By the cryptozoology author Jonathan Whitcomb

Introduction

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.

But first be aware that much of my scientific paper is about two expeditions on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, in 2004. I led the first expedition, with my native interpreter Luke Paina; David Woetzel and Garth Guessman were assisted, a few weeks later, by the native interpreter Jacob Kepas.

After those two expeditions on that tropical island, I concluded that the ropen of Umboi is a living pterosaur, similar in general shape to a Sordes pilosus but much larger than fossils of that kind of Rhamphorhynchoid. In addition, the ropen has a long horn-like head crest.

Page 209 of this Journal of Science

This refers briefly to the sighting by native Jonathan Ragu on the coast of Umboi Island. Much on this page, however, is about the possibility that the ropen is a modern living Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur.

Page 210, with this Scientific Paper (11th page of the article itself)

It examines the two interpretations, one by Whitcomb and the other by Woetzel, for what kind of Rhamphorhynchoid the ropen may be: “Dimorphodon or Sordes?” This page also examines eyewitness reliability, and this subject continues into the next page.

Page 211 of this issue of Creation Research Society Quarterly

One section on this page is “Investigator Reliability.” Here’s how it begins:

A few critics have suggested that living-pterosaur investigators are dishonest . . . but to date have offered no evidence. From 1994 through early 2007, eight American creationists have traveled to PNG in eight expeditions (one to three Americans per expedition). These expeditions involved personal financial sacrifice. . . .

Page 212 (or the 13th page of this scientific paper on living pterosaurs)

Here are the surnames of persons mentioned at the end of the article:

• Goertzen
• Kuban
• Naish
• Paiva
• Silcock
• Wellnhofer
• Whitcomb
• Woetzel

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Scientific Paper on Extant Pterosaurs

Almost ten years ago, my scientific paper was published in the Creation Research Society Quarterly: “Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific.” It was in the Winter issue of 2009 . . . [refers to three pages from that journal of science]

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Bulverism and religion

A biology professor in Minnesota wrote a blog post, the other week, blasting my research and investigations into sighting reports of apparent pterosaurs (AKA pterodactyls). Most of his declarations about my intentions, however, were false. His mistake about my purposes in writing that page on lds-nonfiction-dot-com, however, was interesting to me; I was actually writing to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who might enjoy reading my most recent book, Searching for Ropens and Finding God . . .

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Science and living pterosaurs

Skeptics have often suggested two explanations for sightings of pterosaurs: hoaxes and misidentifications. Let’s use scientific reasoning by examining the most recent results of data compilations and analysis, for information obtained from eyewitnesses, in particular regarding the possibility of major hoax involvement.

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Bulverism and the ropen

“Ropen” deleted on Wikipedia (English)

The “ropen” page on Wikipedia, at one time, had many paragraphs, delighting some cryptozoologists but annoying some skeptics. One biology professor in Minnesota, in particular, detested the many web pages he saw that supported belief in modern living pterosaurs, including the long-tailed ropen. . . . Some critics of modern-pterosaur investigations find fault with imagined motivations of me and my associates, using that bulverism to avoid the real issue of whether or not all species of pterosaurs became extinct.

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Science and the ropen of Papua New Guinea

The ropen is a long-tailed flying cryptid described as pterosaur-like and reported by eyewitnesses around the world, especially in North America and in the southwest Pacific (including Australia). The word “ropen” comes from Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, where in the local language of Kovai it refers to a large nocturnal flying creature that briefly, on occasion on some nights, glows brightly.

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Are all pterosaurs 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!

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Nonfiction book on living pterosaurs (for children)

The Girl who saw a Flying Dinosaur

This is a press release on this paperback book about non-extinct “pterodactyls.”

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To report a sighting of a possible pterosaur, contact Whitcomb.

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Top of the first page of the scientific paper by Whitcomb

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This relates to concepts about the “age of dinosaurs,” but let’s put aside that concept for the moment. Have you ever encountered a statement similar to the following?

“Evolution is a proven scientific fact.”

True scientific progress requires working with details, and “evolution” (meaning Darwinian theory) has been compared to a room full of smoke, according to David Berlinski, in the documentary Expelled-No Intelligence Allowed:

One of my prevailing doctrines about Darwinian Theory is: man that thing is just a mess. It’s like looking into a room full of smoke. Nothing in the theory is precisely, clearly, carefully defined and delineated. It lacks all of the rigor one expects from Mathematical Physics. And Mathematical Physics lacks all of the rigor one expects from Mathematics. So we’re talking about a gradual decent down the level of intelligibility, until we reach Evolutionary Biology.

Unlimited Common Ancestry

We can blow away some of that smoke by being specific. Many persons assume there is only one concept of biological evolution and they just call it “evolution.” But the General Theory of Evolution mainly involves the philosophy of unlimited common ancestry, so let’s look deeper. Yes indeed it is philosophy and not science, although many persons have assumed it is pure science.

What is unlimited common ancestry? (I like to use that phrase for it is specific.) It’s when a person assumes that when two different biological organisms may have had a common ancestor then they did have one. That is not scientific, it is philosophical.

Darwin used that approach in his books On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man, and countless of his followers have continued to use that philosophy. One of the big problems is that this philosophy has been forced into our consciousness (or subconsciousness) in the name of “science.”

When I say unlimited common ancestry (we’ll use UCA), I don’t mean insistence that all living organisms must have had one common ancestor; it’s not quite that. The concept that all plant life had one common and all animal life had another common ancestor—that could fit well into the philosophy of UCA, if the evidence was convincing enough that the two basic forms of life had different original ancestors. The point of this philosophy, in that case, would be insisting we then assume that there were not more than two original ancestors. Notice the insistence.

What do we learn from Genesis? Biological details are scarce indeed, but it seems that this planet originally had many original ancestors of modern organisms, perhaps thousands of original life forms. That’s a far cry from both the insistence of UCA and the countless species that now exist in our wonderful world. Hardly anybody denies all forms of evolution, for humans themselves have caused a wide variety living things to come forth, for example: domesticated animals, including many varieties of cattle, horses, dogs, and cats. But those many kinds came about by human intelligence and from a variety or original ancestors. We did not start with mud puddles but with wonderful early forms of animals. Environment may play a part in shaping some characteristics in animal life, over long periods of time, but the shaping was done in selecting from among many of the wonderful genes that had already existed “after their kind.”

Dating Problems With Dinosaurs

I refer to carbon-14 radiometric dating problems, not dinosaur extinction from those animals hanging out in groups and avoiding serious courtship dating.

The two problems with C14 testing of dinosaur bones comes from two perspectives:

1. The dates are shocking
2. The dating has been discontinued, because of shock

Soon after the 2012 geology conference in Singapore, carbon-dating laboratories, at least in the United States, stopped testing any materials that might be dinosaur remains.

Why? It could make them look silly, for the dates always turn out to be in the range of tens of thousands of years, with radioactive carbon always present. How shocking!

Directly testing the ages of dinosaurs bones always shows them to be only a tiny fraction of the ages that we have been indoctrinated into believing. Dinosaurs really did live alongside humans, and that knowledge comes from carbon-14 dating.

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Carbon Radiometric Dating of Dinosaur Bones

Scientific methods and instrumentation have greatly improved since the earlier days of dinosaur dating, and those old assumptions are now being tested.

Carbon dated dinosaur fossils

Members of the Paleochronology group presented their findings at the 2012 Western Pacific Geophysics Meeting in Singapore, August 13-17, a conference of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS).

The Gospel and the Scientific View

The worldwide flood of Noah’s time has been accepted as a benchmark historical event by Jews and Christians for thousands of years—and similar traditions appear among the Greeks, Mesopotamians, and some American Indian tribes.

Evolutionary Boundary

Darwin’s Natural Selection actually PREVENTS ANY major biological-development change in ANY organism.

LDS Nonfiction Book

Three nonfiction books by the L.D.S. author Jonathan Whitcomb—each can take you into an astonishing world of cryptozoology, into a narrow field of the paranormal-like investigations of eyewitness accounts of apparent living pterosaurs.

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Whether you write fiction or nonfiction, understand your choices involving truth and error in human characters and in human beliefs. Consider a balance between extremes, not to ever compromise the truth but to perceive and elucidate, sometimes separate and label, the truths and errors that sometimes cause conflict between opposing camps, including conflicts between opposing human philosophies.

How refreshing to enjoy a family movie in which most of the characters are reasonably human! That balance generally comes not from the acting talent: The script writer created that balance. Compare that with a movie in which each character is firmly entrenched in one of two camps: bad guys who want to destroy the universe versus good guys who want to save it.

But bad-versus-good (which can be considered a version of “truth-versus-error”), has a competitor, in nonfiction writing in particular: competition between philosophical camps in which both sides have a mixture of truth and error. I write from experience, for both of my books relate to a contest of philosophies in American culture, and both philosophies have a mixture of truth and error.

Before delving into details about my own writings, consider what every LDS author should know about “bulverism,” a word invented by C. S. Lewis. Wikipedia quotes him thus:

You must show that a man is wrong before you start explaining why he is wrong. [Lewis recognized that as proper and that what follows is wrong.] The modern method is to assume without discussion that he is wrong and then distract his attention from this (the only real issue) by busily explaining how he became so silly.

Perhaps you have never been guilty of commiting bulverism yourself; but what if you become a victim of someone else’s bulverism? Become aware of this problem, this faulty unfair approach that avoids reasoning, and when you become a victim don’t retaliate with your own bulverism but stear back to reasoning. Plow into the subject itself, straight into it, without questioning your opponents motivations or intelligence or qualifications. At the end of the field, after finishing that straight furrow, you might take a few seconds or so to chase away the rat that’s trying to make a nest in your field; never before finishing a furrow.

I write nonfiction cryptozoology books. I rarely mention Loch Ness or Bigfoot, for I specialize in eyewitness accounts of apparent living pterosaurs. I know that’s abscure, having written two books to become the world’s most prolific writer on the subject. Truth-plus-error has become an important part of my approach, for most of my associates in living-pterosaur investigations are Young Earth Creationists, believing the universe to be not much older than six thousand years. I strongly support the truths they recognize in the Bible, including the beginning of the human family with Adam and Eve; I do not support the idea of a young universe. Writing sometimes requires delicate balancing.