"Pterodactyl" Flies Over Military Ship

With a fellow cryptozoologist, some time ago, I interviewed a man who had been a sailor on the U.S.S. Jouett (guided missle cruiser), CG-29. He told us about the night when he was surprised by an excited shipmate who summoned him out of his bunk. Many sailors had just witnessed a giant "pterodactyl" that had flown directly over the ship. The sailor who went up top to see for himself was too late, for the creature had already flown out of sight. Nevertheless, he was impressed by the sincerity of those sailors who had seen it for themselves.

If anyone has information on this, please send me an email: info [at-sign] livepterosaur.com

Thank you.

Comparing a Paleontologist to a Fox

In the July 14, 2010, posting on the Live Pterosaur blog, the paleontologist is compared with a fox.

One Monsterquest episode involved an expedition to New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea. On the surface, it appeared to be a search for giant nocturnal flying creatures that some cryptozoologists believe are modern living pterosaurs (in reality, it was a dramatic production project to make an intertaining show; it was not a scientific investigation). Of all the potential explorers to take with them, Monsterquest chose a paleontologist. What’s wrong with that? It’s like inviting a fox to inspect an electric-fence security system for a chicken yard; you know that the fox will advise you to immediately stop wasting electricity on the worthless contraption. Likewise a paleontologist will be totally predictable, regardless of eyewitness evidence that a cryptid is a “living fossil.”

"Living Fossils" in Africa

Contrary to what one critic said on his web page, I have never led a group of creationists on an expedition in Africa; I went alone to Papua New Guinea (southwest Pacific). But other explorers have searched remote swamps of central Africa, and reports of living dinosaurs and living pterosaurs deserve attention.

David Woetzel in Africa

One of my living-pterosaur-investigator associates, David Woetzel, has explored in part of a tropical wilderness in Cameroon, Africa, searching for an apparent dinosaur. According to one blog post, "David Woetzel, explorer and cryptozoologist:"

Late in 2000, he accompanied the explorer William Gibbons into Cameroon, Africa, where they interviewed many natives. A creature called “li’kela-bembe” is greatly feared in the Likouala swamp region; exploreres believe it is similar or the same animal that is called “Mokele-mbembe,” a large sauropod dinosaur. The swamp itself is huge, about 55,000 square miles, the largest swamp in the world . . .

Although Woetzel did not, apparently, specifically investigate reports of living pterosaurs in central Africa, he did so in 2004, on Umboi Island in Papua New Guinea (a few weeks after my own expedition there).

Pterosaurs, "flying snakes," and bird watching in Africa

Another blog post is about the kongamato and similar flying creatures (apparent pterosaurs) in Africa, "Modern Pterosaurs in Africa:"

. . . perched on the edge of the roof, the creature appeared to be four-to-five feet tall, olive brown, and leathery (no feathers). A “long bone looking thing” stuck out the back of its head . . . [Sudan, Africa]

In 1942, a flying snake like animal swooped down from a cave in the vicinity of a farm near Kirris West sixty miles east of Keetmanshoop, in south-west Namibia. The flying snake, or whatever it was, frightened Michael Esterhuise, a farm hand . . . ["'Flying Snakes' and Pterosaurs"]

The Wikipedia post for “kongamato” includes “the area concerned is advertised as a prime birdwatching site,” bringing up the question of why birdwatchers do not report living pterosaurs in Africa. . . . [but] birdwatchers are watching in daylight, when they can see. The point? . . . living long-tailed pterosaurs . . . fly at night. ["Bird watching sans pterosaurs"]

Read about living pterosaurs sited in two countried in Europe, the Philippines, and Indonesia

Two Pterosaurs Observed in Cuba, in Daylight

How grateful I am for the privilige of interviewing Eskin Kuhn, by telephone, early in 2010! How delightful that he is a credible eyewitness, passing the test of responding to my surprise call and questions. His sighting was decades ago: 1971.

As a Marine, he was stationed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when he happened to be looking in the right direction one hot day. He is a talented artist, with a sharp eye for grasing the details of what he sees. Here is part of his report.

I saw Two Pterosaurs . . . flying together at low altitude, perhaps 100 feet, very close . . . from where I was standing . . . I had a perfectly clear view of them. The rythym of their large wings was very graceful, slow . . . yet they were flying and not merely gliding . . . The structure and the texture of the wings appeared to be very similar to that of bats . . . the struts of the wings emanated from a "hand" as fingers would, except that a couple of the fingers were short (as for grasping) and the other ran out to the tip of the wing, others back to the trailing edge of the wing to stretch the wing membrane as a kite would. . . . they had a long tail trailing behind . . . The head was disproportionately large, with a long crest at the back, long bill, long neck with a crook in it.

Read more about the live pterosaurs seen by Eskin Kuhn

Read about how the pterosaurs in Cuba may be similar to a Texas pterosaur

The "Giant Bat" of Papua New Guinea is not really a bat

Nonfiction Cryptozoology Book on Pterosaurs

Live "pterodactyls!" In the United States of America? Prepare for a shock if you thought all pterosaurs (called "flying dinosaurs") died many millions of years ago. In California, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, and many other states, eyewitnesses have been shocked by featherless creatures flying overhead. Many of these living pterosaurs are much larger than any bat; Many have long tails; many have head crests (bats do not). . . . Rare and nocturnal, these strange flying creatures have always lived here, but something other than the darkness of night has hidden them. Enter now the realm of a new branch of cryptozoology, a struggling branch hampered by the dogma of universal extinction. Please consider the words of these ordinary Americans who fear ridicule but have still come forward with their extraordinary experiences: encounters with apparent living pterosaurs.

Purchase your own copy of the new second third edition of this nonfiction book on Amazon.com

Read more about the book on modern pterodactyls in the United States

Read more about this nonfiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America

Hodgkinson-Hennessy Ropen

The cryptid seen in New Guinea, by Duane Hodgkinson in 1944 and by Brian Hennessy in 1971, I have named "Hodgkinson-Hennessy Ropen." Similarities between the descriptions given to me by these two eyewitnesses struck me as too much for coincidence. In each of our interviews (in different years), they both responded to my visual survey-forms, resulting in composite images of the heads of the creatures observed.

Top: Hennessy's sighting; bottom: Hodgkinson's.

As I mentioned in my scientific paper (in The Creation Research Society Quarterly, Volume 45, Number 3, "Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific"), these different lengths of head crest I believe fall within the range of eyewitness error. In other words, the creatures observed by these two men could very well have had the same length of head crest (relative to the size of the head). In addition, I believe that in at least some species of pterosaurs, according to fossil evidence, the head crest grows faster than the rest of the head. Since the crest length is the primary difference between these two sketches, it seems likely that the species is the same for the 1944 and 1971 sightings.

Why would there ever be any question about ropen sightings being of the same species? David Woetzel wrote a scientific paper in The Creation Research Society Quarterly three years before my own paper. (My fellow ropen-seeking cryptozoologist explored Umboi Island, with Garth Guessman and Jacob Kepas, a few weeks after my 2004 expedition) Woetzel concluded that the ropen of Umboi Island is a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur similar to the Dimorphodon, even though two eyewitnesses that he and Guessman had interviewed chose a sketch of a Sordes Pilosus (when shown many silhouettes of pterosaurs, bats, and birds). Although I have much doubt about a Dimorphodon-interpretation of the overall reports from Umboi Island, I admit the possibility that two different species of Rhamphorhynchoids may live in Papua New Guinea. But the creatures seen by Hodgkinson and Hennessy seem very likely to have been of the same species, so I have named this cryptid "Hodgkinson-Hennessy Ropen."

Please support this investigation by purchasing a copy of the nonfiction book "Live Pterosaurs in America" (on Amazon.com, from late-2009 through early 2010, the best-selling nonfiction book on sightings of living pterosaurs).

See also: David Woetzel's scientific paper on living pterosaurs and the "fiery flying serpent." (The Creation Research Society Quarterly, Volume 42, Number 4, March, 2006)

See also: Home page of Live Pterosaurs in America. Thank you for supporting the investigations. To contact me, Jonathan Whitcomb, use the Live Pterosaur email form.

Objectiveness in Cheesman Sightings

(This use of "objectiveness" in the title is unrelated to the site "objectiveministries," which seems to be an elaborate farce, probably meant to ridicule creationist living-pterosaur investigations. This cryptozoology site has no relationship with "objectiveministries.")

Evelyn Cheesman, a British entomologist (1881-1969) known for her many years of collecting-expeditions in the South Pacific, was the first woman to be hired as a curator at Regent's Park Zoo, in London. She is less well-known as an observer of strange lights on the mainland of New Guinea. Those lights, in recent years, have been ascribed to the bioluminescent glow of an animal known as "ropen."

Cheesman became puzzled, in the early 1930's, by lights on a ridge near Mondo, New Guinea (the area is now part of what is called the "mainland" of Papua New Guinea). In her book, The Two Roads of Papua, she said that the flash lasted "about four or five seconds, but that flash had been a little distance away from the first. Flashes continued at intervals. . . . a most intriguing mystery; because by no possibility could there be human beings out there using flash-lamps at intervals . . ."

Several explorers, in more recent years, (I am neither the first nor the last of them) have searched for the creatures that we believe create these strange lights. Explorers have included Paul Nation, Garth Guessman, David Woetzel. In addition, James Blume (a missionary for decades in Papua New Guinea) has interviewed many native eyewitnesses over many years. We believe the creatures are bioluminescent pterosaurs.

Where does "objectiveness" come in? Up until a few years ago, two criticisms related to living-pterosaur accounts: the possibility of native superstitions, and bias of religious explorers or cryptozoologists--both were suggested as improperly influencing the reports related to living pterosaurs. Evelyn Cheesman was a scientist, apparently not affiliated with any relevant religious cause, and she was English. Although she may have never learned about the "pterosaur interpretation" possibility of the lights that she observed, she was convinced that they were not created by any human agency. The detailed report of her observations indirectly give credence to the hypothesis that these lights are caused by nocturnal bioluminescent creatures.

See also Pterosaur Interpretation of Cheesman Sightings

See also Searching For Live Pterosaurs (expedition by Jonathan Whitcomb)

See also Objective Ministries NOT (a page of objectiveness.com)