Tag: ropen

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“Pterodactyl” Sightings in Virginia

The third edition of Searching for Ropens (to be published around the end of February, 2014) will include the following pterosaur-sighting report from Virginia (this is only part of it). The full title of the book is Searching for Ropens and Finding God.

“. . . a couple of weeks ago [mid-2012], by myself I saw two flying. Then this Sunday in about the same place, my daughter and I saw one fairly close up, flying in the opposite direction. . . . The most obvious feature was the diamond or spade tipped tail, I have not found any creature that compares. . . .

“Based on my personal readings concerning hawks and eagles and their size and general flight patterns I would estimate the creature we saw as having 6 foot wing span minimum with a maximum of 10 foot . . . When the creature was in front and above us was about when we were the closest. At this point I saw the tail structure off and on and my daughter, who is 13, however said she saw the tail structure the whole time.”

The new book will also feature a more lengthy sighting report from Virginia. The word “pterodactyl” came to the young lady’s mind at the time; later she learned the correct word: “pterosaur.” The following is a tiny portion of that report:

“I was seventeen at the time of this encounter. It was very late at night. . . . I’d place the time to be somewhere between ten and midnight . . . I went swimming with a friend at a local reservoir . . . in the back of a U-shaped inlet. . . . I was standing straight up in the middle of the U section with the water about as high as my hips and I was making some splashing I remember, rather loudly, right before I saw it.

“It came from the direction of the moon . . . all I saw was its silhouette. I could see it was big even before it was close. It seemed like it crossed a great distance with only a few flaps of its wings . . . I have not before nor since ever been so petrified in my life. . . .

“The wings were somewhere between 15 and 20 feet wide and they covered the entire opening to the U-shaped inlet when they were open. The wings were bat shaped without feathers, the head’s silhouette . . . like a point . . . like a head crest but what I was looking at more than anything else was its large, sharp talons.

“. . . it hovered there mid air 20 to 30 feet away directly in front of me about 15 to 20 feet above the water . . . I can’t even remember in which direction it flew off. I think I was in shock.“

Many more details on this sighting you can read in Searching for Ropens and Finding God, including the author’s questions for this eyewitness from Virginia and her detailed answers. This third edition of the book is greatly expanded from the second edition, with many sighting reports from the United States. It will be a great supplement to the third edition of Live Pterosaurs in America.

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New Nonfiction Book on Ropens

“Hello, Jonathan. It’s nice to meet you. . . . Thank you for keeping me anonymous. I finished reading your book ‘Live Pterosaurs in America’ yesterday. It was very good. I like how you peppered it with a little humor, too. I appreciated how you kept private those who wished to remain anonymous. . . .”

Pterosaur Sighting in North Carolina

I was driving along on I-540 in Raleigh at sundown tonight, cruising at about 70 mph, heading to my weekly jam session with my buddy. All of a sudden I see the HUGE bird looking thing fly across the overpass I was on, maybe 20-25 feet  in front of my car and about 7 or 8 feet off the ground.

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Large Flying Creatures in Georgia

Pterosaur Observed in Northern Georgia

It now seems plausible that a species of ropen lives in Georgia. David Schroder has allowed me to reveal his real name. He told me, in part:

The first time I didn’t see it. I was laying in bed around 11:30 at night when I heard a loud sound that was kind of like a scream that was so loud and close . . .

Since then I have never thought too much about it until July of 2010. My wife and I were sitting outside when motion from above the tree tops to our left caught my attention . . . We were looking at two extremely large birds flying together . . . 15-20′ wingspans . . . appeared to be featherless. They had a tail of sorts . . .

[The tail] had something on the end that was a little bigger than the tail itself. The body of the birds looked to be a dark gray. They were close when they flew over . . .

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Pterosaur Observed East of Atlanta

Sandra Paradise has allowed me to reveal her real name. We began email correspondance in 2008. In the mornings she drives east from her home in Winder to where she works in Athens, Georgia. She told me, in part:

. . . you don’t have to go to New Guinea. Far as I can tell, you can sit on a hill outside the town where I live in the mornings and see them. One sighting was at 7 in the morning, and one was at 9 am. Both days were overcast days, which I feel was very conducive to me seeing them . . . no sun in my eyes.

. . . I drive a commute that is roughly 25 miles long thru the woods . . . This 55 mph two-lane road is nothing but pasture, then woods, more pasture, then more woods . . .

On August 27 [2008] . . . I had driven less than ten miles from the house. I had come thru a section of pasture, entering into a section of thick woods, driving around a slight curve downhill . . .

. . . suddenly an animal flew out from my right. Alone in the car I shouted out loud “What the— what—-what IS THAT???” and it flew directly in front of my car, across the road. . . .

To break down the imagery: it was tan, a lighter brown, like the deer we have here, and as far as I could see was uniform in color. . . . the tail was very long with a shape on the end. Its wings were probably half-spread and I saw several dark thin horizontal bands across the belly.

. . . As it crossed my path, in front and slightly above me, I saw it had a head that was curved, like a hammer; the head had a crest on the top that was solid, not feathery at all . . .

Sandra Paradise's rought preliminary sketch of the flying creature seen east of Atlanta, Georgia in 2008

Preliminary head-sketch by the eyewitness Sandra Paradise

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The descriptions of a long tail on a featherless flying creature—that reminds me of the ropen of Papua New Guinea and of pterosaur-like animals observed in other parts of the United States of America.

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Flying Creature Sightings in Georgia

Cooler weather does not mean pterosaur sightings come to a halt . . . for they continue.

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Live Pterosaurs in Georgia

How marvelous that a live pterosaur has been seen in the state of Georgia! But Sandra Paradise has seen a long-tailed flying creature at least three times during the past four years.

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Live Pterosaurs in America -third edition of the nonfiction book - covers

Third edition, the latest version of Live Pterosaurs in America

From Amazon book reviews of the second edition:

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. Yes, the skeptics will laugh at it, but I am a skeptic too. . . .

Some people claim to have seen dinosaurs and pterodactyl like animals today and in the past?? I couldn’t get enough and their are so few books on the subject. I highly recommend this. You may find yourself almost believing in it, although that is not even the authors intent! Whitcomb painstakingly reviews every account for credibility and reason. . . .

Yes, it as a lot to take in. My first thought about these creatures was, “Well, I guess it could be possible because new guinea is very secluded and actually one of the few remaining lost worlds”. Whitcomb will have you suspending disbelief again as he shares his collection of personal accounts from Americans. . . .

. . . 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. . . .  the author tried hard to deliver these stories and was very good at it. This is well written and very hard to put down. [from stevie]

Another reader commented (for second edition):

I couldn’t put this book down. It is absolutely fascinating to read about eyewitness accounts of the people who have seen these creatures. To learn about these testimonies from such an open minded perspective is refreshing in the extreme! . . .

I highly recommend this book to anyone! People should know the truth about what is going on. No one ever hears anything about this unless they conduct extremely specific internet searches, even then, information is minimal. Jonathan Whitcomb needs to write more books! [from StrangeDream]

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Deadly Pterosaurs

Not all human encounters with live pterosaurs are a pleasant surprise. On rare occasions, a ropen, or kor, or indava (or by whatever name) will attack somebody, and the results are sometimes tragic, at least for the human. Although reports of people being attacked by large flying creatures in the United States, in recent generations, are rare, attacks have been reported in other areas of the world and in earlier times.

Thousands of Americans have witnessed a living pterosaur in the USA. In the great majority of the encounters reported to investigators, no evidence appeared to indicate any aggressive movements of those flying creatures towards any human. On occasion, however, sometimes one of the animals may dive towards a person. That is uncommon, fortunately.

Venomous Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaur

If Rhamphorhynchoids, at least one species, caused human deaths a few thousand years ago, then maybe similar flying creatures may have venomous bites today. This may relate to some of the human deaths in Papua New Guinea during the past few decades. . . .  his nephew died after being attacked by a glee-kee-oyk. The injured boy was carried by the uncle some distance . . . Unfortunately, the boy went into convulsions and died before they reached the clinic.

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Frigate Birds Are Not Ropens

How unfortunate for living-pterosaur investigations that some recent web pages display photos of Frigate birds as if they were living pterosaurs! Those daylight-loving feathered soarers look hardly anything like ropens, or long-tailed modern pterosaurs. Let’s consider a photo of a Frigate bird, then compare it with the sketch by the U.S. Marine Eskin Kuhn (which he drew soon after his sighting in 1971 in Cuba). This deserves careful attention, please.

Notice the huge size of the ropen head. (I say “ropen” because that is the name becoming common in at least some English-speaking countries.) Notice the ropen’s head crest. Notice the depth of the wings (distance from cutting-edge to trailing-edge of wing). Notice the bone structure visible because of the lack of feathers. How little this creature resembles the common Frigate bird!

Eskin Kuhn's sketch of pterosaur that fly over a military base in Cuba
Sketch by Eskin Kuhn: 1971 sighting in Cuba

Addendum: The sighting of two pterosaurs, in Cuba in 1971, by the marine Eskin Kuhn, deserves a brief summary here. On a hot day, with clear visibility, at the Guantanamo Bay military station, he was looking out towards the sea. He saw two flying creatures–obvious pterosaurs–flying not far away. Being a gifted artist, he soon thereafter sketched what he has seen. He later wrote many details about that day and about what he had seen. He has maintained the truthfulness of his account, despite ridicule and disbelief from skeptics. The combination of long-tail and head-crest have been vindicated, for subsequent years of investigations and interviews, with eywitnesses from a number of countries around the world, verify this otherwise strange combination: a giant Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur with a head crest (“long” and “pointed” and words that might be used for some of the head crests observed).

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Various Names for “Pterosaur”

Whether reported in the United States of America or elsewhere, “pterosaur” is not the only word that comes to mind when someone sees a strange featherless flying creature that is not a bat; but that is the technically correct word. Let’s consider those other names: “flying dinosaur,” “pterodactyl,” “ropen,” and “dinosaur bird.”

Flying Dinosaur (actually, pterosaurs are not really dinosaurs)

Called by some Americans “flying dinosaurs,” pterosaurs, in modern times, appear to be at least somewhat rare, for they are rarely reported by eyewitnesses.

Pterodactyl

“Pterosaurs,” the technically correct name for what many call “pterodactyls,” are known by Western scientists through their fossils. Textbooks and children’s books declare that they all became extinct many millions of years ago. . . . But where is the evidence for the extinction of all pterosaurs?

According to one news report, strange featherless flying creatures fly over a valley in the center of New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea.

Ropen

A man who was taking a walk with his wife near Perth, Australia, in December, 1997. . . . “In the distance I perceived an object in the sky. . . . I watched it as it approached. . . . It was some sort of flying creature, and my first thought was that it must be some very large bird . . . Within a minute or so it had reached our position and was about 250 or 300 feet above us . . . it seemed to be a light reddish-tan color. It did not appear to be covered with feathers but had a leathery texture. Soon after it passed us it flew over a more brightly lit sports area which highlighted even more the leathery appearance also bringing more detail to view. The wings were the most definite leathery feature, they were shaped in a triangular arch, similar to a very elongated shark fin . . . [I] estimated the size to be in excess of thirty foot, possibly as great as fifty foot.”

Dinosaur Bird (Google searches were in mid-July, 2010)

How do you spell “pterosaur?” Some eyewitnesses may search on Google with “flying creature” or “dinosaur bird.” That is unfortunate, for those searches, with those words, will bring up many irrelevant pages, not likely pages of the cryptozoology researchers who have specialized in modern living pterosaurs.

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Flying Creature in Los Angeles

Flying only about 300 feet above the heads of two astonished humans (the couple had been taking a walk in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County one night in 2009), the creature appeared to have a wingspan of 10-20 feet. Also astonishing was the faint glow that led one of the eyewitnesses to connect the creature with the ropen of Papua New Guinea.

But it was not the bright flash of the ropen that the Los Angeles creature displayed that night; the glow was faint enough to suggest a possible reflective quality on the wings. It was definitely unlike a bird.

More about the Flying Creature in San Fernando Valley, Southern California

Addendum #1:

To those who would dismiss accounts like this with “mistaken identification” I would reply with, “What was it?” If what was seen in Los Angeles County, California, in 2009, was not a giant glowing ropen, then what would appear like that and not be that?

Some ill-informed supporters of the concept of living pterosaurs have seen a video of a Frigate Bird and thought it was a ropen; that is unfortunate. Frigate birds are not ropens, and they appear very different from each other.

Addendum #2:

The new nonfiction book Searching for Ropens and Finding God (third edition) has a new chapter on sightings of apparent pterosaurs in the United States of America, a chapter that is 100 pages long. This is serious.

Here is the first paragraph of that chapter in the book, a brief mentioning of a sighting of a pterosaur-like flying creature in Los Angeles County:

On a pleasant day in June of 2012, I walked into the Sheriff station in Lakewood, California, two miles northeast of my home in Long Beach. I knew better than to tell a police officer of my concerns about the safety of family pets now that pterodactyls had invaded the community. Nobody knows better than I: Avoid that word and avoid uttering the unforgivable word “dragon.” Yet there I was, holding onto the numbered tag as I waited for my turn, the moment when I would walk up to the window and tell the police officer . . . well, tell him something.

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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.

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Jupiter, Florida, Sighting

At about 2:30 a.m., in 2002 or 2003, two men were talking outside a house in Jupiter, Florida, when a strange creature flew over their heads and into the backyard. Moments later, another one flew in a different direction. They got a good look at the first apparent pterosaur: “beige brownish color, . . . no feathers, pointed beak . . . long pointed thing protruding from the back of its head.” The wingspan was about four feet. [more details, see pages 24-25 in the book Live Pterosaurs in America]

The time of the sighting answers a question about some of the sightings in Papua New Guinea: Why do native islanders, in at least three areas, report that these (pterosaur-like) creatures fly around at Christmas time? Modern pterosaurs have not been converted to Christianity (although a few cryptozoologists have petitioned modern pterosaurs to preach to those who need to be converted to Christianity). Many natives celebrate Christmas at night, so they are walking about when the ropen (called “kor” in areas of northern Papua New Guinea) is flying around. Most modern long-tailed pterosaurs appear to be nocturnal, for they appear mostly at night.

Read more about the Jupiter, Florida, sighting in the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America