neptunesdolphins | TO SEE OR NOT TO SEE: PTEROSAURS (Reply)

In pondering my encounters with “Living Pterosaurs” (Note 1), I discovered that some people see them while others in the same area do not. Why is that? Is viewing reality a subjective thing? Is it a matter of “if you are not looking for it, you do not see it?”

Jonathan David Whitcomb, who is considered the expert on “Living Pterosaurs” claims that people have been trained not to see. He explains in “The Girl Who Saw a Flying Dinosaur,” “refuse to believe in something and you will not be able to see it. In other words, if a thing is never looked for, it might never be found.”

People in modern western societies are inheritors of two main streams of thought. The Industrial Revolution spawned Marxism and Positivism. Steeped in economic materialism, Marxism stated that this would end the mastery of humans over their environment. Meanwhile Positivism applied the scientific method to studying society. Both movements lack a transcendental basis of truth. Moreover, they stripped the world of its inner and divine mysteries.

The noted occult writer, John Michael Greer offers his perspective in “Monsters.” He says that industrial society deliberately made no room for monsters. The reason for this was that monsters reveal the reality of the impossible. (Note 2.) Greer continues, “These entities have and still have, a reality that goes beyond the limits of human imagination and human psychology. For most people nowadays, such ideas would be terrifying.” By embracing rational materialism, the experience of mystery and otherness is rejected.

People’s actual experiences of “winged unknown beings” run counter to the world of scientific thought. (Note 3.) In reviewing people’s experiences, Lon Strickler in “Winged Cryptids” noted that people first felt fear. Furthermore, their experiences with these entities had pushed them to the edge of their capacity as humans. One witness told Strickler, “Accepting this was not easy as it negated all that I previously thought I knew.” Strickler, who maintains the “Phantoms & Monsters” blog, believed that these beings come from two worlds colliding in interdimensional reality. As evidence, he cites how people often complain of jet lag after their encounters.

The collection of experiences that Strickler details describes the same phenomena that Polytheists experience when encountering the Gods. The winged entities are attracted to certain persons or appear at certain times and places. Moreover, they look deeply into people’s souls. One witness reported, “And I’ll never forget the eyes. They were piercing and felt as if they looked right into my soul. It was an extremely very deep feeling.”

Cryptozoologists Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman wrote in “Creatures of the Outer Edge,” “Elusiveness and ambiguity seem implicit in the manifestations. They refuse to be understood.” The authors continue, “Borderland phenomena do not recognize boundaries. If we insist upon containing them, defining their territory, we are only fooling ourselves.” (This could be said of Atheists who insist that the Gods are other than what They are.) What Clark and Coleman are describing are liminal places.

Whitcomb reports in “Live Pterosaurs in America” about a woman in George who saw a “Living Pterosaur.” She said, “The world is now totally different. I feel blessed that God has allowed me to see this creature that should not be here.” For her, the world is now filled with wonder.

My experiences with “Living Pterosaurs” left me filled with awe and fear. I did feel in the presence of something otherworldly. Even though, I was young, I still ponder my experience. It remains a mystery for me to keep.

Notes:

Note 1. “Living Pterosaur” is put into scare quotes because the creature is not supposed to exist.

Note 2. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, said, “When you eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

Note 3. Doyle also noted “Our ideas must be as broad of Nature if they are to interpret Nature.”