Modern Pterosaur – Please join us: Investigate reports of modern living pterosaurs.

April 19, 2021

Nonprofit to be Organized for Modern-Pterosaur Research

Animal Discovery is in the early stage of preparation to be a nonprofit in Utah, U.S.A., as of April 18, 2021, when the initial board of directors was selected. It may become the first nonprofit anywhere that specializes in research into reports of apparent non-extinct pterosaurs.

One of its first objectives will likely be to help fund an expedition team in Papua New Guinea, a group of natives led by Rex Yapi.

The initial board members will be:

Jonathan Whitcomb (founder)
Peter Beach (biologist and explorer)
Shari Hunsaker (organization and communication specialist)

The geographic scope of this new nonprofit will be international, with the first non-English languages being French, Spanish, German, Hungarian, Polish, and Japanese.

An unusual makeup of the organization will be its board of representatives, which will be made up of the following types of volunteers:

One area (using English)
One language*, worldwide (*not English)
One language* in one area (*not English)

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Non-Ropen pterosaur videotaped by Peter Beach

Not only did they see an apparent living pterosaur in daylight, but the biologist Peter Beach *recorded video footage of the flying creature, although the video quality is poor.

Pterodactyls in Newspapers

In this Livestream Youtube video, Jonathan Whitcomb presents excerpts from several American newspaper articles about sightings of modern pterosaurs: Press Telegram in Long Beach, California; Los Angeles Herald (Calif); and the Wenatchee World (north-central Washington state).

This video, on the Youtube channel Protect Animal Life, also features a bit on an article in one of the largest newspapers in the United States: the Houston Chronicle. It relates to a strange interpretation of the mysterious Marfa Lights of western Texas.

Two kinds of pterodactyls in Papua New Guinea

A few days ago, I got an online message from a lady who is originally from New Zealand but has lived part of her life in Papua New Guinea. Her husband was raised in the Southern Highlands Province, without contact with Westerners for some time, and knows about the two kinds of modern pterosaurs. Here is part of the wife’s account of what her husband knows about these flying creatures . . .

The nonfiction book The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

Scientists use the word ‘pterosaur’ for a group of flying creatures that they know about because of fossils. Most people . . . use another word: ‘pterodactyl.’ That is not scientific, but most people are not scientists.

Celebrity saw a modern pterodactyl

In a podcast with Andrew Schulz, late in August of 2020, Charlamagne Tha God said the following (quoting part of what he said) “I saw a pterodactyl”.

October 19, 2018

New Book on Child (and Adult) Eyewitnesses of Living Pterosaurs

I quote from this nonfiction book, although this is a preliminary form of these sentences in this book, The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur:

Chapter 1: Patty Carson in Cuba (Guantanamo Bay)

Scientists use the word ‘pterosaur’ for a group of flying creatures that they know about because of fossils. Most people . . . use another word: ‘pterodactyl.’ That is not scientific, but most people are not scientists. That is why Patty used the word ‘pterodactyl.’

Her father did not believe her at first, but later may have been unsure. Patty’s older brother and sister later saw what may have been the same thing, but they did not see so clearly. . . .

Patty’s older brother, Tom, saw something like it about one year after her sighting, but he did not get such a good look. He saw it for only about three seconds. I talked with him by phone in 2011, and he answered my questions.

Tom was ten years old and was with two other boys. He saw the thing flying about 100 feet over their heads. It looked like it had no feathers, but Tom is not sure about that. It looked larger than a pelican.

Support From Eyewitness Eskin Kuhn

An extremely important point about the sightings those children had at Guantanamo Bay is this: A few years later, the U.S. Marine Eskin C. Kuhn had a sighting of two “pterodactyls,” also at Gitmo, and within minutes of his view of them he sketched what he had seen.

Sketches by Eskin Kuhn (left) and Patty Carson* (right; *reversed horizontally) – Notice similarities in the head crest and in the beak.

Real Eyewitnesses, Child and Adult

These two persons have given their real names to the world, so we’re not dealing with anonymous third-hand accounts. I, Jonathan Whitcomb, have questioned them many times, over a period of years, and I submit that they are both credible eyewitnesses of this kind of flying creature.

Patty Carson (her sighting was in 1965)
Eskin Kuhn (his sighting was in 1971)

This long-tailed featherless animal is now called ‘ropen.’ That name comes from the Kovai language of Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, where American explorers first searched, repeatedly, for a modern living pterosaur. I do not declare that the species of nocturnal flying creature on Umboi Island is the same species seen in Cuba in the mid-twentieth century, but I do suggest a close relationship may exist between them and that they are living pterosaurs.

Patty Carson points toward a popular island tourist attraction

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Books about the ropen, or “flying dinosaurs”

I’m presently writing a nonfiction book for children 8-12 years old. It should be published and in print sometime in November (2018): The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur.

Books about modern pterosaurs

Three nonfiction paperback books on these wonderful flying creatures, what some people call “pterodactyls” or “dinosaur birds,” and another book in digital format: Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea

Kids who see “pterodactyls”

Patty Carson was only a small child, when she and her brother saw a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur in clear daylight, at the Guantanamo Bay military station in eastern Cuba, around 1965.

Child and his mother saw a dinosaur bird

After a hot afternoon in the Salt Lake Valley, on the first day of summer, a lady and her 12-year-old son decided to sleep in their backyard in western Draper and look at the stars, at least for the first part of the night. They had no idea that anyone had seen a huge dragon-like creature fly over the neighborhood earlier in the year.

Little girl saw a flying dinosaur

This eyewitness is Patty Carson, who saw one of the flying creatures at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, around 1965, when she was a child.

Ropens in North America

Sightings of modern pterosaurs in recent history:

California (three)
Louisiana
Cuba

Books on extant pterosaurs

These nonfiction books are divided into three types:

Worldwide sightings in general
Pterosaur encounters in North America
Sightings in the Southwest Pacific

March 23, 2018

Living Pterosaurs in North Carolina

By the modern-pterosaur expert Jonathan Whitcomb

Look not to a biology professor at a university, if you should be one of the lucky ones who has seen an apparent living pterosaur in states like South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, or North Carolina (or any other state or country). Contact me to report the flying creature you encountered.

I’ve written about sightings in N.C. before: what some eyewitnesses often label one of the following:

pterodactyl
prehistoric bird
dragon
dinosaur bird

To be correct in a technical sense, pterosaur is the name for many of the animals that people see, when they send me reports of their sightings. How can I say that, in a culture in which those flying creatures are thought to have become extinct many millions of years ago? Sighting reports from around the world have been sent to me over the past 15 years, and those eyewitnesses come from a number of cultures, countries, languages, religions, and their backgrounds have been varied. The best explanation, by far, for the similarities in their descriptions of the flying creatures, is that they have seen living animals that are descended from pterosaurs closely related to pterosaurs that the paleontologists know about from fossils.

Sighting Reports from North Carolina

Let’s look at a few of the eyewitness reports from N. C., with only excerpts of what has been sent to me.

The following is from an email that I received on March 16, 2018:

I live in Mebane, North Carolina which is about 50 miles or so west of Raleigh. Tonight while on my way home, on a back road, something strange in the sky caught my attention. It was a huge flying creature. It was towards dusk so I was unable to see distinct outlines but as it flew over the road, about half block in front of me, I could clearly see that its wing span covered more than both lanes of the road. My first thought was something related to a prehistoric bird. . . .

The eyewitness is not anonymous and the encounter not from decades ago in some remote jungle on the far side of the planet. Anita Gibson has allowed me to give you her actual name, and her sighting was on the same day that she sent me the report: March 16, 2018. The flying creature was in North Carolina.

Now for an apparent pterosaur in Murray’s Mill, in that same state. The encounter was around the fall of 2016.

I was walking with my sister, just exploring the water and an old house under restoration. It flew about 30-40 ft. above the the water and was scanning the water for something to eat. It was soaring mostly, it only flapped it’s wings a few times. . . .

She gives a few more details on the appearance of that flying creature but not enough to convince everybody that it was a pterosaur. Now for another report that I got from an eyewitness in North Carolina:

My brother and I spotted a Pterodactyl flying maybe 25 feet above tree level in Conover, North Carolina. This hairless, birdlike creature looked exactly like a Pterodactyl. If I had to put a guess on its wing span, I’d say 10 ft. It had a very long beak that was just as long as the back part of it’s head. I could even see little hands on its wings. I don’t understand how this creature still exists. It makes you wonder where does this animal roost and even more scarier, what is its diet. I’m sure this was a once in a lifetime sighting. My brother and I stared at this thing in awe . . .

I am in awe of these wonderful flying creatures that are seen around the world and even in the towns and countryside of North Carolina.

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Pterosaur sighting in Raleigh, North Carolina

I was going over a report of a pterosaur sighting in North Carolina and noticed similarities with Susan Wooten’s sighting in South Carolina. There are also differences.

Living pterosaurs – locations

Most of the following are from direct eyewitness testimony sent to the cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb, who now lives in Murray, Utah.

Modern pterosaurs in North Carolina and in Virginia

I saw what I saw in October 2009, in Charlotte, North Carolina. . . . It was at night. I was standing outside my car . . . when I saw the creature emerge directly over the three-story building I was standing next to. The creature was so close [that] my reflex was to duck. It looked like what I had seen in a Jurassic Park movie.

Living Pterosaurs in the USA

These 161 reports are only a tiny fraction of the actual encounters American have had with apparent living pterosaurs over the past few decades. The actual number could be a thousand times that many.

Pterosaurs living in Georgia

For years people in Georgia have seen flying things unlike birds, sometimes creatures with long tails and no feathers and too big to be a bat. Sometimes a person will notice something like a head crest at the back of the creature’s head . . .

Pterosaur alive in South Carolina

One of the first detailed pterosaur sighting reports that I received from a state of the USA was the encounter by Susan Wooten in South Carolina.