bioluminescence – Pterosaur Eyewitness

June 12, 2015January 16, 2019

Ropen Bioluminescence in North America, including in Utah

By the investigative journalist Jonathan Whitcomb

UPDATE: The links in this blog post have been updated with “https” in support of those pages that are secure online. Everything in this post (on the bioluminescence of modern pterosaurs) was already safe; this just verifies that safety.

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Three boys were playing at night on a playground in the farming community of Grantsville, Utah, around the fall of 2001, when they were shocked at the appearance of a large glowing creature that flew overhead. At the first moment that 12-year-old Dallin saw the thing, he had no way of telling if it were several glowing objects flying together or one large object. But Dallin eventually resolved that it was one huge bird, and he shouted to the other two boys that the bird was on “fire.”

By the time his brother Devon saw the creature, it was overhead, and the farm animals nearby were “going crazy” in panic. Devon thought of the legendary Phoenix bird, but he eventually got the impression that it was a strange kind of bioluminescent flying creature, with a wingspan of perhaps 15-20 feet.

That was around 2001, when very few Americans knew anything about investigations into the bioluminescent ropen of Papua New Guinea. And few people in North America were aware of sightings of apparent living pterosaurs, including sightings in the United States.

I interviewed both Dallin and Devon face-to-face in 2015, recording their testimonies on video.

Dallin described to Jonathan Whitcomb the strange flying creature seen by the three eyewitnesses

After the videotaped interviews, I wondered if that night was not the first time that the apparent ropen had flown over that area of Grantsville, Utah. Devon and Dallin both told me of the noise the farm animals made when the creature flew overhead, at least when it was glowing. That degree of panic, among a number of farm animals, is consistent with the idea that one or more of those animals had been attacked on a previous night.

I believe that the truth will eventually come out into the open and that these glowing flying creatures will be seen to be related to the Marfa Lights of Texas and to the ropen lights of Papua New Guinea.

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Flying Lights: Bioluminescent Predators?

I am now beginning to dig more deeply into reports of strange flying lights around Brown Mountain in Burke County, North Carolina. . . . have researched the most mysterious of the Marfa Lights, concluding that they are from bioluminescent flying predators (BFP) that return to the same general area of Texas every few weeks. [The more mysterious of the Marfa Lights of southwest Texas have baffled the investigators who had assumed they are non-living energy forces.]

The Bioluminescent Ropen

On Umboi Island (Morobe Province), the ropen has a 5-6-second bioluminescent glow that the natives see when the creature is about one hundred meters above the ground (although villagers sometimes see it over a reef). . . . In 2004, in central Umboi Island, Jonah Jim was interviewed twice: by Whitcomb and, a few weeks later, by Guessman and Woetzel. . . . it ties the glowing form to the pterosaur-like form. He saw it glowing and he saw its long tail (obviously not a Flying Fox fruit bat).

Locations of Pterosaurs in the United States

Within hours of a sighting, a ropen (or other modern pterosaur) could be many miles away, with who-knows-what destination. Within years of a sighting, a ropen could be on the other side of the planet. Who knows, except that ropen?

Pterosaur Sightings in Utah

. . . we stared up at the night sky . . . [My brother] suddenly noticed something and started yelling something about a giant bird . . . At around the same time, the animals in the farm next to us started going berserk.

March 7, 2015

Reflecting on the Brown Mountain Lights of North Carolina

In this first week of March, 2015, I am now beginning to dig more deeply into reports of strange flying lights around Brown Mountain in Burke County, North Carolina.

Brown Mountain, NC, is a long flat ridge with few distinguishing characteristics

Comparing Marfa Lights With Brown Mountain Lights

The strangest flying lights of southwest Texas, the Marfa Lights that fly just a few feet above the desert soil and appear to have something like chemical-electromagnetic properties—those flying lights rarely appear in that area of Texas, maybe only about six nights of each year. I’ve learned much about those from reading the book Hunting Marfa Lights, by the scientist James Bunnell. Well, it seems that the most mysterious flying lights around Brown Mountain, North Carolina, also only appear on occasion.

I have researched the most mysterious of the Marfa Lights, concluding that they are from bioluminescent flying predators (BFP) that return to the same general area of Texas every few weeks, as they roam around that part of North America, including Mexico. They may very well be related to the glowing nocturnal ropen of the southwest Pacific.

If I find that those more mysterious of the Brown Mountain Lights behave in similar ways, I may conclude the same thing for them. Let us look at the whole picture before jumping to conclusions, especially if those conclusions are based upon a few observations of lights that are easily explained: those common lights that have common explanations.

Beware of making the same error with Burke County, North Carolina, that some skeptics make with Presidio County, Texas. When a group of university physics students turned their cameras toward a highway at night, near Marfa, Texas, they recorded automobile headlights, which proves nothing about strange lights that fly a few feet above desert bushes where there are no roads. When a geologist in 1922 has two good nights to look for the Brown Mountain Lights, he reported nothing strange, which proves nothing about strange lights that rarely appear.

Caves in North Carolina

The Western NC Attractions web site calls the Linville Caves “North Carolina’s only caverns.” That seems hard to believe, considering how many caves are known in this part of the country. Finding no source to back up that statement, I suspect it would have been more accurate to say that Linville Caverns are the only ones in North Carolina that have organized tours for the public. Whatever the case, I wonder if it’s only a coincidence that these caves are only a few miles from Brown Mountain (a few miles as the pterosaur flies).

Why do I bring up caves in the eastern United States? Caves are where bioluminescent flying creatures are sometimes said to stay during daylight hours, whether in North America or in the southwest Pacific. So these unusual lights in North Carolina really do deserve more attention.

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Mystery Lights of Marfa, Texas

What is guaranteed to shock most Americans who hear about Marfa, Texas? It’s not stories of the ghost lights or scientific speculations on earth lights. A nonfiction book on living pterosaurs in America—that is shocking, including the chapter on Marfa Lights.

The Ropen and Brown Mountain Lights

Research by the physicist Clifford Paiva of BSM Research Associates

August 18, 2014August 18, 2014

Glowing Pterosaurs in State of Washington

Columbia River Gorge between states of Washington and Oregon

Biology professor PZ Meyers appears to have become upset with my many web pages, including my post on Live Pterosaur: “Bioluminescent Pterosaurs in Southwest Washington State.” I will not here quote from the Meyers personal blog post, for the many sightings of apparent pterosaurs in Washington state—that deserves attention here, and my post on Live Pterosaur was mentioned by that critic.

What you now read may appear to be nothing new, another blog post about apparent extant pterosaurs in the state of Washington. Yet look at the reports as a whole: many sightings in the northwest United States, over many years, and by a number of eyewitnesses. Take these encounters as a whole. Some flying creatures are glowing.

On page 232 of my book Searching for Ropens and Finding God, it says:

In May of 2010, a man and his wife were driving, at mid-day, on the I-84, by the Columbia Gorge in Oregon, when something flew across the highway. The man reported, “It was pretty good size and the thing that really stood out was that it had a long tail and unusually shaped wings, different from a bird because they seemed to be more curved.”

In the email report I received on May 30, 2010, the man said, “My wife and I both looked at each other and said, ‘did you see that?!’ As we drove down the highway and passed the point where the animal crossed the highway, my wife looked out over the river where it had flown to, and noticed that it was brown and appeared to have no feathers.” After searching online, he concluded that it was a ropen.

In August of 2011, he sent me another email: “I would have said that all these people are crazy until my wife and I saw one of these animals . . . I could easily see how a creature like that could live in a secluded area and go unnoticed, especially if it is mainly nocturnal.” . . .

Columbia River Gorge (photo by Jonathan Whitcomb)

Notice that the man and his wife were not searching for pterosaurs. Only after their sighting did they search online for answers. That is typical. Further down the page, another person reported:

. . . from another eyewitness in October of 2012: “. . . It flew over me, and my home on the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State, just yesterday. . . . it flew low, made no noise, and cast a shadow as if it were a small aircraft. It freaked me out.” . . . He also said, “At first I thought pelican, but I know pelicans and this was much larger with less head weight, much larger wings, somewhat short considering the wing span, greyish in color . . . freaky.”

Sightings by Professor Peter Beach

How do those sightings in the Columbia Gorge and on the Kitsap Peninsula relate to the idea of bioluminescent pterosaurs? People in different areas of the planet have reported flying creatures that glow at night, with some of those encounters involving apparent pterosaurs. Some sightings are in the United States, and Professor Peter Beach has witnessed flying lights over a river in the state of Washington.

Was it a coincidence that one of the flying lights, seen at night by Beach, was from the same tree on which another eyewitness had seen a pterosaur? And was it also a coincidence that this professor saw, on another night, a large flying creature that did not correspond with any known species of bird or bat that lives in this area of Washington? I think not.

Professor Beach has been on a number of expeditions in this part of the Yakima River. Some of the flying lights he has witnessed are obviously not shooting stars, for some of them were observed flying parallel to the river and UNDER THE CLOUD COVER. What better explanation than bioluminescent flying creatures?

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Earlier Post on Pterosaurs in Washington State

I was riding my bike home from a friend’s house around 5 pm . . . to my left, and on a wood plank fence were two of the biggest bird-like creatures I could ever imagine! I almost crashed my bike!