or both shoes missing. Take that odd assortment of missing clothing in context: Many cases involve cold weather at higher elevations than where the victims went missing; why would a person wander far uphill onto a mountain in cold weather while shedding clothing? The victim was being carried through the air and fell out of that clothing.

So why don’t newspapers report these flying kidnapping cases? The reports sometimes include a terse mentioning that the victim was disoriented or somehow not thinking clearly when found. Why? Well, I can think of one reason: What would you expect the police or newspaper reporters to record in their official records, if a victim said that they had been carried away by a large pterodactyl? Of course the officials would print nothing about that kind of detail, ascribing it to disorientation or a problem with the victim’s thinking processes. I know I’m speculating about that, but compare the flying-predator idea with the others and see what comes up on top.

Rumors about Jonathan Whitcomb

Recent skeptical online publications have portrayed me, Jonathan Whitcomb, as almost the sole source of information on the ropen and have portrayed me as a deceiver, but an objective examination shoots down that libel about my intentions.

I have probably written much more about the concept of extant modern pterosaurs than anyone else, but I have never been alone. And for eleven years I have continued to declare that I have never myself seen anything like a living pterosaur. In addition, I examined many thousands of photos recorded by my own game camera, hoping to see a ropen, yet I saw nothing like a pterosaur. How is that deceiving people? Believe what you will about large pterodactyls flying overhead, but imagining bad motivations on my part, and then publishing that libel—that is the worst form of bulverism. How much better to listen to the eyewitnesses!

Nation, Guessman, and Woetzel

Three other American explorers have interviewed native eyewitnesses in Papua New Guinea:

Paul Nation
Garth Guessman
David Woetzel

The American cryptozoologist with the most experience exploring in that tropical southwest-Pacific environment, searching for the ropen within the past 14 years, is Paul Nation, followed by Garth Guessman; but that is if we do not include the Baptist missionary James Blume, who has lived in Papua New Guinea for decades. David Woetzel and I have independently published a scientific paper in a peer-reviewed journal of science, and both articles are about the possibility of modern pterosaurs.

Eyewitnesses make the case

We declare that many of the eyewitnesses who testify of their encounters with apparent pterosaurs—those ordinary persons appear to have told the truth about extraordinary flying creatures.

Final note

One of the missing-persons cases mentioned in the book by Paulides is of an eight-year-old boy who went missing from around the Devil’s Gate area of Altadena, California, in 1957; he was never found. I know that area well, having hiked through there as a teenager six years later. I also know of other missing-persons stories from that same area (which is north of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena).

The photo below is a neighborhood in Altadena, California. I have interviewed an eyewitness by phone, a lady who lived near here, as a teenager, in the 1960’s. This is just a few miles east of where the eight-year-old disappeared in 1957. The point? The lady I interviewed told me about the flying creature she had seen as it flew up into the foothills above her home Altadena. The wingspan of the “pterodactyl” she compared to the length of a school bus.

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British Columbia, Canada, Attacks

The ancient Israelites, at the time of Moses, were terrified by the fiery flying serpent that caused many human deaths. Recent investigations suggest the fiery flying serpent of the Old Testament was not actually a snake but a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur. Even more recently, “pterodactyl attacks” against humans in Canada have been reported in a nonfiction cryptozoology book, Bird From Hell, by Gerald McIsaac.

Pterodactyl Kills Fisherman

In other areas of Papua New Guinea, large nocturnal flying creatures (reported to glow brightly) have a fearful reputation. It’s not just the reports of the largest ones carrying away a pig or even a human, on occasion; the danger is also in the creature’s secretion, for it can burn human skin.

Human death from attacks

Of course it is possible that aboriginals are superstitious and that all the missing persons, over the decades, who have walked that long highway at night were attacked by human rapists and murderers; that seems possible on the surface. But animalistic humans do not fit all the reported encounters at night in British Columbia, according to the book Bird From Hell.

What about the dead horse mentioned in that book? Much of its body was found by a tree. Of course ordinary non-human predators could be responsible, or so it seems. But why were parts of its body in the top of that tree, with some of the branches broken?

Pterosaurs and Paleontology

Paul Nation has explored in Papua New Guinea at least four times, searching for modern living pterosuars. No other American visitor to these remote tropical areas has explored as many time as Nation has, in this new field of cryptozoology: living-pterosaur investigations.