Live Pterosaurs in America: Sightings of Apparent Pterosaurs in the United States by Jonathan David Whitcomb, was published in July 2009.
Jonathan Whitcomb (above), in response to Cryptomundo’s August 19th posting on his new statements regarding pterosaurs soaring over America, has forwarded the following comment (in italics, at end).
Whitcomb, on his Amazon page, notes: “Unlike Searching for Ropens, Live Pterosaurs in America is a pure cryptozoology book, leaving the evolution-creation controversy to mostly only a part of the appendix. Only a reader who is both sensitive to controversy and opposed to Biblical creation might take limited offense at this limited part of LPA.”
Whitcomb’s current reply to this week’s Cryptomundo posting and nearly 40 comments is given in full below, without edits:
What a lively discussion! I think many of the comments are thoughtful. To get back to Loren’s introduction, I am not closely related to John C. Whitcomb, but very-strange-to-tell: I was the founding editor of the “Coleman World” genealogy newsletter of the 1980’s: Maybe I am related to Loren. Strange!
Let’s get back to the 1400 Americans, the estimate I made of the credible eyewitnesses of living pterosaurs in the United States.
The 1400-estimate does not include those who have obvious mental health issues or a purpose to lie. Those do exist, but not many of them have contacted me for detailed interviewing. It also does not include the more-vague sightings that could be birds.
I’m a relative newcomer to cryptozoology, compared with Loren. Before my expedition in Papua New Guinea (late-2004), I put up a few web pages; almost nobody knew I existed. But that is when I started getting emails and phone calls from Americans who told me that they had seen a live pterosaur. I had not yet written any book or gone on any expedition or been noticed by any “real” cryptozoologist.
To be brief, eyewitnesses kept coming to me from 2004 until the present, one every few weeks or so, mostly Americans. (But before my expedition there were very few, about two, who initiated contact with me.)
These people are usually more afraid of telling people about what they saw than they were afraid of what they saw. And about (very roughly) 2-out-of-3 are afraid that they can no longer have full confidence in their senses.
So only about 25%-40% of what I call credible eyewitnesses of pterosaurs are even capable of talking to anybody about what they saw. And of those who are capable of it, I guess only about 20% maximum actually telephone or email a cryptozoologist. From the responses I have received, I estimate maybe 100, mimimum, have contacted a cryptozoologist about what they have seen (sightings: 1980 to the present). And most of them have found and chosen someone other than me to talk with. That’s how I got “1400.”
And I believe 1400 is a conservative estimate.
Jonathan David Whitcomb
Why not all pterosaurs were huge, they apparently were very visible predators. Also, unlike the sightings being documented as “pterosaurs” that tend to match early reconstructions of leathery-winged pterosaurs, new evidence exists pointing to extinct pterosaurs being covered in fuzz and such, as illustrated. ~ Loren
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