New ‘Flying Dinosaur’ Book

The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

By the nonfiction author Jonathan David Whitcomb

The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur introduces young readers (about 8-14 years old) to an exciting new branch of cryptozoology: eyewitness reports of apparent living pterosaurs, and most of these flying creatures appear to be ropens. Here is but a brief summary of some of the book’s benefits for children and teens (this is NON-fiction):

  • Exciting encounters people have had with what they sincerely believe were actual “pterodactyls,” real animals, apparently living pterosaurs
  • Invites the reader to use critical reasoning and let’s him or her decide what to believe about each of these apparent non-extinct pterosaurs
  • Explains the three major interpretations for any particular sighting
  • In simple English, allows the eyewitnesses to tell us what they saw
  • Does NOT indoctrinate; says not what to think but HOW to think

Other Amazon sites having The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur:

French language

German

Spanish

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The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

Eyewitness accounts are in The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

Of course these cryptids are not literally dinosaurs—the correct word is pterosaur—but some eyewitnesses and others use the phrase “flying dinosaurs” for these featherless flying creatures. The girl mentioned in the title of this book is Patty Carson. As a small child, she probably used that phrase, or one like it, when she tried to tell her family what she had seen in some tall grass on the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 1965.

The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur is a short nonfiction, just 56 pages, yet it can be delightful for readers between about the ages of eight and fourteen years. Give one as a gift for Christmas or as a birthday gift. Better yet, purchase a number of them and give them out to many children and teens. Your purchase will help support the author in his research and interviewing of eyewitnesses worldwide. The suggested retail price is only $7.80 (U.S.).

According to the author Patty Carson really did have a flying cryptid encounter many years ago in Cuba.

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Dinosaur Books for Children

Four books for young readers in general, including the short nonfiction The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

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Is the New Book About Religion?

My new nonfiction is for middle-grade children and many (but not all) teenagers: The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur. This is a short cryptozoology book, not about religion but about eyewitness sightings of apparent living pterosaurs. It invites you to seek the truth behind what people around the world report observing.

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Gift Book for a Ten-Year-Old Girl

A few days ago, my new book became available on Amazon: The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur. I’m not saying that this paperback is the ideal gift for every 10-year-old girl who reads English, of course, but it’s a whole new approach to the “dinosaur bird,” and I wrote it for readers 8-14 years old or thereabouts.

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Is the ropen a modern pterosaur?

Questions and answers on the ropen

Important Ropen Sightings

drawing by American Patty Carson

A significant number of the eyewitnesses of ropens have given their real names, and most of them are still living, as of early 2018. Here is a list of sightings of these long-tailed modern pterosaurs, although this is only a partial list of the more important encounters, by eyewitness name, or by place if the eyewitness is anonymous:

Patty Carson

Her sighting was in 1965, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when she was only about six years old. She immediately tried to tell her family about the flying “dinosaur,” but they did not believe her . . . at least not at first. Within about a year or so, however, her sister saw what may have been the same species of pterosaur, and her older brother also had a sighting.

Brian Hennessy

In recent years, he has worked as a psychologist, making it less likely that he had any mental health problem when he saw the large long-tailed flying creature on Bougainville Island, New Guinea, in 1971.

Keep in mind that Mr. Hennessy did not use the word ‘pterodactyl’ while reporting his sighting to Whitcomb in 2006, but on the other hand he did not say anything that contradicted the possibility that it was a pterosaur.

Duane Hodgkinson

With his army buddy next to him, this American saw a “huge” “pterodactyl” in a jungle clearing just west of Finschhafen, New Guinea, in 1944, after all the Japanese military had left that area. The wingspan he estimated as similar to that of a small private airplane.

Gideon Koro

This native of Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, was interviewed face-to-face by Whitcomb in 2004, in his village. He estimated the length of the tail of the ropen at seven meters. It was obviously no fruit bat. Gideon was one of seven boys who had hiked up to the crater lake Pung around late 1993 or early ’94. This sighting, by seven boys, was in clear daylight, as the ropen flew over the surface of Lake Pung.

Eskin Kuhn

This U.S. Marine saw two “pterodactyls” flying together at close range to Eskin and at fairly low elevation, in 1971, at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Being a talented artist, he commenced sketching, from memory, those two long-tailed pterosaurs, within minutes of the sighting.

Lakewood, California (two eyewitnesses)

Two sisters each had a sighting of a long-tailed dragon-like flying creature, near the same backyard. Their sightings, however, were made with each sister unaware of the other’s encounter, and these views were in different years.

Sandra Paradise

This young lady saw a huge “pterodactyl” that flew in front of her car, while Sandra was driving east of Winder, Georgia, early one morning in August of 2008. She was shocked but quickly phoned a friend to report what she had encountered. She later reported her sighting to Whitcomb

Perth, Australia (two eyewitnesses)

In December of 1997, a couple was taking a walk between two residential neighborhoods, well into the evening, when they saw an approaching flying creature. Even at a distance, it looked huge. As it flew closer, it became obvious that it was indeed gigantic.

The husband, who was a scientist, estimated the wingspan to be between 30 feet and 50 feet. The tail was very long and the creature appeared to have no feathers. It may have had fine hair or small scales, but it was too difficult to make that out completely.

Susan Wooten

This young lady was driving on a major country highway in South Carolina, around 1986, when a huge long-tailed featherless creature flew in front of her car.  She was shocked, as a number of drivers in other cars pulled over to the side of the highway.

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drawing by American Patty Carson

Sketch by the eyewitness Patty Carson (sighting in Cuba in 1965)

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A blog post by the investigative journalist Jonathan David Whitcomb

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New book on eyewitnesses (children & adults) 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 [long-tailed ropen in Cuba]

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Press release: living pterosaurs in North Carolina

Jonathan Whitcomb, author of nonfiction cryptozoology books, has suggested that flying creatures reported in Raleigh, North Carolina, over several years, may be related to what Americans in other states have reported to him over the past fourteen years.

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Ropen sightings in the USA

The author Jonathan Whitcomb looks into a storm channel in Lakewood, California, near where a “dragon-pterodactyl” was reported to have flown in mid-2012.

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Live Pterosaurs for Kids

Patty Carson was about six years old when she and her brother saw this animal. Patty is grown up now. She is a good artist and drew this picture of what she saw . . .

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Pterosaur encounters in the United States and around the world

I, Jonathan David Whitcomb, proclaim that not only are not all species of pterosaurs extinct but more than one species is living, and they range in extensive areas of the planet. During the past fifteen years, I have received reports of apparent living pterosaurs from six continents, most of which reports were directly from the eyewitnesses themselves. [Direct accounts were received by Whitcomb from five continents.]

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Nonfiction books about the ropen

From the author: “Both nonfictions include the two sightings in Cuba, encounters by Patty Carson (1965) and Eskin Kuhn (1971), both of which were at Guantanamo Bay. [The books referred to on this site are Searching for Ropens and Finding God and Live Pterosaurs in America.]

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Not all pterosaurs are extinct

Many species of pterosaurs have lived on this planet at some time in the past. What evidence is there that all of those species have become extinct? NONE!

Flying Pterosaur, not a Leaping Ray

I’ve written about this Manta ray fish story many times already, but we need to now concentrate on the reasons why Dale Drinnon has repeatedly brought up this leaping-fish conjecture. But before getting into his reasoning, let’s review his conjecture. He believes that “many” sightings of reported pterosaurs (the extant living creatures, not fossils) come from people who see a large Manta ray that jumps up out of the water.

Mr. Drinnon insists that any extant pterosaur on this planet must resemble pterosaurs known from fossils that have been discovered and that any deviation in appearance means the creature observed cannot be that type of flying creature. He does not explain why he has taken that stand, but he dogmatically holds onto that position.

Hypothetical Encounter at a Zoo

Let’s apply that position to fossils in general and to modern creatures in general (why should pterosaurs get special treatment?). How would we react if a paleontologist marched up to the administration office of a zoo and insisted that a particular animal enclosure be labeled “Animatronic – not a real animal?” Everybody else knows that those animals are biological and not fake. Why is that paleontologist mistaken in his dogmatism? He knows that no fossil yet discovered is exactly like what we all see in that zoo enclosure, so he insists that the animals in question cannot be biological. Why is he wrong? (Of course that paleontologist is imaginary.)

Biological Diversity

Almost every adult human in Western society understands biological diversity, whether those adult humans are Biblical Creationists or strict Darwinist Evolutionists. Chihuahuas and Saint Bernards are the same species, regardless of outward differences. Why should pterosaurs drastically differ from the general rule?

Paleontologists know from pterosaur fossils that varieties existed in the past, great diversity in those flying creatures. Why should we be shocked that a modern pterosaur would have one or two or even three details of appearance that differ, in some degree, from already-discovered fossils of pterosaurs? In fact, new varieties of pterosaurs are still being discovered in fossil form. The shock is in discovering that not all their species are extinct, after generations of indoctrination into the universal-extinction dogma.

Ray Resemblance

Mr. Drinnon emphasizes anything that seems to relate to a Manta ray fish (with sighting reports of pterosaurs) especially the general shape of the body of the Manta ray. But he mentions almost no details, no particular sighting, in most of his writings; what sighting report has a description of a ray shape and was over a large body of water? Two creatures flying together, high over a city in the Philippines could not have been a leaping Manta ray, although Drinnon still wants to hold onto the possibility that it was that fish (because that city is near water).

Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaur Resemblance

In the second ropen expedition of 2004 (I led the first one), Garth Guessman and David Woetzel interviewed a few native eyewitnesses, in Papua New Guinea, by using a page of silhouettes. Those images (unlabeled except for numbers) were of dozens of known birds, bats, and pterosaurs. Only two natives had a good-enough view of the flying creature (that they called “ropen”) to make a valid evaluate of shape, comparing the images with what they remembered observing on Umboi Island. I have photocopies of the detailed reports of those interviews.

The two natives who had good views of the ropen both chose the image of the Sordes Pilosus, a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur:

long-tailed pterosaur - Sordes Pilosus

That silhouette does bear a slight resemblance to the shape of a Manta ray (if we cut off the Rhamphorhynchoid tail vane and the head). But both Jonathan Ragu and Jonah Jim (in two seperate sightings) saw a flying creature that was glowing, not a Manta ray that jumped out of the sea and fell back. In fact, Jonah Jim was miles from the coast, far from any major body of water.

Ragu witnessed, with his daughter, the glowing ropen flying at or near the northwest coast of Umboi Island. Take the case that the man and his daughter had merely seen a jumping Manta ray, as unlikely as that appears to have been. Why would he have chosen the same silhouette as Jonah Jim would later choose? And why would Ragu report the same strange phenomenon: a glow? Those factors practically eliminate the jumping Manta ray misidentification as a reasonable conjecture for these two sightings. Ragu and Jonah Jim had surely seen the same flying creature, regardless of how shocking a modern giant Sordes Pilosus may be to Westerners.

Mr. Drinnon is mistaken on two major points: The critical sightings that my associates and I have analyzed could not have been misidentified leaping rays, and modern pterosaurs need not be precisely similar, in all details, to those paleontologists know from fossils.

Pterosaur, not Manta Ray

The Four Key Sightings in the Southwest Pacific

Ropen, not Misidentified Frigate Bird

Misidentified sea birds [Frigate bird] are a far cry from how serious living-pterosaur investigations really began.

Leaping Fish or Pterosaur

No Manta rays would appear to fly through the air together and change directions in the air . . .

Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea

My newest book is now available on Amazon as a Kindle ebook: Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea (ASIN: B0098QFMDM — $3.99 in U.S. dollars — Cover llustrations by Patty Carson and Eskin Kuhn)

book cover of "Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea"

Preface:

. . . I believe in living pterosaurs and hope they will soon be officially discovered. More important, I believe in you, that you can soar above dogmatic assumptions about extinctions. I hope that you already understand that we are more than a by-product of culture: Our existence transcends the boundaries of the human cultural assumptions that have shaped our beliefs. . . .

Chapter Four

As I prepared for my expedition, to be in a remote wilderness, leaving my wife at home for weeks, how fortunate that I was married to a trustworthy Christian woman . . . You know what I mean: “Thou shalt not kill!” Actually, I brought up the subject gradually: An important expedition was needed . . . I must assist those who would go . . . Unfortunately none of the other Americans was a professional videographer . . . Unfortunately, I myself had to go.

Chapter Six

In Australia, eyewitnesses also see large flying creatures unlike any bird or bat; unlike natives of Papua New Guinea, however, most Australians have no common tradition of any extant flying creature larger than any bird or bat. Most Australians do know the Western assumption that all dinosaurs and pterosaurs became extinct millions of years ago; but that Western tradition slaps eyewitnesses in the face. How do you tell a friend, neighbor, or relative that you saw a live pterodactyl?

New Book About Live Pterosaurs

This low-cost ebook gives detailed eyewitness accounts of the strange flying creatures seen in the Southwest Pacific, with explanations for why these sightings are absent from news headlines.

Pterodactyls in Australia

The author of the book, the American cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb, believes he has found the answer to why the nocturnal creatures are sometimes observed in daylight

Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific

Michael, of Opai Village, “was one of the witnesses of a strange light that came to the grave . . . where the body of a man was buried . . .

New E-Book About Live Pterosaurs

My newest book is about to be published in the next few weeks: Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea. This low-cost ebook gives detailed eyewitness accounts of the strange flying creatures seen in the Southwest Pacific, with explanations for why these sightings are absent from news headlines. Samples:

Introduction

I have found, after many years of questioning eyewitnesses, that some accounts cannot be dismissed as misidentified birds or bats or as hoaxes. Keep the door open to discovering something for yourself; I expect you’ll discover something important before the last chapter.

Chapter One: How can Pterosaurs be Alive?

Dragon stories abound in many human cultures, and before the late nineteenth century “dragon” would have been what an eyewitness might have called a living pterosaur. I suggest that some legends of flying dragons are less than 100% fictional, but this book examines more recent reports, not old legends. Nevertheless, part of the problem resides in the old English word “dragon.”

Chapter Three: The Bougainville Creature

Did you notice the word absent from Hennessy’s account but obvious in Hodgkinson’s? In all my email correspondence with Hennessy, he never said “pterodactyl” (or “pterosaur”). Nevertheless, he was clear about the description and clear about his impression of the flying creature: “prehistoric.”

Chapter Five: Another Expedition on Umboi Island

Before leaving Kampalap, they learned about the ropen’s behavior on that northeast coast. It glows until it alights on a tree on a promontory north of the village; when it lands on the tree, the light goes out. Later the ropen flies to the nearby reef to feed.

Chapter Eight: Expedition of 2006

Paul Nation and Jacob Kepas were flown into the remote mountainous area by the plane pilot Jim Blume, the same missionary who assisted the 1990 expeditions and the second 2004 expedition. . . . Blume had to make two flights, for the two passengers and their luggage, but he himself did not stay long in Tawa.

“I [Paul Nation] was able to watch the two [lights] on the mountain range . . . at this little saddle. . . . [the lower left light] appeared first. About a minute or so later, the higher one . . . appeared, and the first one disappeared. . . . the second one . . . took up and over [flew over] . . . the back side [of the ridge]. . . .”

To make this book available to as many readers as possible, and to preserve trees, it is being published as an e-book. Please contribute to the preservation of the enviroment and the propogation of knowledge by purchasing your own copy in electronic format (it might never be released in paper-book format).

Book About Pterosaurs in Australia

Some of the sightings mentioned in this book had not been published in any book before, to the best of my knowledge; they are first-hand accounts given to me over several years.

Pterosaur Extinction (or not)

In brief, Mr. Kuban draws attention to the weakest reasons for believing  in modern pterosaurs, the weak reports; he also points out  flaws or just possible flaws  in some of the words and reasoning of those who promote the concept of living pterosaurs. . . . But consider two critical points that he ignores: the strongest eyewitness-testimony accounts and the philosophical foundations of the conflict.

Don’t Get Strung Along by the Smithsonian

Science writer Brian Switek, in an August, 2010, post for the online Smithsonian Magazine, titled his remarks “Don’t Get Strung Along by the Ropen Myth.” He may have gotten unanimous approval for pointing out that a photo of a frigate bird is not evidence for living pterosaurs, but he got a stern rebuke for mentioning the word “hucksters” for those who search for cryptids many had assumed have been extinct for millions of years, especially those who have searched in Papua New Guinea for the ropen. The rebuke was from the cryptozoology author Jonathan Whitcomb.

Ropen Ideas Shot Down by a Smithsonian Blogger

Brian Switek was correct in one point: The news reporter Terrence Aym fell into a serious blunder in referring to an image of a common Frigate Bird as if it were a ropen or pterosaur. (But Switek’s blunders are so serious that I will not even link to his blog post.)

In Whitcomb’s book Live Pterosaurs in America, the “Mesozoic Objection” in regard to the extinction of pterosaurs is criticized as follows:

What about the “Mesozoic” objection? One critic declares that a lack of “post-Mesozoic remains” (no fossils in “less-ancient” rock strata) proves a pterosaur could not live in modern times. But a subtle form of circular reasoning lies buried within this declaration about fossil rocks.

When a creature thought to have lived only in the Mesozoic time period is found in an undated stratum, what happens? That stratum is then labeled “Mesozoic.” So if a pterosaur fossil can cause it to be “ancient,” what can be reasonably concluded about an apparent lack of any pterosaur fossils in rocks not labeled “ancient?” Not a lack of modern pterosaurs. Standard-model labeling of strata relies a great deal on the axiom of ancient extinctions of certain organisms, and axioms are assumptions, not proven facts.

Pterosaur Extinction and Brian Switek

Switek seems to have entirely failed to comprehend what is entailed here. If the discovery of a modern living Coelacanth could have opened up the way for dating some Coelacanth fossils as being after the Mesozoic, the discovery of a modern living pterosaur could open up the way for dating some pterosaur fossils as also being more recent. This perspective was probably entirely overlooked by Switek.

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Third edition of the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America

Third edition of the non-fiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America, by Jonathan David Whitcomb, gives you details unavailable in online blogs: many eyewitness sighting reports in many states of the U.S.A.

From a review of the second edition (Amazon.com):

“This is an updated review of the book and I am changing my rating to 5 stars. This book has been on my shelf for almost a year now. I pick it up every now and then and a part of me becomes more impressed by the book every time. Yes, the skeptics will laugh at it, but I am a skeptic to. Admittedly, my main interest in the subject is based in romanticism. However, it is apparent that these pterosaur stories will not go away.” (book review by Stevie, Oct 23, 2011, second edition of the book)

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