Pterosaurs, also called “pterodactyls,” especially the long-tailed ones, live in Australia and in other countries of the southwest Pacific. In November of 2010, an eyewitness observed something flying high in the sky one night, in northern Australia, and he concluded “pterodactyl.” Later, after looking at a photograph of a Frigate bird, he changed his mind.
I have encountered many comments on Youtube, over several years, from those who have mistaken images of a Frigate bird for a ropen, but this late-2010 experience is an actual sighting of that bird, not viewing an image. I believe that few persons see a live pterosaur compared with the many who see common Frigate birds; nevertheless, the existence of one type of creature does not prove the extinction of another type, regardless of how humans can make misidentifications.
But something else caught my attention on this forum (Battlefield Heroes, Nov 21, 2010). Until the eyewitness submitted his own sketch of what he had seen, nobody mentioned the possibility of a Frigate bird. Those commenting on the sighting only ridiculed the possibility of a living pterosaur or threw out careless conjectures to explain it away. In other words, all those who assumed the eyewitness was mistaken about seeing a pterosaur were correct only in that detail; in many ways they were wrong: It was not that he needed to “lay off weed,” or that he was “hallucinating,” or that “[all] pterodactyls are extinct,” or that he should “watch less TV,” or that “if these types of dinos where still alive u wouldnt be the only 1 to see something tht big.”
When I saw the eyewitness’s sketch of what he had seen, I thought it resembled a Frigate bird. But misidentifying a bird does not make an unrelated type of creature extinct. When somebody sees the planet Venus and assumes it is a bright star, that does not mean that all stars are planets, even if that person lives in a society in which almost everybody believes all stars are planets.
The beginning of that video shows an obvious Frigate Bird soaring as Frigate Birds will soar. I’ve lost count of how many times I have responded to that video footage, explaining that it does not show any ropen but only a common ocean-going bird.
Non-Extinct Pterosaurs in Australia
“In the state of Victoria near the Dandenong Ranges about 25 klms east of Melbourne. I was standing outside about nine o’clock one night. It was full moon and very bright with a cloud bank . . . . I glanced to the south and [saw] . . . something flying that appeared to be at the height of light planes that fly around here . . . This thing was at least as large as a light plane, say a Cesna. It was about 5 klms away and was lazily flapping it’s wings . . . It appeared to be lit up by the moonlight and shining as if it had no feathers.”
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
This sketch of the “Gitmo Pterosaur” shows a flying creature very unlike any Frigate bird. It could be called “North America ropen.”
Eyewitnesses in Papua New Guinea (north of Australia) have described similar long-tailed featherless flying creatures.