Sightings – Page 13 – Modern Pterosaur

August 16, 2012

Is the Ropen a Myth?

What is a myth? I think of it as an old fiction. But two ingredients there seem to be in what makes something a myth.

It is very old or an old story
It is restricted to a particular part of the world

People from all over the world, in recent years, see flying creatures that are too much like pterosaurs. That goes against both of the above points.

Here are some examples:

2011: Two men in San Diego, California, see two huge flying creatures
2012: A woman in Lakewood, California, sees a large dragon-pterodactyl
2010: A married couple from Oregon see a ropen around the Columbia River
2009: Student of a university in Papua New Guinea sees the ropen of Umboi Island at a close distance in the daytime
2012: A woman in Connecticut, at dusk, saw a “giant flying creature” that looked like the “rath from Lord of the Rings”
2012: A woman in Brooklyn, New York, in mid-summer at about 6:30 p.m., saw a creature that reminded her of a dragon. It had “a strange shaped head like the pterodactyl pictures”

The Ropen of Columbia River Gorge

We were talking to each other when all of a sudden coming left to right across the highway about 100 yards (give or take) in front of us came the most odd looking thing I have ever seen flying. My wife and I both immediately said “what was that?” . . . it came swooping over the trees on the left side of the highway.

Smithsonian Proclaims Ropen Myth

Brian Switek made some serious errors of judgment in his “Don’t Get Strung Along by the Ropen Myth.” It was the August 16, 2010, posting on the Smithsonian Magazine, online publication.

August 14, 2012November 22, 2017

Ropen Still Lives on Umboi Island

Since the 1990’s, when Young Earth Creationists first began exploring Umboi Island, the ropen had been elusive, usually refusing even a distant view of its pterosaurian qualities. In the 2002 expedition by Paul Nation and his son Nathanael, there was no sighting. But both of the two expeditions of 2004 resulted in a sighting, although they were at a distance and only involved the flying light. No pterosaur features were observed.

We’ve had no American-led expedition on Umboi Island since 2004, but in 2009 Rex, a native of Tarawe Village and a student at a university on the mainland, during one of his trips between the city of Lae and Umboi Island saw the ropen. He and others on the boat observed the ropen on the south coast of the island, although only its tail was above the surface of the water when they passed by in the banana boat. The ropen still lives there.

crypotozoologist Paul Nation crosses a river in Papua New Guinea in 2002

Ropen Close to Bunsil Station

I saw that its tail is about 6-7 meters long [about twenty feet long] with sharp diamond shape. It was an awesome scenerio.

Pterosaurs Still Living

It was around 1994 when the seven “boys” (probably in their early teens) climbed up to Lake Pung. Soon after they had arrived, the ropen flew down to just above the surface of the crater lake.

Nocturnal Ropen in California

She looked up to see a strange winged creature that immediately flew off, startled by the human who had suddenly come out from under the nearby gazebo.

June 23, 2012

Nocturnal Ropen Appears in Daylight in Southern California

On June 19, 2012, over a storm drain in Lakewood, California, in clear daylight at about noon, a long-tailed featherless creature sat on a telephone line, making strange burping noises. A lady, who desires to be anonymous, was sitting at her computer, under her gazebo in her backyard, when she realized that the strange noises were not coming from her dog, who was barking wildly.

Ropen in Lakewood, California

She looked up to see a strange winged creature that immediately flew off, startled by the human who had suddenly come out from under the nearby gazebo. . . . The long-tailed creature flew off to a large tree in a neighbor’s yard, whereupon the lady ran into her house to tell her husband. The two of them then drove around the neighborhood, camera in hand, searching for what the lady later referred to as a “dragon pteradactal.”

The next day, she and her husband were interviewed by the cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb. She estimated the wingspan at five and a half feet. Whitcomb realized that she could not have seen a Frigate bird, sometimes mistaken for a pterosaur, for the lady described a long neck and a “triangle on his tail, like a dragon.”

Three and a half days later, at about midnight, the husband went out into the backyard to search for any sight of the creature, for Whitcomb had mentioned that it was probably mostly nocturnal. He did not see anything but heard a strange noise in the neighbor’s backyard. He later imitated the sound for his wife to hear; she responded that it was the same noise that she had seen just a moment before she had seen the creature.

The next day after the man’s audio encounter, he told Whitcomb that he used to see many possums around the storm drain but in the past twelve months they have almost all disappeared. Whitcomb concluded that the ropen had been catching possums and rats at night, in that area of Lakewood, California.

Storm channel where a ropen was seen in Lakewood, California