I just received a sighting report from a man who was about eight years old when he saw a “featherless flying animal” near Jefferson, Texas. Several details suggest that this is no hoax: a genuine sighting.
He estimated the wingspan at 4 1/2 to 5 feet with a long tail that had a “diamond type shape” at the end [Update: See other posts on the ropen]. The creature had leathery skin rather than any hair or feathers. One unusual feature was a series of highly contrasted stripes on the animal’s topside (back); the underside (stomach), however, had a much more neutral coloring. It had a “long mouth/beak” with teeth. It was flying only about eight feet above the ground, making a noisy flapping. Nothing obstructed the boy’s view of the creature.
The boy was alone at the time. The creature left before the boy’s mother came outside; she told him “it was just a bird and it was my imagination.” I believe the boy’s version of what happened, for several aspects of his report are supported by other eyewitness testimonies for other sightings in the U.S.
More: Boy sees pterosaur in Texas [Yes, this eyewitness has confirmed his good credibility]
UPDATE (August 29, 2019)
By the ropen expert Jonathan Whitcomb
Since I wrote the above post early in 2010, I have received many sighting reports from Texas: apparent living pterosaurs. A significant number of them appear to have been encounters with ropens.
From sighting reports across the United States, I have found that only a small percentage of them include any indication of teeth in the flying creatures. Most eyewitnesses were too far away to see such a detail, or the animals were flying with their mouths closed. Yet the detail of teeth does occasionally come up in the accounts that eyewitnesses give to me.
You can report your sighting in confidence
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Although Whitcomb admits that Marfa Lights may come from an unknown bioluminescent bird or bat, he says, “It is more likely than not from a creature similar to the ropen of Papua New Guinea, and my associates and I are sure about the ropen: It is a pterosaur.”
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On Youtube, this is the NUMBER ONE source of information on flying creatures that appear to be modern pterosaurs. The administrator is Jonathan Whitcomb, the world’s most prolific nonfiction writer on these animals.
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Ropen sightings in the United States
Of all the sighting reports, of apparent living pterosaurs, that I have received since the year 2003, the great majority have been from the eyewitnesses themselves. Most of those reports have been emails from the persons who encountered those flying creatures and found me from my online publications.
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In the late summer of 2008, I received an email from an eyewitness in Georgia, a lady who at first was anonymous in my publications (in 2012, she allowed her name to be revealed).
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