pterodactyl – Pterosaur Eyewitness

October 18, 2018December 8, 2018

The Girl who saw a Pterodactyl

By the investigative journalist Jonathan Whitcomb

I’m writing a nonfiction book for children, which should be in print in November of 2018: The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur. [Addendum: This cryptozoology book was published on Nov 8th] It covers far more than just the true story of Patty Carson. It compares her sighting to the one by the US Marine Eskin Kuhn, who encountered two “pterodactyls” at that same area in Cuba but six years later.

Two Important Sightings at Guantanamo Bay

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.

A critic might dismiss the sketch by Patty Carson, saying it was drawn decades after the event. But look at the sketch by Eskin Kuhn: It was drawn within minutes of his sighting of two large pterosaurs that he originally called “pterodactyls.” Compare those two drawing and notice important similarities:

Drawn by Eskin Kuhn (left) and by Patty Carson (right)

A critic might dismiss Kuhn’s sighting as just a misidentification of two birds flying together. But be aware that Patty saw many small teeth in the beak of the flying creature she saw. Birds do not have teeth.

A critic might dismiss the US Marines sighting, for those two things were flying by him, leaving him limited opportunity to look closely. But Patty Carson was staring at that flying creature for some time, as it stood there for some time. She had ample opportunity to examine details in its appearance.

Why did Kuhn not report seeing any teeth in the two “pterodactyls” he saw? They were flying with their mouths shut. Why did Carson not report any hair on the tail flange of the flying creature she saw? Kuhn noticed that hair. The girl probably paid less attention to the end of the tail, or perhaps the tail was moving a bit too much to notice that detail. She did see the tail clearly enough to see that the tail end had a flange that she described as “diamond” shaped.

Why do not more people report seeing these living pterosaurs, if they exist? I, Jonathan Whitcomb, have received hundreds of eyewitness reports, over the past 15 years, reports from five continents. From examining those accounts and comparing them to each other, I have concluded the following: The total number of persons now living, worldwide, who have had some kind of encounter with a living pterosaur—those persons number at least in the range of between 7 million and 128 million, although we need to keep in mind that this estimate includes encounters that were brief and many were at night, when few, if any, details could have been seen.

Check out the book The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur, available soon on Amazon and other online retail book sellers. Give a copy as a gift to a child.

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The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

What a wonderful world we live in, a world filled with an astonishing variety of life! If all those varied forms known to Western science are not enough, we now have worldwide confirmations, from many eyewitnesses, that a long-tailed pterosaur species is still living among us . . .

Pterodactyl Sighting

How big are modern pterosaurs? Choose almost any wingspan; we’ve got it. Here are the eyewitness estimates for wingspan, in feet, from smallest to largest . . .

I saw a Flying Dinosaur

Although it’s more common, in the United States, for an eyewitness of an apparent living pterosaur to use the word pterodactyl, I sometimes come across the phrase “flying dinosaur.”

The girl who saw a modern pterosaur

[what a girl saw in Texas] . . . I was about 11-12 yrs old I went outside around late morning . . . In the open backyard next door was what looked like a 9 or 10 ft tall man . . . then the man turned and I realized that this man didn’t have a face like a man . . .

“Dinosaur birds” are still flying

We have been taught that giant flying creatures soared overhead long ago. We could call them “dinosaur birds,” but that would be technically incorrect: They were pterosaurs . . .

The true story of Patty Carson and others

Patty Carson, of Southern California, said, “It did have a tail and it had a diamond shaped tip . . . The skin was a leathery, brownish reddish color. It had little teeth, a LOT of them.

They are not extinct – “dinosaur birds”

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.

April 24, 2015

Pterosaur Sighting in Papua New Guinea Early in 2015

Peter Beach and Milt Marcy, both of the Portland area of Oregon, led an expedition in Papua New Guinea, in March and April of 2015, searching for a living pterosaur that previous American explorers had failed to see clearly. This time Americans did see, in daylight, the form and features of an apparent pterosaur.

The exact location in Papua New Guinea is undisclosed for the present, while follow up investigation continues there. Unfortunately no photos or video were obtained during the sighting.

Beach and Marcy hope for success with a native who was given a camera and appeared determined to get back into that area of the jungle to videotape a pterosaur.

Generic photo of huts in Papua New Guinea, not directly related to the 2015 apparent-pterosaur sighting

Non-Ropen Pterosaur Sighting in 2015

The recent sighting in Papua New Guinea involved several eyewitnesses, including the Americans Peter Beach and Milt Marcy. I interviewed them separately, in three phone conversations, from April 20-23, soon after they had returned from their expedition, having been away in the southwest Pacific for about six weeks.

Marcy told me he does not want to go on record as being 100% convinced it was a pterosaur that they had seen. He did agree, however, to the estimate that it was more than 50% likely to have been so.

Peter Beach, a former biology professor, has tried to come up with some non-pterosaur explanation for what they saw, but as of April 23, 2015 (during our second phone conversation) he could not, for it was too much like a pterosaur. He could not see any evidence of feathers, so a bird seems questionable; he saw soaring-gliding flight, so a Flying Fox fruit bat is practically eliminated. He saw huge wings that were leathery and they gave an impression more like a parachute than like feathery wings.

From the telephone interviews I had with those two Americans and from what I have learned from other eyewitnesses in that area of Papua New Guinea, I believe this recent sighting was of a Pterodactyloid (short-tailed) pterosaur. In other words, it was probably not a long-tailed ropen, but it was what many Americans would call a pterodactyl.

Significance to Living-Pterosaur Investigations

Careless skeptical speculations about dishonesty in natives in Papua New Guinea—that decomposing body needs to be buried and never again dug up, so to speak. Most of the more-credible sighting reports of apparent pterosaurs in the southwest Pacific have been by Western eyewitnesses, anyway. Some of them have included the following:

Duane Hodgkinson (in recent decades a flight instructor)
Brian Hennessy (in recent years a professional psychologist)
An Australian couple (together they saw the huge creature in Perth)
A British pilot and Australian co-pilot flying northwest from Australia

That is not to say that natives of Papua New Guinea have had fewer encounters or less dramatic ones than Americans and Australians. After all, some of those native eyewitnesses have been carried off and eaten by some of the larger flying creatures (according to some indirect reports), and you can’t get closer or more dramatic than that. But we Westerners have a lot fewer detailed reports from natives we can directly question in face-to-face interviews.

Careless speculations that ropens or modern pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea are only legends—that does not fit with human experience, and it is human experience that lives at the heart of scientific progress.

Background of Peter Beach and Milt Marcy

I had interviewed both men last year, on the banks of the Yakima River in southeastern Washington state. They had witnessed flying lights over that river and knew a man who had reported an apparent “pterodactyl” in a tree on the bank of that river. But before their recent expedition in Papua New Guinea, they had never seen an apparent pterosaur in daylight, with form and features visible.

I submit that these two men would not have spend many thousands of dollars on this expedition in Papua New Guinea if they intended to deceive anybody. A liar would have just declared seeing a clear form of a pterosaur in southeastern Washington state, rather than spend his own money to go to Papua New Guinea to look for those flying creatures.

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Possible Ropen off Coast of Indonesia

H. put the plane into a dive but the creature also dived. H. then avoided a collision by banking away from what he and his co-pilot thought was something like a “pterodactyl.”

Pterosaur Expedition in Papua New Guinea

On Saturday, April 18, 2015, two American explorers returned from Papua New Guinea, after searching for living pterosaurs on a tropical island where the creatures were previously reported. . . . Both Americans saw, in daylight, a huge apparent living pterosaur.

Ropen or Pterodactyl Seen by American

In 1944, in (Papua) New Guinea, Duane Hodgkinson and his friend saw a “pterodactyl” with a wingspan similar to a Piper Tri-Pacer (29 feet).

Ropen-Pterosaur Seen in Washington State?

On August 6, 2014, I interviewed Milt Marcy and Peter Beach on the bank of the Yakima River in Washington state. I knew, when we arrived for the interview, about the flying light that they had witnessed one night and the apparent pterosaur that another man had encountered in daylight

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.