The above images were analyzed by the missile defense physicist Cliff Paiva, of BSM Research Associates. Paiva seems to have no doubt that these two glowing objects are closely related, even if they are large bioluminescent flying creatures not yet classified in Western science. One video was recorded in Florida; the other,  in Mexico. And these are only two sightings.

Yakima Lights

Many flashes were parallel to the river. . . . there were many fish . . . Prime hunting grounds for fish-eating birds. Only these things fish at night with bioluminescence. At first I thought I was just seeing shooting stars, but they were all parallel to the river and close to the horizon. Next I noticed that when the cloud cover came in, I could still see the flashes. They were under the cloud cover.

Sightings of large glowing flying creatures—those have also been reported, in modern times, in widely diverse areas: Papua New Guinea, Los Angeles County, California; the Caribbean Sea; and in England.

Cheesman Lights and Marfa Lights

On the surface, it might seem better to tie the Cheesman lights to the ropen light of Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, for all those lights, as individual lights, seem to last for only about five or six seconds or so, and individual CE-III Marfa Lights may last much longer. But the indava lights (seen just a couple of mountain ranges or so south of where Cheesman was) sometimes do glow longer than a few seconds.

I have noticed many Youtube videos that require attention: various flying lights, mostly without the vidoegrapher or uploader being aware of the possibility of bioluminescent flying creatures.

*****************************************************************

Cryptozoology Book

Regain your faith in the human potential for courage by reading of eyewitnesses who bravely tell their experiences and cryptozoologists who explore sighting areas and interview those who have seen live pterosaurs. How did this escape the notice of American scientists? If you walk away from this book, how will you know?

Lake Pung, Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, where the ropen ("demon flyer" or not) sometimes flies

The book Mysterious Creatures, A Guide to Cryptozoology, by George M. Eberhart, includes this entry under the “Ropen” title: “An Austronesian word said to mean ‘demon flyer.’” That may be partially correct but easily misleading. Most of the sources for Eberhart’s Ropen entry are the writings of Karl Shuker in Fortean Times articles, dated in the years 2000, 2001, and 2002. Without reading those articles I will not speculate on them. But my associates and I who have explored in Papua New Guinea more recently and have interviewed many natives—we may have had opportunities more extensive than Shuker’s, or at least have had the potential for new insights.

Austronesian is a language family, not a language; individual languages of this family are found on many islands, including many in Papua New Guinea. Among the hundreds of languages spoken in Papua New Guinea, Kovai (spoken in some villages of Umboi Island) is Papuan, according to Wikipedia; it is not Austronesian. But the word “ropen,” for a large flying cryptid that sometimes glows as it flies at night—that word comes from those villages that speak Kovai.

The second Umboi Island expedition of 2004 (a few weeks after mine) turned up an interesting perspective on the word “ropen.” Jacob Kepas, the native interpreter for the American cryptozoologists David Woetzel and Garth Guessman, knew the word but was puzzled. Why go to such trouble flying on a small plane to Umboi Island to search for a bird? In his village near Wau (mainland Papua New Guinea), “ropen” is the word used for a common bird. The large nocturnal flying creature that glows—that frightening creature they call “seklo-bali.”

So in those two small areas of Papua New Guinea (villages of Umboi Island including Opai and Gomlongon, and at least one village near Wau on the mainland) the meaning of the word “ropen” differs greatly. An examination of the expedition reports from American cryptozoologists who have searched for living pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea in the 1990′s and early twenty-first century—that reveals that the Western-world usage of ”ropen” comes from the Kovai-speaking islanders of Opai and Gomlongon.

A casual observation of the “Demon Flyer” episode of MonsterQuest on television is a world apart from reading Shuker’s article or Eberhart’s book or one of my books. Monsterquest episodes are mini-adventure-shows, not scientific documentaries, so we are not surprised at a few technical innacuracies; but innaccuracies are hardly confined to television adventure shows. Search with the phrase (in quotes) “demon flyer” and one of the first-page results from Google can take you to a page with the following:

Just off the eastern coast of Papua New Guinea . . . are the small islands of Rambunzo and Umboi. These two islands are said to be the home of the Ropen, which when translated from the indigenous dialect literally means, Demon Flyer.

Let us examine that declaration.

First, a brief Google search makes me suspect that the island of ”Rambunzo,” by that spelling, does not exist in Papua New Guinea; perhaps it is a misspelling, for the first few pages of Google searching refer to cryptozoology sites and Wikipedia has nothing by that spelling. But if this is a misspelling of “Rambutyo,” ( near Manus Island) we need to consider what at least some of the people of the northern islands of Papua New Guinea call the large nocturnal flying creature : “kor.” My contact person in that part of PNG is clear about that word for what Umboi Islanders (to the south) call “ropen.” “Kor” is their word, which I suspect is used by the people of Rambutyo. In addition, I don’t recall ever writing anything about “Rambunzo,” in any of my web pages from 2003 to late-2011, in spite of what one web site declares about my involvement with that word.

Second, Rambutyo (as the correct spelling for the nonexistent ”Rambunzo”), which is actually northeast of the mainland, is smaller than Umboi, but many people would not call Umboi, at 900 square kilometers, ”small.” In addition, many islands, of various sizes, are east and northeast of the mainland; why single out those two? The large nocturnal flying creatures, called by various names in various languages, can be seen (although mostly at night by their bioluminescence) around and over many islands of Papua New Guinea, not just over or near Rambutyo and Umboi.

Third, there is no “indigenous dialect” for these two islands. In fact, I was told by Delilah Kau (or “Kow”), wife of the government-and-local-village leader Mark Kau, that several nearby villages around Gomlongon have different “languages.” She probably referred to what we would call different dialects of Kovai, but other villages of Umboi, not so close to Gomlongon, really do have different languages. Even if islanders of Rambutyo all spoke the same language, it would be very unlikely to be the same dialect (even if the same language) as any on Umboi Island.

That brings up the idea that “ropen” comes from two native words. A brief reflection makes that appear unlikely, for how could such a short word come from two words that mean “demon” and “flyer?” No, it is much more likely that the original meaning of the word was something like ”flyer.”

Pterosaur in Sudan, Africa

“Walking from one mud-brick hut to another, early one night in 1988 (in Sudan, Africa), the boy noticed something on the roof of a nearby hut. Lit up by the patio light, perched on the edge of the roof, the creature appeared to be four-to-five feet tall . . . and leathery (no feathers). A “long bone looking thing” stuck out the back of its head, and its long tail somehow resembled that of a lion.”

That “kongamato-pterodactyl” web page fails to mention, however, that the creature hopped from one mud-brick hut to another RIGHT OVER THE BOY’S HEAD. The distance between the feet of the creature and the head of the boy must have been about ten feet, if that much. After the boy had grown into a man, he gained access to a computer (not everybody in Sudan has a computer) and sent me an email, with details about his encounter. I found his report highly credible, both in his honesty and in the high probability that it was a pterosaur.

Pterosaur, perhaps, in Victoria, Australia

I say “perhaps” because the flying creature, observed in about 1998, was so far away from the eyewitness. I say “pterosaur” because the sighting is consistent with other sightings in Australia, encounters that were much closer to the eyewitnesses, and because the creature appeared to be about the size of a “Cesna” but was slowing flapping its wings. After receiving a long email from the Australian man, I came to believe that he had seen what he suspected he had.

What I saw was what I first thought was a pelican flying about 3000 feet high but realised pelicans at that height did not look as large as this. I was standing outside about nine o’clock one night. It was full moon and very bright with a cloud bank to the south east extending to and over the Ranges. Mt. Dandenong is about 2000 feet high and the clouds were much higher than this.

I glanced to the south and something caught my attention. It was something flying that appeared to be at the height of light planes that fly around here as Moorabbin Airport is not far away. 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, flying to the east in at that point a clear sky. It appeared to be lit up by the moonlight and shining as if it had no feathers. . . . I could see it quite clearly. I had it under observation for about 5 mins whence it disappeared into the cloud bank.

Extremes in Delayed Reactions

From the third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America, a lady gives us a positive perspective on her two 2008 encounters in Georgia.

Fifteen miles of her commute [in northeast Georgia] is on a two-lane 55-mph road through woods alternating with pastures; This part of Highway 82 has few houses and almost no stop signs. . . . She had woken up early and could not get back to sleep, so she left her house [to drive to work] at 6:45 a.m. . . . She had driven less than ten miles, just leaving an area of pasture, entering an area of thick woods, around a mild downhill curve, with high banks and brush on each side of the road, when an animal suddenly flew from the right, just over the front of her car. Although alone, she yelled, “What the — what — what is that?” She was stunned.

She had another encounter two weeks later, at a different part of the same stretch of highway. But the point is how she looked back on her experiences with apparent living pterosaurs:

The lady used to dread her daily commute to work; that has changed. She told me, “The world is now totally different. I feel blessed that God has allowed me to see this creature that should not be here, and yet is, this strange dragon-like thing that lives somewhere in the woods in this redneck little town.”

Her experiences differ greatly from those of seven boys who encountered the giant ropen at Lake Pung:

On the remote island of Umboi, in Papua New Guinea, seven boys climbed up to Lake Pung, just north of their village. Within a few minutes they saw the giant creature fly over the water. The boys ran home in terror and the memory of that fear lasted for years. In 2004, Jonathan Whitcomb explored part of Umboi Island. He interviewed Gideon Koro, who confirmed their encounter, calling the creature by its local name: “ropen;” two other young men verified Gideon’s account.

Of course the circumstances between these cases differs considerably. Gideon and his friends were exposed to a creature that was notorious, on Umboi Island, for eating human flesh (at least taking dead human bodies from graves). The lady in Georgia was protected in her car, with no knowledge of any potential danger from any strange flying creature. With all that said, I suspect the flying creatures seen by these eyewitnesses (in Sudan, southern Australia, southeastern USA, and Umboi Island) are related, even if they represent different species.

To be extinct, or not to be extinct, that is the question:
Whether it’s no bull or in the mind, pterosaur eyewitnesses suffer
The slings and arrows from outraged paleontologists

From a recent press release:

Extinct or not extinct, that is the question about pterosaurs

How rarely do we read anything about dinosaurs or pterosaurs without reference to extinction millions of years ago! But a controversial idea promoted by the American cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb has caught the attention of the Houston Chronicle, a Smithsonian magazine blog, and a well-known paleontologist in England. Not everybody embraces living pterosaurs.

Indeed, from my eight years of investigating reports of living pterosaurs, I know that not everybody embraces living pterosuars.

“It Would Have Been Seen” if BigFoot Existed

Looking straight at their reasoning reveals the problem: “People who say they saw X could not have really seen X because if X existed then somebody would have seen X.”

Perhaps what some skeptics mean is more like this: “If X existed, newspapers would have it in their headlines before now” (with “X” representing any cryptid, including a living pterosaur). Well, this may be news to some skeptics, but if I recall correctly, as I was taking a plane from Papua New Guinea to Australia, after finishing my expedition in 2004, I was reading a newspaper that had a front page headline directing readers to an article about my findings and experiences (and my interpreter’s) from interviewing eyewitnesses of the ropen of Umboi Island. That newspaper was (and probably still is) one of the two largest in Papua New Guinea.

If critics are only interested in American newspapers that have headline stories that are favorable to the possibility of a living pterosaur, then read on:

Sightings in Antwerp, Ohio

The Antwerp Bee-Argus newspaper (Aug 5, 2009 issue) gave an account of two sightings over the Maumee River, Ohio: 2002 and 2003, both in the daylight heat of summer. (More detailed information is in my book Live Pterosaurs in America . . .

That newspaper article, I remember clearly, had a front-page headline about a modern-pterosaur sighting (with the article starting on the front page, as well). In addition, it was positive, not negative, about the possibility of a living pterosaur in Ohio.

I just noticed a blog post titled “Those damned ropens again,” by David Hone. (I’ll not link to it, but it can be found through Google.) It seems to me that the cryptozoology book author he refers to is me, and the book seems to an edition of Searching for Ropens. But it’s not the words he uses when referring to me, “rabid” . . . “ignorance and arrogance,” that makes my response necessary; it’s the misrepresentations about the sightings and how he avoids writing about any detail about any sighting.

Here are some mistakes:

1. “The real drive comes from a US lawyer” [I have never been a lawyer; I was a forensic videographer for attorney firms]
2. “alleged evidence for the existence of living pterosaurs in New Guinea which consists entirely of incredibly dubious semi-nocturnal sightings of flying creatures.” [The critical sightings are in clear daylight: Hodgkinson-1944, Hennessy-1971, Koro--about-1994, etc]
3. “Judging stuff for size and speed while high in the sky is hard, at that is the most basic thing to do, let alone actually identify it accurately.” [Size and speed are not critical in judging the possibility of extant pterosaurs. The critical sightings cannot reasonably be any species of bird or bat; that is far more critical, for it opens up the possibility of living pterosaurs. Secondary, perhaps, are the characteristics of pterosaurs: feather-less with long tails, pterosaur head crest, tail with Rhamphorhynchoid vane at the end. Further down the list of important factors is the size of the flying creature, which is, as he states correctly, difficult to judge during flight.]
4. “Finally, and very significantly there is the issue of expectation, for the tribesmen and the ropen hunters alike, they *expect* to see these animals because they *know* they exist . . .” [Apparently David Hone has not read my book carefully, even though he says that he has a copy. The critical sightings, like Hodgkinson's, Hennessy's, and Koro's, were without any expectation of seeing any strange flying creature. Critical eyewitnesses were shocked at seeing the unexpected.]

Hone’s post is dated April 29, 2010, but he seems to have no knowledge of recent posts and web pages. Many sightings that have recently been analyzed are daylight sightings, some of them at close range. Several eyewitnesses that I have personally interviewed have seen a long-tailed featherless creature in southeast Cuba, a flying creature that is sometimes seen to clearly have a long head crest and to clearly have a Rhamphorhynchoid tail vane. All of those sightings were in daylight, not “semi-nocturnal sightings” that he proclaims.

Hone writes long paragraphs about hypothetical sightings:

Let’s assume that the average person who sees some flying thing he can’t identify immediately is no wildlife expert, has not seen tons of local birds, bats and other fliers (let alone exotics), has not considered the difficulties of making rapid identifications . . .

That is just one sample of his hyper-generalizing. How much better to examine at least one of the critical eyewitness reports!

P.S.: Search Hone’s page in vain for references to one of the following names of critical eyewitnesses: Hodgkinson, Hennessy, Koro, Wooten, Kuhn, Carson. Nothing was found when I did a search for those names. Like some other critics, Hone imagines sightings, inventing one or more hypothetical sightings that he can tear down. This practice is one type of what is known as a “scarecrow argument.” Unscientific, to say the least.

In a feature commentary, “The Bat-man Returns,” in the ForteanTimes (March of 2010), Jaap van den Born wrote eighteen paragraphs with the overall purpose of dismissing the report of a flying cryptid on Seram Island: the orang-bati. I agree that foreign visitors to Indonesia, including Seram Island (which used to be spelled “Ceram”) can misunderstand natives when the visitor speaks little Indonesian (Bahasa) or the natives speak little English. But the door to understanding and misunderstanding swings both ways: It seems that Jaap van den Born has missed some important points; I believe he has seriously misunderstood some things himself.

The fifth paragraph is critical for his case. Cutting out the middle, we have, “The only source of the story seems to be Tyson Hughes . . .  about subjects that in any case are doubtful, to say the least.” So it seems that Born has begun his investigation doubting strange flying creatures live in Seram Island. What’s wrong with that? He seems to have held onto that doubt to the point of doubting Tyson Hughes or doubting the natives who talked with him, or doubting all of them.

In the eighth paragraph, he says, “I would say he [Hughes] was misled and they [natives who talked with Hughes] are probably still laughing.” But this implies witnesses were telling lies, and Born gives no evidence for lies. I agree that witnesses, in general, sometimes lie. But when witnesses from different places, who have no relationships to each other and no commonality, give the same details in testimonies (or relevantly similar details), lies are unlikely, to say the least.

Wikipedia says, about the orang-bati, “Missionary Tyson Hughes, an English man who became a believer in Orang-Batis was originally skeptical about ‘Orangutans with wings,’ but was stunned when he actually encountered one.” Although the Wikipedia page gives no reference to the source, why does Born give no reference to that entry?

Born mentioned apparent errors in statements made by Hughes, but some of those errors have little or no relevance to the possibility of a large flying cryptid on Seram Island. Born said, “The people of Uraur, who are so afraid of this man-eating bat, live on the coast. How the hell would they know that these creatures live in caves in the centre of Seram? People of the coast don’t go inland.” But the explanation is simple: Natives who spoke to Hughes believed the flying creature lived in caves in the center of their island. Several things could have led the natives to believe that, but their belief does not make them liars, even if they were mistaken.

Much of what Born wrote is not about flying cryptid possibilities directly, but about a real or supposedly-real tribe of natives who are called “Orang-bati.” But the name is not important. Why must two things never have the same name? Since players on the Chicago Bears are all human, does that mean that Black bears and Grizzily Bears cannot live in North America?

Indava Attacks on Children

Seram Island is not alone regarding reports of flying creatures that carry away children. It seems that Born has missed that critical point. Deep in the mainland of Papua New Guinea, villagers of Tawa have their own traditions, including stories of flying creatures that, at one time, had attacked their village by carrying away pigs and children. Details about a name are less important, but they call it “indava.” From a plane flight (or a flight of an indava or an orang-bati) the distance between Seram Island and Tawa Village is not great. But human cultural separation is huge, with no connection between those native peoples, perhaps for over a thousand years.

That sets apart the orang-bati story as more than a myth, more than an isolated incredible legend. In addition, other villages in the southwest Pacific have legends of large flying creatures that carry away humans. On Umboi Island, particular natives have given particular accounts of particular attacks: ropens against the bodies of deceased humans. The ropen, in the past, would carry away human bodies from their graves.

In addition, in the northern islands of Papua New Guinea, stories can be found of flying creatures that attack humans. The orang-bati story is not an isolated story, for it too closely resembles stories from other islands in the southwest Pacific.

Java is a large island in area but notable in its huge island population: 124 million humans. Notwithstanding that number, like other areas of land on this planet humans tend to concentrate in small areas: There may be many remote rain forests on Java where volcanoes are common but humans are not so common.

According to traditions and perhaps limited direct encounters, the Salak Mountains of western Java host the ahool population; its name comes from the sound of its cry. It is said to have a twelve-foot wingspan and a covering of hair and a round head with large dark eyes.

The ahool is also said to sleep, in daylight, in caves behind waterfalls, catching river fish at night. Of course, fisherman bats also catch fish, but none of them are known to science to have a wingspan anywhere near twelve feet. The one literal sighting by a Westerner (as if non-Westerners are unreliable eyewitnesses, which is speculative at best) was by Dr. Ernest Bartels, who saw “a huge bat-like creature [that] soared over his head” near a waterfall in the Salak Mountains in 1925. Two years later, he heard the sound that he associated with that creature, but nothing was observed, making it a tenuous connection.

The remainder of Michael Newton’s paragraphs about the ahool involve speculations by Bartels and Ivan Sanderson. If Bartel’s two encounters were all the relevent ones we could rely on, speculations would be the only thing left to talk about; but what about other eyewitnesses of flying creatures in and around Indonesia?

Pterosaur in Indonesia

In June of 2008, two experienced plane pilots encountered a large flying creature. On first sight, it was assumed to be another plane, but it soon flapped its wings slowly. A few weeks later, I interviewed both pilot and co-pilot, mostly by emails. This incident was 150 miles southeast of Bali, Indonesia.

Orang-Bati of Indonesia

I realize that this winged cryptid may have limited relationship with the ahool, but the Orang-bati, with “huge, leathery wings,” may be an undiscovered pterosaur, like the ropen of Papua New Guinea.

Many wonderful eyewitess accounts fill this cryptozoology book: Missionaries and Monsters. The cryptozoologist-explorer William J. Gibbons has done a fine job with it. I found the report of the Orang-bati (a large humanoid-like flying creature in Indonesia) particularly interesting . . .

Live Pterodactyl

At least one species of modern pterosaurs may eat bats

To a biologist, bats and pterosaurs have only limited similarity, most obviously featherless-flying. But if they lived together, flying at night, could there be a predator-prey relationship? Yes.

I know a friend of a missionary in the Congo. In one area, pterosaur-like animals are known by the natives, according to the missionary, and he himself believes he saw one swoop down on a tree full of bats, causing the bats to scatter in all directions.

Orang Bati of Seram Island

One clue is in the tradition about capturing young humans. Those stories are also found in Papua New Guinea. The indava flying creatures, seen near Tawa Village, deep in the interior of the mainland of PNG, are said to have carried away children and pigs from the villagers, in the past. [This may be a similar species to the Orang-bati.]

Hennessy Sighting of “Prehistoric” Flying Creature

He described the “prehistoric” flying creature that he saw on Bougainville Island, New Guinea: long tail, no sign of feathers,  head “disproportionately large compared to the body.” His choice of identification sketches (survey examination) resulted in a head sketch very similar to the one chosen by Hodgkinson. They probably observed the same species of pterosaur.

But how do these two daylight sightings of apparent pterosaurs relate to a nocturnal flying creature on Umboi Island? Let’s consider why Hodgkinson and Hennessy saw what they saw in daylight; what did those two sightings have in common? Hodgkinson and his army buddy were startled by a wild pig running through the clearing they were in; immediately the giant “pterodactyl” flew up from wherever it had been (out of view before that pig crashed through the bush), so could it have been startled out of sleep? About a quarter of a century later, on Bougainville Island, New Guinea, the truck Hennessy was riding in was probably roaring along that mountain road; the “prehistoric” flying creature then flew overhead, so could it have been startled out of sleep? Both creatures could have been nocturnal, sleeping through most daylight hours undisturbed.

1994 Sighting at Lake Pung

When seven boys hiked up to that crater lake on Umboi Island, in daylight, the wonder of that view of the lake may have caused them to yell out loud in teenage delight. Very soon after they had arrived at Pung, the giant ropen flew over the surface of the lake, terrifying the boys. Was it a coincidence that the flying creature known to be nocturnal flew in daylight, very soon after seven teenagers had arrived at that lake? I think not: Boys will make noise. Surely the noise of Gideon, Wesley, Mesa, and the others, was what awakened the ropen, not a thirst to get a drink of lake water at the precise time (halfway through a good day’s sleep) seven adolescent humans happened to arrive.

When I interviewed Gideon Koro, Wesley Koro, and Mesa Agustin, on Umboi Island in 2004, I never thought to ask them if they and their four friends had made any noise when they had arrived at Lake Pung; but it now seems obvious.

Live Pterodactyl

“Eskin Kuhn . . . in Cuba in 1971, saw two long-tailed ‘pterodactyls’ in clear daylight, at close range . . .” That does not necessarily mean that the two flying creatures were not nocturnal. Like other daylight sightings of “pterodactyls” or apparent pterosaurs, this sighting in the day could have been from an unusual daylight disturbance, rather than a usual daylight flying habit.

About one year ago I saw a large owl, in daylight, fly over a freeway in Long Beach, California. Large owls are still nocturnal, notwithstanding some of them sometimes fly a little in daylight.

Lake Pung – a crater lake on Umboi (Would you not shout for joy if you were a teenager who had just hiked up to this wonderful place?)

The Australian Steven Cottingham was the government’s Officer-In-Charge (Kiap) of Umboi and surrounding islands, and he lived on Umboi Island for one and a half years (natives call this island “Siassi,” although that word is also used for the group of islands that include “Big Siassi”).

His first email included:

My sighting occurred at night near Lab Lab on the southern tip of Umboi. The light lasted for four to five seconds, and until reading your reports now, have never been able to explain the sighting. The natives I was with simply said it was a spirit light!

I asked him a few questions:

Thank you, Steven

Thank you for telling me about your sighting. May I ask some questions?

1) Do you recall the time of night?

2) What direction was the light traveling (or was it stationary)?

3) Was there any color to the light or was it just white?

He answered:

1) Approximately 7 pm. I had been out fishing off the reef.

2) Horizontal, across the top of the Coconut palms. It was moving slowly and in a wavelike motion. It was too high and covered too much distance to be a person walking with a lantern, but I checked at daybreak to see if there was a walking track on a hill behind the coconut palms. There was nothing at that height. The coconuts were on flat ground.

3) Yes, dull orange. Not as round as the moon, but bigger than what a Coleman lantern would be.

I suspected that the “wavelike motion” related to wing flapping, but I asked him an open question: “Was the wavelike motion from side-to-side or up-and-down?” He answered, “Rhythmic, gentle UP-AND-DOWN as the light flowed in the direction of left to right.” This confirmed the possibility that he had observed a flying creature.

Cottingham in Context

A sighting by the biologist Evelyn Cheesman, a few decades before Cottingham’s sighting, is described in one of her books:

In her book, The Two Roads of Papua, she said that the flash lasted “about four or five seconds, but that flash had been a little distance away from the first. Flashes continued at intervals. . . . a most intriguing mystery; because by no possibility could there be human beings out there using flash-lamps at intervals . . .”

Cheesman’s sighting was on the mainland of what is now Papua New Guinea, west of Umboi Island.

Notice that the government official said, “The light lasted for four to five seconds,” and the biologist said that the flashes lasted “about four or five seconds.” That is very close to what natives on Umboi Island have said about how long the ropen light lasts.

On a different note of the same composition:

Are Live Pterodactyls Only Misidentified?

“Some skeptics have suggested that this flying creature is just a misidentified bird. One or two skeptics have even suggested it is just a Manta Ray or Singray, for those fishes, at times, can jump out of the water and might appear to fly.

“There are major problems with a gliding-fish interpretation, however. One skeptic said a little about two sightings in New Guinea: the Hodgkinson sighting of 1944 and the Hennessy sighting of 1971. Details were entirely absent in this critic’s writing, however. Neither sighting could have been from any fish.”

• Music
• “A dormant volcano deep with the Turkish forest”
• “enjoyment and practice of creating art”
• Foul language and “comics”
• A video game
• “Enchanted Learning Software”

“Pterodactyl” is even the name for a particular series of opening moves in the ancient game of chess. I have one recommendation, for those who are interesting in the possibility of living pterosaurs in modern times (maybe save yourself a Google search):

Pterodactyl

This YouTube video features my friend and associate Garth Guessman and the World War II veteran Duane Hodgkinson. My friend interviewed the old veteran a few years ago, and the videotaped interview I put up on YouTube. Here is part of what I wrote about Hodgkinson’s encounter, quoted from the second edition of my book Searching for Ropens:

Hodgkinson was interviewed in person by Garth Guessman (another American ropen investigator) in June of 2005, and he revealed more details about the sighting . . . [It] occurred at about noon, west of Finschhafen . . . The creature, which Hodgkinson first assumed was a bird, flew up from the edge of the clearing and, as it circled, fifty to one hundred feet above the men, presented a “perfect side view” of itself—obviously no bird.

*

Now if you do a Google search with “pterosaur” the irrelevancies will be much fewer than with “pterodactyl.” Still, here is my recommendation:

Pterosaur

This home page has been recently revised: It is now much more informative, attractive, and inviting. Sub-topics include the following:

Paul Nation’s Indava Expedition

The two lights in that video were strange indeed: not car headlights, not flashlights, not camp fires, not meteors, in fact nothing ordinary. On the other hand, eyewitnesses describe a giant flying creature.

Psychologist Sees a Pterosaur (a brief overview)

An eyewitness of a long-tailed living pterosaur on the island of Bougainville, New Guinea, in 1971 . . .

Kongamato of Africa

“The boy was walking from one mud-brick hut to another, one night in 1988 . . . he noticed something on the roof of his uncle’s hut. A creature was perched on the edge of the roof, lit up by the nearby porth light. The winged creature appeared to be four-to-five feet tall, olive brown, and leathery with no feathers . . .”

Living Pterosaurs and Dragons

“The Marfa Lights of southwest Texas have been compared with the flying lights of Papua New Guinea and with the Wawanar legend near southwest New Britain Island. . . .”