Jonathan Whitcomb, of the Bixby Highlands neighborhood of Long Beach, has just had his nonfiction book published: the second edition of Live Pterosaurs in America. Although it sounds like fiction, the title comes from years of eyewitness sighting reports of flying creatures whose descriptions strongly suggest pterosaurs, commonly called by Americans “pterodactyls.”
Although standard models of biology include the assumption that all species of dinosaurs and pterosaurs became extinct millions of years ago, that is not a proven fact. Whitcomb maintains that human experiences should prevail in bringing to pass the eventual scientific discovery of several species of pterosaur, including at least one Rhamphorhynchoid.
Whitcomb explored a remote island in Papua New Guinea, in 2004, interviewing many eyewitnesses of the ropen, a nocturnal flying creature that is described like a long-tailed pterosaur. After publishing his findings, Whitcomb received many emails from Americans who had seen similar flying creatures in North America, including California, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, South Carolina, and other states.
According to the Amazon.com page for this cryptozoology book:
Nocturnal pterosaurs have always lived among us, but hidden by something. Enter now the realm of a new branch of cryptozoology, a branch overshadowed by the dogma of a “universal extinction.” How did scientists miss living pterosaurs? Get the answers here, hidden secrets about how these amazing flying creatures of the night have gone mostly unreported: Until recently, almost nobody would listen to eyewitnesses; but for the past seven years many of them have been interviewed by the author of this book.