Texas – Page 2 – Modern Pterosaur

February 2, 2012October 9, 2012

Marfa Lights Intelligence

Have I talked too much about Marfa Lights? Maybe, but not recently. I would like to extrapolate on the blog post “Marfa Lights Explanation.” Regarding intelligence, why would people dismiss it and search through the scuffy landscape of southwest Texas, figuratively speaking, for an explanation devoid of any intelligent creature? It’s because of hesitancy to suggest a creature that is unclassified in science, at least not yet classified.

Intelligent ghost lights, even when we use “ghost lights” loosely, can put us out on a limb. Almost nobody wants to jump onto that bandwagon or jump onto the back of a giant pterodactyl that might bite off ones head. College professors, in particular, feel vulnerable should they suggest intelligent modern pterosaurs are glowing at night in southwest Texas. Those professors could not easily take an accusation that they had taken something that makes them feel that they themselves are glowing, as well as imagining glowing pterosaurs.

But what other zoological species have intelligence enough to hunt as a group? Lions are not the best examples, especially when a younger lion messes up the pride’s hunt. But some whales display wonderful techniques, including blowing patterns of bubbles that trap fish, allowing the prey to be caught much more efficiently.

The nocturnal predators that create some of the Marfa Lights in Texas might not be closely related to anything that left us pterosaur fossils. That means that we cannot disprove or even discredit the bioluminescent-predator explanation of Marfa Lights by examining pterosaur fossils. Perhaps those modern flying creatures, pterosaurs or not, are more intelligent than the ones that have left us fossils. Not much do we know for sure except that some of those flying lights around Marfa certainly appear to suggest intelligent direction. Nocturnal flying predators is one obvious explanation.

Do Pterosaurs Eat Bats?

I do know of a large bat in Europe, a species that catches some birds in flight, at night. But a pterosaur catching a bat is still highly likely, based upon a number of indirect evidences.

Explaining Marfa Lights

“Why are ML-III not usually seen for many nights in a row? Why are they absent for so many nights in a row? Why do they keep coming back after a few weeks of absence? This is exactly what we would expect of large predators that cover large areas.”

An Explanation for Marfa Lights

. . . On May 7th and 8th, 2003, extraordinary events were photographed [by James Bunnell). On the first night, lights appeared between 9:00 and 10:40. The first light was too brief for Bunnell to photograph, but two more appeared at about the same location. I was intrigued at Bunnell’s description of how those two lights behaved, for it seemed consistent with my hypothesis that Marfa Lights are made by flying predators with extreme bioluminescence, like the ropen of the southwest Pacific but used for a different purpose: to attract insects that attract the Big Brown Bat.

January 10, 2012February 4, 2012

Three Books by Independent Authors

Three nonfiction cryptozoology books on modern pterosaurs in North America are now available on Amazon. The three authors, Ken Gerhard, Jonathan Whitcomb, and Gerald McIsaac, have independently written their books, with no apparent collaboration between them. I don’t claim complete objectiveness in evaluating these three publications, as evidenced by the ad below, but I would like to present these books in some degree of comparison in some ways.

Each of these three nonfiction books contain eyewitness sighting reports of modern living pterosaurs, but there are significant differences in style and emphasis. I’ll do my best to explain.

Big Bird

Published February 1, 2007, Ken Gerhard’s book has too many English mistakes for my liking. If I recall correctly, for it’s been awhile since I’ve read Big Bird, there is also at least one sentence that was chopped off, with the second half missing, perhaps between pages, I don’t recall exactly. I also found a technical mistake that put into question, however slightly, the accuracy of the book as a whole. With that in mind, Big Bird has reports in Texas that may not be available from other sources, for Gerhard has traveled around and interviewed people who have seen what they believe were modern pterosaurs.

Live Pterosaurs in America — third edition

Published November 2, 2011, Jonathan Whitcomb’s book is likely the most extensive in eyewitnesses sightings across the U.S.A., and at 154 pages is more substantial than the other two books. His objectiveness has occasionally been brought into question by critics who bring up the religion question, to be precise the Creationist connection, but for those who have read both his books in their most recent editions, he is seen to be not a Young Earth Creationist in the usual sense, for he does not believe in a 6,000 universe or even a 6,000 year old earth.

Bird From Hell — second edition

Published April 21, 2011, McIsaac’s book may not be entirely about sightings of pterosaurs. I admit that I have not read the book in its entirety, however. But the “Look Inside” feature of Amazon has given me a peek into this nonficion book, and I like what I see. It probably has only a fraction of the number of sightings as Live Pterosaurs in America, but the old traditions of native Americans give this book a special flavor. Modern pterosaurs are supported by not only recent sightings in North America but by old traditions of American Indians. Like Big Bird, this book probably has reports that are not available from any other original source. But this book is only about cryptids in British Columbia, Canada.

Conclusion

For those new to this fascinating field of cryptozoology, I recomment purchasing all three books on Amazon.com, for you will probably get free shipping in the bargain.

From the Amazon page on the second edition of this book comes this review:

“I couldn’t put this book down. It is absolutely fascinating to read about eyewitness accounts of the people who have seen these creatures. To learn about these testimonies from such an open minded perspective is refreshing in the extreme! The way that our school systems and scientists alike are indoctrinated is sad. There is so much money out there being used for research, if only they would use it for good. I highly recommend this book to anyone! People should know the truth about what is going on. No one ever hears anything about this unless they conduct extremely specific internet searches, even then, information is minimal. Jonathan Whitcomb needs to write more books!”

December 28, 2010January 30, 2013

Marfa Lights up in the Houston Chronicle

The Houston Chronicle is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Texas, the ninth largest in the United States, according to Wikipedia. Large newspapers, the traditional backbone of major media, rarely publish ideas that contradict basic assumptions of the society in which they exist. It was no surprise when the Houston Chronicle’s December 19, 2010, print edition played to the audience with the article “What’s going on in Marfa?” published online on December 16. The subject was Marfa Lights. It played to the assumption that no “dinosaur” could live in Marfa, Texas.

The article was elicited by a press release by Jonathan Whitcomb, part of a national promotion for his new book, the second edition of Live Pterosaurs in America. The Houston Chronicle gave no details about that press release, giving no quotations from it. It mentioned two scientists, James Bunnell and Karl Stephan, both of whom seem to have dismissed the possibility of modern pterosaurs. Neither Bunnel nor Stephan is a biologist.

Whitcomb’s idea of bioluminescent flying predators, perhaps even living pterosaurs, as an explanation for some of the mystery lights of Marfa, was dismissed, but there’s more: His qualifications for making that suggestion were questioned, to put it mildly.

While Whitcomb has been effective in broadcasting his views, he acknowledges that he has no scientific training, has never been to Marfa and has not seen the creatures whose patterns and habits he attempts to describe. He did make a trip to Papua New Guinea to investigate flying predators there but saw none.

The writer of the Houston Chronicle article, Claudia Feldman, seems to have overlooked an important part of science: the theoretical scientist. Like a detective who questions eyewitnesses and pieces together ideas based on what eyewitnesses have said, the theoretical scientist does not necessarily need to be an eyewitness, especially when eyewitnesses are plentiful or especially trustworthy. One name that comes to mind is Albert Einstein. He had limited, if any, training in physics; he had never been to an area where there was a total solar eclipse; he never saw the physics experiments that caused him to work at his theories. But he trusted the data from the experiments of those scientists who worked hands-on with scientific equipment.

That is not to say that Whitcomb is an Einstein. I only suggest that the writer of that article in the Houston Chronicle misses an important point, and she could have dismissed Einstein as unqualified, if she had lived and had written newspaper articles in Europe about a century ago.

I suggest that Claudia Feldman, the staff writer for the Houston Chronicle, would have done better to have written about what Whitcomb has done, not what he has not done. But then an article too friendly to the possibility of modern pterosaurs might not have been accepted for publication by her superiors.