Modern Pterosaurs?

**Skeptical** · Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:23 pm Post subject: Modern Pterosaurs?

I don't put much stock in modern sightings of thunderbirds and such. Every once in a while, though, you run across a story that at least makes you wonder. Here's a clip of an old guy who had an interesting encounter on New Guinea back during WWII.

The possibility of there being pterosaurs in the South Pacific would seem remote. Still there have been a slow steady stream of similar reports coming out of this same area for many years. Are they all just frigate birds or could there be another undocumented large bird patrolling the skies?

S
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Ataraxik · Posted: Mon Sep 17, 2007 8:03 pm Post subject:

I think that's one of the faked videos used surrepticiously by creationists to help in one of their anti-science attack vectors: that dinosaurs are not extinct and coexist with humans, therefore evolution is a bunch of hooey, therefore God rules, or some such nonsense.
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Steve · Joined: 31 Aug 2007 Posts: 93

**Somerville Changeling** · Joined: 09 Sep 2007 Posts: 198 Location: Central Texas

Actually, most young earth creationists I know don't believe that dinosaurs survived the flood. That Biblical event was not simply a flood but the equivalent of a pole shift with major changes to the climate. The young earth creationists merely assert that humans and dinosaurs coexisted before the flood. Their science isn't totally loopy, it's just fringe and not accepted by most scientists. Perhaps Tipler is right in that atheism has so warped science that scientists won't look at the data? Fort took a similar view regarding the culture of science, but from a totally non religious angle.

Me, I'm a creationist but since I wasn't there, I have no preference for old earth or young earth. I don't have to mesh all my facts into one impregnable world view. I do find evidence of catastrophism compelling, especially in relation to the Mount St. Helens eruption, but it is enough for me to know that humans exist and that dinosaurs once did.

I'm also not opposed to change over time, but I tend to support McFadden's quantum evolution over neo-Darwinian models of change. Natural selection always seemed unnatural to me, a theory developed before we knew much about genetics and how far reality can be reduced to natural forces.

That said, there are inexplicable extinctions that simply don't make sense, which means we don't fully understand why different species went extinct. The giant ground sloth should have survived in South America and smaller dinosaurs could have survived in the Congo to re-evolve into the cryptids searched for today.

When I hear Bigfoot hunters tout Gigantopithecus, I point out the lack of fossils in North America for recent native primates, let alone apes. There are only a few fossils like Teilhardina found in North America, though recent unidentified South Texas primate teeth are interesting. So, a giant ground sloth makes more sense to me as a source for Bigfoot sightings -- if the source is actually biological.

IMHO, there's a Fortean explanation for pterosaur sightings. The animals haven't survived, but the image of the pterosaur has survived. Whether that image is projected from our subconscious in a paranormal sense, whether that image arises from a macro nonlocality event that links a parallel world where they still exist with our own world (not the actual creature, but a leak of photons that allow us to see a creature?) or whether it's Keel's Ultraterrestrial whatsis temporarily creating cryptids remains to be seen.

I just think that it's not always misidenfication. Mothman is not always a sandhill crane and a pterosaur is not always a bird subjected to deevolution in the mind of the witness. Yet, I tend to think that we'll see many fake photos and videos because people like those sort of hoaxes. They're often fun to watch and take semi-seriously and take less effort than traipsing around state game lands setting traps for unwary hikers.
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**Skeptical** · Posted: Wed Sep 19, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject:

Here's a pic of a frigate bird. The silhouette does look like it would be comfortable in Doyle's Lost World:

Now, that may explain some of the sightings, but how does a guy with thousands of hours of flight time misjudge a bird to have the wingspan of a small airplane? I don't doubt that such misconceptions do occur but that would be akin to sighting a car the size of a tractor trailer (no Hummer jokes please). What kind of brain bubble is required to be that dramatically incorrect?

S
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“...If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers." -- Thomas Pynchon

Steve · Joined: 31 Aug 2007 Posts: 93

Ataraxik · Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:38 am Post subject:

The putative 1924 pterosaur looks fake. The wings don't move, which is normal enough, but the tail action looks mechanical. The tail can move, but with a reason -to stabilize or to turn in flight, and it is rarely moved in any bird independently of the wings, that is, flight maneuvers involve adjustments with both the tail and wings. The pterosaur in the video looks more like a kite.

Whether creationists had anything to do with popularizing the video is moot, but pterosaurs are definitely high on their anti-evolution agenda. Here find one of many examples on the internet:

This is an executive overview of pterosaur research that is being presented as part of Project Pterosaur, a joint venture of Fellowship University and the Fairlight Institute, whose goal is to mount an expedition to bring back living pterosaurs so that they may testify against Evolutionism and to the Lord's Creation.

http://objectiveministries.org/creation/pterosaurs.html#HISTORY

Adjunct: Project Pterosaur:

Why Look For Living Pterosaurs?

Kids love pterosaurs! Once Project Pterosaur is complete, children's eyes will be opened to the wonder of Creation.
Evolutionists have engaged in a propaganda campaign to trick the public into falsely believing that the Earth is billions of years old and that many animals which lived side-by-side with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden actually died millions of years before humans were created (or "evolved" in their twisted view.) By finding and displaying living examples of what the Evolutionists claim is impossible, we will sow the seeds of Evolutionism doubt, thereby making the public receptive to the truth of the Bible.

http://objectiveministries.org/creation/projectpterosaur.html
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stareater · Joined: 26 Feb 2008 Posts: 26

**Skeptical** · Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 7:16 pm Post subject:

Thunderbird stories seem to be surfacing more here in recent months. I don't know that I put a lot of stock in the tales though. I remember getting into a rather heated debate a couple years back with a guy who said he encountered a bird with a 20-foot wingspan in a remote section of Pennsylvania forest. He was very adamant about what he thought he saw but I'm still not convinced he (or any of us) would be able to estimate wingspan based on a momentary observation of an unknown creature seen from an unknown distance.

I hate to throw these cases into the bubbling cauldron of high strangeness - but I doubt a physical bird of the size reported could go undiscovered - especially in the Eastern United States.

S
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“...If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers." -- Thomas Pynchon