Raising the Truth

Blessed is that man that maketh the LORD his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. Psalm 40:4

(Editors note: Unless specified otherwise, the use of the terms “Derosas” or “Derosa family” are in reference to Pete Derosa and his family. Tom Derosa is of no relation to Pete Derosa.)

“Dave Babbitt, a retired surveyor, had been volunteering his skills to lay out a “grid” at Dr. Carl Baugh’s fossil site in northwestern Colorado for years. Babbitt left his home in Michigan on Wednesday, May 16th [2001] … hoping to reach the dig site in Colorado by Monday. He made such good time, however, that he was able to make it all the way to a trailer park in Massadona, Colorado… by Saturday the 19th. Having a day to spare, Babbitt decided to attend church Sunday morning at a small Baptist church in Dinosaur, [Colorado] he had been to in the past.”^{1 ,2}

May 20, 2001 “On that particular Sunday the pastor was recovering from a recent heart surgery and had asked a young man from the area to be the guest speaker for the day. The young man’s name was Dana Forbes.”³ Forbes mentioned that he had found bones on the property and wanted to use them for God’s glory. Babbitt spoke with the Forbes afterwards, shared why he was in the area and asked if he might come and visit the Forbes later in the day. “Arriving back at the campground at Massadona following the service, he was surprised to find the Forbes family having lunch at the adjoining restaurant. In what was not a pre-arranged meeting, Babbitt ended up joining the Forbes at their table-when in walked Dr. Baugh, who had also arrived earlier than expected for his dig. The introductions were made and following lunch they all headed to the Forbes’ to see the bones. In seeming answer to the Forbes’ prayer, a vital connection had been made.”¹

Dave Babbitt states that while at the Forbes they saw the one large femur and some other smaller exposed fossils. Dr. Baugh told them that he couldn’t help them develop their site but he recommended they work with his paleontologist Joe Taylor.³ “Being one of the few men in the Creationist world with experience in dinosaur excavations, Dr. Baugh, of Paluxy River “human” footprints fame (or infamy, depending on your point-of-view), had been running his digs in northwest Colorado for at least six years. During that time, in addition to Babbitt, he had assembled a team of “diggers,” including top equipment-and-logistics man, Don Yaeger, and expert fossil excavator/preparatory, Joe Taylor.”¹

Dr. Baugh and Dave Babbitt traveled down the road from the Forbes to Dr. Baugh’s dig site. As the regular members of Joe Taylor’s Mt Blanco Independent Fossil Excavators Team arrived, they greeted one another and set up camp. Among the long time members were Dave Hall and his two sons, Phillip and Jordan from Keller, Texas; Pastor Burton Stokes from San Antonio, Texas; David, Linda and Chantell Lines from Denton, Texas; and Don and Benetta Yaeger from Cowetta, Oklahoma. This group of volunteers donate their professional and lay skills to promote the Creation message by excavating bones. Most of the team have been digging together from 8-10 years. The team usually digs twice a year at this site. They schedule their digs for the months of May and September to avoid the bugs and the heat.

Arriving with Joe Taylor were the DeRosa boys, Peter and Mark, and closely following in a separate vehicle were Pete, Linda and Leah DeRosa accompanied by Don Ensign. Don Ensign was then employed by Joe Taylor at his Mt. Blanco Fossil Museum in Crosbyton, Texas. Introductions were made and the new guests were heartily welcomed by the veteran team members. The DeRosas were introduced to the Mt. Blanco Team as guests of Joe Taylor on their first ever dinosaur dig.¹ The DeRosas had traveled from their home in Crystal River Florida to Crosbyton, Texas to caravan with Joe and Don to Colorado.

The team welcomed several other new guests as well. Angela Hudson and her two sons, Cy and Levi had traveled from Indiana on the invitation of the dig site property owner. Angela had recently gone through a painful divorce on biblical grounds. She was looking for healthy Christian fellowship and encouragement for her two sons. When her friend invited Angela to attend a real dinosaur dig with Dr. Carl Baugh , Angela thought this would be a great experience for her sons. Angela was new to camping and as she tried to figure out how to set up her brand new pop-up camper for the first time, she became a memorable member of the team.

That next evening, May 21st, Dr. Carl Baugh called the Forbes and said he had spoken to the paleontologist at his site. The dig paleontologist, Joe Taylor, had said he would be willing to look at the Forbes site. Taylor and Dr. Baugh were also accompanied to the Forbes’ ranch by Don Ensign, Don Yaeger, Pastor Burton Stokes. Taylor also extended a special invitation to the Pete DeRosa family to come along. Taylor hesitated to invite the DeRosas as they were having dinner around the campfire, but thought that they might enjoy coming along.

Once at the Forbes’, the group looked at the various bone sites Dana Forbes had discovered. Dana Forbes was not at home when the group arrived so Brenda Forbes gave the tour. “Brenda began to make conversation with one of the young men from Florida. [She was] amazed to find out that he and his family, the Pete DeRosas, had connections with Tom DeRosa (who had received [their] letter through Ken) and that he had actually asked them to keep their eye open for us. It couldn’t have been orchestrated more perfectly!”⁴

A meeting was set up to discuss the Forbes’ vision for their land and to find out if Taylor would be able to help. Don Ensign asked Taylor if he could be present at this meeting. Ensign states: “Pete DeRosa was also at the meeting. Dana and Brenda Forbes shared with us further their desire to use the fossil resources of their property for the Christian/creationist cause. Dana showed us some of the fossils he had discovered on the property. Joe expressed some interest but was reserved as most of the fossils were parts of sauropod bones that were common and difficult and time consuming to excavate. He had a number of years of experience excavating fossil sauropod bones at Dr. Baugh’s dig site.”⁵

“At this point in the conversation I asked if Dana Forbes had other fossils that he hadn’t shown us. Forbes got up from the group and left for a moment and returned with several other fossil bones. He handed them to Joe Taylor. Taylor almost immediately identified one of the bones as a vertebra of an Allosaurus, a theropod dinosaur. This was the first mention of an Allosaurus on the Forbes property. This fossil changed the tenor of the conversation as it heightened Taylor’s interest. The excavation of the Allosaur remains would be much easier and probably more cost effective/profitable than digging out the gigantic sauropods bones. ”⁵

Taylor’s account of this meeting from an Oct. 13, 2002 emails states “We looked at three sites Dana had found. One was a big sauropod in hard, hard rock, as well as another huge one in hard hard sandstone and the “Brown Dirt” site that later turned out to be the allosaur. Later [inside the Forbes’ home] Dana laid some vertebrae parts on the couch to have me ID them. I told [Dana], ‘Well there’s your money. That’s an allosaur.’”⁶

“Joe also expressed to Dana and the group at that time and later his reluctance to get involved in another dinosaur excavation venture as a day laborer. This led to a discussion of how a partnership might be formed to benefit all parties.”⁵ Pete DeRosa joined in the conversation and told the group that he could get the financial backing for the project . It was decided that Joe Taylor would be the chief excavator and restorer and Dana Forbes would provide the land. “A defacto partnership agreement was formed between the Forbes, Taylor and [Pete] DeRosa at that time. This agreement continued through the next dig in September 2001. Again [that evening] Joe Taylor expressed very strongly he had no interest in being a day laborer but that he would have a percentage of the fossil sales found on the Forbes property. This was the verbal agreement between Forbes, Taylor and DeRosas. I did encourage Joe Taylor at that time to get this agreement as a written contract but this did not happen.”⁵

Pete DeRosa called Tom DeRosa from the Forbes home and told him that by God’s providence he had found the Forbes. As they marveled over the incredible news they made plans to incorporate dinosaur digs at the Forbes into the CSI mission. Pete DeRosa did not mention that he had represented his own private interests at that meeting with the Forbes. Tom DeRosa knew nothing of the conversation Pete DeRosa had with the group that evening about personally receiving a percentage from the dinosaurs excavated at the Forbes.⁷

The Forbes state in an August 29th letter to the attorney working with CSI their understanding of the arrangement between Joe, Pete and themselves. “Joe Taylor would be the project director, coordinator, paleontologist. It was very important to us that he handled the dig, it still is he is a, if not the, premiere creationist paleontologist. His restoration work is sought in both circles. We trust him to handle the site in a scientific and godly manner…We felt at the time that Pete was a representative of CSI. We remember though that he indicated that if CSI was not able to back the project mayber others would…We were not sure how the details were going to be worked out, but it seemed like it was going to be three-sided: The diggers (Joe Taylor), the backers, CSI (through the efforts of Pete DeRosa and Tom DeRosa), and us as landowners.”

By the time Terry Beh arrived the following Saturday, the team had been digging for almost a week at Dr. Baugh’s site. Taylor had invited Beh to participate in these digs the previous year. Beh describes the scene when he arrives, “Interestingly, however, from the time I got there rather than talk of Dr. Baugh’s dig, the “buzz” around camp was all about a new find on the “Forbes Ranch,” as phrases like “more dinosaur bones,” “large Sauropod,” and “Allosaurus” circulated freely among the diggers. Though I did not have the opportunity to visit this new find at the time, it was clear that another Christian family in the area had discovered a cache of dino bones on their property-most intriguingly, with the possibility of an allosaur.”¹

There was also a group of NASA scientists at the site, friends of Dr. Baugh, who were doing their own separate research. One day after several failed attempts they successfully transmitted a NASA web cast from the site. They hada relationship with Dr. Baugh and had been on several digs. According to Dave Hall and Don Yaeger they were interested in the scintillator Don developed. The group gave the NASA scientist casts that Joe has made from some of the bones found at this site.((Photos of the May 2001 Baugh Dig from nasamike.com))

The team also unearthed a giant fossilized tree. It was especially memorable because when Hudson saw the team hand shoveling and wheel barrowing dirt load after load she asked why they didn’t just rent a digger. Dr. Baugh told Hudson that was expensive and he didn’t have the funds to do that. Hudson wrote a check to Dr. Baugh’s Creation Evidence Museum for $3,500 to rent an excavator.⁸ With the large equipment they moved a lot of dirt, developed a road up the hill to the site and were able to excavate a fossil tree which has proven important to Dr. Baugh’s museum. During the dig the DeRosa family extended an invitation to Hudson and her boys to come visit them in Florida.

By the end of the dig Hudson decided camping wasn’t for her and she donated her camper, she had purchased May 23rd, specifically for the dig, to Dr. Baugh and her other camping gear to other members of the team.⁸ Hudson started back to Indiana in her Hummer looking forward to her visit to Florida and the hope of good Christian fellowship for her boys. The other members of the team bid each other farewell until they would meet again in September 2001.

1. Terry Beh’s Allosaurus Article[↩]
2. Map of Northwestern Colorado near dig areas[↩]
3. Dave Babbitt e-mail testimony 1/15/03[↩]
4. Letter from Dana Forbes to his uncle[↩]
5. Allosaur Report by Donald D. Ensign 11/21/02[↩]
6. Email from Joe Taylor to ICR Radio dated 10/13/02[↩]
7. January 2005 video interview with Tom DeRosa[↩]
8. Letter from Dr. Carl Baugh dated 6/2/03[↩]