According to Genesis, animal species avoided extinction (during the Great Flood of Noah) on the Ark. Since nothing in Genesis gives any hint of extinction before human times, it seems that dinosaurs and pterosaurs also should have been saved on the Ark. For those who believe in ancient extinctions of all dinosaurs and pterosaurs, this might throw doubt on the Flood itself. But there is an answer, an answer that is surprising to some people and shocking to others: Dinosaurs and pterosaurs did survive the Flood, did live in human times, and some of them still live in remote areas. Let’s consider the idea of living pterosaurs (often called pterodactyls).

 

Who were the first Americans to search for living pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea? Not explorers from National Geographic. Creationists, yes those Bible-believing Christians often labeled “fundamentalists” were the first ones exploring the remote jungles of Umboi Island and elsewhere. But before dismissing the work of those with the label of “fundamentalist,” consider just the work involved, not the supposed motivations of the workers. Look at the fruits of the efforts of creationist living-pterosaur investigators.

 

Carl Baugh founded the Creation Evidence Museum in Glen Rose, Texas, in 1984. About ten years later, he took his first trip to Papua New Guinea, interviewing natives with the help of Jim Blume (a Baptist missionary and a pilot). He returned to the islands later in the 1990’s but his associate, Paul Nation, continued the expeditions into the 21st Century: expeditions for living pterosaurs.

 

Paul and his son, Nathanael Nation, interviewed Umboi Islanders in 2002, but they failed to see the creature they were investigating: the ropen. What does this creature have to do with the Flood of Noah? Creationists believe that all basic kinds of land creatures living before the Flood of Noah were preserved on the Ark. Under the Genesis model of life forms, this would include creatures that most text books say became extinct millions of years ago, in particular, dinosaurs and pterosaurs. One of them, apparently, may have been the ropen, a pterosaur or pterosaur-like creature now on Umboi Island and probably in other areas of Papua New Guinea.

 

What about all those fossils of dinosaurs and pterosaurs? Text books seem to consider them as evidence for extinctions millions of years ago. Guess what: fossils are formed, at least in many instances, after the organisms are preserved in sediments; in other words, the creatures died and were buried in water. What about dating methods? Dating methods that might establish ages of millions of years cannot be used on sediments, so those fossils are not actually directly dated to be so old.

 

What about the Mesozoic layer? Aren’t pterosaurs found in the old sediments, never in sediments younger than millions of years old? Actually it’s backwards: sediments are dated at least partially by the fossils found therein. If a layer contains a pterosaur fossil, that layer is dated as Mesozoic (not the other way around). If a pterosaur became fossilized a few centuries ago, and a team from National Geographic discovered it, the strata would be incorrectly dated at many millions of years old. That’s because of the assumption that pterosaurs became extinct millions of years ago.

Creationist Perspective

On Living Pterosaurs

How the Biblical Account of the Flood

of Noah Relates to Live Pterosaurs

“Blur Function Diameter” page of the

Paiva report on the Paul Nation video

See book reviews by Jonathan Whitcomb, including (but not limited to) books related to cryptozoology, Creation (Bible-based) and strange lights in Australia and Papua New Guinea)

 

An apparently live pterosaur was seen flying over a highway near a swamp in South Carolina. The eyewitness agreed to give her name: Susan Wooten.

 

“Pterosaur Book Reviews” is mostly on books on living pterosaurs and dinosaurs (but one is orthodox-evolutionist).

 

Contrary to statements of some supporters of neo-Darwinism, Intelligent Design (I.D.) is not a program of Creationism; neither was it created by creationists to promote their opinions. The documentary film Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed demonstrates how free speech and natural expressions of opinion have been denied to scientists and writers, unjustly.

For more about the living

pterosaur investigations

in Papua New Guinea, see:

 

Mysteries of

Papua New Guinea

 

Cryptozoology and the

ropen of Papua New Guinea

 

 

 

 

 

For Bible references to

living pterosaurs, see:

 

Flying Dragons

 

See also:

 

Pterosaurs Still Living

(bottom of page)

 

 

Although living-pterosaur research still seems to be outside the area of regular

biology, it is solidly in the

area of cryptozoology. In

late 2006 and early 2007, separate expeditions resulted

in video footage of apparent

bioluminescent lights that

were confirmed by natives

to be made by creatures that

descriptions correlate with

Rhamphorhynchoid (long-

tailed) pterosaurs. (See above)

 

So why do we see no pterosaurs flying around like we see birds and bats? With all the fossils, they seem to have been common in the past. Creationists believe that most species of pterosaurs and dinosaurs may have become extinct within the past few thousand years. Some of those extinctions, at least, may have been from human interference. That should not be so shocking, for humans now are involved (usually inadvertently) in present-day extinctions of other kinds of living things. Those that have survived are now rare, for they avoid humans.

 

So the Genesis account is not contrary to carefully considered scientific principles, at least to creationists. Then what is the conflict between religion and science? According to the book Searching for Ropens, by Jonathan Whitcomb (not closely related to John C. Whitcomb, co-author of The Genesis Flood), the conflict seems to be one of philosophy, or a conflict between Naturalism philosophy and Creationist philosophy: foundational axioms.

 

Critics of Whitcomb and his associates say that living pterosaurs would not throw doubt on “evolution.” Any living dinosaur or living pterosaur would be an exception, not proving anything, according to those “evolutionists.” But according to Whitcomb’s book, the General Theory of Evolution itself came into popularity partially because of fossils of dinosaurs and pterosaurs and the assumption that all of them had become extinct millions of years ago. Any living pterosaur should undermine, at least partially, the foundation of the belief in Darwin’s General Theory of Evolution, according to Whitcomb. And if discoveries of living pterosaurs prove nothing to “evolutionists,” how scientific is “evolution?” It is a philosophy that is oblivious to scientific evidence, not “science.” Whitcomb’s point is that “molecules-to-man” evolution (G.T.E.) is a philosophy, an assumption used by some people.

 

Getting back to the ropen searchers, Whitcomb explored part of the South-Central area of Umboi Island, late in 2004. Garth Guessman and David Woetzel followed within a few weeks, exploring more in the North. The book was published in 2006, much of it about those two expeditions to Umboi Island.

 

Paul Nation returned to Papua New Guinea late in 2006, but not to Umboi: to a remote mountainous area on the mainland. There he witnessed many “ropen-lights,” yes ropens are said to be bioluminescent, if being pterosaurs was not shocking enough. At any rate, Nation videotaped two of the lights that the local people call “indava,” but which Nation, Whitcomb, and other investigators believe are the same basic kind of creatures as the ropens. Nation videotaped two of the lights as they were about to take off into the air: no form discernible, only the glowing lights. The video footage was later copied by Whitcomb and given to a missile defense physicist for analysis. The scientific report concluded that the two lights were not produced by any fires, meteors, airplanes, camera artifacts, or hoax.

 

Early in 2007, an expedition team headed by members of the Mandt Brothers Productions explored many areas of the Southwest Pacific, after consulting with Whitcomb. This may have been the first ropen expedition not led by American creationists. Hunting for living pterosaurs is no longer a cryptozoologist-creationist-only activity. Explorers of any philosophy may search for ropens.