Category: Sightings, general

Sightings of apparent living pterosaurs

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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.

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Houston, Texas, Sighting

I recently received a sighting report from a lady who was a child in the late 1980’s, in the Houston area.

. . . it was during school and we were outside for either recess or gym. My friend and I both seen the extremely large bird flying in the sky above our school. It seemed to be like that of a pterodactyl.

She told me more, but not much more, in her intial report, but it’s in the consistant accumulation of sighting accounts that evidential value accumulates. Most reports of living pterosaurs (or “pterodactyls” or “flying dinosaurs” or “prehistoric birds”) are somewhat similar to this Houston sighting: The flying creature is close enough for an eyewitness or eyewitnesses to notice details that are both un-bird-like and un-bat-like, but distant enough that skeptics may seem to have the upper hand in proclaiming all such sightings are misidentifications. One problem in the reasoning of such skeptics is that not all sightings are at a distance. A few are quite close, as would be expected of actual encounters. Those close sightings make it obvious that large flying creatures in North America and in other parts of the world are not all birds or bats.

Note that sightings in North America resemble those in Papua New Guinea, in many instances. Most daylight sightings involve a long tail and many of those sighting reports include some structure at the end of the tail, suggesting a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur tail.

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Flying Creatures in a Cryptozoology Book

“Winged Wonders” is the chapter on flying creatures in Williams Gibbon’s cryptozoology book Missionaries and Monsters, and wonderful indeed are those huge apparent pterosaurs (“pterodactyls” or “flying dinosaurs”) in Papua New Guinea and Indonesia. I recommend this cryptozoology book that has a spiritual undertone. It is filled with cryptid-encounter reports from long ago and more recently. Some of the information about reports from Papua New Guinea (about the ropen and the “Duah”), however, is outdated and needs clarification.

On page 78 of Gibbon’s book, we read, “villagers of Gumalong, on the mainland, observed a huge Duah as it flew from Mount Bel, across the jungle valley, then directly over the village as it headed out to sea.” I would like to make some corrections here, even though the sighting mentioned appears to be a true encounter with a giant flying creature (or two sightings which have been confused and fused in their details).

Based on my experiences in the village mentioned, I think a better spelling is “Gomlongon,” based on my memory of how those villagers pronounced it; the word skips off their tongues so easily and quickly that we can easily miss the details and simplify the word. This village is not on the mainland but on Umboi Island, the island called by the people of Papua New Guinea “Siasi.” How do I know that Gibbons is not referring to another village (and another sighting), a village on the mainland? I interviewed many natives in villages within sight of Mount Bel; that mountain is near Gomlongon Village, on Umboi Island. For almost two weeks, my base camp was in the morning shadow of Mount Bel, at the edge of Gomlongon, next to the Baptist Church.

Perhaps this account in “Missionaries and Monsters” comes from confusing two encounters, one of which involved the name “duwas.” I know Gibbons uses the word “Duah,” but I think that comes from another mistake: The correct word is “duwas.” I have written much about that elsewhere, however, so I will leave that subject of “duwas” versus “Duah” aside for now.

young lady describes flight of ropen, probably at Lab Lab, Umboi IslandPerhaps the sighting mentioned in Missionaries and Monsters (” . . . it flew from Mount Bel . . . it headed out to sea.”) was the one described by this eyewitness (the young woman motioning with her hand), notwithstanding this video seems to have been recorded in Lab Lab (east coast of Umboi Island). If so, that might explain the word “duwas” in the report, for Lab Lab has natives with languages different from that of Gomlongon, where the giant featherless flying creature is called “ropen.”

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“Marfa Lights Solved” – Is it a Giant Bird?

I reply to a blog post (Houston Press Blogs) by Richard Connelly: “Marfa Lights Solved!! It’s a Giant Bird!!” His brief remarks of December 7th were surely occasioned by the December 6th press release about my hypothesis on Marfa Lights. I don’t mind the brevity of his post, for it was just ridicule. I commented twice, in detail, on his blog, but more detail seems in order here. (By the way, “Giant Bird” is Connelly’s invention; I never used that expression.)

The first problem, appearing to me to need immediate clarification, relates to a misunderstanding about the basic nature of the true ML (James Bunnell’s designation for “Mystery Lights”) around Marfa, Texas. It seems Mr. Connelly needs to read Bunnell’s book, Hunting Marfa Lights, more than he needs to read my book, Live Pterosaurs in America. I quote part of my comment on Connelly’s blog:

. . . the investigation by the Society of Physics Students at the University of Texas at Dallas. It’s brief and easy to read. Note that those two nights of observations were done with the assumption that car headlights were the cause of all the appearances of strange lights. Since they assumed “car headlights,” that is where they looked on those two nights: [towards] Highway 67.

Did those students of the University of Texas at Dallas really solve a controversial mystery? I think not. Ask the right question in the beginning, for it can lead us into enlightenment; asking the wrong question (even if answered correctly) can lead us into ignorance. This appears to be a critical error that doomed those students to failure, for they seemed to have formulated a question like, “Can car headlights near Marfa, Texas, appear mysterious?”

What scientist or investigator doubted the possibility of night mirages of car headlights? None of which I am aware. Perhaps the best that can be said of the student experiment is this: It confirmed that visitors passing through the Marfa area, when they stop at the viewing platform, often see distant car headlights on highway 67 and find their appearance mysterious.

Questions about the true ML near Marfa could include, “Is it biological or geological in origin?” The flat assumption of Richard Connelly, that there are no mysterious flying lights near Marfa—that may have come from his avoiding any critical evaluation of that student experiment and his eagerness to ridicule a strange-sounding interpretation.

“Big Bird” may have been avoided, in favor of “Giant Bird,” for the Sesame-Street-sounding name is the title of a nonfiction cryptozoology book about sightings of strange flying creatures (at least some of which are like pterosaurs), especially sightings in the state of Texas. Indeed Big Bird (the book, not the Sesame Street character) competes with my own nonfiction cryptozoology book, Live Pterosaurs in America.

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Second Edition of “Live Pterosaurs in America” (Author: Whitcomb) Coming Soon

Within the next few weeks, the second edition of the nonfiction cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America will be published. This expanded edition will include new reports of sightings, thrilling eyewitness accounts of encounters with living pterosaurs in the United States. Consider excerpts from some of the sightings.

San Fernando Valley, California Pterosaur Sighting

I received an email, in September of 2009, from a man who lives in the San Fernando Valley (northern Los Angeles County). . . . my girlfriend and I saw a creature last night (9/21/2009) that baffled us. It was a very large, winged creature that was gliding maybe 100 yards above us. We stared at the creature in disbelief because it was so strange . . . the wings had a glow or reflection.

Black and Orange Pterosaur in Texas

Aaron Tullock was eight years old (about 1995) when he saw a hovering flying creature . . . Late in a sunny afternoon in Marion County, Texas, he was alone in the yard of his grandparent’s house. “I saw a featherless flying animal with a wingspan of about 4 1/2 to 5 feet and a long tail with a diamond type shape at the tip of it. No hair or feathers anywhere, just leathery reptile type skin. . . . mouth/beak full of long sharp teeth . . . Its color was bright orange with black ‘tiger stripes.’ . . . although the animal was brightly colored, the underside was not brightly colored . . .”

“Pterodactyl” Flies At Night in Ohio

“. . . On June 26, 2010, at 11:15 pm, I was driving on Rt 309 just outside of Kenton, Ohio, perfectly clear night . . . and I had a creature swoop down and glide over my hood of my car. It glided smoothly and looked like a Pterodactyl . . . Because of the full moon of that eve I could see it remarkably clear and it was very close to my car. . . . I just can’t get this out of my mind. I did not know who to contact . . . thank you for your quick response.”

In addition, there is a new chapter about the Marfa Lights of Texas.

The appendix of the book will have several pages on the 1971 pterosaur sighting in Cuba, by Eskin Kuhn (actually he saw two pterosaurs). The proximity to the United States and the similarities with pterosaurs seen in the U.S. made it appropriate to include that sighting in the book.

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Washington State Pterosaur Pair

From the second edition of Live Pterosaurs in America (to be published within the next few weeks; available from Amazon and other retailers):

Early in 2008, I received an email from man who reported a pair of ropen-like creatures in the state of Washington. [sighting in 1987] . . . the plausibility that he has honestly reported two living pterosaurs that he did encounter—that appears significant enough to justify inclusion here. More likely than not, he told the truth, and that is what he encountered. GW is anonymous.

I was 15 yrs old . . . riding my bike home from a friend’s house around 5 pm . . . I heard a strange noise . . . on a wood plank fence were two of the biggest bird-like creatures I could ever imagine! I almost crashed my bike! They were about 50 ft from me; the first thing I noticed was their heads, then I thought this can’t be! Could they be dinosaurs?

I can tell you I believe their wing span was about 20 ft tip to tip. These creatures didn’t fly very high up when we first saw them, they don’t glide much either. . . . I still heard a screaching type noise, enough to make your skin crawl. . . .

The thing on the back of their heads looked like HMMM more spooned shape and narrow on the head side and wider on the other end. They did notice me at one point, and these creatures were nesting on the ground! Not in the trees, but in a brushy woodsy area near a small abandoned home.

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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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Kuhn Pterosaur Sighting

two pterosaurs sketched by Eskin KuhnThe 1971 pterosaur sighting by the U.S. Marine Eskin Kuhn was not exactly in the United States;  this was at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station on Cuba. But this is near the United States, and a number of Americans have seen similar creatures in a number of the forty-eight states. I have personally interviewed this eyewitness (2010) and I found him to be highly credible; this was no hoax. But because of certain comments by a recent critic, this sighting deserves attention here.

Consider two other sites with more information about this sighting of two pterosaurs in Cuba:

Overview of the sighting of two pterosaurs

While stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 1971, Eskin Kuhn saw, in daylight, two pterosaurs flying about 100 feet above the ground. They were close enough for Kuhn to notice details, and, being talented in realistic drawing, he soon sketched what he had observed. That sketch has been around for many years, but it deserves a closer look, for other eyewitnesses have seen a similar creature.

More about the two pterosaurs in Cuba

“I saw two pterosaurs . . . flying together  . . . perhaps 100 feet [high], very close in range from where I was standing, so that I had a perfectly clear view of them. 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 . . .”

There have been, over the years, at least two online criticisms of this sighting report; let’s consider the more recent criticism of this sighting in Cuba, and examine the reasoning involved, for there are problems with the reasoning of this critic (as there are problems with the reasoning of the earlier critic; but that has already been addressed elsewhere).

One comment (by someone with the initials “S.H.”)  was in response to a blog post titled “Frigate Birds Are Not Ropens.” It should be known that the comment was made before an important link was added to that post, a link to a site with many paragraphs about the sighting in Cuba, in fact in the words of the eyewitness himself: Eskin Kuhn. Since this comment resembles one or two others, by other critics, it now deserves a response.

S.H. said, “. . . you certaintly [certainly] can’t rule out mistaken identification.” Well, that is interesting, for the comment was made about the post “Frigate Birds Are Not Ropens,” which is about how much eyewitness descriptions of apparent pterosaurs differ from appearances of Frigate birds. If S. H. was thinking about some flying creature other than a Frigate bird, why did he not mention what he was thinking? I don’t mean to be mean to him, for he made the comment before there was any link, on that post, to any site or page with details about Eskin Kuhn’s sighting; but if S.H. was serious about digging to get to the truth about this report, why did he not look deeper or be more specific about possible “mistaken identification?”

S. H. also said that the sketch by Kuhn shows something that “combines features of two completely different sub-orders of Pterosaurs.” I believe he means a Pterodactyloid head crest and a Rhamphorhynchoid tail. Perhaps it would have been more accurate to note that the sketch seems to show a Rhamphorhynchoid with a head crest, for that tail is clearly not that of a Pterodactyloid, but a least a small number of Rhamphorhynchoids did have head crests (although those are few and the head crests in those fossils are small compared with many of those on Pterodactyloids).

But let’s consider what S. H. had in mind, for he also said, ” . . . it looks like a drawing made by somebody who only knew Pterosaurs from childrens books . . .” (he also mentions “dinosaur movies”, although he gives no detail about anything, giving no title of any book or movie). But these investigations of sighting reports have been going on for many years now, and the combination of long-tails and head-crests is common all over the world and in different decades. Indeed, many recent sighting reports, of apparent pterosaurs in the forty-eight contiguous states of the U.S., include this combination, and recent depictions of pterosaurs (as in one or two of the Jurassic Park movies and in other movies and television programs) show non-tail Pterodactyloids. The point? The overall picture of pterosaur sightings, of all time periods and in many countries, shows a preponderance of the combination of long tails and head crests; Eskin Kuhn’s sighting is just one of many similar sightings in North America, Africa, and in the Southwest Pacific.

I interviewed many natives on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, during my expedition there in 2004. As would be expected of eyewitnesses of actual flying creatures (in contrast to hoaxes), most of those natives had only brief distant sightings. But a few of those many eyewitnesses were fortunate (or unfortunate, from the perspective of those natives who feel that it is bad luck to see a ropen) to have seen the shape of the ropen. They describe a very long tail (“seven meters” for one ropen). Long-tailed pterosaurs are seen not just by the Westerners who have seen pictures of long-tailed “pterodactyls” in the 1960’s (or whenever); they are seen by natives in remote areas of the world, by natives who have never seen any picture of a pterosaur, by natives who know nothing about fossils of pterosaurs, by natives who have never been influenced by Western ideas about pterosaurs.

S.H. seems to be suspicious of Kuhn’s sighting, but his reasoning is flawed. He also mentioned that Kuhn’s sketch has “none of the features that are less well known to the public, like hair.” But obvious hair is not universal with all species of pterosaur; who said it was? Why would two pterosaurs flying in Cuba in 1971 have to have obvious hair? Some sightings in Papua New Guinea do involve observations of hair, it is true, but not all those sightings. Most people have hair on their arms, but how often do we notice arm-hair on a person who is more than ten meters away? Very rarely, I believe (notwithstanding what my daughters would say). So how many sketches of humans include arm hair? It seems to me that S.H., with this hairless objection, is bending over backwards to try to discredit Eskin Kuhn’s sighting of two pterosaurs in Cuba in 1971.

The comment by S.H. was not approved on the post-page “Frigate Birds Are Not Ropens” for good reason. One of his sentences seems to imply that the person who drew the sketch had fabricated the story. I know that Eskin Kuhn has endured ridicule for his story; I will not allow any more blatant assaults on his character, not if I have any say about that.

I gave Eskin Kuhn a surprise phone call, early in 2010, giving him no time to prepare to my questions about his report of almost three decades earlier. I found his response perfectly harmonious with what would be expected of an honest person who had a real experience many years earlier. He said something like, “It was a long time ago.” To critics who insist on assuming that he was dishonest, I reply: The fault lies in the thinking of the critics.

I include here the original sketch by Eskin Kuhn, drawn soon after his extraordinary encounter on the Guantanamo military station in Cuba in 1971. (Kuhn has given me permission to use this sketch to promote the concept of modern living pterosaurs.)

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cover of third edition of the nonfiction cryptozoology bookFrom the Amazon.com description of this cryptozoology book (Third Edition)

Encounter eyewitness accounts of living pterosaurs in the United States. Live “pterodactyls?” In the United States? Many scientists have long assumed all pterosaurs died millions of years ago. Now take a whirlwind tour of many years of investigations in cryptozoology, and prepare for a shock: At least two species of pterosaurs have survived, uncommon, not so much rare as widely, thinly distributed.

From another post on the blog “Live Pterosaurs in America“ (Publication of second edition)

“Also newly included in the second edition of the book is the sighting report about two large long-tailed pterosaurs seen in daylight in rural Washington state.”

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