1. Whitcomb’s post on this book has an explanation for the word duah. It may be just a mistake by an English-speaking researcher. The correct version of the name may be duwas.
2. Another problem has nothing to do with the correct version or spelling of the name of duah. It’s about the idea that this is a different kind of creature, not the same species perhaps as the ropen. I find fault with the concept.

Newton’s book on cryptozoology was published early in 2005 and the entry for the ropen was probably written long before any information was available from the 2004 expeditions by Whitcomb, Guessman, and Woetzel. Even Paul Nation, if I recall correctly, has shown doubts about the two names referring to two different kinds of flying creature, and that was many years ago.

Here is a better idea about the duwas and the ropen. They are just two names, in different village languages, for the same flying creature of the night. I think that’s Paul Nation’s position and he has explored in Papua New Guinea more than any other American that I know of, looking for the bioluminescent pterosaurs, as we believe they are.

I think that the reason this idea of two sizes of ropens has been hanging around so long is that the earlier researchers, William Gibbons and Karl Shuker, are generally respected, at least in their own separate circles, and they may be more educated than some of the explorers of more recent years. But their anonymous sources may have been mostly missionaries in Papua New Guinea, and we don’t seem to have any quotations from any interviews that were conducted. Third hand, or even fourth hand, accounts may have been involved, who knows?

Pterosaurs in Philippines and Near Indonesia

The two men were flying a Britten-Norman Islander, past the halfway point from Broome, Australia, to Bali, Indonesia, at 6500 feet, when they nearly collided with a large flying creature.

Are Modern Pterosaurs Bioluminescent?

There is a species other than a pterosaur that is purported to have intrinsic bioluminescent capability, namely the common barn owl, Tyto Alba.

Old Biologist; New Pterosaur Insight

If my information is correct, it was in the early 1930′s when Cheesman was baffled by flying lights just below the top of a nearby ridge deep in the mainland of New Guinea. She wrote about the mysterious lights in her book The Two Roads of Papua; the publishing date was 1935.

x

This may be the hot topic now, so I’ll pitch in. This old looking photo shows a few Union soldiers and a large pterosaur that we’re led to believe was shot by those men. The big question is whether or not this is an accurate version of a real photographic recording during the Civil War. I’ll be honest, I don’t know.

I read a comment somewhere, on some forum thread, about this photo. Somebody said that if some soldiers really had seen a giant pterosaur then it would have gotten into the newspapers. I disagree. Back then, newspaper editors would not take hold of a monster story when there were so many war stories to write about. Some huge bird would not have been nearly as interesting as how the latest battle had gone.

I think this photo has been around a long time. I also think I know something about why people might not believe it’s a real photo. I mean in recent years. People just assume it’s another fake. For years now we’re been bombarded by fakery in photos and in videos, so it makes it easy to turn away from this Civil War photo.

The wings look a little like canoes, too. That just about does it in. But if people would think about it a little deeper they would realize there may be more to this photo. It is either a Photoshop fake or an old fake by the soldiers themselves. I don’t think it’s both. So if it’s some kind of hoax, which one is it?

It’s a little too good to have been made by those soldiers, except for those wings. And it’s hard to believe that a modern Photoshop hoaxer would put two canoes into the picture as if they were wings. That makes this photograph a real mystery. Maybe it’s a real Pteranodon with wings that became twisted over many days after the animal’s death.

Photograph of a Modern Pterosaur?

Let’s assume somebody decided to make a hoax photo of a convincing recently-deceased Pteranodon. Using Photoshop, how would a hoaxer make it convincing? Would he use an image of a dugout canoe for the wings of the giant pterosaur? Not likely. Would he use or construct anything looking like an image of dugout canoe? Not likely.

Destination Truth Ropen Episode

As a nocturnal creature, the ropen’s defining characteristic is the glow it reportedly emits from its stomach and tail.

Are any Large Flying Creatures Bioluminescent?

In other words, does anything larger than a firefly have wings for flying and have glowing capacity? There is a species other than a pterosaur that is purported to have intrinsic bioluminescent capability, namely the common barn owl, Tyto Alba.

Of course not all Barn Owls glow, but the Australia researcher Fred Silcock has written a book on this subject and he has some explanations. With one expert firmly believing that some barn owls in the wild can use bioluminescence, it may not seem quite so revolutionary to suggest that capacity in some pterosaurs. The name of the book by Silcock is The Min Min Light, The Visitor Who Never Arrives. This subject of glowing owls can get rather tedious, so I will move on.

Ropen of Papua New Guinea

I suggest, to anyone who would attempt to explain pterosaur bioluminescence to a skeptic, that we begin with reports of large flying creatures known to some of the natives of Papua New Guinea, creatures that glow as they fly. They are called by a variety of names:

• ropen
• duwas
• seklo-bali
• wawanar
• indava
• kor

The variety of native cultures in which this glowing flying creature is known is evidence of the biological reality of it, but not proof of its existence. But the following makes a substantial supplement to the native traditions and stories of encounters:

• David Woetzel’s sighting on Umboi Island in 2004
• Paul Nation’s video recording in 2006
• The Destination Truth video recording in 2007

We could easily doubt one or the other, doubting native stories of encounters with giant featherless flying creatures and strange flying lights or doubting American explorers who witness and videotape strange flying lights. But we cannot nearly as easily throw away both of them together.

We could doubt Gideon Koro when he testified that he saw the ropen that had no feathers but a tail “seven meters” long or we could doubt Duane Hodgkinson when he testified that he saw a pterodactyl with a tail “at least” ten or fifteen feet long. But we cannot nearly as easily throw away both sightings together.

In conclusion, the fact that we do not yet have a live or fresh-dead body of a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur does not mean we do not have a strong case for the existence of a modern bioluminescent pterosaur. Patience is a virtue, but I will not sit around and say nothing until someone gets hold of a body. I encourage everybody to be open minded and do what can be done to support the research and the efforts of those who get out and look for modern pterosaurs.

Occam’s Razor and Marfa Lights

Bunnell’s H-4 requires two questionable things to interact. The bioluminescent-nocturnal-flying-predators hypothesis, “BNFP,” involves a questionable element, flying creatures not classified in biology, and an unquestionable element, prey such as bats, snakes, mice, and other small living things in southwest Texas. Of course, a predator need not always be hunting. They sometimes mate and compete for mates. Some predators even play. To the best of my knowledge, these aspects of group-predator behaviors can account for all the CE-III lights and more. The simplicity award goes to BNFP.

Flying Lights in the United States

I have seen them, they look like bats but flap their wings way different than birds do… And they have a red-orange bioluminiscent [sic] body… First time I spotted one was somewhere on Nov, 2011; last time I saw 2 of them together a week ago [March, 2012].

Pterosaur Sighting in South Carolina and in New Guinea

The men soon realized that it was no bird that started to circle the clearing. It had a tail “at least ten to fifteen feet long,” (book Searching for Ropens, 2007) and a long appendage at the back of its head: apparently, a live pterosaur.

Advertisement

Buy your own copy of this nonfiction cryptozoology book: Live Pterosaurs in America

From Isaac E. Salapat:

“Once you start to reading it you won’t want to put it down . . . it is all true and based on years of research . . . amazing and awe inspiring. Out of five stars I’ll give it all five.”

What paleontologist knows about the reported pterosaur flying near the university at Irvine, California? Probably not any professor at that university, for it was a non-faculty member who saw the animal fly in front of his car one summer day a few years ago.

I would guess very few, if any, biology professors know about the “pterodactyl” sighting between Australia and Indonesia, a few thousand feet above the surface of the sea. The pilot and copilot were knocked out of their comfort zone by the huge flying thing that almost collided with their two-engine prop plane a few years ago.

Paleontologists can talk about and write about particular extinctions of pterosaurs, and they can do that until the paint flakes off the walls, but it is all speculation. Which of them knows about the Australian psychologist Brian Hennessy, who saw a long-tailed “prehistoric” creature flying over a dirt road on Bougainville Island, New Guinea? The paleontologists are ignorant of such encounters, for their heads are always buried in their old presumptions.

If Duane Hodgkinson and his army buddy did not see a “pterodactyl” in that jungle clearing west of Finschhafen, New Guinea, in 1944, what did they see? It could not have been any mechanical toy, for it was too big and sophisticated and too early in history. It could not have been a bird, for it had a wingspan of about thirty feet and a tail at least ten or fifteen feet long, even if it had feathers. It could not have been the largest species of bat for the flying fox fruit bat has nothing like a tail anywhere near that size, even if there had been extreme exaggeration in tail length estimate.

What did the married couple see in Perth, Australia, as they were taking a walk on a warm evening in December of 1997? The husband worked in a scientific field, and he reported a size of around thirty to fifty feet for the long-tailed flying creature. The wife was ridiculed for making the sighting public, accuse of telling a lie. She was offended at the accusation but kept on insisting that she and her husband had observed the pterosaur-like creature. That observation, by the way, was for minutes, with some of that time revealing much structure in the lighting from a nearby sports stadium. Why would she subject both of them to riducule, for years, if they had not actually seen what they said that they had seen? A hoax makes no sense here.

It’s not that professors of biology and paleontology are somewhat less informed about one or two reports of modern pterosaurs. Most of them seem totally ignorant of over a hundred critical pterosaur sightings, reports from a few decades ago to a few weeks ago.

Pterodactyl Sightings Worldwide

One night, whilst sitting on the ground by the tents (a fair way from the noise and commotion of the festival), I saw what I at first assumed was an owl gliding over the campsite (I assumed that because it was night time, and obviously no other birds would be out-bar things like nightjars-which this was not!) – it passed right over us, probably about 30-40ft high, and as I watched it, I realised it was definitely no owl I’d ever seen before. It was the colour of suede/sand, looked like the same sort of texture as suede (i.e no feathers), had a long thin tail, and didn’t flap once.

Pterosaur Sighting in Australia

“ . . it had a ruddy reddish brown leathery skin; (we could see its underneath as it flew over us at about 300 ft up; the glow from all the ground lighting made that possible), it had a long tail and a wingspan that we estimated at between 30-50 feet across. . . .”

 Not All Biology Professors Fight Modern Pterosaurs

A recent survey of biology professors in the USA reveals not all of them are completely convinced that all species of pterosaurs became extinct by 65 million years ago.

It seems timely now to quote Josh Gates, who leads expeditions, including this one in Papua New Guinea, searching for the truth about the flying creatures that could be pterosaurs.

“I’m Josh Gates. My travels have taken me to the most exotic and mysterious places on earth. I’ve seen some unexplainable things which raise some strange questions. Now I’ve pulled together a crack team, armed with the latest technology, to search for answers. I’m not sure what’s out there waiting for me but I know what I’m looking for: the truth.”

“Reports of a pterodactyl-type bird brought my attention to Papua New Guinea. The locals call this flying dinosaur the “ropen,” and the papers have reported sightings all over the country. They describe it as an extremely dangerous large featherless bird with a wingspan that can reach up to fifteen feet. Some experts believe the ropen is a pterosaur that survived the Cretaceous period by hiding deep in the caves scattered throughout Papua New Guinea.”

“As a nocturnal creature, the ropen’s defining characteristic is the glow it reportedly emits from its stomach and tail. Many witnesses have claimed to see this glow at night, and recently a U.S. explorer caught two lights on camera that he thought belonged to the legendary animal.”

“As you might have guessed, I wanted to see this lost-world creature for myself, so Lindsay, Marc, Neil, Eric, Hank, and I packed up the equipment and headed to the airport”

Josh Gates and Fabian in Salamaua, Papua New Guinea, in 2007

On the left, Josh Gates; on the right, Jacob Kepas, native eyewitness

Jacob Kepas answered Josh Gates questions

Joshua Gates interviewed the eyewitness Jacob Kepas.

Josh: “I’ve heard that you’ve seen the ropen.”

Jacob: “I saw the light back in Wau.”

Josh: “What did the light look like.”

Jacob:  “It looked very bright.”

Josh: “Like a round light?”

Jacob: “Yes.”

Josh: “The whole bird just glowed?”

Jacob: “The stomach and the light from both wings.”

Later in their expedition, the team was able to videotape one of the flying lights.

Television Episode of “Destination Truth”

Soon after the cave adventure, they set up cameras nearby, hoping for some sighting at night. They were not disappointed, for a strange flying light appeared over the sea, out beyond the high cliff on which they had set up their four cameras.

Television Coverage of Flying Creatures

I am grateful that my friends and associates Garth Guessman, Clifford Paiva, and Paul Nation were featured on this Monsterquest episode. I am also grateful that Duane Hodgkinson was part of this television production about these wonderful flying creatures.

I did some research on the name of the town of Griffin, Georgia, but found that it came from a man named Griffin, not from any strange flying creature.

I found that searching online with -dragon in Georgia- brings up web pages on the subjects of scenic motorcycle routes and a dragon boat festival, which are not helpful. Sea dragons at the Georgia Aquarium and a business of tattoos and piercings were also not helpful. It seems more useful to search on cryptozoology sites.

When we think of sightings of modern pterosaurs in Georgia, we need to look at the big picture. Animals and birds have no knowledge of political boundaries. Flying creatures in particular are not hindered by borders, even when people put up high fences. We need to look at sighting accounts from states around Georgia.

Susan Wooten is a good example. She was driving down a country road around 1989 when something huge flew in front of her car and across the road. She reported that the flying creature “looked as big as any car, and had NO feathers.” Like other eyewitness accounts, this one had a report of a long tail.

There have also been eyewitness accounts of similar flying creatures in Florida and North Carolina, states near Georgia.

Flying Creature Sightings in Georgia

I can only guess to be 15-20′ wing spans and the motion of their wings as they flew was very slow. The head was long and ended in a point; wings ended in a point and appeared to be featherless

Featherless Flying Creature in Georgia

As it leapt out from the woods, I saw it from below, and the tail was very long with a shape on the end. Its wings were probably half-spread and I saw several dark thin horizontal bands across the belly.

Georgia Sightings by Sandra Paradise

She has now revealed two more sightings, in addition to the first two. The third one was when she had a camera in her car but she could not stop in time to photograph it before it flew away. The fourth sighting she was not sure of except that it was probably of the same kind of creature.

The whole thing was just an animation experiment, made by a few students at the Centre NaD animation school in Montreal. Both baby and bird never existed in the original video.

Slow go for Mother

If you look closely at slow motion of the mother, you’ll see that she gets up and jogs rather casually towards where the baby is being carried. The audio is still working in the video recording but the mother never screams. Doesn’t that sound fishy? Even when the baby is dropped from about eight feet high, that mother does not scream or dive forward with arms outstretched, nothing of the kind. She just increases her running speed as the baby hits the ground. She never tried to catch the child.

Most mothers would dive with outstretched arms to catch their baby

I’ve seen another YouTube video, one that points out that as the bird releases the baby that baby does not immediately start to fall. Instead the baby starts to rise a little bit, if only briefly. It shows that it was done with animation.

Pterosaurs Alive in America

creatures are seen swooping low over the water, at times causing local Nighthawk birds to screach in response.

Eagle Toddler Youtube Video

The mother appeared only mildly interested in saving her baby

Live Pterosaurs and Science

We now have 74 sightings with wingspan estimates, up from the 57 that were analyzed about one year ago. The updated database includes the earlier sighting reports, as they were combined with the newer accumulations of information on such things as wingspans, time-of-day-or-night, presence or absence of a long tail, head crest, etc.

Whitcomb’s analysis is somewhat brief, with general concepts that show how the weight of evidence points to a lack of hoaxes for those sightings in which wingspan estimates were given. This could benefit from a closer perusal.

By the way, Whitcomb is open to requests for the original database, for those who would want to take the time to do their own analysis.

Getting back to wingspan estimates, the proposal by some antagonists, that hoaxes caused sighting reports, is countered by Whitcomb’s data on wingspan estimates. To understand this, it helps to know something about what type of pterosaur is often reported.

The long-tail to no-long-tail ratio is about twenty to one as follows:

• long tail 41%
• no long tail 2%
• not specified 57%

This means that if many hoaxes had contaminated the data then those jokesters would need to be in one of the following categories:

1. Trying to convince people that basal pterosaurs were seen
2. Ignorantly including long tails in their hoaxes

If number one, the hoaxers would have given wingspans below about seven feet. But Whitcomb’s data clearly defeats that possibility, for the only impressive peak is more like eight to thirteen feet, and that peak is not extremely high, tapering gradually into those wingspans that are somewhat larger than wingspans of large birds. Number one is practically eliminated, for it would not have led to the data we have on wingspans.

Number two seems more likely, but a different problem presents itself. If jokesters had ignorantly promoted long-tailed pterosaur sightings, what would influence them in providing wingspan sizes? It would be large wingspans, probably over twenty feet, that they would have lied about, for three reasons:

1. Cause shock from a report of a huge size
2. Avoid the possibility of a bird-misidentification interpretation
3. Connect the hoax with popular science fiction movies and stories

No jokester would report seeing a modern pterosaur with a wingspan of eight or nine or ten feet. That’s too much like the size of large birds. Where’s the shock value in that lie? But it’s in that simple concept that we have a device for eliminating the number two category of jokester mentality. Here is part of Whitcomb’s data for wingspan sizes in feet:

6, 6, 6, 6

7, 7

8, 8, 8, 8, 8

9, 9, 9, 9

10, 10, 10, 10, 10.5

11, 11

12, 12, 12.5

13, 13, 13, 13

—

15

16, 16

17, 17, 17

18

—

20, 20, 20, 20, 20.5

21, 21.5

22

—

24

25, 25, 25, 25

—

27

The range from 8-13 feet is small, compared with the overall range from 1.3 to 46 feet, but see how many sightings have wingspan estimates from 8-13 feet inclusive: 23 sightings, which is 31% of all those in which wingspan was given numerically. That number, 23, eliminates the number two possibility for jokesters, for if they existed, they would not have given wingspan estimates of 8-13 feet.

Now we compare that five-foot range (8-13) to the five-foot range from 16-21 and see the difference: Only 12 sightings in that range, far fewer than the 23 sightings from 8-13 feet. I chose 16-21 because it is just above the wingspan size of large birds. When we go further up the wingspan size range, we see fewer and fewer sighting reports, which eliminates that kind of hoax potential. Nothing in the wingspan estimates makes any sense when we think about how hoaxes could have skewered the data.

I’m not preaching absolute purity from any hoax contamination in the data. I can’t say whether or not there is complete purity. But there could not be any major contamination. To be plain, there could have been one or two hoaxes among so many, but what would that mean? It would not have any influence on the numerous other sighting reports. Even so, I have not yet seen any evidence that even one of Whitcomb’s reports has any evidence of it being from any hoax.

I also recommend the following:

Tail flange and long tails

Before going any further, I wish to acknowledge the concept of jumping Manta rays. Of course they could look shocking to a person in a boat who had never before seen such a fish, below or above the surface of the sea. But Mr. Drinnon misses the critical point, that the overall picture of pterosaur sightings could not have been jumping fishes.

I am of the strictest belief that fruitful scientific investigations require specific observations, not generalizations of imagination. With Manta rays launching themselves into the air, on some occasions, we can expect some surprised spectators. But we should not expect any of those persons to conclude that they had seen a modern pterosaur, regardless of a general similarity in wing shape. After all, when spectators saw the landing of the Space Shuttles, the general similarities of wing shapes did not cause those persons to believe that they had seen a pterosaur or a Manta ray. Overly general ideas should not be emphasized to the extreme.

Perth Sighting

Getting into the Perth sighting of 1997, we have many details. If I remember correctly, Mr. Drinnon mentioned this sighting some time ago, but I am sure he did not properly consider the significance of important details.

The Australian married couple were about half a mile inland, according to the words of the wife. That in itself almost kills any possibility that they had seen a Manta ray in the air. I’ll quote some of her words here.

“Whatever people may think, the fact remains that my husband and I both saw that creature. My husband, being a scientist, took in things from the sighting that I was far too amazed/stunned to take in.”

Now for the words of the husband, who had worked in a scientific field, at least up to the time of their interview.

I watched it as it approached. Soon I was able to determine that it was some sort of flying creature, and my first thought was that it must be some very large bird. I was very new to the area at the time and unfamiliar with the native creatures, so I pointed it out to [my wife], asking if she could see it.

By this time, its progress had brought it closer and while its shape did resemble a bird, I thought by now that from its apparent distance, it must be the largest bird I had ever witnessed. I would estimate that at this time it was about a quarter mile north of us and quite high. [My wife] and I had now stopped to watch it approach. Within a minute or so it had reached our position and was about 250 or 300 feet above us and slightly inland.

It is obvious that this Australian couple had not observed a Manta ray jumping out of the water, regardless of the shape of the creature’s wings.

Other Sightings of Modern Pterosaurs

Examples that repudiate the suggestion of Manta rays are so numerous as to demolish any confidence in that kind of misidentification hypothesis.

Eskin Kuhn, as a United States Marine in 1971, watched two “pterodactyls” fly from the sea, with a graceful flight that he observed for some time. He estimated they were about forty to a hundred feet high. Mr. Drinnon has been struck by some general aspect of wing shape, and given Kuhn’s sketch as if it were evidence for his Manta ray hypothesis. But look at the sketch in light of Mr. Kuhn’s words.

What difference does it make that there might be a general wing-shape resemblance to the general shape of a Manta ray? Mr. Kuhn did not see one creature just above the surface of the sea for three seconds. He saw two creatures flying together over land. He did not see one fish fall back into water but two flying creatures fly off together, over land.

I have had enough of this ludicrous hypothesis. If people want to believe Mr. Drinnon’s Manta ray hypothesis, that is their problem.

Jumping Manta ray Fish

In the nonfiction Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea, four sightings are given special attention for both high credibility and low possibility of misidentification

Leap of Faith or Leaping Fish?

They looked like the flying dinosaurs, I forget what they are called.  They would fly towards the ship, then back out to sea, then fly together in tandem then make a sharp right, away from the ship and disappear into the night.

I have been privileged to be given an eyewitness report of a sighting in 1970, northeast of Honolulu. I here give part of that report:

Grew up on the windward side of Oahu in Maunawili Valley. The valley I grew up in is a typical triple canopy rain forest with two  mountain ranges, the Koolaus and Olomana mountain surrounding the valley.  I believe I was around 12 years old at the time that I saw a Pterodactyl.

I step out of our house and walked just a short distance in our front yard when I looked up and saw the Pterodactyl flying (gliding) from the direction of the Koolaus towards Olomana.

I would estimate its height at about 100 feet using the tall Cook pine trees growing in my neighbor’s yard as my reference.

It was light brown in color with canvas like skin and absolutely no feathers.  What really caught my attention was its “horn” protruding from the back of its head ( or as Duane Hodgkinson calls “an appendage”).

When it passed across to the right of me I then realized it was a living creature because it began to flap its wings and continued to flap its wings several times at about a two second interval between flaps.

Pterosaur in Hawaii

At first I thought it was something manmade because I thought it might be some type of a remote controlled Pterodactyl glider.  The wing span (again an estimate) seemed to be about 30 (if not more) feet across.  It was light brown in color with canvas like skin and absolutely no feathers. . . . When it passed across to the right of me I then realized it was a living creature because it began to flap its wings

Flying Creatures Like Pterosaurs in Hawaii

This was late in 1999, in what the soldiers called the “Kahuku range,” on the northeast side of Oahu. A bright full moon illuminated the flying creature, which had a long tail about 25% of the ”size of its body,” which I assume refers to the length, which one soldier estimated was 8-10 feet.