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“Civil War” Photo of a Pterodactyl

A real animal in a 19th century photograph

By Jonathan Whitcomb

This is nothing close to an exhaustive coverage of the Ptp image of an apparent huge “pterodactyl” with six apparent Civil War soldiers. See the following blog-post link for details about the relevance of the belt buckles and other evidences for the authenticity of the original image:

Pterodactyl “Civil War” Photo

But here, in contrast, we make only a brief overview and cover the significance of those belt buckles only a bit.

A real animal in a 19th century photographPtp image of six apparent soldiers next to a gigantic flying creature

Were these men Civil War Reenactors?

No, these apparent 19th century American soldiers were actually what they appear to be, almost: They were most likely photographed between about 1866 and 1880. In other words, they were not technically Civil War soldiers, at least not at the time they were photographed.

How can we be sure? These soldiers, uniforms, and equipment differ from those of the common Union soldiers during that war: The belt buckles are not oval but rectangular; the men had pistol holsters, almost unheard of for common Union soldiers during most of the war; the men seem to be a bit too well fed to be from the war period, although that is not as significant as the other points about belt buckles and holsters.

So doesn’t that mean that these men must be Civil War reenactors, with uniforms and holsters that were mistakes? No, not at all. Look at a hundred photos of common “Union” soldier reenactors (not officers). You might not see even one of them with a rectangular belt buckle.

In addition, you will not see even one common Union soldier reenactor with a pistol holster. Why? The great majority of such reenactors appear to be very accurate in their uniforms and equipment, making it look as much as reasonably possible for them to appear to be Union soldiers.

Yet there is often a weighty problem with 20th century and 21st century American Civil War reenactors: A significant number of them are much heavier than the average soldiers that they portray.

Civil War reenactor soldier - too big for his uniform

Heavyset Civil War reenactor “soldier” (NOT in Ptp)

That does not prove positively that those six men could not have been photographed in recent decades to make a fake pterodactyl “photo”, but it does put that possibility into serious doubt. It is far more likely that Ptp, in its original form, was a genuine photograph of real soldiers with a real and huge flying creature.

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small sapling tree broken down - probably real object moved

Evidence a small sapling tree may have been broken down to allow a real object to be dragged into the clearing shown in the Ptp image

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Pterodactyl Photo in a Youtube Video

This is a blog post about a video on a Youtube channel.

Near the beginning of the video, the image is compared with a photo hoax of several Civil War reenactors who helped create a fake photo for the Freakylinks TV show of two decades ago.

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Pterodactyl Kills Chickens and House Cats in Nevada

A particular modern pterosaur has now been tied to chicken loses in both central Utah and in Nevada. Earlier in October of 2021 I gave it the name “Draper Ropen”, and it was last seen in a rural neighborhood of Nevada on October 2, 2021.

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Pterodactyl Sightings in Videos

I recently saw something that has blown my mind. After a week of people thinking I’m crazy . . . I have located your contact info . . . decided to write you in regards to a recent [sighting] in the foothills of North Carolina. I saw some type of flying creature in [the] sky on the evening of 8/28/2020.

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Pterodactyl Sightings in North America

. . . a sighting report from a small village south of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and the flying creature was enormous.

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Vivre ptérosaure dans l’Ohio

C’est dans la ville de Columbus, tôt le matin. Une mère avec sa jeune fille, alors qu’ils attendaient un autobus scolaire. . . .

. . . as we stood there out the corner of my eye, to my left I saw something large flying down the middle of the street. I turned to my left and see a pteradactyl. [spelling should be “pterodactyl”]

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Critics of Living-Pterosaur Investigations

I have examined hundreds of eyewitness reports over the past fifteen years, interviewing eyewitnesses from around the world and receiving first-hand accounts from five continents. Perhaps few persons, if any, have been given more first-hand reports of sightings of apparent pterosaurs than I have.

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Paleontologist Attacks Pterosaur Publications

Can a writer legitimately and honestly use a pseudonym, AKA a pen name? A variety of conditions can validate this old practice, including getting attention to the writing itself rather than the gender or ethnicity of the writer.

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Press Releases on Flying Dinosaurs

We now take a brief look at four press releases about modern pterosaurs, what some people call “pterodactyls” and others call “flying dinosaurs”. They’re seen not only in Papua New Guinea but in the United States.

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New Harmonic System in Music

[one example] The short choir piece is titled “Come to Christ” . . .

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Contact Whitcomb

Communicate by email.

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Photograph of a Modern Pterosaur?

cover of the paperback book "The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur"

By the world’s leading expert on sighting reports of apparent living pterosaurs, Jonathan Whitcomb

IMPORTANT UPDATE (December 8, 2018):

The original post was written in April of 2013. This is now greatly modified, and now references a new book: The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur.

The original version of this post was in support of an apparent 19th century photograph that was labeled “Ptp.” As of early November of 2018, however, I discontinued supporting that image. Someone brought up an image in one of the TV episodes of Walking with Dinosaurs, and one of the wings of a pterosaur (in that animation) was very similar to one of the wings in Ptp. That made it extremely likely that some kind of hoax or hoax-like work had been done on Ptp, even if some of it may have not been constructed from a hoax. I therefore discontinued my research on that image. In fact, I stopped the printing of my book Modern Pterosaurs, for that nonfiction was based primarily on that image (Ptp).

It looks like six Civil War soldiers gathered around an apparent Pteranodon

Did any part of this come from the Civil War? It is no longer supported.

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The following is the revised version of this post (late 2018)

The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur has no photo of a modern pterosaur. It has two important sketches, drawn by two eyewitnesses of one or more “pterodactyls” seen at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the middle of the 20th century.This is the point of this nonfiction book for middle-grade children and younger teenagers: People in different areas of the planet have seen these flying creatures. People from different cultures, with different languages and backgrounds—they have seen the same kind of featherless flying creature.

Purchase one or more copies of this paperback, for gift-giving to kids and teens.

Hand holds book "The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur"

NON-fiction paperback The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur (by Jonathan David Whitcomb)

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New ‘Dinosaur’ Book for Young Readers

The non-fiction paperback The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur introduces a new field of cryptozoology to kids and teens who are about eight to fourteen years old.

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The Girl who saw a Pterodactyl

One critic might dismiss the report by Patty Carson, saying it was just the imagination of a small girl. But why would that US Marine see two flying creatures that were so similar to the one seen by that child? Keep in mind that both reports come from Guantanamo Bay, and the sightings were only six years apart.

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‘Dinosaur’ book for LDS teenagers

My new nonfiction is for middle-grade children and many (but not all) teenagers: The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur. This is a short cryptozoology book, not about religion but about eyewitness sightings of apparent living pterosaurs. It invites you to seek the truth behind what people around the world report observing.

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Eagle-Toddler Youtube Video

Several things made me suspicious when I first started examining the Youtube video “Golden Eagle Snatches Kid:”

  • The mother appeared only mildly interested in saving her baby
  • The eagle appeared to have lifted the toddler off the ground before Mommy noticed
  • The shadows in various parts of the park meadow did not line up right with each other

Child Safety in a Park

This video appears to prove how dangerous some city parks can be for toddlers. It might actually have proved something, except that the video was a hoax. Animation students in Canada created both an artificial eagle and an artificial toddler, inserting both models onto footage of a park in Montreal. Small children, even babies, are quite safe from eagles in city parks.

Suspicious Shadows

For me, the shadows nailed shut the coffin on credibility for this apparent family video. Some of them line up almost opposite to what they should, in particular when comparing the left side of the meadow with the right side. The clincher is a frame of “video” in the middle of that meadow, where both extremes in shadow direction can be seen.

hoax video shows shadows going to the left on the right side of the meadow

On right of meadow, shadows fall to the left

 

Frame from a hoax video made by Canadian animation students

On the left of the meadow, shadows fall to the right

 

Contradictory indications of the direction of the sun in a video hoaxed by animation students

In the middle, there are no in-between shadows: they fall in both extreme directions

 

Live Pterosaur Investigations

How might this Youtube video affect the work of those who investigate reports of living pterosaurs? It’s both positive and negative. It proves our interviews with eyewitnesses have been valuable, even though we do not yet have convincing photos or video footage of living pterosaurs. On the other hand, when we do obtain such visual evidence, many skeptics might still mock because of how many were fooled by the eagle-baby hoax in Montreal, Canada.

 

“Golden Eagle Snatches Kid” Video

News professionals were suspicious of the apparent attack when they learned that nobody had reported any problem, to the Montreal police or newspapers, regarding any bird in any park.

Child Care Safety

Their parents can feel comfortable, knowing their children are kept from any unwanted internet attention. We hope other child care facilities will follow us. [Avoid putting children’s faces online without hiding identify.]

Eagle did not Snatch Toddler in Park

This Youtube video is a humorous look at why the original video (that went viral) appeared to be a hoax.