Not all books that include a sighting of an apparent living pterosaur are in the cryptozoology genre. Let’s begin with a translation of an ancient writing by the Jewish historian Josephus, who lived almost 2,000 years ago.

The New Complete Works of Josephus, translated by William Whiston

But Moses . . . did not march by river, but by land, where he gave a wonderful demonstration of his wisdom; for when the ground was difficult to be passed over, because of the multitude of serpents (which it produces in vast numbers, and, indeed, is singular in some of those productions, which other countries do not breed, and yet such as are worse than others in power and mischief, and an unusual fierceness of sight, some of which ascend out of the ground unseen, and also fly in the air, and so come upon men at unawares, and do them a mischief).

By the way, the above account of Moses encountering flying serpents has no direct relationship with the fiery flying serpents mentioned in the Old Testament. Josephus is here telling us about a time before Moses was a prophet to the Israelites, when Moses was leading an Egyptian army to battle. Still, it could have been the same species of pterosaur, a Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed) pterosaur.

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Folk Lore and Folk Stories of Wales, by Marie Trevelyan and E. Sidney Hartland

The woods around Penllyne Castle, Glamorgan, had the reputation of being frequented by winged serpents, and these were the terror of old and young like. An aged inhabitant of Penllyne . . . said that in his boyhood the winged serpents were described as very beautiful. . . . Some of them had crests sparkling with all the colours of the rainbow. . . . His father and uncle had killed some of them,  for they were “as bad as foxes for poultry.”

The first publication date of the above book (1909) suggests those winged creatures could have been killed off, in that part of Wales, before the middle of the nineteenth century. In fact, the “aged inhabitant” may have lived in that area in the early years of that century, and his father and uncle even much earlier, and he gave no indication he had seen the creatures himself: that species of “winged serpent” may have become extinct by early in the nineteenth century.

Unexplained! by Jerome Clark

At 3:55 a.m. on September 14, 1982, James Thompson, an ambulance technician, was driving along Highway 100 four miles east of Los Fresnos, Texas. . . . He suddenly spotted a “large birdlike object” pass low over the highway 150 feet in front of him. . . . “It had a black, or grayish, rough texture. It wasn’t feathers. I’m quite sure it was a hide-type covering.” . . . its wingspan was five to six feet.

Books Specializing in Modern Pterosaurs

I mention the above nonfiction books to emphasize that I am not the only author that writes about apparent encounters with modern living pterosaurs.

My three nonfiction books about these amazing flying creatures are:

1. Searching for Ropens and Finding God (in 4th edition)
2. Live Pterosaurs in America (in 3rd edition)
3. Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea (free pdf)

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Fourth Edition of Ropen Book

“He has lived and worked in some very remote areas [of the Congo in Africa], and has had several encounters with different cryptids. He says that the existence of pterosaur-like creatures is common knowledge among the locals of a certain area where he was working.”

Sense of Truth – Nonfiction Book

Look at a box of mac ‘n cheese or frozen chicken nuggets, the ones with tasty shapes of dinosaurs. Notice that some of those shapes have wings, like what many of us call pterodactyls. Did you notice the word prehistoric on the box? Now notice what small children are taught.

Two Amazing Nonfiction Books

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.

Fiery Flying Serpent of Old Testament

. . . a  modern Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur, possibly related to  the long-tailed nocturnal creatures now seen in various areas of the world. A small portion of modern encounters with these creatures is reported to have caused human deaths in Papua New Guinea and in British Columbia . . .

Three Books on Modern Pterosaurs

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.

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This is about radiometric carbon dating of dinosaur fossils, but we need an introduction, for it also relates to reports of extant pterosaurs.

Nikola Tesla once said, “The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane.”

Albert Einstein once said, “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I say, “Not everybody embraces a live pterodactyl.” I’ll add to that: “Not everybody embraces a dinosaur that is not yet completely decomposed.”

For eleven years I have heralded the credibility of eyewitness testimony of living pterosaurs, especially long-tailed featherless creatures, that fly overhead in our modern world. For almost that long, some critics have insinuated (at least) things like insanity or dishonesty, when mentioning my name. In this new year of 2015, I began writing about something new, and I expect that among some readers it can make a difference. If I were crazy to have expected my repetitious writings to have grabbed public attention, I can at least be consoled that I can now do something different and wonder if the results will differ. I hope that more people will think more clearly.

Carbon Dating and the “Age of Dinosaurs”

Consider one of the comments on answers-dot-yahoo-dot-com:

“The dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, and HomoSapeins only became a distinct primate about 200,000 years ago. This is fact, as proved by carbon dating of fossils and the remains of early man.”

Actually the above is not “fact” but false, and that comment was fortunately not ranked as the best answer to a question about a possible dragon-dinosaur relationship in history. Carbon-14 methods cannot date anything older than a few tens of thousands of years old, for the half-life of that isotope is close to 5,700 years. Dating accuracy may be as high as 60,000 years, at best, but carbon-14 just does not last much longer.

Did Dinosaurs Live Recently?

If dinosaurs lived as recently as 40,000 years ago, it would certainly open many human minds to the testimonies of countless eyewitnesses of modern pterosaurs. But who would believe such a wild idea, that at least some dinosaurs lived so recently? Well, a few researchers who used carbon-dating on quite a few dinosaur bones, that’s who.

A lecture was given in a geology conference in Singapore, in 2012, with carbon-14 dating of dinosaur fossils the subject. All the bones were found to have that isotope of carbon, a shocking finding, but there it is: Those particular dinosaurs in North America lived only a few tens of thousands of years ago, at most.

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Recent Dinosaurs and Carbon-14 Dating

Recently-living dinosaurs help people to realize that eyewitness reports of flying pterosaurs are more credible than people may have assumed. Yes, I am talking about dinosaurs that have lived relatively recently. Some dinosaurs appear to be well under 1% as old as Westerners have been taught, tens of thousands of years rather than many millions of years old.

Dinosaur Fossils That are Carbon-14 Dated

For generations, Americans and peoples of other Western countries have been indoctrinated, from early childhood, with continuous proclamations about all of the dinosaurs and pterosaurs becoming extinct many millions of years ago. [Actual carbon-dating of dinosaur bones, however, does NOT support that.]

Censorship of carbon-14 (C14) dinosaur dating

Carbon-14 dating was recently performed on dinosaur fossils,1 and the results were presented at the Western Geophysics Meeting in Singapore, August 2012, a gathering of approximately two thousand scientists.

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With a title that includes “finding God,” how much religion is in my recent nonfiction book? Actually not much. I wrote Searching for Ropens and Finding God (fourth edition) with readers of all faiths in mind, for anyone open to some kind of positive spiritual experience. Let’s allow the book to speak for itself with these excerpts:

Title Page

[This] soars above disputes about religion, revealing why an official discovery of an extraordinary animal was delayed for so long. Above all, this explores human experiences—of eyewitnesses and those who interviewed them. People have become connected by common encounters: Persons of various faiths, with various levels of education, from various countries and cultures, have seen a living pterosaur.

First Page of Acknowledgements

The pioneering investigations of three men illuminated the path for my own expedition: James Blume, for decades a Baptist missionary and plane pilot in Papua New Guinea; Carl Baugh, founder and director of a creation-science museum in Texas; and Paul Nation, an associate of Baugh.

Second Page of Acknowledgements

The prayers of family, friends, and other Americans were answered when I found Luke Paina, who became my interpreter, bodyguard, and counselor. By the grace of the Father of us all, Luke and I were welcomed like brothers by those we met on Umboi Island, and through the friendship of humble native Christians in remote villages, we were fed, sheltered, and led to those who made this book possible: the native eyewitnesses. Thank you . . .

Introduction

Expect answers in this book: why my associates and I traveled to a remote tropical island to search for living pterosaurs and why only a few professors have given us any hope that they still live. . . . I hope my readers will discover more than adventure—a purpose in life—as worthy a purpose as I have found. This is no instruction manual for finding God, yet I suggest that the spiritual quest gives us the highest reward. . . .

Is this a tool for promoting Biblical Creation and ridiculing evolution? Clear thinking we need, without fear, allowing us to discover both truth and error in whatever camp we find ourselves, entrenched or visiting, at the moment. Beware of simplistic labels.

Chapter One

The existence of life I credited to God, from childhood choosing to respect the Bible as nonfiction. When I was ten, my father, psychologist for the San Bernardino School District in California, showed me the largest collection of bird eggs in the Western United States, in the museum in our own little town of Bloomington. The variety of eggs and birds, all dead, fascinated me. Then I read the labels. Non-birds becoming birds discomforted me, for each type of life appeared to have a role in its own basic form.

If all of the above gives a reader no offense, with its religious tones, the book as a whole should not offend that reader. Does it improperly mix religion and science? It’s really more of a cryptozoology book with reasoning about the meaning of eyewitness testimonies and the adventure of searching for modern living pterosaurs.

Jonathan David Whitcomb

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Flood of Genesis

Did every variety of every type of creature enter the Ark of Noah? Why should they? Take the obvious example first: Would Noah have taken every breed of dog into the Ark, if all the present-day varieties existed in his day? No. Only a few genetically-healthy dogs would be needed, for they would have all the traits that could later become active in our modern breeds, even though the countless traits would not be outwardly visible in those original ancestors.

Scientific Paper on Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific

While both ropen lights and meteors are fast-moving flashes of lights in the sky, several characteristics distinguish them (Whitcomb, 2007). For example, Abram of Opai Village, Umboi Island, described a ropen light that flew down to a reef and stayed at or near the surface of the sea before flying back toward Mount Bel (Whitcomb interview) . . . Analysis of 2004-expedition records suggest that many suspected ropen lights move away from Mount Bel early at night but toward it late at night.

Religion and Belief in Ropens

. . . the eyewitnesses come to us with different religions, almost as if religion had nothing to do with encountering a live “pterodactyl.” . . . A person who sees an apparent pterosaur is just as likely to be an atheist as a Bible believing Southern Baptist.

Fiery Flying Serpent

The Fiery Flying Serpent of the Old Testament is also found in the Book of Mormon. In fact, in First Nephi, Chapter 17, verse 41, it is more clearly a flying fiery “serpent” that afflicted the children of Israel at the time of Moses, more clear than at least one of the relevant passages in the Bible, in that “flying” is included.

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