Sightings – Page 10 – Modern Pterosaur

February 16, 2013September 4, 2013

Are Modern Pterosaurs Bioluminescent?

That’s a good question, yes. I approach it from different sides, rather than just with one question, “Are modern pterosaurs bioluminescent?”.

Are any Large Flying Creatures Bioluminescent?

In other words, does anything larger than a firefly have wings for flying and have glowing capacity? There is a species other than a pterosaur that is purported to have intrinsic bioluminescent capability, namely the common barn owl, Tyto Alba.

Flying barn owl - Tyto Alba - photo by "Wild Lens"

Of course not all Barn Owls glow, but the Australia researcher Fred Silcock has written a book on this subject and he has some explanations. With one expert firmly believing that some barn owls in the wild can use bioluminescence, it may not seem quite so revolutionary to suggest that capacity in some pterosaurs. The name of the book by Silcock is The Min Min Light, The Visitor Who Never Arrives. This subject of glowing owls can get rather tedious, so I will move on.

Ropen of Papua New Guinea

I suggest, to anyone who would attempt to explain pterosaur bioluminescence to a skeptic, that we begin with reports of large flying creatures known to some of the natives of Papua New Guinea, creatures that glow as they fly. They are called by a variety of names:

ropen
duwas
seklo-bali
wawanar
indava
kor

The variety of native cultures in which this glowing flying creature is known is evidence of the biological reality of it, but not proof of its existence. But the following makes a substantial supplement to the native traditions and stories of encounters:

David Woetzel’s sighting on Umboi Island in 2004
Paul Nation’s video recording in 2006
The Destination Truth video recording in 2007

We could easily doubt one or the other, doubting native stories of encounters with giant featherless flying creatures and strange flying lights or doubting American explorers who witness and videotape strange flying lights. But we cannot nearly as easily throw away both of them together.

We could doubt Gideon Koro when he testified that he saw the ropen that had no feathers but a tail “seven meters” long or we could doubt Duane Hodgkinson when he testified that he saw a pterodactyl with a tail “at least” ten or fifteen feet long. But we cannot nearly as easily throw away both sightings together.

In conclusion, the fact that we do not yet have a live or fresh-dead body of a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur does not mean we do not have a strong case for the existence of a modern bioluminescent pterosaur. Patience is a virtue, but I will not sit around and say nothing until someone gets hold of a body. I encourage everybody to be open minded and do what can be done to support the research and the efforts of those who get out and look for modern pterosaurs.

Occam’s Razor and Marfa Lights

Bunnell’s H-4 requires two questionable things to interact. The bioluminescent-nocturnal-flying-predators hypothesis, “BNFP,” involves a questionable element, flying creatures not classified in biology, and an unquestionable element, prey such as bats, snakes, mice, and other small living things in southwest Texas. Of course, a predator need not always be hunting. They sometimes mate and compete for mates. Some predators even play. To the best of my knowledge, these aspects of group-predator behaviors can account for all the CE-III lights and more. The simplicity award goes to BNFP.

Flying Lights in the United States

I have seen them, they look like bats but flap their wings way different than birds do… And they have a red-orange bioluminiscent [sic] body… First time I spotted one was somewhere on Nov, 2011; last time I saw 2 of them together a week ago [March, 2012].

Pterosaur Sighting in South Carolina and in New Guinea

The men soon realized that it was no bird that started to circle the clearing. It had a tail “at least ten to fifteen feet long,” (book Searching for Ropens, 2007) and a long appendage at the back of its head: apparently, a live pterosaur.

non-fiction cryptozoology book

Buy your own copy of this nonfiction cryptozoology book: Live Pterosaurs in America

From Isaac E. Salapat:

“Once you start to reading it you won’t want to put it down . . . it is all true and based on years of research . . . amazing and awe inspiring. Out of five stars I’ll give it all five.”

January 31, 2013September 4, 2013

Pterosaur Sighting or What?

Sometimes I think that the most ignorant persons on earth, regarding pterosaur extinction, are biology professors and paleontologists. An unnamed biology faculty member at UCLA recently said, “Pterosaurs are extinct and have been for 10s of millions of years. Period.” That was in response to a question about the ropen of Papua New Guinea. It would have been better to simply admit ignorance of eyewitness sightings and perhaps ask about details.

What paleontologist knows about the reported pterosaur flying near the university at Irvine, California? Probably not any professor at that university, for it was a non-faculty member who saw the animal fly in front of his car one summer day a few years ago.

I would guess very few, if any, biology professors know about the “pterodactyl” sighting between Australia and Indonesia, a few thousand feet above the surface of the sea. The pilot and copilot were knocked out of their comfort zone by the huge flying thing that almost collided with their two-engine prop plane a few years ago.

Paleontologists can talk about and write about particular extinctions of pterosaurs, and they can do that until the paint flakes off the walls, but it is all speculation. Which of them knows about the Australian psychologist Brian Hennessy, who saw a long-tailed “prehistoric” creature flying over a dirt road on Bougainville Island, New Guinea? The paleontologists are ignorant of such encounters, for their heads are always buried in their old presumptions.

If Duane Hodgkinson and his army buddy did not see a “pterodactyl” in that jungle clearing west of Finschhafen, New Guinea, in 1944, what did they see? It could not have been any mechanical toy, for it was too big and sophisticated and too early in history. It could not have been a bird, for it had a wingspan of about thirty feet and a tail at least ten or fifteen feet long, even if it had feathers. It could not have been the largest species of bat for the flying fox fruit bat has nothing like a tail anywhere near that size, even if there had been extreme exaggeration in tail length estimate.

What did the married couple see in Perth, Australia, as they were taking a walk on a warm evening in December of 1997? The husband worked in a scientific field, and he reported a size of around thirty to fifty feet for the long-tailed flying creature. The wife was ridiculed for making the sighting public, accuse of telling a lie. She was offended at the accusation but kept on insisting that she and her husband had observed the pterosaur-like creature. That observation, by the way, was for minutes, with some of that time revealing much structure in the lighting from a nearby sports stadium. Why would she subject both of them to riducule, for years, if they had not actually seen what they said that they had seen? A hoax makes no sense here.

It’s not that professors of biology and paleontology are somewhat less informed about one or two reports of modern pterosaurs. Most of them seem totally ignorant of over a hundred critical pterosaur sightings, reports from a few decades ago to a few weeks ago.

Pterodactyl Sightings Worldwide

One night, whilst sitting on the ground by the tents (a fair way from the noise and commotion of the festival), I saw what I at first assumed was an owl gliding over the campsite (I assumed that because it was night time, and obviously no other birds would be out-bar things like nightjars-which this was not!) – it passed right over us, probably about 30-40ft high, and as I watched it, I realised it was definitely no owl I’d ever seen before. It was the colour of suede/sand, looked like the same sort of texture as suede (i.e no feathers), had a long thin tail, and didn’t flap once.

Pterosaur Sighting in Australia

“ . . it had a ruddy reddish brown leathery skin; (we could see its underneath as it flew over us at about 300 ft up; the glow from all the ground lighting made that possible), it had a long tail and a wingspan that we estimated at between 30-50 feet across. . . .”

Not All Biology Professors Fight Modern Pterosaurs

A recent survey of biology professors in the USA reveals not all of them are completely convinced that all species of pterosaurs became extinct by 65 million years ago.

January 8, 2013September 4, 2013

Modern Pterosaurs Seen in Georgia

“There’s nothing new under the sun.” Recent reports of modern pterosaurs, or large featherless creatures, in Georgia are not that new. The Phantoms & Monsters web site has a post from 2009 about two hunters in Georgia around the early 1960’s. One of the hunters was greatly frightened by a large flying creature: “Suddenly my friend appeared and the look on his face was ashen. He told me he had been hunting when a giant bird or something had flown right over his head and disappeared into the trees.”

I did some research on the name of the town of Griffin, Georgia, but found that it came from a man named Griffin, not from any strange flying creature.

I found that searching online with -dragon in Georgia- brings up web pages on the subjects of scenic motorcycle routes and a dragon boat festival, which are not helpful. Sea dragons at the Georgia Aquarium and a business of tattoos and piercings were also not helpful. It seems more useful to search on cryptozoology sites.

When we think of sightings of modern pterosaurs in Georgia, we need to look at the big picture. Animals and birds have no knowledge of political boundaries. Flying creatures in particular are not hindered by borders, even when people put up high fences. We need to look at sighting accounts from states around Georgia.

Susan Wooten is a good example. She was driving down a country road around 1989 when something huge flew in front of her car and across the road. She reported that the flying creature “looked as big as any car, and had NO feathers.” Like other eyewitness accounts, this one had a report of a long tail.

There have also been eyewitness accounts of similar flying creatures in Florida and North Carolina, states near Georgia.

Flying Creature Sightings in Georgia

I can only guess to be 15-20′ wing spans and the motion of their wings as they flew was very slow. The head was long and ended in a point; wings ended in a point and appeared to be featherless

Featherless Flying Creature in Georgia

As it leapt out from the woods, I saw it from below, and 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.

Georgia Sightings by Sandra Paradise

She has now revealed two more sightings, in addition to the first two. The third one was when she had a camera in her car but she could not stop in time to photograph it before it flew away. The fourth sighting she was not sure of except that it was probably of the same kind of creature.