Are Marfa Lights Nocturnal Scavengers?
Vultures scavenge in daylight. Could Marfa Lights be nocturnal flying scavengers? I don’t mean to put down the bat hunting hypothesis, regarding the splittings and rejoinings that may have given rise to the comment from residents about “dancing devils.” That may have a place, during seasons when bats are about around Marfa, Texas; details are available where the press release on Marfa Light Predator is published online. But bats are unlikely to be about during the colder winter nights, and some of the stranger Marfa Lights are seen on some of those nights.
Since the kongamato of Africa and the ropen of Papua New Guinea are known to scavenge at least on some nights, according to some reports, similar modern pterosaurs could do the same in North America. At least this could be used as a working hypothesis.
The results of that analysis might appear more like science fiction than science: nocturnal biolumionescent flying predators that might be related to ropens, even if that means a living pterosaur interpretation. Nevertheless, when extinction dogma is set aside, there is nothing unscientific about the hypothesis that Marfa Lights are caused by the bioluminescence of flying predators.
The distance from start point to end point was, according to Bunnell’s triangulation calculations, eleven miles, and the time of travel was eighteen minutes. That makes the average speed about 37 mph, assuming a straight flight, which it seems to have been. That speed is critical to the reasoning that follows.
Some birds can fly 37 miles per hour, but most do not fly that fast, at least not for long. Barn owls are not known for flying straight for many miles, even if one of them could keep up a pace of 37 mph. But the ropen of Papua New Guinea is said to fly “faster than birds but slower than airplanes.”