Modern Pterosaur – Page 35 – Please join us: Investigate reports of modern living pterosaurs.

May 14, 2011May 14, 2011

Hornbill Bird Comes in Next to Last

Which of the following explains best the sightings in Papua New Guinea? In particular, I mean the sightings by Duane Hodgkinson, Brian Hennessy, Gideon Koro, Jonah Jim, and Jonathan Ragu.

Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur
Unknown species of giant bat
Hornbill bird
Manta ray or Stingray fish

I propose that the above order is correct. For now, I concentrate on the suggestion, made by Dale Drinnon, that Hornbill birds account for some eyewitness reports, although he seems at least a bit unclear about which sightings. Before going on, it seems best to refer to a long blog post on Live Pterosaur. I highly recommend this post:

Hornbill Birds and a Live Pterosaur

A skeptic of the possibility of living pterosaurs gave half a sentence to the subject of Hornbill birds as the cause of sighting reports of live pterosaurs. The problem with that suggestion? Details in the sighting reports bear no resemblance to anything like a Hornbill.

Almost anyone who reads that post, or even part of it, will realize the obvious: The important sightings were not of anything even close to the Hornbill bird.

How did Drinnon arrive at the idea that sightings by Hodgkinson and Hennessy were of some kind of Hornbill bird? Since he gives not details, at least not that I have read, I presume it is the word “Hornbill” itself. The psychologist Brian Hennessy, eyewitness to the 1971 Bougainville flying creature, did mention the word “horn” when he described what he had seen. But when we examine details, we learn that it was something far different from the structure at the top of a Hornbill bird’s head. Hennessy’s choices from a selection of silhouettes resulted in the following, a sort of composite sketch of the head. The one on the top is for Hennessy’s sighting; the one on the bottom, Hodgkinson’s:

Now compare that kind of “horn” with the structure on the head of the Hornbill:

See the enormous difference between the ropen head crest and what a Hornbill bird has.

May 13, 2011March 1, 2012

Kongamato Pterosaur and Hoax Possibility

I would like now to look at an account of Kongamato, in Africa, in context with accounts of similar flying creatures in Cuba and in Papua New Guinea, far to the west and east of Africa respectively, and then I would like to look at the hoax possibility. It seems reasonable to me that if a modern pterosaur could live in one of those areas, it could live in the other two as well, even though there may be some variation in species, coinciding with differences in opportunities for finding food, etc.

Sudan Pterosaur – interview by Whitcomb

One night . . . the boy noticed something on the roof of a nearby hut . . . 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 . . . The eyewitness was sure about the head crest and the long tail.

The eyewitness in Sudan saw something in the tail of the creature that reminded him of the tail of a lion. This could have been from observing a pterosaur, in particular a Rhamphorhynchoid tail vane that had some fur; of course that is speculative, but it does make sense.

Gitmo Pterosaur in Cuba – and using other sources

Patty verified that the sketch drawn by Kuhn is very similar to what she had seen in 1965 . . .

“It was as tall as a man when it stood up on it haunches.”

Patty explained to me that . . . the wings were like bat wings, in a way, but not at all transparent.

She is sure of the structure at the end of the tail . . . and estimates the “diamond” was about five inches long and about three inches wide.

This eyewitness of the “Gitmo Pterosaur,” Patty Carson, made it clear in her interview with Whitcomb that she did not see the head crest at first, for the creature’s head was facing her and her brother. But that perspective soon changed as the creature prepared to fly away, and Carson was then able to see the head crest. In addition, she verified that the sketch drawn by Kuhn was very similar to what she had seen, so we can take it as the same type of flying creature, seen in the same area of Cuba, a few years apart.

Ropen in Papua New Guinea

Much has been written about the ropen, so I will not quote much here. I will say that much of what is available is through the writings of Jonathan Whitcomb, which may bring up the possibility that one person, Whitcomb, may be involved in some elaborate hoax. After all, he is the source of both the Carson report and the Sudan report. I would like to look at that hoax potential now.

Hoax Possibility

To find out if Whitcomb has been carrying out a hoax, we need to go back to when he first became involved. His 2004 expedition in Papua New Guinea has much written about it, by him or course. If he were carrying on a long hoax he would probably have invented a trip to Papua New Guinea as well. But Garth Guessman and David Woetzel had their expedition to the same island of Umboi, and it was only a few weeks after Whitcomb’s supposed explorations there. The difficulty with proving Whitcomb has been carrying on a hoax, including a false expedition on Umboi Island, seems to be insurmountable when we consider that the other two Americans talked with natives who had remembered Whitcomb’s recent visit. In addition, Whitcomb videotaped many interviews on Umboi, with his own voice in the audio track of those videos. He later spent about twelve months writing his first book, much of which was about that expedition. It seems he must have actually gone to that island in Papua New Guinea.

What about the Gitmo Pterosaur? Could Whitcomb have invented this eyewitness Patty Carson? The problem with that possibility is this: Patricia Carson is now an RN living in Riverside, California, a fact that is easily available through a simple online search. She apparently has nothing to hide about her encounter with the strange flying creature at Gitmo many years ago. She is open to being interviewed by other interviewers.

It seems obvious that Whitcomb has not been carrying on an elaborate hoax for years. Perhaps he is not in a position to be the most objective person to evaluate reports of modern pterosaurs, but bias on one side or the other is a human frailty, not limited to those who believe that “extinction” has been overblown for those animals.

More on Kongamato

Wikipedia says, “Eyewitness accounts say the creature has teeth, leathery wings, a beak.” Patty Carson noticed many teeth on the Gitmo Pterosaur. She also noticed the lack of feathers. She also said that “the skin was a leathery, brownish reddish color.” Wikipedia says that some reports indicate the kongamato is “either red or black in color.” These are too many description similarities to throw out reports without consideration. The pterosaurs observed in Cuba are probably related to at least some of those observed in Africa.

It seems to me that the skeptics who dismiss reports of modern pterosaurs do so from ignorance of a number of critical eyewitness accounts and how those accounts relate to each other. Spitting out “hoax” or “misidentification” proves nothing except that some skeptics are experts at spitting.

May 7, 2011May 7, 2011

Gitmo Rhamphorhynchoid

The Gitmo (Guantanamo Bay military base) had modern Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs, at least a few decades ago, so the Caribbean may still host such a “flying dinosaur.” I use that non-technical phrase in this post, for those flying creatures, because Patty Carson probably used that phrase or one like it when she told her father, the base commander, about her terrifying experience in 1965, when she and her younger brother saw it.

In my last post, I had assumed that there were more than two children who were eyewitnesses in 1965, but I have since learned that there were only two. We cannot depend of the second child, however, because he was only four at the time and now has no memory of the experience. If I understand correctly, however, the two years difference in age may not be the primary factor in memory, for Patty Carson, who was six years old at the time, has always had a better memory the average and she seems to have indicated that her memory is better than her brothers (Whitcomb phone interview, May 4, 2011).

I have also learned that Carson, later in childhood or adolescence, was inquisitive and sharp and recognized one or more images of pterosaurs at the Smithsonian, when her father worked in Washington D.C.

Flying Dinosaur Still Flies in Cuba

I have recently learned that Eskin Kuhn is not the only eyewitness of a large long-tailed pterosaur (Rhamphorhynchoid) at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. On May 4, 2011, I interviewed, by phone, Patty Carson, who now lives in Southern California but who witnessed a “flying dinosaur” at Guantanamo Bay, in 1965. Although she was only a child at the time, she immediately told her family about the frightening encounter, and although her family disbelieved her at the time, her testimony of the appearance of that flying creature now verifies the plausibility of Kuhn’s 1971 sighting. Patty verified that the sketch drawn by Kuhn is very similar to what she had seen in 1965.

More Support for a Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaur in Cuba

A problem keeps popping up in my investigation of reports of living pterosaurs. Eyewitness usually report to me a sighting where nobody else has ever before reported one. Lake Pung on Umboi Island in Papua New Guinea is an exception, as is a secret location in North America. But now a new report supports a previous sighting report. Patty Carson, of California, has reported to me her encounter with a large pterosaur that popped up in some scrub brush on the Guantanamo Bay military installation, many years ago.

Her sighting confirms the credibility of the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn, who long ago reported his 1971 encounter. But Patty saw a similar creature in 1965, when she was just a child.