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Pterosaurs or Glowing Owls in Marfa

More keeps coming up regarding the Marfa Lights of Texas. An older page reveals a remarkable encounter with the “ghost lights” in early 1973.

Wright and Kenney . . . stopped at a high place on the road, turned off
the engine and waited.  Three horses, about 200 feet west of the car
suddenly started running and acting in a wild manner.  At this precise
moment, they observed two lights moving rapidly from the southwest to
the northeast, almost at right angles to the road.

The eyewitnesses described an intelligence that seemed to guide the lights.

They both had the distinct impression that it [the flying light] knew exactly where they [Wright and Kennedy] were and that it was just daring them to chase it.

An intelligent-looking flight of low-elevation lights suggests two things: barn owls (Tyto Alba, known as Min Mins in Australia and studied by the Australian author Fred Silcock) and ropens (Rhamphornynchoid pterosaurs commonly reported in Papua New Guinea).

This sighting report was recorded soon after the encounters, and this was in 1973: years before anyone thought about barn owls or pterosaurs being responsible for the strange flying lights of southwest Texas. Pat Kennedy and Elwood Wright had been working in that part of Texas and decided to investigate and see if they could observe any of the strange lights for themselves.

Other eyewitnesses have described an intelligence that seems to be involved with the way those strange lights fly around. Bioluminescent predators seems a reasonable explanation, notwithstanding it is controversial to mention the possibility of scientifically unclassified glowing creatures, bird or pterosaur.

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Glowing Predators Gain Publicity

The concept of nocturnal bioluminescent flying predators has gained ground with some American bloggers. The national press release earlier this week (“Unmasking a Flying Predator in Texas“) brought out the comments, some negative, some positive. The point is that these creatures around Marfa, Texas, may be related to the ropen of Papua New Guinea, and the ropen is believed to be a modern pterosaur.

I’d like to mention one blog in particular, “Frann’s Plan,” with the post titled “Bioluminescent Flying Predators.” I like some of the positive comments:

I do dearly love the Marfa Lights and hope everyone gets to see them at sometime in their life . . . the thought of  bioluminescent flying predators [has] just got my poor brain spinning…I have to go again!

I’d also like to quote some of the original press release, although the mention of “pterosaur” comes only at the end of the article. It was written by Jonathan Whitcomb.

The mystery lights of Marfa, Texas, have entertained residents with their strange dancing. . . .  a ball of light seems to split into two, which will separate and fly away from each other before turning around and flying back together.

It may take awhile for scientists to get detailed night-video to prove or dispove this hypothesis of bioluminescent predators in Marfa, Texas. Until then, I will continue to hope.

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Marfa Lights of Texas

The true Mystery Lights (ML) of Marfa, Texas, also called “ghost lights,” differ greatly from the car headlights that some declare as an explanation for all the reports of strange lights in this region of Texas. Many of the true ML often fly where there are no roads, and they behave differently than even a “night mirage” of car headlights, dancing in a way that suggests an intelligent source for them.

I do not disparage the intelligence of those college students who did a scientific study of car headlights near Marfa, some years ago. The experiment itself was probably a success, and the conclusion appeared reasonable. But this did not prove the nonexistence of mysterious lights in this part of Texas. Does anyone presume that it disproved the existence of strange lights here? If it did, then it also disproved that airplanes can fly at night with lights; it also disproved that meteors can glow when they fall into our atmosphere. No, that experiment by college students only demonstrated that it is possible for a person to see car headlights and mistake them for something unusual. It did not even prove that most reported sightings are misidentified car headlights.

A UFO from another planet is not the answer, for it would require an extraordinary intelligence to fly here from another solar system, and flying over the bushes around Marfa several times a year is not a sign of extraordinary intelligence.

Some predators use exceptional intelligence in hunting. One of these is the Orca, or “Killer Whale.” Some groups have learned a special technique for disabling a Great White Shark: Grab the shark, then turn it upside down to put it to sleep. Talk about intelligence in predators! That makes it much safer for the Orcas to kill a large shark.

What about intelligent nocturnal flying creatures? One chapter in the new nonfiction book Live Pterosaurs in America, second edition, brings out this characteristic in the behavior of the Marfa Lights. The dancing behavior may be from the creatures’ hunting Big Brown Bats. That would explain why the lights leave the area for a few weeks but always return later in the year: Predators often travel in groups, returning periodically to the same hunting areas. If Marfa Lights were from non-living things like tectonic stress, they would not return regularly in this fashion.

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