Category: Southwest Pacific

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Dragons or Pterosaurs in Australia

Although the word “dragon” does not usually come up, Australians sometimes see a giant long-tailed living pterosaur, regardless of the label put to it. The most famous sighting is probably the Perth creature, seen by a married couple who were taking a walk one evening in December of 1997, but similar flying creatures have been seen on the east coast and in the south.

Perth Pterosaur

“My husband and I both sighted a huge creature flying over a densely populated area, while we were out walking one night in Perth, Western Australia on the coastline around 10:30 pm . . . it had a ruddy reddish brown leathery skin . . . it had a long tail and a wingspan that we estimated at between 30-50 feet across. . . .” [correlates with Gideon Koro’s account]

“This creature was huge and never in my life have I ever seen anything that remotely resembled it until I found a page on Pterosaurs . . . My husband works in a scientific field and he observed it and took in much more about it than I.

“What we saw did not appear to have a long neck, at least we could not see it from the angle . . . yes, we believe it did have a tail, and don’t believe they were feet, but actually a tail . . .”

Modern Pterosaur in Australia

“In the early 1990s I was living in . . . South Australia. . . . [I] drove . . . out to Western Australia . . .  [to] see the outback. . . . stopped . . . set up the tent . . . [something] looked like an airplane, far away. . . . maybe a couple hundred feet [high]. . . . it got nearer to me, I noticed that the wings were actually flapping gently . . . no sound. It was getting closer . . . had a wingspan [of about] 15 or 20 feet. It got close . . . leathery . . . no feathers at all.”

Giant Pterosaurs in Australia – east coast, north of Brisbane

During his farm chores, between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m., he [a boy of about twelve years old] forgot something and had to backtrack. . . . at the door of a shed, he saw a large creature with wings. It was on the roof of the shed, just above the door where he had recently been standing.

The boy had a brief view of the body and wings of the creature. It was larger than an average man six feet tall, with wings that folded to the side and back . . .

The giant pterosaur of Australia may be related to the long-tailed Kongamato of Africa or the long-tailed featherless flying creature seen in Sudan, Africa. It may also be related to the ropen of Papua New Guinea, although it could be a different species, notwithstanding the ropen is sometimes described as being a giant.

Are Dragons Pterosaurs?

Are all fictional stories based upon people or animals that never existed? Let’s be careful not to rush to conclusions about dragons, for fantasies, though fictional, are often based upon some truth. The story of Little Red Riding Hood is fictional, but grandmothers and wolves are both real.

What do dragons and pterosaurs have in common? Celtic dragons had arrows at the end of their tails, which may relate to pterosaur tails. What about Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur tails? Are not dragon tails also long? Perhaps most noteworthy  are the wings: both pterosaurs and flying dragons have featherless wings.

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Ropen, Not Misidentified Frigate Bird

A hastily written article by a Terrence Aym, for the Salem-News (Pacific Northwest region), has given critics bird shot to shoot at the idea that the ropen is a pterosaur. Aym assumed the Youtube video showed just what it purported to show: a ropen; it was actually a misidentified Frigate bird. But that video is old news to living-pterosaur investigators, and misidentified sea birds are a far cry from how serious living-pterosaur investigations really began.

Duane Hodgkinson Pterodactyl Sighting

The World War II veteran Duane Hodgkinson has many web pages and blog posts written about his “pterodactyl” sighting on the mainland of New Guinea (now in the nation of Papua New Guinea) in 1944. He is also mentioned in at least one scientific paper in a peer-reviewed journal of science. The Youtube video “Ropen-Pterodactyl American Eyewitness” (the veteran was interviewed by a cryptozoologist) has over a quarter of a million views. Hodgkinson’s story has fascinated many who have come to believe in his encounter with a “pterodactyl.”

How astonished were the two American soldiers when the giant featherless creature flew up into the air! Its wingspan was close to thirty feet; its tail, close to fifteen feet long. Its head had a long pointed head crest. Everything about the giant flying creature shouted, “non-bird and non-bat.” A Frigate bird it was not.

Where did that idea come from, that idea that apparent pterosaurs are nothing but misidentified Frigate birds? It came not from examining the sighting report of Duane Hodgkinson.

Frigate Birds and Misidentification

This post gives information on how the Hodgkinson sighting of 1944 has nothing to do with the Frigate bird. No bird was misidentified for a “pterodactyl.” It also mentions the 1971 live pterosaur sighting by Eskin Kuhn.

How are some critical sightings evidence of a live pterosaur, rather than a misidentified bird? Consider the 1971 Cuba sighting by Eskin Kuhn. Look at his sketch of the pterosaur with wings down, about to begin an upbeat-cycle of wing-flapping. Notice the legs, separate from the long tail. Also notice the large head crest at the back of the creature’s head. How obvious that this is not a sketch of a Frigate bird!

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Mysterious Marfa Lights

What marvelous Marfa Lights! “Story 17,” in the book Hunting Marfa Lights, tells about a “spectacular” sighting recorded by the author of the book, James Bunnell. Early on the night of May 7, 2003, several Marfa Lights made their appearance. Bunnell describes this as “the beginning of one of the most spectacular ML events I have recorded.”

The ML divided into two MLs and they then performed an interesting dance with each other . . . the right ML started moving rapidly to the west and continued its journey for miles . . . The left ML continued to oscillate and vary in brightness (pulsing) and exhibited interesting behavior . . . The right ML continued its journey west . . . [it] also divided into two MLs. They both continued . . . west for approximately ten miles, then both MLs reversed direction . . .

Other eyewitnesses, on other nights, have seen similar complex flying behavior of Marfa mystery lights: splittings, horizontal dances, and rejoinings. It sounds like Texans line dancing, but humans are not invited.

Surely this kind of flying light behavior suggests flying cryptids, bioluminescent crytids that may be related to the ropen of Papua New Guinea. In the southwest Pacific, strange flying lights are said to be from giant flying creatures. Some cryptozoologists believe the ropen is a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur, in spite of the widespread teachings about extinctions 65-million years ago.

Why believe that these strangley-flying Marfa Lights may be from bioluminescent pterosaurs? Eyewitnesses of living pterosaurs have seen those featherless flying creatures west, north, and east of Marfa, Texas.

Marfa Lights – Sarcasm or Soaring Predators?

“Predator” is the first word to consider with Marfa Lights. In general, those mystery lights that James Bunnell classifies as “CE-III” behave consistantly with the predator-interpretation, assuming large bioluminescent flying creatures can live in southwest Texas.

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Flying Dragons in Papua New Guinea

The old engine groaned as the small ship turned north, just off the coast of the mainland of Papua New Guinea. We were mostly covered from the temporate nightly showers, as we gazed out over the sea. Natives gathered around as an old sailor told me about the giant flying dragon that his people call “wawanar.” Around Pilio Island, natives say that Wawanar “owns the land and the sea.”

“You try catch Wawanar?” The old man asked, smiling.

“No, I want to take photo.” I replied.

The sailor’s face showed doubt about me, not about the wawanar, but there was not much else to say, so most of the natives returned to their giant bed, a huge dirty tarp that lay over the cargo area of the ship. We were still hours away from Siasi, also known as “Umboi Island,” the home of the glowing ropen.

Who decides when a foreign word is translated into the English “dragon?” As my bodyguard-interpreter (Luke Paina) and I listened to the old sailor, no interpretation was needed, for he spoke a little English. But the English “dragon” comes to mind when a creature (legendary or not) is described as large, with wings and a long tail, and without feathers. Dragons, in various parts of the world, may be actual living creatures, modern living pterosaurs, in spite of Western indoctrination into universal extinctions of all of their species.

In Papua New Guinea, some of the words, among many languages, for the giant nocturnal flying creature is “kor,” “seklo-bali,” “indava,” “duwas,” “wawanar,” and “ropen.” Of course there may be more than one species, but the flying dragon of the night is not the giant fruit bat we call “flying fox.” The flying dragon of Papua New Guinea is often described as glowing, for the flying light is often all that is seen. But when it is seen clearly, up close, it has a long tail and no sign of feathers.

See also Marfa Lights of southwest Texas

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“Prehistoric” creature witnessed alive by psychologist

Brian Hennessy, in recent years, has worked as a consulting psychologist for the Chongqing University of Medical Sciences in China. In 1971, he saw a “prehistoric-looking” flying creature in New Guinea (now the nation of Papua New Guinea), on the island of Bougainville. The serious nature of his profession makes this sighting report highly unlikely to have been a hoax.

Early in the morning, but in plain daylight, on a dirt road leading down to the coast, Hennessy heard the “slow flapping” and looked up to see a “very big” creature with a pointed “horn” on the back of its head. Describing this flying creature in an interview with a cryptozoologist, years later, he mentioned that there was “not a feather in sight.”

In 2006, Hennessy was interviewed by Jonathan Whitcomb; before that interview he had been unaware of cryptozoological expeditions in Papua New Guinea. He had no idea that Americans had been investigating creatures described like living pterosaurs. Hennessy was also unaware that many natives have names for giant flying creatures: indava, seklo-bali, wawanar, and ropen.

The UFO sighting in China may have no relationship to Hennessy except that one sighting was in Chongqing.

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Glowing creature of the night

Flying Creature of the Night

“Remember your worst nightmare? Were you glad to wake up? Be grateful. In the early morning hours of February 23, 2010, a few miles or so southwest of Marfa, Texas, the victims were terrified by what awakened them. I am not the eyewitness, but a few days after this event, I interviewed my friend James, who had been driving through Southern Texas; he had stopped at the Marfa Lights viewing platform to see whatever he could.”

Flying Creature in San Fernando Valley

A report of a large flying creature in Sherman Oaks, California, suggests similarities to the [glowing]  ropen of Papua New Guinea. A man reported the creature after he and his girlfriend observed it while taking a walk at about 10:30 p.m., on September 21, 2009. He reported, “It was a very large, winged creature that was gliding maybe 100 yards above us. . . . it beat its wings, once, before going out of view.” . . . The man estimated the wingspan: ten to fifteen feet; the girlfriend estimated twenty feet. The wings appeared more like those of bats than birds . . .

Entomologist Observed Strange Lights in New Guinea

. . . a British entomologist . . . in the 1930′s, was puzzled by strange lights  . . . [on the] mainland of New Guinea. She later wrote a book . . . in which she described the flash . . . It would be decades later that a few American cryptozoologists would explore several areas of Papua New Guinea, searching for bioluminescent Rhamphorhynchoid (long-tailed) pterosaurs. . . .

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