The expanded and improved third edition of my first book will be retitled: Searching for Ropens and Finding God. From the first edition, this has been a cross genre, a spiritual true-life-adventure cryptozoology book. The new title makes that fact more clear: This is about more than just modern pterosaurs.

Lake Pung Ropen Sighting

The following is taken from the May 14, 2013, version of the editing of the second chapter. It involves Gideon Koro’s first videotaped interview on Umboi Island:

Gideon’s testimony overshadowed the others. He was one of seven boys who saw a giant ropen, around 1994, flying over a crater lake; the boys ran down off the mountain, terrified. Within few months, Gideon answered questions in front of a video camcorder, nervously. He described the ropen as skinny, and the size as “house to house” (referring to nearby huts). One of the two interviewers, Baptist missionary Jim Blume, interpreted: “about twenty feet.” But he misunderstood.

The number of creatures then became confused with size. As Jim Blume was interpreting and estimating the wingspan, it sounded like Gideon mentioned additional “smaller ones.” The interpreters then questioned him about “how many” (meaning the number of creatures), and Gideon answered, “ten or twenty.”

I would discover, after interviewing Gideon myself in 2004, that he did not mean that there were ten or twenty ropens; he was probably adjusting, during the first interview, his size-estimate for the one ropen he encountered. But I would conclude, in 2007, that the median of ten and twenty—fifteen—was the approximate overall length or wingspan of that ropen, in meters, consistent with his estimate of wing-size during my interview with Gideon in 2004: seven meters.

We need to understand that Gideon thinks in meters rather than feet. When the subject was the size of the ropen observed by those seven boys, Jim Blume said “twenty.” Gideon then said something that was interpreted as “smaller ones.” What he meant, I believe, is this: The length or wingspan (probably similar in size) could have been smaller than twenty meters, less than sixty-six feet.

By the way, my memory of villages on Umboi Island may be instructive. I believe many of the huts are in the neighborhood of fifteen meters apart, which is what I believe Gideon meant when he estimated the size of the ropen with the words “house-to-house.” The interpreter may have thought about house length.

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Publication of Searching for Ropens and Finding God

I hope this third edition will be completed and published by the end of summer.

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A related book but in pure cryptozoology genre:

Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition, by Jonathan David Whitcomb

This book about modern living pterosaurs is available now, in contrast to Searching for Ropens and Finding God (which will not be published until around September of 2013). From the middle of the introduction, we read:

If this book does nothing more than comfort the eyewitnesses of strange creatures, I would be grateful; but there’s much more. We need to understand why we believe what we believe. When I first began researching these eyewitness sightings, years ago, I mentioned a word to a kindergartner: “pterosaurs;” he said, “A comet.” Years later, while writing this book, I mentioned my work to a second-grader; she said, “Who will buy your book? Crazy people?” I think better of you. And I think, because of what she and many others have told me, that we must understand indoctrination, for it influences our beliefs; the extent of that influence discomforts me.

Purchase your own copy of Live Pterosaurs in America — available now.

Actually relatively few modern pterosaurs grow to become as large as the largest of those flying creatures known from fossils. At least some species probably continue to grow as long as they live, making the giant ones rare, for many things can cause an organism to die; remember the greatest risk one faces in old age: death. Statistics make it clear that pterosaur sightings, at least the more credible reports, show a steady range of wingspan estimates, with a slight drop off in the flying creatures appearing to have a wingspan greater than about thirty feet. Let’s examine that idea first.

Why do so many sightings involve giant pterosaurs?

That’s a better question, for the giant ones are indeed rare. What do I mean? Put yourself in the following situation, and let’s say that you are unaware of reports of living pterosaurs. Walk out your front door to your car as something flies over your house. Whatever that something is, let us say it’s over a hundred feet high and between the size of a sparrow and a crow. Would you look up to see what kind of bird it is? Why bother?

Now keep everything the same except the size: The flying creature has a wingspan of twenty feet. Even at 150 feet above your house, it could very well catch the corner of your eye and perhaps change your life, as you turn your head. Our subconscious has a way of telling us when something is odd.

The point? Modern pterosaurs with wingspans greater than large birds catch the attention of eyewitnesses, even though those larger ones are nocturnal and relatively rare. When one of them takes off into the air in daylight, for whatever reason, how easy we can take notice! That shocking appearance might also increase an eyewitness’s desire to report the sighting to me, increasing the number of giant flying creatures in my reports.

If we could take a census of all modern pterosaurs, of all species now living, I would not be shocked to learn that less than 1% of them have wingspans over twenty feet. Take that in the context of the late-2012 analysis of the 128 most credible sighting reports: Of those estimating wingspans, 26% of the estimates were over twenty feet. But I would guess the actual number of animals (of that size) at much closer to 1% of the total population.

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Kuhn saw two pterosaurs in Cuba, in 1971

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Pterosaur Sightings and Photos

Direct eyewitness testimony of a pterosaur sighting is essential, even if we have to wait many years for photographic evidence.

Was it a Giant Prehistoric Bird?

. . . why is that word  used by some eyewitnesses: “bird?” That word comes to mind because birds commonly fly overhead, during the daylight when we notice things in the sky, far more commonly than we notice bats.

Live Pterosaurs and Science

What can we conclude from the evenness of the data on wingspan estimates? No significant number of hoaxes were involved, for expectations regarding pterosaur size would have made one or two peaks; there is no significant peak anywhere that would suggest such a thing.

What do scientists think about pterosaur sighting reports? Many of them have probably never heard about any relevant research. We need to remember that searching for live “pterodactyls” is still within the realm of cryptozoology, for we don’t yet have any living or recently-deceased animal to examine. For now, let’s see what one biology professor has done in searching for a bioluminescent living pterosaur and then consider the origin of the extinction idea and then see what scientific analysis has been done on recent data from pterosaur sightings.

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Bioluminescent Flying Creatures in Washington State

From the third edition of my book Live Pterosaurs in America:

Late in 2007, I received an email from Peter Beach, a biology professor . . .

“I went on a short trip to the Yakima River this summer . . . because there was a [sighting]. We were unable to get a picture but we saw many . . . flashing lights. I would have assumed that [they] were fireflies but we [don’t] have them in Washington. One of the flashes took off from a big tree overhanging the river and made a kind of flashing coma turn. Many flashes were parallel to the river. . . .

. . . “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. Whatever they are, I suggest that they are at least unknown to science, night flying, bioluminescent, flying creatures about the size of an eagle or big hawk . . .”

In August of 2008, I received another email from the professor:

“During the short expedition I led with the O’Donnells, mid-July [an expedition more recent than the one mentioned above], we saw three hours of bioluminescent ‘shooting stars.’ The last hour was the most interesting in that there were two light blasts about 200 ft. apart, about 50-100 ft., above the river. The blasts were followed by screeches from about a dozen or so agitated nighthawks in the general area. I think the Rhamphorhynchoids, if that is what they were, were feeding on the nighthawks as the nighthawks were feeding on the flying insects.”

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Origin of Universal-Pterosaur-Extinction Axiom

Many scientists take this axiom for granted, but pterosaur extinction, regarding every species, is clearly a basic assumption, not a proven fact. In the ebook Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea, I wrote:

The first discovery of a pterosaur fossil by a Western scientist, in 1784, was decades before Charles Darwin began writing about his ideas on extinctions and evolution. Before Darwin, Western scientists had assumed that all species of pterosaurs were extinct for a simple reason: Those who discovered the fossils had no experience with any similar animal that was living.

Since 1784, universal-pterosaur-extinction has been taken for granted, as the years turned into decades, throughout the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century. The breadth of this assumption expanded, from generations of regurgitated proclamations, but the depth has always been shallow, with no real evidence of any kind.

I know that some paleontologist will point to fossils as if their specimens prove the extinction of all species of pterosaurs that ever lived upon the earth. Nonsense! Not only are new species or organisms being discovered in fossils but new species are also being discovered in living creatures. Regarding pterosaurs, nobody, not even a paleontologist with a university diploma, can reasonably display their fossils as if that display were proof of extinction for species for countless species for which we have no fossils.

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Statistics on Credible Pterosaur Sightings

Long tails dominate. Of those eyewitnesses who specified tail length or the presence or absence of a long tail, 95% reported a long tail. This alone discredits any skeptic’s insinuation that the sightings are mostly hoaxes, for few, if any, hoaxers would report a long-tailed pterosaur. Films and television have given us images of pterosaurs without long tails, with few exceptions. Hoaxers would not likely report something contrary to what is commonly seen in film or on television.

Overall statistics for wingspan estimates also count against any major hoax involvement. For those eyewitnesses who made estimates of wingspan, 31% (23 out of 74) reported sizes greater than seven feet but less than fifteen feet. If many hoaxes were involved, this range (7-15 feet, non-inclusive) would have been much less . . . [7-15 feet is much too big for Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs but too small for a hoaxer to use to shock anybody or to convince many persons that a non-bird was reported.]

. . . Of all the sighting reports compiled into the database by the end of 2012, those in which eyewitnesses were sure of the lack of any feathers was 21% but those eyewitnesses who thought it only probable (that there were no feathers) was 25%. . . . If hoaxes played a major role in the sighting reports, an insistence on lack of feathers would dominate. This is the opposite of what the overall data shows for this characteristic. Eyewitnesses who are positive about featherlessness are outnumbered by those who are not positive about it. . . .

From these three factors, we see that no hoax or hoaxes played any significant role in the 128 reports analyzed.

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Live Pterosaurs and Science

This goes into details about scientific analysis of wingspan estimates.

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Nonfiction cryptozoology book; paperback; third edition

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, even beyond our wildest dreams (although the reality of some pterosaurs is a living nightmare to some bats). These mysteries have slept . . . until now. [From the Title page of Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition]

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We need to be careful not to jump to conclusions when an eyewitness reports a sighting with one or more of the following words:

• Giant prehistoric bird
• Huge bird without feathers
• Large dinosaur bird
• Big Thunderbird

If some reports of large flying creatures come from sightings of modern pterosaurs—I proclaim, in a number of blogs and books, that they do—why is that word  used by some eyewitnesses: “bird?” That word comes to mind because birds commonly fly overhead, during the daylight when we notice things in the sky, far more commonly than we notice bats. “Bird” flies out of one’s mouth naturally, for it’s not so shocking to hear. But how unnatural-sounding to tell a friend, “I just saw a giant pterodactyl fly over my backyard!” Your friend might ask what you’ve been putting into your mouth.

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Be Open-Minded with Pterosaur Sighting Reports

When somebody sees a living pterosaur, the eyewitness is almost always totally unprepared. Often people will report to me the shock of an encounter, which can be an extreme cultural shock. Questioning ones own sanity is common. Trying to imagine a trick of the light (or some other misidentification possibility) is also common. In a pterosaur sighting, the person had no desire to see a modern version of what was assumed extinct, almost without exception in Western countries. (In a third-world country, an eyewitness may simply be shocked at being so unlucky: encountering a monster that he already believed in.) Hardly anybody, in any country, ever looks up to the sky hoping to see something that might prove personal insanity.

We need to be careful not to assume that personal beliefs or perspective contributed much to the descriptions that are given to us. I receive sighting reports from around the world; eyewitnesses of differing cultures and beliefs and religions report similar details, often including a long tail with a structure at the tail-end (a “diamond” or something suggesting a Rhamphorhynchoid tail vane). Words may vary but the basic meanings of those words make a pterosaur interpretation obvious.

By the way, most of the sighting reports that I have received over the past few years have been from the United States.

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Examples of Descriptions in Pterosaur Sighting Reports

Received early in 2011:

My friend told me that she was walking with her cousin, when she looked up, she saw a very large “bird” that was circling above them and slowly descending. She turned to her cousin and asked, “Do you see that? Or am I seeing things?” Her cousin responded, “Yea, I see it. What the heck is it?” As it got closer, she could only describe it as a Pterodactyl.

Namibia, Africa, 2011

I saw a large bird gliding, moving its wings very, very slowly, very much as we see raptors or eagles do when they circle in the air scanning the land for prey. I paid attention to the wings as it would allow for identification – but this bird did not have any feathers, at least not any spread primary feathers (as eagles often show). It looked more like a large bat with distinctly brightly coloured (yellow-brown, orange?) protrusions, where birds have carpal joints (like some ‘spur-winged birds’).

Arkansas, 2012

I saw a pre-historic bird here in central Arkansas back this past spring. As I was driving over a small bridge with a creek underneath it flew up from under the bridge beside my truck and flew up above my truck and out and over a field. . . . [It] had no feathers and it was grey skinned with pink undertones.

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What do all three of the above report-excerpts have in common? Each has the word “bird” and each includes either an indication of lack of feathers or the word “pterodactyl.” In other words, eyewitnesses often use the word “bird” in a general sense, not meaning a feathered flying creature.

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Hornbill Birds and a Live Pterosaur

In a recent post, “Ropens, Pterosaurian Sightings And Manta Rays,” a skeptic of the possibility of living pterosaurs gave half a sentence to the subject of Hornbill birds as the cause of sighting reports of live pterosaurs (misidentification conjecture).

Pterosaur Sightings and Photos

Despite the canoe-like wings, photo #3 is the most credible of these three, by far, believe it or not. My intention, however, is not to force this into an all-or-nothing, sure-thing-or-fake, judgment.

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