I may need to apologize for neglecting to say more, during the past 13 years that I have been writing, about the following. Probably over 98% of my writings, in that time, have been about living pterosaurs rather than about what prompted me to take such a deep interest in sighting reports of those extraordinary flying creatures. It relates to the origin of life relative to ideas about evolution, and that needs a four-part introduction.

1) LDS Scriptures

The four standards of scriptures used by *members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often called *Mormons) are:

• The Book of Mormon
• The Bible
• The Doctrine and Covenants
• The Pearl of Great Price

We generally give no hierarchy to these four, allowing them to simply reveal to us what they will, especially through the influence of the Holy Ghost.

Since we have no precise technical explanation for the origin of life in any of those scriptures, let us use what intelligence and resources God has given us, remembering that we may be arriving at only a piece of the truth as we wait, actively and constructively, for more of the revealed truth that we need.

2) Evolution and Religion

This post (dated April 9, 2015 on LDS Author) introduces the problem we have had in Western societies regarding the use of the word evolution. It says that we have been indoctrinated into equating a philosophy of “evolution” with “science.”

It also says that we have been indoctrinated into believing that dinosaur fossils are extremely old. It briefly introduces readers to the recent lack of Carbon-dating on dinosaur bones, and the post gives two links that go into much more detail about how that dating method reveals that dinosaur fossils are actually much younger than we have been taught.

3) Evolutionary Boundary

This scientific paper was published online, many years ago, but it’s a wordy document. Let’s consider a brief conclusion from that mathematical experiment:

Natural Selection , often called “survival of the fittest,” does the opposite of what Darwin assumed it would: It prevents small simple organisms from evolving into large complex forms of life. In other words, real evolution makes it impossible for modern large life forms (like humans, horses, elephants, lions, and whales) to have ancestors that were small and simple.

That means that the evolution that we often hear about in Western media, the kind that involves little forms of life evolving into big animals, is completely fictional. That has been proven by objective mathematical experimentation.

I, Jonathan Whitcomb, conducted this experiment over a period of six to eight months, early in this century, before I became involved in living-pterosaur investigations.

To any skeptic who might dismiss “Evolutionary Boundary” because of my religious beliefs, I would say this:

1. I was trying to force Darwinian evolution to occur in the mathematical experiment.
2. I failed in my attempt to make one step of that kind of evolution occur.

In other words, I was sincerely trying to be objective, and no simplistic attempt at refuting Darwinian evolution was involved, although I had long suspected that objective examination of relevant details would discredit such a concept of evolution (molecules-to-man by natural selection). If anyone carefully reviews what was done in my experiment, I believe evidence for my objectiveness will be found.

4) “The Gospel and the Scientific View”

For LDS (Mormons), I suggest reading this online article on the official Church site.

.

What is the origin of life?

Introduction

When I got up on the morning of December 10, 2017, long before sunrise, walking towards my office I looked out the high window in our living room. I thought I saw two bright stars shining through the branches of a tree. As I moved towards the office door and then stopped and moved towards that window, I noticed that those two lights quickly changed position relative to those tree branches, too quickly. It was then obvious: They were two reflections of light on the window itself, not stars (reflections on two horizontal plastic bars in the window—that’s what I saw).

Later, after writing some of what you are now reading, I left my office to again look out that window. The star I then saw appeared near the location where I had seen the two reflections. This time, however, my movements revealed that I was looking at a real star, for my changing of position made only a very slight change in the apparent position of the star relative to the tree branches.

Notice that my conclusions were based upon more than simplistic observations. I needed to know about how things appear in three-dimensional space. The dramatic change in apparent position of those two reflections led me to suspect that they were not stars, yet only when I saw that those two lights always appeared at a precise location on those two plastic bars—then is when I concluded that they were reflections.

In other words, sometimes the natural process of learning about something involves at least two stages: learning what it is not and then learning something about what it is. I suggest we use that approach in learning about the origin of life on our planet.

.

Monkey in an enclosure at the Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City

Look at two things in the above image and keep them separate in your mind. The monkey is real, a living animal that I photographed a few years ago. The background surrounding the monkey, however, is not a real scene of mountains and trees, for that part of the image is only a painting.

Regardless of how realistic a painting may be, for an animal enclosure in a zoo, it is still only a crude imitation of the appearance of real mountains and real trees. Even if those images appear very much like the mountains and trees where that particular animal would live in the wild, the painting is only a crude visual imitation.

Improving the health of that monkey, or adding more monkeys to the enclosure, or extending the lifespan of that monkey—none of those will make the slightest difference in causing the painting to become more like real mountains or real trees.

It’s not that the images in the painting don’t look like mountains and trees or that points of light on a window don’t look like stars. Monkeys in the wild can have all of those objects in their background when we observe them in their natural habitat. We need to distinguish, however, between crude imitation and the real thing.

Conclusion on Biological Evolution

We may see more than one kind of evolution in living things, but the kind sometimes called “molecules to man” evolution is what I call “the never-ending fairy tale.” When people continuously speculate about what they think happened millions of years ago, how can it be verified objectively?

I don’t mean to imply that I know and understand everything about biological evolution, but I do know that small simple forms of life do not evolve into large complex forms through natural selection. That concept of survival of the fittest is perfectly valid in a number of situations, but it actually prevents simple organisms from evolving into complex organisms. Millions of years are of no help in that kind of evolution, for the longer real evolution takes place, the more difficult it is for a small form of life to evolve a new biological structure that might otherwise eventually make it more complex.

###

.

One LDS Perspective on Evolution

Nonfiction book to be published before the end of April, 2018

.

Ark of Noah in the Bible

Late on the night of January 16, 2018, (9:00-11:45 p.m. Pacific time) I, Jonathan Whitcomb, was interviewed by Dave Scott on Spaced Out Radio . . .

.

Proclamation on Living Pterosaurs

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.

.

Living Pterosaurs and Evolution

The official scientific discovery of a species of modern pterosaur, acknowledged in Western science—that can help many persons to wake up and ask why we have been indoctrinated so deeply into an idea that is false. That is part of the awakening that is part of my purpose, whatever people want to think about the age of the earth.

Today I finished the third (and probably final) verse of the following LDS sacrament hymn “Believe and Come to Him.” The tune is the old traditional one that has often been used for the text that begins “Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, Forgive our Foolish Ways.” This music is only slightly altered: One line is added at the end.

[Updated on November 26, 2017: version 49]

Christian LDS hymn “Believe and Come to Him”

Here are the three verses for the new hymn:

Believe in God and come to him
And feast upon his word
Receive the one the Father sent
By making sacred covenant
Partake the sacrament
Believe and come to him

Behold the feet, the hands and side
We know the Savior lives
By eating, we in him abide
And by the Holy Spirit Guide
Behold the Savior lives
We know the Savior lives

By drinking of the water we
Remember why he bled
We cleanse the vessel inwardly
Becoming as he we’d have us be
Remembering the son
Becoming like the Son

.

Words are copyright 2017 Jonathan David Whitcomb

But noncommercial home or church use is OK

Listen to a simple MIDI audio of this music: Believe-and-Come-to-Him-049

Fourth Verse Added:

Partaking of the sacrament
We witness Him again
The bread and water represent
His body and His blood was spent
In cleansing us within:
Renewing us again

###

.

New Book of Mormon Music

A short piece of music for a church choir: “Come to Christ”, by Jonathan Whitcomb

.

A New Sacrament Hymn

“We Remember the Savior”

.

Press Forward, Feasting on the Word

A short LDS choir piece of music based upon Book of Mormon scriptures, and this includes II Nephi 31: 20

By the author of four nonfiction books on living pterosaurs: Jonathan D. Whitcomb

Fireworks to be Avoided

Last month I spent half an hour with two friends, Juan and Manuel, as we stood in a vacant lot in Draper, Utah, at night, staring at the sky. The man living in the house near where I had parked my car came out to ask us, in a friendly tone, if we were watching the fireworks. (In the Salt Lake Valley, we have fireworks twice in July: Independence Day and Pioneer Day.)

I answered with a friendly tone, telling him that we had permission, from the property owner, to be there. I came to the point but slowly. Most parents feel uncomfortable when their children report three men standing outside the bedroom window at night and those men then explain that they’re only watching the sky to see if a large pterodactyl flies overhead. I felt it best to begin by telling him that a nocturnal predator had been reported in the area. He had no reason to doubt that, as I carried a camera and was standing not far from his kids’ bedroom window.

Twelve hours earlier, my wife and I had introduced Juan and Manuel to the property owner, the grandmother who lives next door to the vacant lot (and next door to the small house with children). Her daughter and grandson had seen the flying creature earlier in 2017, and her son had seen it a few weeks earlier than that. In fact, that brother and uncle to the other two eyewitnesses had seen the glowing “pterodactyl” three times in one night, and he reported to me and my wife that he knew of a friend of the family who had apparently seen the same flying creature, at about the same time he had, but near the mountains, around southeastern Sandy, Utah. That makes four eyewitnesses in that area of the Salt Lake Valley, with five sightings.

Nevertheless, I needed to approach the subject carefully, as I explained to the father why my two friends and I were standing in that vacant lot that night. I could not tell him that he might be the only person in his neighborhood who had not seen a giant pterodactyl flying overhead.

.

Creek: Draper, Utah, near where three persons saw a pterosaur in 2017

.

Standing with a camera, near the bedroom window of the man’s children, however, I needed to give more details about the apparent nocturnal predator. Within a few minutes, I would learn that the man had reason to believe me: Earlier that year, something had broken into his chicken cage and killed two of the birds, not far from where we stood.

Yet I still needed to approach cautiously the point of what kind of creature it might be. I mentioned the name of the eyewitness who was the son of the property owner, pointing in the direction of where that man lives, and the father recognized the name. I would soon learn that the man I was talking with, outside that bedroom window that night, was a biologist: He would recognize the word pterosaur.

I generally don’t expect anyone to promptly adopt my belief in modern pterosaurs, unless I’m interviewing an eyewitness of an apparent living pterosaur; I do expect people to come to know that I believe in those flying creatures. The father I spoke with on that night, outside that bedroom window, however, raised no objection to my being there. He told me he was a biologist, and I handed him a complementary copy of my book Searching for Ropens and Finding God. It all ended well, except that I failed to see the flying creature that night. Yet, like in all the other searches I had conducted over the past fourteen years, I was able to encounter the most fascinating kind of life on the planet: a human.

###

.

Nonfiction Books by Mormons

Brother Whitcomb is perhaps the only LDS cryptozoologist to search for living pterosaurs and interview eyewitnesses of these amazing flying creatures . . .

.

Mormon Author

Greg McKeown has spoken to some of the most successful companies in the world, including Apple, Google and Facebook. He is the author of a New York Times Best-Seller. He recently appeared on “The Steve Harvey Show.” He’s also a Mormon bishop.

.

Living Pterosaurs

• “Big Bird” in Draper, Utah
• Living Pterosaurs and Skepticism
• A Reply to an Attack Against the Pterosaur Photograph
• Scott Norman and the “Pterodactyl” Photograph
• Book About the Pteranodon Photograph
• More Evidence for the “Civil War Pterodactyl Photo”
• . . .

.

Flying creature of the night

You have seen a flying creature unlike any bird or bat. It’s more like a pterosaur but alive, a “flying dinosaur.” What do you do?

.

By Jonathan David Whitcomb

Earlier this month*, I wrote four verses of a hymn for which I altered an old hymn tune (*I later revised the text: from August 18th-Aug 25, 2017). I consider the following to possibly be appropriate for use in an LDS sacrament meeting, perhaps by a ward choir.

We Remember the Savior

By witness of the Spirit
I know my Father lives
He sent a willing Savior
To witness of their love
That we may share that love

The Light and Life descended
To make our hearts as one
He wants us to remember
The God who gave a Son
The well-beloved Son

Let not your heart be troubled
The risen Savior lives
He gives us life eternal
When He shall come again
And we shall live again

O God, Eternal Father,
We do remember Him
And witness we are willing
Our covenant fulfilling:
To remember Him

The music is an alteration of “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.” The original version of the music was written by Albert Peace, not long after the original words were written (1882) by George Matheson. The copyright notice refers, of course, to the words. If anyone wants permission to use this hymn, feel free to contact me with the request; for noncommercial church or home use, however, feel free to use it with no need to contact me.

.

###

.

Press Forward, Feasting on the Word

This is a new choir piece, a short composition based mostly upon Book of Mormon scriptures, beginning with II Nephi 31:20 (check out this music, which was written in June of 2022 by Jonathan David Whitcomb of Murray, Utah).

.

Scientific Paper About Living Pterosaurs

My “Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific” was published in the Winter-2009 issue of the Creation Research Society Quarterly (Volume 45, #3). I now refer to the last four pages of this scientific paper, with links to images of those pages.

.

Easter Verses

An old photograph has been bouncing around the internet for quite some time, with many persons giving it a careless glance but very few indeed examining it closely and with an open mind. In the first few months of 2017, however, that changed.

The “pterodactyl” photo called “Ptp”

Beware of confusing this with a known hoax. Ptp is not the same photo that was created to promote the Haxan Films television show Freakylinks, around the year 2000. Compare the two of them side by side:

See for yourself: hoax versus original photo (click on them)

The older photograph, that was used as a model for the newer fake-photo, has been verified as authentic by two scientists, including the physicist Clifford Paiva, from California. Skeptical remarks about the soldiers have been answered and those careless criticisms have been exposed in the new nonfiction book Modern Pterosaurs.

The Flood of Noah and extant pterosaurs

Religion is related to the “Pteranodon” photograph that is now called “Ptp,” but those skeptical comments from critics who assume extreme bias in all Christian supporters of living-pterosaur investigations—those critical comments are incorrect. Paiva and I have looked carefully at this photo, with an open mind about various possibilities of hoaxing. Ptp has survived the close scrutiny extremely well.

How does an extant pterosaur in the 19th century relate to the Flood of Genesis? If it were only one species of extremely rare pterosaur, one photo by itself would give quite limited support for a literal Flood of Noah, but there’s much more. More than two types of these featherless flying creatures still live on our wonderful planet, and although they appear to be nocturnal (or at least mostly so), their overall existence is not very rare or confined to only one remote area.

Eyewitness reports come from at least five continents, confirming that pterosaurs are seen by countless persons worldwide. The most common type resembles what would be expected of an extant Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur: It has a long tail with a flange at the end of the tail. The type seen in Ptp, however, is not as common: an apparent Pteranodon or at least a similar Pterodactyloid.

How does that support the literal interpretation of the Flood of Genesis? Although the great majority of pterosaur species appear to be extinct, both major types are still flying overhead at night, in many areas of the world. Although they are uncommon, extant representatives support the concept that the fossils are not nearly as old as many persons have assumed. They have not evolved feathers, nor have enormous changes in anatomy taken place. Since so many recent extinctions have been seen to have come from human interference, we can easily imagine that at least some pterosaur species met a similar fate. The existence of both major types of pterosaur supports a literal Flood of Noah.

###

copyright 2017 Jonathan Whitcomb

.

Dinosaur Extinction

Consider the following direct evidence for the authenticity of the “pterodactyl photograph” and its significance. Earlier this year (2017), the physicist Cliff Paiva and I independently examined belt buckles on those soldiers in Ptp. We both came to the same conclusion: The soldier that appears to be standing in front of the animal is indeed closer to the camera than the other soldiers.

.

Civil War Pteranodon photo

. . . a scientist (Clifford Paiva, a physicist) has found a number of evidences for the authenticity of the image of the apparent Pteranodon in the older Ptp photo.

.

Civil War pterosaur photo

Do not Confuse two Photographs

.

Pterodactyl in a Civil War photograph

Years ago, a scientist in California began noticing details in a photograph, clues that the image of an apparent modern pterosaur was genuine. On January 14, 2017, I spoke with Clifford Paiva (a physicist) by phone. We agreed that the photo (now labeled “Ptp”) has a genuine photographic image of a modern pterosaur.

.

These two verses (numbered #1 and #2) are actually the third and fourth verses of my hymn “Through my Savior.” Since they’re in the spirit of Easter, I submit them here:

Verse 1

Now in the morning of shadow waning,
Like when the light of morning filled a tomb,
Grant us forgiveness: both giving, gaining;
Fill us with light: Dispel avenging gloom.
Once in a garden, the blood was dropping;
Once on a cross, the voice of mercy said,
“Oh, my Father, forgive my brother;
I forgive him with the blood I shed.”

Verse 2

Through thine Anointed, we seek forgiveness,
Grasping thy mercy, casting off our sin,
Through our election of his atonement,
Touching Perfection, cleansing us within.
Though opposition may feign to hinder,
Like thine Anointed we begin to be.
Oh my Father, I now remember:
My Redeemer gave his life for me;
Through my Savior, I come to thee.

Some of this is symbolic. Notice the reference to the New Testament healing of the woman who touched the hem of the clothing of Jesus:

Touching Perfection, cleansing us within

Of course we need to apply that in a little different way in our own lives. We need to approach the Savior in our prayers to received his healing influence, yet the healing we usually most need is spiritual.

###

.

Forgiveness – A Song Verse Explained

When is the “morning of shadow waning?” The dispelling of this particular shadow refers to attaining forgiveness, both forgiving and receiving forgiveness, so the particular “morning” is unique to each of us. In fact many of us may be enlightened by many such mornings in our lifetimes, moments when we forgive another person or when someone forgives himself or herself, or moments when we accept forgiveness from another person.

Images of Christ

We each have a mental picture of what we think the Savior looks like. But if we painted pictures of Him, they would all be different. We don’t really know what He looks like, but we can come to know His perfect love for us and draw closer to Him . . .

.

In this new piece of music for a church choir, much of the text is a slight modification of Book of Mormon scriptures, yet the original meaning is there.

.