Copyright 2008, Sandra Paradise (eyewitness and artist)

Quoting from the book:

The lady . . . had been trying to find someone who might help her verify . . . the strange animals that she had seen twice in the past few weeks [in 2008]. . . . Her first sighting was at 7 a.m., the second, 9 a.m., with both mornings overcast . . . Both times she phoned a friend to tell him of her extraordinary experience.

. . . entering an area of thick woods, around a mild downhill curve, with high banks and brush on each side of the road [on August 27, 2008] . . . 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 told me what made her yell out loud: It was the tail . . . a “very long” tail that had a strange shape at the end. She later sent me some sketches . . . one of them showing a thick almost-heart-shape at the end of the tail.

Overall, the animal was tan, similar to the light brown of the local deer . . . Her sketch showed a smoothly curved head crest.

More Sightings Near Winder, Georgia

. . . it was around October of the same  year [2008]. I was driving the same road, had just passed the point of my  second sighting. looking ahead and up a hill I saw a flock of crows  cross the road, from right to left, followed by –yep, you guessed  it. The pterosaur was in perfect silhouette, wings outstretched,  distinctive head in full view, pad on the tail. . . .

Pterosaurs in Cuba – Media Center

The marine observed details, later recording them in his sketch: The head was large in proportion, with a large head crest; the short ‘hind legs’ were attached to the trailing part of the wings . . .

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Live Pterosaurs in America (third edition) by Jonathan David Whitcomb

From a review of the second edition of the book:

“This is an updated review of the book and I am changing my rating to 5 stars. This book has been on my shelf for almost a year now. I pick it up every now and then and a part of me becomes more impressed by the book every time. . . . Whitcomb painstakingly reviews every account for credibility and reason. This man is not a crank. He tries to weed out would be hoaxes and miss-identification. This is not a guy looking to create evidence to confirm his own beliefs. On top of this, I have great respect for a guy who follows his dreams so passionately. He has traveled to Papua New Guinea to search for the creature there . . . If you are interested in reading about this subject, this is definitely the book to get . . .  I like how the author is not out to prove every story in the book and takes great care to make sure he has the best ones. He tries hard to make sure there are not other explanations for sightings. . . . This is well written and very hard to put down.” Review by “stevie” (five stars: maximum)

A few days ago, I was interviewed by Richard Syrett, for an episode of his television show. Other cryptozoologists previously interviewed include Garth Guessman and William Gibbons. This episode of “The Conspiracy Show” is supposed to be on Canadian television this coming October. I was delighted at the interview, for it seemed open-minded in the questioning.

Syrett asked several questions related to reports of modern living pterosaurs, but at the May 5th recording there was no way of knowing what would be included after editing. And the broadcast will probably not be in the United States, only in Canada and one other country.

Whitcomb mentioned sightings by Gideon Koro, Evelyn Cheesman, and Duane Hodgkinson. The answers to Syrett’s questions, however, were brief, for the final television show will be only 30 minutes long.

Live Dinosaurs and Pterosaurs on Canadian Television

Whitcomb explained his conjecture about the source of the more mysterious of the Marfa Lights in southwest Texas. He believes that they might be similar to the ropen lights of Papua New Guinea: large nocturnal flying creatures that are bioluminescent.

Whitcomb Opposes Shooting Pterosaurs

Those who believe in modern pterosaurs have been ridiculed for years, with no end in sight for the ridicule. But cutting down ridicule by cutting down one of these amazing animals would be wrong. We need to protect precious life, not destroy it.

The bulverism was easy to spot, with Switek attacking the reputations of specified individuals who had explored in Papua New Guinea, searching for flying creatures whose descriptions strongly suggest large Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs. And why ridicule the religious beliefs of those American explorers?

I agree with Switek’s general assessment of the newspaper article by Terrence Aym, for Aym really did get carried away with his enthusiasm for live pterosaurs; he was also careless. (He included a photo of Frigate Bird as if it may have been a ropen-pterosaur; I don’t want to even mention the name of that newspaper article.) But a poorly written article is no excuse for writing a poorly conceived blog post: About researchers and explorers, Switek knows little, aside from what he read in a poor newspaper article and perhaps only a limited number of other sources.

I saw no references in Brian Switek’s post. It seems he neglected critical key sightings that were, in contrast, examined my peer-reviewed scientific paper: “Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific” (Creation Research Society Quarterly, Volume 45, Winter-2009).

Take the four critical sightings in the southwest Pacific: Finschhafen-1944, Bougainville-1971, Pung-1994, Perth-1997. In context with the history of the pterosaur-extinction axiom (the weakness in the pre-Darwin assumption of universal pterosaur extinction), each of the above four encounters independently appear to have been unlikely to have been from any non-pterosaur. I judge each one at less than 10% of being from any non-pterosaur. In 0ther words, there is less than one chance in 10,000 that no living pterosaur was involved in any of those four sighting reports. And that is not even beginning to examine the other 94 sighting reports that have been analyzed statistically.

Is there not even one human associated with the Smithsonian who will come forward and examine the years of searches and research involving sighting reports of apparent living pterosaurs?

Don’t Get Strung Along by the Ropen Myth

“He [Brian Switek] may have been correct in recognizing one or two problems with a newspaper article that promoted modern pterosaurs, but he failed to dig deeper, apparently assuming that the sources for that article were worthless. In reality, the faults were in the writing of the article itself, not in the investigations of American explorers who inspired the writer of that fault-ridden article.”

 Smithsonian Gets “Discovery” but Runs Away From Discovery

Space Shuttle “Discovery” took its final flight on the back of a modified 747 Jumbo Jet. It will be a museum piece in the Smithsonian, the largest system of museums in the world. But even though they get the “Discovery,” the Smithsonian museums had previously run away from the potential discovery of a modern living pterosaur: the ropen of Papua New Guinea.

“Don’t Get Strung Along by the Ropen Myth”

It’s not that the writer, Brian Switek, is technically wrong in all his proclamations in his blog post. Indeed he was correct in pointing out the error of a newspaper reporter who used a photo of a Frigate Bird as if evidence for modern living pterosaurs. But Switek ridiculed in general: any potential report, anywhere, of any possible sighting of any living pterosaur, and he ridiculed that general concept while failing to mention even one of the key sightings. Taking a shuttle van to an airport does not prove that the Space Shuttle was just a science fiction myth.

That Smithsonian blog post might just as well have been orchestrated from a member of a conspiracy group, for it appeared to give solid evidence that no sighting of any pterosaur could have been of that type of flying creature. But after many paragraphs that ridicule the religious beliefs and ideas of men who had explored remote tropical rain forests in Papua New Guinea, Switek says, “Furthermore, even if a long-tailed pterosaur were found it would do nothing to undercut the science of evolution.” It seems that both sides of an origin-philosophy dispute agree on one thing: It is possible that a species of long-tailed pterosaur still lives. Even Mr. Switek admits that possibility.

Giant Bat

Too often have I encountered a generalization that is too convenient, an explanation not for any particular sighting of an apparent pterosaur in Papua New Guinea but for sightings in general: a misidentified Flying Fox fruit bat. The Hodgkinson sighting alone, perhaps the most important pterosaur sighting in history, repudiates the “giant bat” misidentification explanation.

9-11 Conspiracy Theory

Now how could one depraved government official begin to gain help for an enormous attack against Americans? He or she would have had to find somebody else just as depraved. Then more individuals equally depraved would need to find more, and then more. One non-depraved person would have immediately exposed the conspiracy, or (if fear had prevented that) would have leaked out the details, causing the deprived conspirators to be caught. Yes, even before 9-11, planning to murder thousands of people was illegal.

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Live Pterosaurs in America (sale price on Amazon.com)

From the third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America:

Since less-credible reports are of limited relevance in the investigation of the possibility of living pterosaurs, let us ignore [this paleontologist's] many examples of questionable reports; consider the more-credible reports. They are consistent with the hypothesis that more than one species of pterosaur, rare and mostly nocturnal, live (at least for much of the year) in the United States.

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Inside the Smithsonian “Castle” in Washington, D.C.

The Smithsonian Institution is the largest museum complex in the world, with historical buildings lauded as architectural landmarks. But with all of its scientific displays and projects, it is not yet supporting the living pterosaur investigations that have accelerated since the two ropen expeditions of 2004. In fact, one Smithsonian Magazine blog post blasted the very idea that the ropen is more than a myth.

For pterosaurs, one of the four fingers (digits) supports the wing. The other three are for graspings, similar to digits in other animals. But we need to compare this with the wings and fingers of bats:

Notice the above image and the use of the bat’s five digits: one for a claw and four in support of the wing: far different from the pterosaur’s three-claw/one-support.

Pterodactyl-or-bat? Puzzle

Eskin Kuhn sketched the above two long-tailed flying creatures soon after he observed them in Cuba, in 1971. The drawing does not show the claw finger or fingers clearly, but he described the wing-finger structure as follows:

“The structure and the texture of the wings appeared to be very similar to that of bats: particularly in that the struts of the wings emanated from a “hand” as fingers would; except that a couple of the fingers were short (as for grasping) and the other ran out to the tip of the wing, others back to the trailing edge of the wing to stretch the wing membrane as a kite would.”

One skeptic may have noticed part of this description and concluded it correlated with bat anatomy rather than pterosaur anatomy. Concerning the wings, the eyewitness did say “very similar to bats.” Perhaps that skeptic did not read the whole sentence, however. The sketch itself does not show the bat-hands that seem to be described by “emanated from a ‘hand’ as fingers would.” Did Mr. Kuhn really have a detailed knowledge of bat anatomy? It seems to have been only a generalized knowledge, for the next part of his description is anything but bat-like.

. . . a couple of the fingers were short (as for grasping)

Bats do not have two short fingers for grasping, only one. To be sure, pterosaurs have three, but one of those three could easily be hidden during flight, or close enough to another claw-finger that three looked like two.

Consider what he next describes:

. . . others [fingers] back to the trailing edge of the wing to stretch the wing membrane as a kite would . . .

Neither bats nor pterosaurs have any finger or fingers at the trailing edge of the wing membrane. That does not mean that there is never any appearance of any structure at the trailing edge; but I suspect that Kuhn simply misinterpreted it, assuming it was part of the bone structure.

Pterosaur Wings and Fingers

Even for newcomers to pterosaur fossils, the three claw-fingers are easy to distinguish above. The long wing finger, digit number four, however, dwarfs the other three . . .

Too often have I encountered a generalization that is too convenient, an explanation not for any particular sighting of an apparent pterosaur in Papua New Guinea but for sightings in general: a misidentified Flying Fox fruit bat. The Hodgkinson sighting alone, perhaps the most important pterosaur sighting in history, repudiates the “giant bat” misidentification explanation. Note the following points, taken from my scientific paper “Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific,” with exact quoting:

1. The creature ran to their left, taking six to ten steps to get airborne
2. The wings never stopped flapping, at one to two seconds per flap, while it flew.
3. He estimated the legs to be 3–4 ft (1–1.2 m) long.
4. The top of the back was 5–6 ft (1.5–1.8 m) above the ground just before takeoff.
5. the tail, he estimated it was “at least” 10–15 ft (3–4.6 m) long.
6. He compared the wingspan to a Piper Tri-Pacer airplane (~29 ft or 9 m).
7. The length of the head, not counting the appendage, was about 3–4 ft (1–1.2 m), similar to the length of the neck.
8. An appendage protruding from the head, above the neck, was about half that length

Any one of the above eight points puts the Flying-Fox-misidentification into doubt. Three or more of the above points practically disproves the notion. All eight of the above points make that misidentification explanation ludicrous. There was no giant bat. It was something else.

Garth Guessman’s videotaped interview, in 2005, with the World War II veteran Duane Hodgkinson, made plain critical points about the encounter in a jungle clearing west of Finschhafen, New Guinea, in 1944.

No Hoax

A number of additional points show why a hoax explanation is also untenable, but that is beyond the present subject.

Sighting by Gideon Koro

From the same scientific paper “Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific,” is recorded what the native Gideon Koro and six other young men encountered at Lake Pung (Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea) around 1994:

According to Gideon Koro . . . a few minutes after they had arrived at the lake, “it came down.” I tried to ask about wingspan but at that point had to rely on an interpreter . . . and only later did I realize that he probably thought that I meant the length of one wing. In either case, his answer is astonishing: “seven meetuh” (seven meters). When I asked about the tail length, he pondered, seeming to recall and estimate; then he said, “seven meetuh.”

Brief Comparison of Two Sightings

Although Hodgkinson’s tail-length estimate is only rough, it seems that the wingspan of that “pterodactyl” was about twice the tail length. Gideon’s estimates appear similar, when we accept the probability that he did not understand the English word “wingspan” (when he estimated the wing size, he was referring to the length of one wing). That is consistant with the reactions of those two groups of eyewitnesses. Hodgkinson and his army buddy were amazed at the flying creature that had a wingspan of almost 30 feet. Gideon Koro and his six teenaged friends were terrified at the flying creature that had a wingspan of over 40 feet.

Other differences may have played a part. In 1944, two armed adult soldiers saw a creature that was flying away from them. About half a century later, several unarmed boys saw a creature that had a reputation: The ropen of Umboi Island is a being that those islanders know to avoid.

Giant Bat

In Western cultures, the idea of universal pterosaur extinction is so deeply ingrained that eyewitnesses find it difficult to use that word, for it makes them feel unbelievable. “Pterodactyl” is the same. The description details make the distinction between bat and pterosaur, in the critical sightings.

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He mentions no human names, in the first two paragraphs of his post, but tells us of his disappointment in his youth when rumors of living dinosaurs did not result in any scientific discovery. He mentions no decade for those cryptozoological expeditions, and he tells us nothing about why he came to label those unnamed persons negatively or why recent explorers should also be thought of in a negative sense. Brian Switek said:

“Like many self-appointed authorities on the Unknown, the chief advocates of living dinosaurs turned out to be hucksters, overly-credulous wildlife enthusiasts, or young-earth creationists . . .”

If there is no doubt that those earlier advocates were hucksters, why not mention their names? I submit that this labeling of unnamed persons “hucksters” is inappropriate, implying that the persons soon to be named are in that same category. It also brings up the idea that Mr. Switek is not the most objective writer to evaluate the work of James Blume and David Woetzel, to say the least.

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James Blume has been a Baptist missionary, for decades, in Papua New Guinea. Contrary to an implication in Aym’s article, referenced by Switek, Blume is not usually considered an “explorer,” at least he would not likely call himself that; he has, however, assisted American explorers on many occasions. He has also spoken with many natives, regarding traditions and sightings of the ropen or apparent pterosaurs or large flying creatures.

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David Woetzel (apparently misspelled once in Aym’s article: “Davie Woetzel”) is an explorer, by all accounts, and unquestionably a Young Earth Creationist. Switek mentions this religious belief as if it discredits everything done by explorers, but he  fails to mention that Woetzel’s beliefs are similar to Sir Isaac Newton’s. Nobody insinuates that Newton was a huckster.

Pterosaur Bioluminescence

Switek’s post on the Smithsonian blog mentions Woetzel’s idea of pterosaur bioluminescence as one of a number of “anecdotes.” What Switek fails to mention are details about where the idea of bioluminescence comes from regarding the ropen sightings. He could have done much better if he had done more research, with a more open mind about the possibility that those with a different religious belief system his his own may nevertheless make important contributions to human knowledge, even if those religious persons do not have as distinguished a name as “Newton.”

My own expedition on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, late in 2004, preceded Woetzel’s expedition by several weeks. I was qualified to interview natives there, being a forensic videographer, experienced in videotaping while interviewing an eyewitness. I also knew a little of the Tok Pisin language, although I mostly relied on interpreters for both Tok Pisin and the local Kovai tongue. Many native islanders were eyewitnesses of the ropen light, and I had almost unlimited access to accounts of the flying light. I also had, after returning to the United States, many months to analyze the data from those interviews, before writing my nonfiction cryptozoology book Searching for Ropens (now in its second edition).

The second expedition of 2004 included the Americans David Woetzel and Garth Guessman. I have used the label “light expedition” for both of the 2004 investigations on Umboi Island, for few explorers were involved, with limited supplies and limited time. But the preparations were substantial, for all three of us, and our efforts were intense, and the assistance from a number of local villagers made a major difference. Both expeditions were successful.

Why does Mr. Switek use the word “anecdote” to include the idea that modern pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea are bioluminescent? He uses that word in the same sentence as the name “Woetzel,” referring to David Woetzel, but I wonder if Switek did any reading of anything beyond Aym’s faulty newspaper article. I have watched several segments of the videos Woetzel and Guessman recorded. There may be some moments when “anecdote” might apply, but those moments are limited.

Woetzel had his own sighting of what seems to have been a “ropen” light, as it flew behind the mountains surrounding Lake Pung. His recounting that sighting experience in his scientific paper (published in a peer-reviewed journal of science) is hardly worthy of the word “anecdote.” Contrary to what was reported in the newspaper article by Mr. Aym, that explorer videotaped neither any ropen light nor any form of a pterosaur. The significance? Having searching for weeks for a living pterosaur without seeing any form or shape of one, and having promoted the idea of modern living “pterodactyls” (as some call them), Woetzel can hardly be accused of lies. If he had any inclination to lie, he would have reported something resembling a pterosaur, not just an undefined light. Having reported an unmeteoric flying light, we need to consider the possibility that it was some kind of bioluminescence.

If Mr. Switek objects to reading reports from those with different religious beliefs from his own, what about the British biologist Evelyn Cheesman? She wrote about the flying lights that she observed near Mondo, New Guinea, (early 1930′s) in her book The Two Roads of Papua. I have never read anything by her or about her that would indicate her religious beliefs were different from Mr. Switek’s present religious beliefs. I suggest Switek read what Cheesman has written about those strange flying lights.

I agree with Brian Switek: Serious problems made the newspaper article in the Salem-News an embarrasment; but that does not discredit the valid research and investigations by many men, over many years, who have in common that their accomplishments have been admired by a reported who was careless in writing about the subject.

More Reactions to “Don’t Get Strung Along by the ‘Ropen’ Myth”

Smithsonian Attacks Ropen Myth

[Switek wrote:] “even if a long-tailed pterosaur were found it would do nothing to undercut the science of evolution.” In other words, whatever happens, Switek’s philosophy is correct. I think that reasoning, if it could be called reasoning, is too convenient, revealing that it is a philosophy that is being protected, not science. True scientific reasoning does not include “whatever the outcome, whatever the evidence, my idea must be correct.”

Ropen Dismissed by Smithsonian

With all those negative comments towards those he disagrees with, I wonder if Mr. Switek has ever heard of the word “bulverism.” In the same paragraph, he also mentions, “young-earth creationists intent on somehow disproving evolution by finding creatures thought to have been long extinct.” But the conflict between extreme origin philosophies is too deep for him to adequately cover in his post.

Smithsonian Officials Appear Guilty

The writer with the Smithsonian, Brian Switek, in a blog post with that institution, severely criticized the opinion that there may be a living pterosaur.

Live Pterosaurs in America, third edition, will take you on a whirlwind tour of eyewitness sightings of modern pterosaurs in many of the contiguous states of the U.S.A., for this nonfiction book is the result of years of research and interviews in cryptozoology.

Graceful Flight

I have noticed that some eyewitnesses have been fascinated by the graceful flight of the flying creatures they have observed. Eskin Kuhn described the flights of two “pterodactyls” as “very graceful, slow . . . yet they were flying and not merely gliding, like turkey vultures do here in Ohio.” Susan Wooten described her daytime sighting in South Carolina: “It swooped down over the highway and back up gracefully over the pines.”

An eyewitness of an “American Hammerhead Ropen” in Georgia told me of her impression of the flight (as I wrote in Live Pterosaurs in America): It reminded her ”of some kind of ‘breast stroke.’ She was enthralled by the logic of that wing flapping, different from that of birds: Wings of birds appear to flap more up-and-down. She told me that the creatures she had seen appeared to grab the air and pull themselves through it.”

Getting Airborne

According to Duane Hodgkinson’s account of the 1944 sighting near Finschhafen, New Guinea, (recorded in the scientific paper “Reports of Living Pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific”) “The creature ran to their left, taking six to ten steps to get airborne and ascended at an angle of about 30 degrees (similar to an airplane taking off).”

The paleobiologist Mark Witton and the paleontologist Michael Habib have come up with a hypothesis that some large Pterodactyloid pterosaurs became airborne by something like “pole vaulting.” I have seen an animation illustrating how it works; it looks to me more like catapulting, but it is an interesting idea. We need to remember that this refers to large Pterodactyloids, and Hodgkinson saw what we believe was a large Rhamphorhynchoid.

“Pole Vaulting” Pterosaur

Dr Mark Witton at Portsmouth University (United Kingdom) and Dr Michael Habib of Chatham University, Pennsylvania (United States) have taken an original look at some of the larger pterosaur fossils in regard to how the flying creatures, the heavier ones, got airborne. They believe that some pterosaurs used all four of their limbs to take off into the air.

Several factors practically eliminate hoaxes as a major cause for those publicized sightings that have been emphasized by the most recent LP-cryptozoologists (who specialize in living pterosaur sightings). For now, let’s look into the post-sighting experiences of some eyewitnesses. 

I interviewed the Perth couple over a period of several years, by emails, and found a hoax was practically eliminated as any reasonable explanation. I know that some skeptics could respond with something like, “a giant long-tailed pterosaur in the modern day is unreasonable.” But the skeptics do not rely on any observation; they rely on a popular assumption.

I eventually found the original report that the lady had made to an online forum. As she had told me earlier, the replies to her report of a giant pterosaur-like flying creature were rude and insulting. How easy it was to see why the lady had become upset at being called a liar. But she and her husband have stood by their testimonies for years, inspite of that ridicule, making it hard to stand by the accusation that they had played a hoax.

The same could be said of the experiences of the U. S. Marine Eskin C. Kuhn, whose sighting has been called a ”hoax.” I gave him a surprise phone call, a few years ago, and found him to be highly credible, answering my questions as a valid eyewitness would respond, not as a hoaxer would respond. He has stood by his sighting account for four decades, in spite of accusations that his experience never happened.

What about Susan Wooten, of South Carolina? She has encountered skeptics, since her sighting of a huge featherless flying creature, but she stands by her account. The apparent pterosaur flew right in front of her car, and other drivers on that highway in South Carolina pulled over to the side of the road in reponse to the flyover. She has been upset at the words of those who doubt her account, but she still maintains that she saw what she has said that she saw.

Who would insinuate that Brian Hennessy had played a hoax? He is another eyewitness who has given his name to the world as he has given us his account of the prehistoric-looking creature that flew over his head on Bougainville Island (now part of the nation of Papua New Guinea) in 1971.

Other eyewitnesses could be mentioned, credible persons who stand by their testimonies of their encounters with flying creatures that cannot reasonably be interpreted as any bird or any bat.

A Hoax or Not

That practically eliminates a hoax as in relation to our investigations: We would not lie when telling everybody that we never saw a pterosaur. Woetzel and I and other American explorers encountered eyewitnesses of the ropen, and descriptions of that flying creature suggest a modern pterosaur far more than any bird or bat.

Hoax Explanation for Living Pterosaurs

“Mr. Paiva also found that Plate 24-B shows that no image-pasting hoax created the two lights. In other words, Paul Nation videotaped these two lights; they were not created separately and then inserted onto the background.”

Pterosaur Sightings From Hoaxes?

I interviewed Hodgkinson sixty years later, by phone, emails, and mail, for he still lives in reasonable health, in Livingston, Montana. I continued interviewing him, on occasion, and my associate in cryptozoology, Garth Guessman, also interviewed Hodgkinson. Over a period of eight years, we have found no indication of any hoax.

Pterosaur Eyewitnesses not Playing Hoaxes

When an eyewitness estimates wingspan (not all eyewitnesses estimate it), I record it and later compare it with other estimates. After several years of interviewing eyewitnesses of apparent pterosaurs in the United States, I found a peak at 8-10 feet; in fact, 27% are in that range, with a wide variety of other estimates falling off on both sides. This size is far too small or too big for hoaxers, for standard models suggest Rhamphorhynchoids were much smaller but cryptozoological reports from Papua New Guinea suggest ropens can get much larger. A combination of hoaxes would not produce this peak.

Pterosaur Sighting at Wildlife Sanctuary in Southern California

I myself measured the road over which that creature had flown: thirty feet wide. That is how we estimate the length of the apparent ropen that shocked a driver who saw it fly from a marsh into a wildlife sanctuary, right over the road, right in front of his car.

In July of 2008, I received a phone call from a man who reported a very large flying creature, seen one year earlier, in Orange County, less than one mile north of the University of California at Irvine. He described the dark gray or black animal as 30 feet long, with 15-16 feet of that being a tail. He saw the creature fly “at low altitude,” in front of his car, over the road (Campus Drive), into the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary, in daylight.

I believe the creature’s flight path was not exactly perpendicular to the road, when it flew over it, from the best of my memory of interviewing the eyewitness, which brings up the possibility that it may have been even longer than thirty feet. It’s hard to find room for much exaggeration in this sighting: The ropen seems to have been close to thirty feet long.

Biggest Pterosaurs

. . . during World War II, the American Duane Hodgkinson and his army buddy were shocked to see one of the giant ropens fly into the air right after it was startled awake from a wild pig in a jungle clearing. Hodgkinson estimated the wingspan as similar to that of a Piper Tri-Pacer airplane, in other words about 29 feet. He estimated the tail length at about 10-15 feet, at least.

Some ropens have tails about 15 feet long, from the reports of the 2007 Southern California sighting and the 1944 Finschhafen sighting, which practically eliminates bird-or-bat misidentifications, for no bird or bat has a tail nearly that long. For those who might suggest that Hodgkinson saw the long legs of a bird and exaggerated the length of what he thought was a tail, consider this: The creature running through that jungle clearing in 1944 (to get airborne) was running WITH ITS FEET while the tail trailing behind was “at least” ten to fifteen feet long. For those who might suggest that the wildlife-sanctuary ropen was a misidentified bird having long feet, consider this: What bird has legs fifteen to sixteen feet long? (Remember this estimate comes from comparing it to the nearby road.)

Perth Pterosaur

The Australian couple who observed that flying creature (for some time, as it approached them slowly) were shocked by its size. The husband (who worked in a scientific field, according to the wife) told me that he felt that the wingspan was about fifty feet, but he wanted to rationalize it to be only thirty feet.

Lake Pung Ropen

The seven boys ran home in terror, never to forget their encounter with the giant ropen that had flown over the surface of the crater lake. I interviewed three of the eyewitnesses in 2004, about ten years after that encounter. Gideon Koro pondered my question about tail length, looking back and forth at the ground to his left before answering assuredly, “sefan meetuh” (seven meters, or about 23 feet). That by itself eliminates the flying-fox-fruit-bat explanation, for that bat has a tail measured in fractions of an inch, not meters.

Buy this cryptozoology book on Amazon.com