Sometimes some people assume that Whitcomb and Guessman and Woetzel have not been thinking clearly. They assume they have a problem because those three American cryptozoologists proclaim that pterosaurs are still living, at least in some species they are alive.

This could bear close scrutiny. How does clear thinking enable us to evaluate the testimonies of witnesses of living “pterodactyls?” One way to evaluate a testimony is to scrutinize why an eyewitness might lie to perpetrate a hoax.

Brian Hennessy

This Australian has made it clear that the creature that he saw flying over Bougainville Island in 1971 is very much unlike any known bird or bat. His descriptions make that clear. But could he have told a lie? No, not at all. Mr. Hennessy is a psychologist. He lives by consulting with leaders in China, for that is where he prefers to spend his time. But why would he lie in a way that would jeopardize his livelihood? How could his business survive if he was known to have lied about seeing a large flying pterodactyl? It is unthinkable that he would lie about his sighting. He must have told the truth.

Duane Hodgkinson

Could the World War II veteran Duane Hodgkinson have lied about his experience in New Guinea in 1944? No, not at all. For many years, he has been a flight instructor. How could he continue to lie about a giant “pterodactyl” that had a tail “at least ten or fifteen feet long?” Who would trust him if he had lied about that story? And why has he stuck to his story after all these years, for some people have dismissed it and probably thought less of him because he told it to them? He is surely honest, with no reason to lie about it.

Eskin Kuhn

Why would Mr. Kuhn continue to stick to his story about two large “pterodactyls” that he saw flying nearby in clear daylight? Sure it was a long time ago, that sighting in Cuba in 1971, but he still sticks to his story. He has been accused of telling a lie but he strongly repudiated that accusasion. What does he have to gain by keeping himself exposed to embarrasement and scorn? His sketch proves those two flying creatures were not bats and they were not birds. He must have told the truth.

Sketch drawn by the eyewitness, Eskin Kuhn

Patty Carson

Why would Patty Carson lie about her encounter with a “dinosaur?” She admits she was only a child when she and her brother saw the creature. But it was in the same part of Cuba where Eskin Kuhn would see two similar flying creatures. The sightings were about six years apart but the sketches those two eyewitnesses drew show marked similarities. Carson has nothing to gain from telling a lie. Why doubt her? Why would she go to so much trouble to draw her sketch when it might set her up to be ridiculed, like Kuhn has been ridiculed? She must be telling the truth.

The eyewitness Patty Carson drew this sketch – pterosaur with teeth

The interview for Canadian television seems to be correct regarding clear thinking. Those who know about these eyewitnesses, and believe their stories, really are thinking clearly. Hennessy, Hodgkinson, Kuhn, and Carson really are convincing witnesses.

By the way, why does the pterosaur seen by Carson have teeth but the two seen by Kuhn have no teeth visible? The answer is simple. Carson was closer to the creature and the children and the creature all froze for a few moments. Also, Carson’s “dinosaur” was sitting on the ground but Kuhn’s “pterodactyls” were flying. Also, it looks like the two seen by Kuhn had their mouths closed while they were flying. Both sightings were at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station in Cuba.

The arrival of the Discovery Space Shuttle in Washington, D.C., thrilled onlookers, with several flyovers of key locations in the nation’s capital. The space craft’s deployment in the Smithsonian makes one more impressive item for display. But the Smithsonian has still not responded to criticisms of its online magazine blog post written by Brian Switek. It seems that institution still slams its doors to living pterosaurs.

Is the Ropen a Myth?

Perhaps it is the fear of appearing foolish that keeps the Smithsonian doors closed to any pterosaurs except those having only bones. Perhaps the official policy remains “the ropen is a myth.” But where is any real evidence for universal extinction of general types? Why not at least allow for the possibility that valid human experience is not limited to gazing at exhibits in a museum or analyzing specimens in a laboratory? Not all species of pterosaurs need be extinct. How can the Smithsonian explain the following sketch drawn by an eyewitness?

“Gitmo Pterosaur” drawn by eyewitness Patty Carson

The giant-bat hypothesis no longer can fly. It hangs wrapped in naked bat wings, trying to hide from the piercing examination of reason. To put that in literal terms: Critics have failed to make any convincing argument for the giant fruit bat as an explanation for the many sighting reports of flying pterodactyls in the south Pacific, including in Papua New Guinea.

Does a “giant” bat with a tail one inch long explain a “pterodactyl” with a tail “at least” ten or fifteen feet long (Hodgkinson’s Finschhafen sighting in 1944)? Does that “flying fox” fruit bat with a wingspan of five feet explain a flying creature with a wingspan of 30-50 feet (Perth Creature of 1997)? What sighting does it explain, when we get right down to it? None?

The “flying fox” bat has been offered as a general idea to dismiss sightings that critics fail to examine in detail. No critic has offered that lame idea to explain a twin-engine plane’s near collision, at 6500 feet altitude, with a “pterodactyl” between Indonesia and Australia, in June of 2008. No critic has offered that idea to explain a report of a native man being carried up into a tree by a flying creature that ate him in front of his terrified fellow-villagers. No critic has offered that idea to explain the mysterious lights observed by the British biologist Evelyn Cheesman, on the mainland of New Guinea, many years ago.

“I Saw a Giant Bat”

In San Antonio, Texas, around 1986, two eyewitnesses were shocked at the flying creature they encountered one night. “We noticed something flying around across the road . . . flying just above the phone lines. It would go one direction, turn, and swoop back. The shape was wrong for any large bird of the area, and the size was much too large to be any bat I have ever seen . . .

From the Introduction in the third edition of the non-fiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America:

My American associates and I who have explored in Papua New Guinea, searching for living pterosaurs, intend no deceit; we intend only enlightenment. Ten expeditions, within sixteen years, have rewarded us with many eyewitness accounts and video evidence for what we believe is the bioluminescence of a flying creature; but we still lack a clear photo of a pterosaur. We have been labeled foolish, biased, and crazy; but the few who say “lies” reveal their own foolishness: Why would we work so hard, for so long, with so many opportunities to fabricate pterosaur sightings in so many remote jungles, and then admit that we never saw any clear form of a pterosaur? It is because we intend not to deceive but to enlighten.

Duane Hodgkinson, an experienced plane pilot, immediately ran into flak, in New Guinea in 1944, when he used the word “pterodactyl” for the “huge” flying creature that he and his army buddy had seen take off into the air from a jungle clearing. He never denied his account of the encounter, but he became more quiet about it after friends kept replying to him by asking what he had been drinking (he has never been a drinker).

He continued to tell of his encounter when he found listening ears, not that the account itself had changed: only his willingness to talk. He flew planes for many thousands of hours, since his mililtary service during World War II, but without any near misses from flying pterodactyls. Why did he and his army buddy see a huge flying creature (with no sign of feathers but with a tail “at least” ten or fifteen feet long) in that jungle clearing in 1944? How simple the answer! At least one species of pterosaur still lives. The hoax idea itself becomes extinct, for a general explanation for sightings, when we examine details, and details abound in the more credible accounts.

Duane Hodgkinson would not be repeating his “pterodactyl” story if it had been a hoax, for he has been a flight instructor for years, and he needs to present a professional atmosphere: He needs to be taken seriously. The same is true for Brian Hennessy the psychologist and other eyewitnesses of apparent living pterosaurs. (By the way, both Hodgkinson and Hennessy have not tried to prove the live-pterosaur concept through insisting that there could not have been any feathers on the huge flying creatures that they observed in the southwest Pacific; they simply declare that they did not see any feather: another evidence that there was no hoax with either of those sightings.)

Pterosaur Hoax Possibilities

But the vast majority of the emails and phone calls that I receive show no sign of any of those four distractions*, and that, over the past eight years, has made the case for living pterosaurs, for the probability that all of those many credible reports are non-pterosaurs is so slight that it is not worth considering. [*The four distractions are hoax, misidentification, dream, insanity.]

No Hoax With Wingspan Statistics

The better explanation is that a number of species of modern pterosaurs lives in various parts of the world, with a least some of them increasing in size as they grow older. The smoothness of the statistical slope is also in harmony with general inaccuracies in the eyewitness abilities to estimate wingspan and flying-creature size, at least for most sightings. The combination of all those factors, along with various ages of the creatures (including some juveniles), causes a somewhat smooth slope in the graphing of the data.

September, 1982, Los Fresnos, Texas

An ambulance driver named James Thompson was stopped while driving on Highway 100 by his sighting of a “large birdlike object” flying low over the area. He described it as black or maybe gray, with a rough texture but no feathers. It had a five- to six-foot wingspan, a hump on the back of its head, and almost no neck at all. After consulting some books to identify the creature, he decided it looked quite a bit like a pterosaur.

From the Book Live Pterosaurs in America:

In mid-2007, a man in New Mexico emailed me about his two sightings. . . . “I live in central [New Mexico]. Fourteen years ago, in [Socorro], N.M., me and a close friend, who now has a masters in biology, were hiking during the midday sun at [a] box canyon and . . . We both looked up to see . . . a large flying animal. It had a 20-30 foot wingspan and was about the same length long. It had a long tail with [a] seeming spike at the end. Its head was very pterodactyl shape with a fluted back pointy head.”

Pterosaur Sighting in Phoenix, Arizona

“I was outside . . . and looking over at the salt river bed that separated my employer from the airport when I saw a very large ptero something swoop (glide) in and land and was spashing in the water. It had no feathers and it was very large! It had what looked like really old worn out leather wings and a thing coming out of the back of its head. I reacted slowly but did run inside and get others to come out and get a pic but it was gone.”

“Pterodactyls” in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas

“I was walking to the small river [in Woodward, Oklahoma] . . . a large animal took off into the air. At first I thought it was an eagle. Then I noticed it was a dinosaur. . . . I stared at the back part of the head because it was exactly like the ones depicted in books. . . . had a long neck and wide wings just like in the movies or in books. It had no feathers and it was flying around and looking downwards into the fields.”

Sightings in Texas

Much of what amateur cryptozoologists know about these flying creatures in Texas has been published in two non-fiction books: Big Bird, by Ken Gerhard; and Live Pterosaurs in America, by Jonathan Whitcomb. Most of Big Bird is about sightings in Texas but not necessarily of feather-less cryptids; only a small portion of Live Pterosaurs in America refers to direct sightings in Texas, but all of those seem to be feather-less cryptids.

Richard Guzman and his friend Rudy, in about 1982, at about 6 p.m., in Houston, Texas, saw a strange creature flying about fifty feet above the ground, only a little over a hundred feet from the men. The “snakelike tail” and hump on the back of the head caught Guzman’s attention. Also strange, the end of the tail had a “fin.” The total length of the creature was about five feet, and the wings were “bat-like.” Guzman was later interviewed by Ken Gerhard.

A lady and her brother, in San Antonia one evening in 1986, saw something flying around across the road, a little above the phone lines. “It would go one direction, turn, and swoop back. The shape was wrong for any large bird of the area, and the size was much too large to be any bat . . .” The lady described the wingspan to Jonathan Whitcomb: “huge, anywhere from 6-10 feet across.” The two eyewitnesses watched the flying creature for about twenty minutes.

Arkansas Pterodactyls

“My father and I saw a huge, featherless bird in Arkansas . . . We were sitting on big rocks at a cliff about 300 foot above the river when it flew out just under us and we watched it all the way down toward the river till it passed the tree lines. It was an awesome experience, indeed. . . . wing span of maybe eight feet . . .”

Pterodactyl in Kansas

“I had seen an extremely large bird that resembled a pterodactyl some years ago . . . between Rush Center and Larned, Kansas. I could not believe my eyes as I immediately thought of a prehistoric bird when I saw it. It must have had a wing-span of 16-20 feet. . . . It did not appear to have feathers. . . . This bird looked textbook pterodactyl. . . .”

Oklahoma Pterosaur Sighting

. . . in Woodward, Oklahoma, near a small river, at about noon, a fourteen-year-old became terrified at the sight of a pterosaur-like creature. “I was walking to the small river where I usually caught carp fish. . . . a large animal took off into the air. . . . Then I noticed it was a dinosaur. I went to my knees so that it would not see me. I was afraid it would eat me.

Sometimes an eyewitness will not mention the word “pterosaur” or even “pterodacty,” but might label the flying creature a “dinosaur bird.” One eyewitness did an online search with ”I saw a prehistoric bird.”

Advertisement:

“Mr. Whitcomb does a thorough job questioning indoctrination and the close-mindedness of the Western world. Reading so many eye-witness reports of people who have seen living pterosaurs in America was mind-opening, to say the least . . . The passion that Whitcomb and the pterosaur witnesses feel about these investigations make this book a great read and keep the pages turning. If you are prepared to question the indoctrination society has imposed on you since childhood, you are ready for Live Pterosaurs in America.” [Amazon.com review for third edition of this nonfiction crypotozoology book]

From Whitcomb’s book Live Pterosaurs in America:

Page 96:

What has a beak and a long tail, and flies with no feathers? . . . Some would reply, “Living or extinct?” But why not just answer that question? Of course it is a Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed) pterosaur, called by many non-scientists “pterodactyl,” a layman’s term for any reptilian-like “prehistoric” featherless flying creature. The point? What’s wrong with simply accepting an eyewitness report of a long-tailed featherless flying creature? Why believe that all pterosaur species must be extinct? Without the idea of universal Rhamphorhynchoid extinction, we conclude that the eyewitness saw a pterosaur. Non-extinction, as an alternative, now appears.

Page 123-124 — Eskin Kuhn’s Pterodactyl sighting in Cuba

How fortunate that Eskin Kuhn was the marine who stood outside the new barracks on a particular sunny day around mid-July, 1971! While the other marines were hanging out inside, this talented artist was enjoying the lovely weather and looking out toward the ocean. He would soon be dashing inside to grab a sergeant to be a second witness (too late), and would soon thereafter sketch, by memory, what he had seen with his own eyes. . . .

Consider the experience of Eskin C. Kuhn through his own words.

. . . I saw two pterosaurs . . . flying together at low altitude, perhaps 100 feet, very close in range from where I was standing, so that I had a perfectly clear view of them.

“The rhythm of their large wings was very graceful, slow, and yet they were flying and not merely gliding . . . The rate of their [wing flaps] was more like that of crows, perhaps a little slower, but very graceful.

. . . “The head was large in proportion, with a large head crest; the short ‘hind legs’ were attached to the trailing part of the wings; the vertebrae were noticeable; the end of the tail had a ‘tuft of hair.’”

Expert or Not?

Whether or not Jonathan Whitcomb deserves the title of “pterodactyl expert,” the eyewitness reports that he has accumulated over a period of many years deserve to be made known to the general public. The investigations continue, in spite of critics.

Expert in Pterodactyls

Not everything was negative on that cryptozoology forum discussion; most of it, however, was ridicule (or worse) of me, Jonathan Whitcomb, as a person and ridicule of my writings, although I was not quoted. But for now I will concentrate more on the positive.

. . . between Houston and Pasadena, Texas, two men saw a pterosaur-like creature . . . I’ve not yet interviewed either eyewitness; my associate, the cryptozoologist Ken Gerhard (Big Bird book author), has. RG and his friend, in the late afternoon of a clear day, were startled by a flying creature less than 150 feet away. For about fifteen seconds, they watched it fly, about fifty feet high, before it disappeared into some trees. The general appearance was “leathery” and it had a pointed beak and head appendage. The total length, about five feet, included about two feet of tail, the end of which had a “flange or sail.”

Cryptozoology Books, including “Big Bird”

By Ken Gerhard: “a winged monster . . . Today, from all over the dusty U.S. / Mexican border come hair-raising stories of modern day encounters with winged monsters of immense size and terrifying appearance.”

Pterosaur Sighting in Arkansas

She was positive that the flying creature had no feathers. She estimated the neck was about a foot and a half long (that alone eliminates a Frigate Bird misidentification). She also mentioned a “pointed crown” on the head; it was “long and curved back toward the neck.”

Marfa Lights Explained

The case for group-hunting of nocturnal bioluminescent flying predators is overwhelming . . . except for one problem: There is no scientifically-acknowledged species of anything, anywhere, that is known to be a large bioluminescent flying creature. So what?

Pterodactyl Attacks and Human Death

I don’t believe everything that I’ve read in Bird From Hell, but other cryptozoology books mention “pterodactyl attacks” . . . Take one account in the pioneering nonfiction On the Track of Unknown Animals, by Bernard Heuvelmans: “Coming straight at me only a few feet above the water was a black thing the size of an eagle. . . . its lower jaw hung open and bore a semicircle of pointed white teeth . . . And just before it became too dark to see, it came again, hurtling back down the river, . . . [with] black, dracula-like wings. . . . the brute made straight for George. He ducked.” [account by Ivan T. Sanderson: an expedition in Africa]

The men first noticed just one long-tailed creature, as it came gliding in from the direction of the ocean, but it was soon met by another one. The wingspan was estimated at twenty to thirty feet. Although the moon helped light up the creatures, it was not possible to be sure whether or not they had feathers. The color was like golden brown, where color was discernable.

Pterodactyl in San Diego, California

“I was at my friend’s house. The sky was super clear. We were standing on the street. I was watching the stars when from the west came this large dark object overhead. As it got closer, we noticed its huge wingspan . . . It was gliding right above us . . . we had never seen anything like it. Then it suddenly stopped and turned around. . . . we saw another one above us. . . . then they both left [towards the] east.”

Pterodactyls in Southwest USA

Sightings of “pterodactyls” from Texas to Southern California confirm that these flying dinosaurs, technically “pterosaurs,” are far from extinct. Most of the creatures, not all, have long tails, suggesting Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs, even though modern ones seem to be more like giants than the ones we know from fossils, which suggest more of a bird-size.