For those who have witnessed something like a living pterosaur, the various names for those strange flying creatures are numerous: demon flyer, ropen, dragon, pterodactyl, dinosaur bird, etc.
Setting aside the legends and traditional beliefs about the ropen, some native eyewitnesses have seen it up close, too close for comfort. But the point is this: “Demon flyer” is not the literal interpretation. This phrase probably came about from one or more Westerners who were too-deeply impressed with the negative aspects of the legends and the spiritual connotation.
Apparent pterosaurs have various names in various countries of the world; in the United States, we sometimes hear “pterodactyl” and “dinosaur bird.” Regardless of the label an eyewitness attaches to a flying creature, let’s examine some of those encounters, worldwide, especially the kongamato and the ropen.
“The woods around Penllyne Castle, Glamorgan, had . . . . winged serpents . . . An aged inhabitant of Penllyne, who died a few years ago . . . said it was ‘no old story,’ invented to ‘frighten children,’ but a real fact. His father and uncles had killed some of them, for they were ‘as bad as foxes for poultry.’ This old man attributed the extinction of winged serpents to the fact that they were ‘terrors in the farmyards and coverts.’”
Are some pterodactyls still living? That idea is controversial, to be sure, for where is the photograph to prove such a bold idea? But wait a moment. What does photography have to do with it? Where is photographic evidence that every kind of pterodactyl became extinct millions of years ago?
The pterosaur is known by several names in the United States: “dinosaur bird,” “flying dinosaur,” and perhaps the most popular “pterodactyl.” In Papua New Guinea, it is known by many names: “ropen,” “duwas,” “indava,” and “kor.” But what shocks many Americans and Europeans are eyewitness reports that these supposedly “ancient” and “extinct” flying creatures are alive and well and even flying over our heads on rare occasions.
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