Reply to Houston Chronicle

Mystery of Marfa Lights But “What’s going on in Marfa”

got only half an inch below the

surface; the writer assumed there

was no bedrock to the idea of a

biological interpretation of Marfa

Lights, and so the opinions of Mr.

Bunnell and Mr. Stephan were

taken as authoritative rejections of

interpretations involving biology,

at least with “dinosaurs.” What’s wrong with that? Neither

Bunnell nor Stephans is anything

like a biologist. But the staff writer

for the Houston Chronicle was not outside the common journalistic

practice of accepting the opinions

of one or two scientists and then

taking a simplistic view of it for

“science,” avoiding complications. Major newspapers rarely take any

position directly opposing a basic

cultural tradition of their society. It

comes as no surprise that a staff

writer for the Houston Chronicle

would avoid giving credence to the idea that “dinosaurs” are flying in

the respectable state of Texas. But that writer seems to have gone

out of the way to point out those

things that I, Jonathan Whitcomb,

have not experienced personally,

avoiding almost everything that I

have experienced. No mention is

made of my book, Live Pterosaurs

in America, even though the press

release that elicited the Houston

Chronicle article is based upon

that book. Even the press release itself is not

even acknowledged as anything

more than an “email.” But the

book goes into details about

eyewitness sightings of apparent

pterosaurs in many states. That is

what Ms Feldman should have

read, but then she could have

gotten into trouble if she had gone

to that extreme and acknowledged

the possibility of living pterosaurs. Regardless, Bunnell and Stephan

both acknowledge that there is still a deep mystery in Marfa. Why Pterosaurs? I know that I could have gotten a

much better reception from the

major media by writing a press

release about the possibility of

barn owls causing Marfa Lights.

But this is a time for putting

politics in the back seat; both Mr.

Bunnell and I have rejected that

owl-interpretation for the type of

mystery lights he calls “CE-III.”

Claudia Feldman uses the word

“pterosaur” only once; yet

“dinosaurs,” five times. But I

mention “dinosaur” as what

eyewitnesses sometimes say, and

Feldman gives no hint that there

has ever been any eyewitness of

any creature like either one.

Her article puts my qualifications

into question, emphasizing that I

have seen neither Marfa Lights nor living pterosaurs. But for seven

years eyewitnesses of the apparent pterosaurs have contacted me

about their encounters, and some

of those encounters have been in

the respectable state of Texas. So

how am I qualified to write about

the possibility of live pterosaurs

flying in southwest Texas? I

represent eyewitnesses of those

creatures, and I am the only one

who can compare descriptions

with data from other accounts

from around the country and

around the world, including those

encounters involving flying lights. In a Google search, use both

“Whitcomb” and “eyewitness.”

Notice how many thousands of

results are available with reference

to the concept of living pterosaurs. I don’t know if Marfa Lights are

made by creatures closely related

to the ropen of Papua New Guinea

(I am almost certain that some of

the lights are made by some kind

of bioluminescent creature). But if

I am unqualified to write about the

eyewitness reports of pterosaur-

like creatures, then what other

cryptozoologist anywhere has been contacted, and received relevant

reports, from five continents? Cryptozoology Book Jonathan Whitcomb’s nonfiction book on living pterosaurs in the

United States of America---that

book was never mentioned in

the Houston Press article.

But Chapter Six, “Marfa Lights

of Texas,” gives detailed points

on why this new, albeit

astonishing, cryptozoological

explanation is reasonable.

Jonathan Whitcomb’s reply to the newspaper article “What’s going on in Marfa?” by Claudia Feldman

First, Claudia Feldman’s article

in a mid-December, 2010, edition

of the Houston Chronicle, rose

above, far above, the sarcasm of

a blog post by Richard Connelly

of the Houston Press.

Feldman devotes much of her

article to the work of two Texan

scientists, James Bunnell and

Karl Stephan, who have spent

much time investigating the more

mysterious lights that Connelly

has assumed are never anything

more than car headlights. The Houston Chronicle article

dug beneath the surface with a

scientific perspective of two of

the experienced scientists who

have been involved in the Marfa

Lights investigations. Better than Houston Press Blog Post