critics – Page 3 – Pterosaur Eyewitness

April 16, 2013

Live Pterosaurs, a Book Review, and Science

cover of "Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea"

Last week, an Amazon book review shocked me, not so much because somebody wrote a negative review of one of my books but because it appeared at first to have been written about a different book, not mine. After reading over, several times, the comments by “WS,” I came to better understand why his book review appeared unrelated to Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea. WS had become upset because his comfortable assumptions about one or more popular standard-model axioms of science had been challenged in his reading of my book.

Definition of “Science”

It appears that WS’s personal definition of “science” includes something like this: All dinosaurs and pterosaurs became extinct millions of years ago. He wrote nothing like that in his book review, so how did I come to that conclusion? Notice what he did write:

“A large portion of it is devoted to the author’s antiscience rhetoric . . .”

“Rhetoric” is a word sometimes chosen by someone offended by another’s words, and it is used to belittle ideas with which one disagrees, therefore we can dispense with that word after acknowledging that WS disagrees with something I have written.

I have found some clues that suggest WS has been careless in his reading and thinking. If he had looked more closely at the Amazon Book Description, he would have noticed this: “Learn for yourself what many scientists never imagine.” The book contradicts a common assumption held by many scientists. (I’m sure many purchasers of many Amazon books fail to read all the contents of the Book Descriptions; WS may be typical.)

Of course I could have been more careful myself, in writing that Amazon Book Description, making it easier for potential readers to know that the subject is controversial and contrary to deeply held assumptions about extinction. But WS seems to have also been careless while reading the book.

Perhaps the following paragraph in the book can help explain why WS chose the word “antiscience:”

Some eyewitnesses fear discovering the monstrous possibility of personal insanity. Others fear not insanity itself but the opinions of anyone who might think them insane. Others fear discovering that some of what they had been taught about science was false; they prefer to believe that scientific proclamations must always be true. How grateful I am for those who, in spite of their fears, report to me their encounters!

I believe that WS read the sentence that included “scientific proclamations” and realized I was fighting against one or more of those proclamations, so that reader concluded that I was against science, in other words my writings are “antiscience.” But how great is the difference between scientific proclamations and science!

Any scientist can proclaim a new idea, be it classified as a conjecture, hypothesis, or theory. What if that idea contradicts a popular idea held by many scientists? Such a submission of an idea does not mean that the scientist has become transformed into an anti-scientist. In fact, holding too firmly to a scientific axiom might actually be a problem, especially if significant evidence appears to contradict the axiom.

I believe that WS was unprepared for the book Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea. He was unwilling to consider the possibility that a popular axiom of biology might be faulty or just plain wrong.

Four Chapters – Four Sightings

This reviewer of my book Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea wrote this:

“The book really consists of one or two intriguing reports . . .”

Let’s move away from WS’s personal opinion about what is or is not “intriguing,” for his statement about numbers of reports can seriously mislead people who read his book review. Four of the chapters shown in the above image of the Table of Contents are each devoted to a sighting report; those are the key sightings, critical to understanding the credibility of pterosaur sightings in general. The book also contains other sightings, a good number, notwithstanding WS’s statement about “one or two.”

The four key sightings (each with a chapter of its own) are these:

The Finschhafen Pterodactyl
The Bougainville Creature
The Lake Pung Encounter
The Perth Creature

Here’s a part of what’s found in the chapter “The Bougainville Creature:”

The creature I saw one early morning in Bougainville is etched in my memory. . . . I actually heard it before I saw it. A slow flap…flap…flapping sound. The air was still, and our truck had stopped on our downward journey from the top of the range to the coast way below. The sound was amplified by the road-cutting into the mountain. That is, there was bare red/orange clay, rather than the surrounding jungle.

I can’t remember why our vehicle had stopped. Maybe we had to wait for another vehicle to pass us. I don’t know. But I can still hear that slow flapping sound in the stillness of an early tropical morn, on the road from Panguna down to Loloho on Bougainville Island in 1971.

When I looked up . . . I saw a very unusual creature. Firstly, it was very big (wingspan at least 2 metres, probably more . . . possibly much, much more). I can’t remember the exact distance estimate that this creature was from me . . . It was black or dark brown. I had never seen anything like it before. It certainly looked prehistoric, in that it did not look like any other bird that I have seen before or since.

Why prehistoric? Well, maybe my memory has been influenced by the intervening years, but I recall seeing this creature with a longish narrow tail . . . the head was disproportionately large compared to the body (no feathers in sight). The wingspan was large. The head had no ‘normal’ beak. Rather there seemed to be . . . a kind of beak that was indistinguishable from the head, and the head seemed to continue this ‘point’ at the back of the head. There was a clear line running from the ‘beak’ to the back of the head..where the ‘line’ continued to protrude . . .

For those who were previously unaware of the eyewitness in this sighting, don’t assume Brian Hennessy is crazy for seeing such a thing. Mr. Hennessy is himself a professional psychologist.

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Commenting on a Review of a Pterosaur Book

Consider WS’s declaration: “The book really consists of one or two intriguing reports . . .” Without the word “intriguing,” that statement is patently false. With the word, WS is declaring his opinion or his personal interest in a small portion of the sighting reports. But WS’s statement can be misleading, for no mention is made about the many sighting reports investigated in the book, the many reports that he personally does not find intriguing.

Non-fiction cryptozoology: Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea

Part of the Preface:

You will here find reports of encounters with apparent living pterosaurs, including many accounts never before published in any book. Other sighting reports are condensed from the print book “Searching for Ropens.” The ebook you are now examining is neither exhaustive nor rudimentary, but it explains most of what most Australians, and others, need to know about what might, on rare occasions, fly over their heads at night.

October 31, 2012October 31, 2012

Jumping Manta Ray Fish

On his blog Frontiers of Biology, Dale Drinnon recently suggested that “many” sightings of apparent pterosaurs were misidentifications of Manta ray fish that jump out of the sea and up into the air. But that conjecture quickly falls flat when we examine sighting details.

The Four Key Sightings in the Southwest Pacific

In the nonfiction Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea, four sightings are given special attention for both high credibility and low possibility of misidentification:

Finschhafen “Pterodactyl” of 1944
The Bougainville Creature (1971)
The Lake Pung Ropen (about 1994)
The Perth Creature (1997)

Hodgkinson Sighting in 1944

Duane Hodgkinson and his army buddy saw a huge flying creature during World War II, as they were hiking inland from Finschhafen, New Guinea. The main refutation for a Manta ray misidentification here may be this: The two soldiers were far inland, in a jungle clearing (never mind the detailed description Hodgkinson gave of the feet of the creature as it ran through the grass before getting into the air). Manta ray fish do not live far from the sea in jungle clearings.

Hennessy Sighting in 1971

Brian Hennessy was in a truck on a mountainous highway in the interior of Bougainville Island, New Guinea, when the strange creature flew overhead. Like the 1944 sighting, this one was far from the sea, with no possibility that a Manta ray fish could have been jumping over the truck.

Seven Boys by a Crater Lake

Gideon Koro and six of his teenager friends had hiked up to Lake Pung, on Umboi Island, around 1994. They had hardly had time to enjoy the view when the “ropen” flew over the surface of the lake, terrifying the seven boys. This crater lake has no major stream or other flowing water connecting it to the sea. Lake Pung is in the middle of Umboi Island, surrounded by mountain peaks. I tried hiking up to it in 2004, but failed to get up there. Those seven boys did not see a giant Manta ray fish jumping out of that lake. Just say “no.”

Married Couple Take a Walk . . . Into Cryptozoological History

In Perth, Australia, in December of 1997, a couple was taking a pleasant walk between two residential neighborhoods. They started watching something flying in the distance, high up in the sky, but it was approaching the couple. The closer it got, the more bewildered became the two eyewitnesses, for it had an apparent wingspan of thirty to fifty feet and a “lizard” appearance. To quote the husband (who worked in a scientific field), “Within a minute or so it had reached our position and was about 250 or 300 feet above us.” That was no Manta ray fish jumping out of the water and flying, for a minute or more, 250-300 feet above the land.

“Don’t Get Strung Along by the Ropen Myth”

It’s not that the writer, Brian Switek, is technically wrong in all his proclamations in his blog post. . . . But Switek ridiculed in general: any potential report, anywhere, of any possible sighting of any living pterosaur. . . . failing to mention even one of the key sightings.

. looking up at the underside of a huge Manta ray fish underwater

Photo of a Manta ray fish under water

sketch of the two pterosaurs observed by Eskin Kuhn in Cuba

Sketch (by eyewitness E. Kuhn) of two “pterodactyls” flying above the land

Did Eskin Kuhn See Two Flying Manta Rays?

While stationed at the Guantanamo Bay military station, in 1971, U.S. Marine Eskin C. Kuhn witnessed the flight of two large flying creatures. Being a talented artist, he immediately sketched what he had observed. Were they two Manta ray fish jumping out of the sea? No, for several reasons.

Kuhn’s sketch shows details completely unlike any ray fish. Take the heads, which show a particular head crest, and the feet-like structures. The end of the tail, especially, is completely unlike the tail of a Manta ray fish.

The height of the two creatures could have been as little as forty feet, but that alone eliminates the possibility that they were a pair of Manta rays that had jumped out of the sea. In addition, the appearance of a tight formation of two flying creatures is completely different from what would be expected of Manta rays.

It was a clear day. Kuhn watched the two creatures fly away; he did not watch two fish fall back into the water. No fish were involved.

Manta Rays or Modern Pterosaurs?

A recent post by Dale Drinnon brought up an old suggestion that sightings of giant long-tailed pterosaurs may be misidentifications of large Manta rays (a type of fish) that leap out of the sea.

February 21, 2012February 23, 2012

“Jonathan Whitcomb: Pterodactyl Expert”

My own qualifications, intelligence, and integrity—those are not my favorite subjects to write about unless I’m responding to a forum in which that is the subject or a significant sub-topic. I won’t link to the cryptozoology forum now in question, for some of the comments are needlessly insulting and the phrase “that he lies about in his book” appears to be libel. I won’t add my comments on that forum thread, for past experience has taught me that those critics will not change their minds, regardless of what I write, on that forum, about potential modern pterosaurs or about my own qualifications or integrity.

The title is “Jonathan Whitcomb: Pterodactyl Expert,” although the one that appears guilty of libel spells it “Johnathon Whitcomb.” I don’t mean to imply that everything on this forum thread is without merit. But all commentators except the one initiating the discussion appear to me to practice bulverism rather than comment on any specific sentence that I have written. To my critics I say, “Why not be specific? Why not quote me?”

I believe that the total number of web pages and blog posts that I have written over the past eight years is well over a thousand, with perhaps more than a quarter of a million words related to the concept of modern living pterosaurs. That is in addition to two editions of one nonfiction book, three editions of another, and a scientific paper in a peer-reviewed journal of science. With hundreds of thousands of words to choose from, why doesn’t at least one of the critics on this forum thread find one or two of my sentences, to quote me? If one of my books includes a lie, why not quote that lie, bringing to light why it is wrong?

One critic seems to quote (less than a sentence) from one or more of my web pages:

Jonathan D. Whitcomb,
certified court videographer

But that critic then uses the title try to convince others that I am not an expert at anything else. I doubt that “ape man” has read much of what I have written, especially since he menions my “book” instead of “books.”

Eyewitness Testimonies, not Bulverism

I agree, at least somewhat, with the critics’ idea that I am not a pterosaur fossil expert; compared with a typical paleontologist (I am neither typical anything nor a paleontologist), I am not an expert on fossils. What the critics have apparently failed to consider is the possibility that I have more expertise on pterosaur fossils than any of them, although that has little relevance.

The critical subject is eyewitness testimonies, not the religious bias of Jonathan Whitcomb. With eyewitnesses, of various religious backgrounds and cultural influences, having encounters in many parts of the world, why not comment on those eyewitness reports?

Correcting a Critic

“Ape man” wrote “his argument is that an existing pterosaur could have EVOLVED into a glow in the dark thingie or whatever.” When did I present that argument? I find it hard to believe that “ape man” has read hardly anything that I have written. I don’t declare that non-bioluminescent pterosaurs lived at any time in the past; I don’t declare that bioluminescence evolved. I suggest that some of the flying lights observed regularly in some areas of the world are bioluminescent barn owls and other flying lights in other areas may be living pterosaurs related to the ropen of Umboi Island.

I never suggested that any modern pterosaur can “carry away cattle.” I never suggested that any modern pterosaur can “sing.” I suggest that some of the modern pterosaurs on this planet appear to have an intrinsic bioluminescence, based upon eyewitness reports.

“Ape man” said, “No paleontologists were even contacted!” He seems to have referred to the two lights videotaped in Papua New Guinea, in 2006, by Paul Nation. Apparently “ape man” is only aware of my first book: Searching for Ropens, but he makes a mistake in the declaration that “Rhamphorhynchoid-like creatures” were the conclusion of a “missile technician and an associate physics professor.” Those two men said nothing of the kind. The conclusions related to the two videotaped lights (not “film” but video) were the elimination of common explanations: no car headlights, no meteors, no flashlights, no campfires, no camera artifacts, etc.

In addition, I have indeed communicated with paleontologists, even those whose origin philosophies differ from my own, and I have written from the experiences of those communications. Most of the critics who have commented on the thread title “Jonathan Whitcomb: Pterodactyl Expert” have done so in apparent offense at what they imagine about my religious foundation and at my defiance of the universal-extinction dogma regarding pterosaurs. The one commentator (on that forum thread) who did not openly criticize my motives or my integrity or my objectiveness—that person seems to have been persuaded that he should not have labeled his posting “Jonathan Whitcomb: Pterodactyl Expert.” I will not enter that discussion on that forum, however. Let readers and writers do as they please.

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Pterodactyls and Bulverism

When someone publishes a web site with a URL that includes the words “stupid” and “lies,” and the point of the site is to ridicule those who promote the idea of living dinosaurs or living pterosaurs, “bulverism” probably fits . . . Of course “libel” also fits . . .

Who can be a Pterodactyl Expert?

How do we answer the question “Who can be a pterodactyl expert?” It depends on whether we refer to fossil bones or sighting of live pterodactyls. In the sense of the latter, Whitcomb seems qualified by his interviews with eyewitnesses; in the sense of the former, he seems unqualified, for he is no paleontologist.

front cover for nonfiction cryptozoology book, 3rd edition

From the Acknowledgements page of the non-fiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America (third edition):

To the eyewitnesses who’ve bravely come forward, telling us of apparent living pterosaurs, I dedicate this book. They deserve to be heard.

Several Americans have investigated reports of what natives of Umboi Island call “ropen,” including three pioneers. Jim Blume, a missionary in Papua New Guinea for decades, interviewed dozens of native eyewitnesses of pterosaur-like creatures. Carl Baugh led the first three expeditions, preparing the way for the rest of us to follow. Paul Nation, in four expeditions, searched in two areas of PNG, contracting serious infections twice.

Just weeks after my 2004 expedition on Umboi Island, the cryptozoologists Garth Guessman and David Woetzel interviewed Umboi native eyewitnesses with systematic interview forms (and those two Americans later assisted investigations in another country). Woetzel and I later wrote separate scientific papers, in a peer-reviewed journal, about our experiences in Papua New Guinea and about pterosaurs in human times. We appreciate the support from our families and from our friends here and abroad. . . .