Expeditions in Papua New Guinea – Page 3

January 24, 2013May 14, 2014

More About the “Destination Truth” Ropen Episode

I know that last July I wrote about this television show, but I left many things out.

It seems timely now to quote Josh Gates, who leads expeditions, including this one in Papua New Guinea, searching for the truth about the flying creatures that could be pterosaurs.

“I’m Josh Gates. My travels have taken me to the most exotic and mysterious places on earth. I’ve seen some unexplainable things which raise some strange questions. Now I’ve pulled together a crack team, armed with the latest technology, to search for answers. I’m not sure what’s out there waiting for me but I know what I’m looking for: the truth.”

“Reports of a pterodactyl-type bird brought my attention to Papua New Guinea. The locals call this flying dinosaur the “ropen,” and the papers have reported sightings all over the country. They describe it as an extremely dangerous large featherless bird with a wingspan that can reach up to fifteen feet. Some experts believe the ropen is a pterosaur that survived the Cretaceous period by hiding deep in the caves scattered throughout Papua New Guinea.”

“As a nocturnal creature, the ropen’s defining characteristic is the glow it reportedly emits from its stomach and tail. Many witnesses have claimed to see this glow at night, and recently a U.S. explorer caught two lights on camera that he thought belonged to the legendary animal.”

“As you might have guessed, I wanted to see this lost-world creature for myself, so Lindsay, Marc, Neil, Eric, Hank, and I packed up the equipment and headed to the airport”

Joshua Gates shows native eyewitness a recording on a laptop computer, while the sit on a native boat

Josh Gates and Fabian in Salamaua, Papua New Guinea, in 2007

Three expedition-team members on a small boat in Papua New Guinea

On the left, Josh Gates; on the right, Jacob Kepas, native eyewitness

At a harbor in Papua New Guinea, native interpreter Jacob Kepas is interviewed by the American Josh Gates

Jacob Kepas answered Josh Gates questions

Joshua Gates interviewed the eyewitness Jacob Kepas.

Josh: “I’ve heard that you’ve seen the ropen.”

Jacob: “I saw the light back in Wau.”

Josh: “What did the light look like.”

Jacob: “It looked very bright.”

Josh: “Like a round light?”

Jacob: “Yes.”

Josh: “The whole bird just glowed?”

Jacob: “The stomach and the light from both wings.”

Later in their expedition, the team was able to videotape one of the flying lights.

Television Episode of “Destination Truth”

Soon after the cave adventure, they set up cameras nearby, hoping for some sighting at night. They were not disappointed, for a strange flying light appeared over the sea, out beyond the high cliff on which they had set up their four cameras.

Television Coverage of Flying Creatures

I am grateful that my friends and associates Garth Guessman, Clifford Paiva, and Paul Nation were featured on this Monsterquest episode. I am also grateful that Duane Hodgkinson was part of this television production about these wonderful flying creatures.

Searching for Ropens and Finding God – what a gift it will be!

From page 173:

It all happened so fast and I didn’t get a good look at it as I was busy trying to control my car. But it flew over my head and disappeared into a gravel pit. I was pretty shaken up, but unhurt and wasn’t brave enough to go to the gravel pit to investigate then or later. Nor did I tell anyone because they would have thought I was crazy.

September 12, 2012

New Electronic Book on Pterosaurs in Australia and in PNG

I’ll compare this new e-book, Live Pterosaurs in Australia and in Papua New Guinea, with the print book Searching for Ropens. Both of them have details on pterosaur sightings in Papua New Guinea. Both are written by Jonathan Whitcomb.

General Genre: SFR, at least in the first edition, is cross genre: cryptozoology and Christian believes on the Bible. LPAPNG is strictly cryptozoology, with only a brief mention of creationist explorers.
Length: SFR is longer, with details on expedition experiences. LPAPNG gives the essentials about expeditions, but gives details on the eyewitness accounts.
Common Ground: Regarding Papua New Guinea, the new e-book has some of the same sightings as SFR, although there are a few added details here and there. The new sighting off the coast of Umboi Island is an exception, for it is absent from the older SFR. Both books have a chapter devoted to the Perth sighting of 1994.
Nit Picking: The covers of e-books are not physical, simply digital images. The new book, LPAPNG, has a “cover” with the same eyewitness sketches as another book by Whitcomb, namely Live Pterosaurs in America. This might leave an impression that those drawings of pterosaurs are based purely on ropens in Papua New Guinea and in Australia, but not so. They are from eyewitnesses in Cuba, decades ago. Purists might disapprove of that.
Misc: The new e-book does have some new ideas, although not many of them are completely absent from SFR. An exception is the explanation of why modern pterosaurs are seen in daylight when they are nocturnal. The new book gives details and plausible conjectures about pterosaurs being disturbed and awakened in the day, causing them to fly up into the air.

To be fair to the new book, I don’t mean to imply that those who have read the older SFR will gave little new from the new book. LPAPNG has a number of Australian sightings that are not found at all in SFR, for they are newly reported accounts, and straight from the mouths of eyewitnesses in Australia.

I guess I could also have compared the new book with the paperback Live Pterosaurs in America. They seem to be about the same length, but its hard to compare page numbers with digital space or with word counts. E-books have no page numbers.

For more information see “New Cryptozoology Book: Live Pterosaurs in Australia,” which I quote:

In modern eyewitness reports, long-tailed pterosaurs outnumber short-tails, at least four-to-one. Standard models of extinction make this ratio appear strange, for the long-tailed variety were thought to have dwindled before the short-tailed pterosaurs became dominant, at least that’s the theory.

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.