On the Mekong River, the border between Laos and Thailand, a festival attracts thousands of visitors each October. Many people have seen red glowing objects emerge from the water’s surface. The mysterious orbs float up and up, only to evaporate or vanish, perhaps a hundred feet or so above the river. This eerie appearance of the Naga Lights has been repeated for centuries. Explanations abound, each with at least one problem.

Giant bioluminescent insects, tracer bullets from military rifles, mystical eggs from a giant snake, methane gas that burns below and above water—each of these explanations has problems. Perhaps most palatable to scientists would be a large insect, for the Mayfly emerges in mass from the surface of rivers and the firefly glows. But a problem seems to emerge with this question: Why would insects emerge from the water like Mayflies, glow like fireflies, and then disperse and stop glowing before they showed signs of mating behavior? Yet other explanations have worse problems.

Tracer bullets never slowly emerge from a river to gently float up over the surface. Mystical eggs of giant snakes never mystify scientists. Methane gas that ignites underwater, floats to the surface, and floats away peacefully in the air (still burning in the form of a ball)—that is hardly a standard demonstration in a chemistry-lab classroom.

I am a living-pterosaur investigator; I encourage researching and searching. I have seen accumulating eyewitness evidence (yes, cryptozoological, not yet zoological) for bioluminescence in modern pterosaurs. Nevertheless, I dare not suggest that baby pterosaurs hatch from underwater eggs. No, I am afraid that the Naga Fireballs of the Mekong River are probably large insects.

Yet the point remains that many insects have probably not yet been classified by Western science, some of them may be bioluminescent, and there is nothing unscientific about the existence of an unclassified bioluminescent non-insect. Of course “modern living bioluminescent Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur” is shocking, but that is what many eyewitness testimonies have proven to me over the past few years.

The Gurdon Light (Arkansas), the Chapel Hill Light (Tennessee), the Cohoke Light (Virginia), the Gonzales Light (Louisiana), the Hornet Light (Missouri)–Each has a legend of a headless ghost with a lantern; other places have similar lights with similar legends. What are these strange lights? Let’s find out with a fictional court interrogation of Mr. Gurdon Light (GL) (but the mystery lights themselves are nonfiction). 

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Prosecution: Mr. GL, do you live in Gurdon, Arkansas?

GL: In that neighborhood, yeah.

Prosecution: Have you ever been around Chapel Hill, Tennessee?

GL: No, sir. But I have relatives there.

Prosecution: Have you ever been in Gonzales, Louisiana, or in Missouri, or in Virginia?

GL: No, sir. Funny thing you should ask; I have relatives in them places, too.

Prosecution: To get to the point, some time ago you scared some people in Gurdon.

GL: Sorry, sir. I meant no harm.

Prosecution: Did you know that they thought they’d seen a ghost?

GL: Heck, I aint no ghost. I didn’t even see ‘em ’til they started a-hollerin’.

Prosecution: But just one night earlier, in that same neighborhood, near the railroad tracks, you were involved in a killing weren’t you?

Defense Attorney: Objection: irrevelant.

Judge: Sustained.

Prosecution: You heard the previous testimony, about how you rushed at these people?

GL: It was an accident. I didn’t see ‘em.

Prosecution: What exactly do you do for a living?

GL: Every night I look for food.

Prosecution: Why at night?

GL: It’s what my family’s always done. It’s all we know.

Prosecution: But not always totally in the dark, is it?

GL: No, sir. Sometimes I glow. It runs in the family.

Prosecution: Just how do you make yourself glow?

GL: Heck, I don’t know. It happens sometimes when I’m a-huntin’.

Prosecution: And what it is you hunt?

GL: Whatever I can catch. Sometimes I’m lucky to find a rat.

Prosecution: Did you know that your family is in some biology textbooks?

GL: I don’t read. I don’t know nothin’ about tax books. But my lawyer told me about one book.

Prosecution: What book was that?

GL: A Mr. Silcock in Australia wrote a book. It’s about my relatives there. They can glow, too . . .

Prosecution: But my question is about textbooks. Are you aware of any textbook that has anything about any member of your family glowing?

GL: No, sir. I don’t know nothin’ exceptin’ that one book in Australia.

Prosecution: Did you know that some of your relatives are behind bars?

GL: I heard about ‘em, yeah. But it weren’t from the killin’s.

Prosecution: Thank you.

GL: In the killin’s, no people were hurt.

Prosecution: So all of your relatives are innocent?

GL: Yes, sir. Just huntin’.

Prosecution: Did you know that not one of your relatives has ever been seen to glow while behind bars?

GL: Funny thing you should ask. We often glow when we’re hungry. Behind bars, vittles are handy. So I was a-thinkin’ maybe they don’t glow ’cause they’re a-feedin’ good.

Prosecution: But are you aware that no scientist has ever said anything about you or your relatives glowing?

GL: Exceptin’ Mr. Silcock.

Prosecution: Getting back to the point, you flew at these poor terrified people, did you not?

GL: Flyin’s how we get around. I meant no harm.

Prosecution: One more thing: Did we get your name for the record, your official name?

GL: Tyto. Tyto Alba.

Prosecution: Do you have a nickname?

GL: Barney. Some folk call me ”barn owl.”

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According to the Australian author Fred Silcock, some barn owls glow, sometimes. The strange bobbing lights are often called Min Min lights. It appears to be an intrinsic bioluminescence that may be triggered by hunger. At any rate, not all barn owls glow and those that do glow do so only sometimes. Some observations in Australia reveal one cause for the glow: Hungry owls can catch insects when rodents are scarce. Bioluminescence in some barn owls appears to be the cause of the whiteness of the underside feathers: More light passes through white feathers.

The Gurdon Light, Chapel Hill Light, Cohoke Light, Gonzales Light, and Hornet Light (and others) resemble the movement of a lantern being carried by someone who is searching for something. The light bobs up and down a bit and flies back and forth because a barn owl is searching for food. It may be rare enough that rodents have not developed any fear of it; insects are attracted to it.

How do glowing barn owls relate to modern living pterosaurs? When a strange light behaves like a hunting barn owl, it may be just that. But when it flies too fast and glows too brightly, it may be related to the ropen light of Papua New Guinea: It may be a bioluminescent pterosaur.

The Marfa Lights, of Texas, appear so different from many “ghost lights” that a ropen-light interpretation has been suggested, for they sometimes coordinate their glowing flights in what seems to be a complex hunting technique. And they flash too brightly and fly too fast to be barn owls. They do not suggest a headless ghost looking for its head, but a shrewd predator looking for bats: perhaps a predator with a head for hunting the Big Brown Bat, common in that part of Texas.

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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 a nonfiction book on Amazon or from the publisher—Live Pterosaurs in America.

I recently interviewed a man who observed several strange lights near Marfa, Texas. Driving across the country, two days earlier, Mr. Greene decided to stop at the Marfa observation station, having previously read of the strange lights. He watched the sky for hours, grateful that the flying lights were active that night.

Why consider that American “ghost lights” relate to live pterosaurs? Consider the ropen light of Papua New Guinea. From them we can learn that at least some living pterosaurs are bioluminescent, in particular the apparent Rhamphorhynchoids of the Southwest Pacific. Now consider how many strange lights are reported across the United States: North Carolina (Brown Mountain Light), South Carolina (Bingham Lights), Arkansas (Dover Lights), Washington state (Yakima Lights)–those are only a sample. Strange lights have appeared across the United States for decades or centuries; apparent pterosaurs have also appeared across the United States for decades or centuries.

A bioluminescent flying creature much larger than a firefly I label “B.F.C.” Of course, not all strange flying lights are BFC, but I will also use this term to refer to ones with reasonable potential, from the perspective of my associates and I (who are convinced that the ropen is a bioluminescent Rhamphorhynchoid).

I took special interest in one of the lights that Mr. Greene described to me. It flew around for over two hours, until the sun was about to come up. At least once, it dived down, at a speed apparently consistant with what I would expect of a B.F.C. that is hunting bats, diving after one bat.

[The special characteristics of Marfa Lights should not be confused with ghost lights that may be barn owls.]

Three days ago, I received an email from R.K. (anonymous), of the Manus Island area of Papua New Guinea. (We starting communicating earlier this month.) The nocturnal flying creatures that he described to me–I believe they are ropens–were common and were dangerous to local fishermen previous to the early 1940′s, when their numbers declined. In these northern islands, the creature is called “kor.”

Here is part of R.K.’s account of the Japanese retaliation against the creatures that had attacked them:

” . . . it was the japs [Japanese miliary] on the island who were attacked by the kor.  They [Japanese soldiers] apparently shot several wounding them then followed them to cves [caves] and blew [blew up] the entrances. They called ships fire on the hills and pounded them for several hours.”

R.K. asks an interesting question: “I wonder if there is a record of that somewhere?” Perhaps there is an old Japanese veteran who knows about this or has written about the battle with those creatures. If so, perhaps the word used for those creatures would be “dragons.”