nocturnal | Live Pterosaur

February 4, 2012

Lighting the Flying Creature of the Night

This is not to illuminate the bioluminescent pterosaur of Marfa, Texas, or of Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea. Indeed, that kind of glow actually hides the form and features of the flying creature that produces the light. Setting aside bioluminescence, we now consider why some night sightings have contributed to the credibility of the live-pterosaur investigations.

I recall part of a comment from a critic, some years ago, ridiculing the credibility of eyewitnesses who “misidentify” birds or bats at night. But he was only tossing out a generalization, assuming that all reported sightings (those encounters that serious invesigators publicize) all fit neatly into his mental image of a dark landscape where people imagine that birds and bats are pterosaurs. Science thrives on details of human experience, so let’s examine particular sightings.

Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaur in Sudan, Africa

In this sighting, the eyewitness could see details, for the flying creature was close and it was lit by a nearby porch light.

The boy was walking from one mud-brick hut to another, one night in 1988, carrying a tray of food for family members. . . . The boy froze as the creature stretched its wings and hopped right over his head, causing him to drop the metal tray of dishes.

Driving Near Kenton, Ohio

In the third edition of my book Live Pterosaurs in America, I mentioned a sighting near Kenton, Ohio.

At 11:15 p.m., she was driving near Kenton, Ohio, on Route 309. With clear sky and a still-full moon, the landscape was brightly lit. A creature swooped down—an obvious “pterodactyl”—gliding gracefully over the hood of her car. She watched it fly into some dense underbrush of trees. . . . “I could see almost the bones in its wings but I did NOT see feathers at all. None. . . . it was bright out . . . because of the full moon being high in the sky.”

Nocturnal Pterosaurs in San Diego

In this sighting in San Diego, California, the two flying creatures (witnessed by two men) were probably lit from both top and bottom: from the moon and from the city lights (although the eyewitness who reported the encounter to me mentioned only the lighting from the moon).

From the west came this dark object in the sky. It was right over us about, I say, 40 yards [high]. As it got closer we both yelled, “What the hell is that?” It looked like a huge bird. It was gliding . . . I began yelling at it . . .

That was a large flying creature at low altitude, perhaps coming within 140 feet of the eyewitnesses. The lighting was adequate for the two eyewitnesses to see the details that were later given to me.

April 21, 2010January 10, 2017

Woetzel ropen sighting of 2004

David Woetzel, American cryptozoologist and explorer

“Ropen” is what natives of Umboi Island call the nocturnal flying creature, and legends abound. Most eyewitnesses have only seen it from a distance, at night, and they describe a strange flying light.

David Woetzel led the second ropen expedition on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, late in 2004, accompanied by fellow-American cryptozoologist Garth Guessman. One night, near Arot Village (northern Umboi), Woetzel saw a strange light flying towards the mountains near Lake Pung. Consider this excerpt from my interview with him in 2005:

“My sighting was so quick that it was impossible to get a video—maybe 2 seconds . . . [The flying light was] almost golden and shimmering around the edges. It looked like an old-fashioned street light in the fog.

“There was no tail and it was flying horizontal from Mt. Barik toward Mt. Tolo . . . The size, color and speed made it immediately stand out as unlike any other thing I’ve ever seen in the sky.”

Woetzel estimated the angular-size of the light: about 20%-25% the size of a full moon. With a lack of any meteor tail and horizontal movement, a meteor interpretation is unreasonable. This must have been the same object observed by my interpreter (Luke Kenda) a few weeks earlier and a few kilometers to the east: a horizontally-flying light with a mountain background. I believe that both sightings were of the ropen.

Although this sighting, by itself, obviously does not prove that pterosaurs are still living, it validates the honesty of this cryptozoologist: Woetzel could easily have reported some kind of pterosaur-feature, rather than only a glowing object, were he to have been dishonest. This is one example (among many) of the honesty of the explorers who searched for living pterosaurs from 1994 through 2004, for they interviewed many eyewitnesses but admitted never observing any pterosaur-like animal themselves. It disproves the careless general accusation (from some critics) that they are dishonest.

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Did you know that living pterosaurs have been reported in North America, even in the United States? Read the many eyewitness sighting reports by purchasing this incredible nonfiction book on Amazon or from the publisher—Live Pterosaurs in America.

March 10, 2010December 8, 2011

Non-fiction book on living pterosaurs in the U.S.

Live Pterosaurs in America (2009, nonfiction) [second edition: Nov, 2010; third edition: Nov, 2011] is still [early 2010] more popular on Amazon.com than most of the many nonfiction cryptozoology books. Here is the main text of the title page:

Reports of giant flying “ptero-dactyls” in American skies—these have floated around the internet for years; but they had been mostly devoid of interview details. Until about 2005, even when an eyewitness was named, the interviewer was often anonymous; even when an eyewitness was credible, and the account published in a newspaper, the story was ridiculed, discouraging others who had also seen strange flying creatures. Where could eyewitnesses go? Who would believe them?

Since the two ropen expeditions of 2004, in Papua New Guinea, more Americans have become exposed to the amazing living-pterosaur investigations and the many resulting eyewitness interviews. Many web pages have sprung up, many of them by explorers themselves. But despite other web pages, by scornful critics who never went anywhere and never interviewed anyone, these two expeditions, and those that preceded and followed them, are causing an awakening, the birth of a new perspective about extinction-assumptions regarding pterosaurs.

How are sightings in the United States related to those in the Southwest Pacific? How do some apparent nocturnal pterosaurs pertain to bats (and how are bats irrelevant)? How could modern living pterosaurs have escaped scientific notice? These mysteries have slept in the dark, beyond the knowledge of almost all Americans . . . until now.

More about cryptozoology books (nonfiction) on modern living pterosaurs