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Dire Dragons: Untold Secrets of Planet Earth

by Vance Nelson
2018 / 180 pages

The old adage “never trust a book by its cover” certainly doesn’t apply to this beautiful hard bound book.

Author and photographer Vance Nelson travels around the world to document the available proof from a variety of civilizations that dinosaurs and humans lived side by side, and sometimes in the not-so-distant past. From Mayan petroglyphs to ancient Asian artifacts, the reader is invited to explore Earth and be amazed at the obvious inferences to dinosaurs of all kinds. Dragon myths play a significant part in the book, as Nelson goes to pains to show how different species of dinosaurs influenced what people envisioned dragons to be in their artwork. All of the discoveries in this book focus on verified artifacts or artwork that was made long before the field of paleontology was perfected. The intent is to prove that humans must have interacted with living dinosaurs, or else had astonishingly (read: unbelievably) good luck in guessing what these creatures looked like without ever seeing them.

Adults and kids alike will be fascinated by the photography and digital images included. This book truly is a beautiful piece of work on its own, and testifies to God’s creative work when He created dinosaurs.

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Documentary, Movie Reviews

Dragons or Dinosaurs? Creation or Evolution?

Documentary 84 minutes / 2010 Rating: 7 / 10 The Chinese lunar calendar cycle includes twelve animals, eleven of which are quite familiar to us: the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. The twelfth, however, is a mythical beast that no one has ever seen: dragon. But could we be wrong? Could the ancient Chinese be giving us a clue that dragons were once more than myth? Could they have been just as real as all the other animals in this calendar? Dragons or Dinosaurs? argues, quite convincingly, that the dragon legends present in cultures around the world are actually describing dinosaurs. The dragons are described as large, scaled, reptilian animals that can sometimes fly, breathe fire, swim or eat people whole. These are descriptions that match up well with various dinosaurs that have been discovered: the flying Pterodactyl, the massive Sauropods, or the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex. And we don’t have to rely on legends alone. Pictures of very dinosaur-like creatures can be found on pottery thousands of years old. Primitive paintings on cave walls, and detailed reliefs sculpted onto the walls of ancient temples, have been discovered that seem to indicate the artists were personally acquainted with dinosaurs. Ancient historians, and some not so ancient ones too, present us with more to consider. We can read historical accounts of dragon-encounters that seem likely to have involved dinosaurs. DARWIN VS. DRAGONS That these dragons may have been dinosaurs is not a conclusion evolutionists are willing to entertain. According to their version of events, man and dinosaur could not have lived together at the same time; they were separated by at least 60 million years. Thus the point of this presentation: these dragon myths, historical accounts, and ancient artwork are a compelling argument against the evolutionary account. As the Bible explains, God created everything over the course of just 6 days, so men and dragons (or, rather, dinosaurs) did live at the same time! This is a professionally produced, entertaining production. It gives a solid overview of the evidence, providing viewers with an idea of how very much there is. CAUTIONS The only caution concerns the DVD's special features. They include a 28-minute mini-documentary called The Faith... behind the Science, which is awkwardly interrupted midway through with a 6-minute ad for Cloud Ten’s other films, including premillennial dramas like the Left Behind series. This jarring and quite annoying insertion ruins this mini-documentary, which would have otherwise been an interesting bonus to the main feature. CONCLUSION So skip the special features and this will be a fun film for families with older children – those with the required attention span for an 84-minute feature. And it is an absolute must-see for anyone who grew up devouring every book they could find about dragons or dinosaurs. There is also a book of the same title that may be of interest (especially since some copies include a copy of the documentary on DVD). ...