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Umboi Island Expeditions

On a blog about reports of living pterosaurs in the United States, why talk about strange flying creatures in Papua New Guinea? Recent cryptozoological investigations in the United States came from successful expeditions in the southwest Pacific. Without those years of work in distant tropical islands, revealing the credibility of eyewitnesses there, who would have taken seriously the possibility of pterosaurs flying overhead in the United States? Even for me (I am probably the most active researcher and writer on this subject), the idea of a living pterosaur flying over Los Angeles County at night, in recent years, was difficult to accept, before my expedition on Umboi Island in 2004.

We learned from the natives of Opai, Gomlongon, and other villages, many details about the ropen. Who are we? My associate living-pterosaur investigator David Woetzel is one of the American cryptozoologists who explored Umboi Island. Late in 2004 (soon after my own expedition there) he and Garth Guessman interviewed many islanders in central Umboi. Many of the natives have seen the flying light; but a few have seen it up close, revealing the nocturnal creature to be large and long-tailed.

What makes the ropen a pterosaur? The absence of feathers and presence of a long tail, on this large winged creature, strongly suggests “Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur.” The description of the tail movement and “diamond” at the end of the tail—those speak more loudly for that surprising conclusion. But the clear credibility of the eyewitnesses made a huge impression on me as it did on the American explorers who went before me and who followed me, interviewing eyewitnesses in Papua New Guinea.

Gideon Koro was not alone, when I interviewed him in his village, in 2004, only a few kilometers south of Lake Pung (at that crater lake, about ten years earlier, he had been terrorized by a giant ropen that flew, in daylight, over the surface of the water, revealing a tail about seven meters long and a mouth “like a crocodile”). Two of Gideon’s friends I also interviewed in that village, and they confirmed what Gideon told me. Mesa and Wesley were with Gideon when the giant featherless creature flew over that lake; Mesa was still nervous talking about the experience.

What ties a strange flying light on Umboi Island to a giant featherless flying creature on Umboi Island? Ask Jonah Jim and Jonathan Ragu. Those two natives each observed, at different locations on Umboi, a very large flying creature . . . glowing. It’s not just a native tradition.

Why believe natives who say they have seen giant long-tailed flying creatures that have no feathers? Ask the Australian Brian Hennessy and the American Duane Hodgkinson. Those two Westerners observed giant featherless flying creatures in New Guinea (now the nation of Papua New Guinea) . . . creatures with long tails.

Much has been written since those expeditions in Papua New Guinea, in the last few years of the twentieth century and the first few years of the twenty-first. Those giant nocturnal flyers that glow brightly—they have few if any borders or boundaries to prevent them from establishing themselves in other parts of the world. How could giant nocturnal pterosaurs live for thousands of years in the southwest Pacific, yet remain absent from other parts of the world? And what wonderful opportunities in North America!

Yet even today few Americans are prepared for the living-pterosaur interpretation of Marfa Lights in southwest Texas. Glowing pterodactyls? Here in America? What next? Non-flying mammals (without wings) that built machines (with non-moving wings) in which those mammals fly around the world? I think it far easier for humans to believe in modern bioluminescent pterosaurs flying over the hills near Marfa, Texas, than for those pterosaurs to believe in non-winged humans flying around the world. Try explaining airplanes to a pterodactyl.

American Ghost Lights

Chapters Four and Five of Live Pterosaurs in America are titled “Flying Luminescence” and “American Ghost Lights.” The lights have been seen in many states, some of them for generations, with names like Marfa Lights (Texas), Hornet Spook Light (borders Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma), Brown Mountain Light (North Carolina), Yakima Lights (Washington state), and Bingham Lights (South Carolina). The book deals more with Bingham Lights and Yakima Lights. [Update: the second edition of Live Pterosaurs in America, published late in 2010, has a whole chapter about the Marfa Lights.]

Of course not all these “ghost lights” need be from the same source, and even in one area, unidentified lights need not all be from the same source (Yakima in particular, according to the book). But the regularity, over many years, of the light-sightings in some locations strongly suggests that in at least each area, the source is the same (for many lights) over the history of that area.

My associates and I have a unique perspective, having studied the ropen light of Papua New Guinea. We know,  from many eyewitness testimonies, that those nocturnal lights correlate with sightings of glowing flying creatures described like giant Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs. We suspect that some American “ghost lights” are from living pterosaurs; some flight behaviors, such as a fast dive from the sky without any fast ascent, obviously fit a diving creature more than a ball of gas.

From my investigations (including analyzing eyewitness testimonies over several years), I believe that some of these American “ghost lights” come from at least two species of bioluminescent pterosaurs. All the species are rare, not necessarily endangered. Of course, not all apparent pterosaurs seen in daylight need be bioluminescent at night, but when a ghost-light location is nearby (note the Susan Wooten sighting in South Carolina), it deserves consideration for that particular creature.

Regardless of the degree of rarity of modern living pterosaurs in North America, how rare the scientist who has interpreted strange flying creatures or ghost lights as potential living pterosaurs! This is not in itself evidence against the hypothesis, for our society indoctrinates us into universal-extinction-of-all-dinosaurs-and-pterosaurs. The evidence for living pterosaurs (including perhaps bioluminescent ones in North America) includes rare sightings of the creatures in daylight, when they are obviously non-bird and non-bat. This deserves serious consideration, in light of the continuous invesigations that continue to involve new sighting reports.

Giant Bat . . . in the United States?

A common explanation for reports of giant living pterosaurs in the Southwest Pacific–that is the fruit bat called “Flying Fox.” But many problems plague that explanation. Descriptions include a very long tail, brilliant bioluminescence, fish-catching habits, and a truly giant size (sometimes over twenty feet in wingspan). The fruit bat hypothesis falls on its face.

But another problem with the fruit bat explanation stares us in the face. Two similar descriptions are found in many eyewitness accounts of “pterodactyls” in the United States: a very long tail and a truly giant size. Many accounts include a wingspan estimate of over seven feet, which is too big to be a Flying Fox that escaped from a zoo.

Revolutionary as it may at first appear, why not consider the obvious? Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs still live.