Last March, I wrote a post on bulverism, not my first posting on that subject and not my last, but a problem keeps cropping up: unclear thinking among those who most vehemently criticize those who promote the concept of modern living pterosaurs.

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.

Native words for strange flying creatures, and accuracy in recording them as English words, is less important than accurately keeping records of eyewitness reports, sometimes even less important than traditional stories. Take the orang-bati and indava, for example, of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea respectively. (Neither of the legends regarding the orang-bati and indava come from misidentifications of Flying Fox fruit bats.) In evaluating what we have in these legends or stories, we need clear thinking. We need to concentrate on the accounts and stories themselves, rather than the local names or purported names for flying creatures.

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.

Michael Newton, in his cryptozoology book Hidden Animals: A Field Guide to Batsquatch, Chupacabra, and Other Elusive Creatures, devotes five paragraphs to the nocturnal ahool of the island of Java, Indonesia. I’ll summarize key points, adding my own comments.

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.]

How does Duane Hodgkinson’s 1944 sighting of a ”pterodactyl” relate to flying lights on Umboi Island? Seven years after my first interviews with this World War II veteran, I still marvel at the value of his testimony; but that value is best understood when the sighting is taken in perspective. Look at the other reports of living pterosaurs in the southwest Pacific. Those sightings that give us the most information about the appearance of ropens are usually daylight encounters, when details of form and feathers are most apparent. So how do a few eyewitnesses see nocturnal pterosaurs in daylight?

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?)