By the cryptozoology author Jonathan Whitcomb

Until at least the end of 2018, I was unaware of whether or not the ropen of the southwest Pacific is the same species of strange flying creature as was seen in Eastern Cuba in 1965 and in 1971. I have no doubt they’re at least related, being descended from a long-tailed Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur.

I also cannot say for sure if the “fiery flying serpent” of the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon was a Rhamphorhynchoid; I believe it probably was. But although I’ve been around a long time, the exodus of the children of Israel with Moses was before my time.

Ropen of Papua New Guinea

Americans led two expeditions on Umboi Island in 2004. With my interpreter Luke Paina, I led the first expedition on that remote tropical island in Papua New Guinea. The second one was led by David Woetzel and Garth Guessman, with Jacob Kepas interpreting. None of us had a clear view of the ropen, at least not clear enough to see any details of form or features. We did have three sightings of a flying light.

Is the ropen a “pterodactyl?” After those two expeditions, my associates and I had no doubt: These are living pterosaurs of the southwest Pacific. The ropen is a large featherless nocturnal flying creature with a long tail that ends with a “diamond” shaped structure on the end of its tail. It also appears to have intrinsic bioluminescence. We learned many things from interviewing native eyewitnesses.

Malangpot is a crater lake on Umboi Island (photo courtesy of Garth Guessman)

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Extinction of all Pterosaurs?

Contrary to a popular assumption in Western society, not all species of pterosaurs became extinct. The challenge that we have had in publicizing this, however, is in the depth of that entrenched assumption. One eyewitness in the United States said something like this: “My mother thinks I’m crazy.”

By the way, extinction for any general type of animal cannot be proven through any number of fossils, no matter when those fossils are though to have lived in the past. Fossils simply give us clues about what some of them were like when they did live.

The ropen of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (mid-20th century)

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Living pterosaurs of the southwest Pacific

Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, is not the only place in the southwest Pacific where people see pterosaurs or pterosaur-like flying creatures. Most sightings are of a creature with a long tail and no sign of any feathers.

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Is the ropen a pterodactyl?

Expedition in Papua New Guinea in 2015, by Milt Marcy and Peter Beach

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Strange flying creatures in the southwest Pacific

Ropens and other modern pterosaurs live in and around Australia and Papua New Guinea

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The bioluminescent ropen

[This flying creature is also known by the following names: indava, kor, duwas, seklo-bali.] The ropen is a long-tailed flying cryptid described as pterosaur-like and reported by eyewitnesses around the world, especially in North America and in the southwest Pacific (including Australia).

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Are all pterosaurs extinct?

Eyewitness Reports of Apparent Living Pterosaurs in North Carolina . . . Raleigh, Durham, Asheville, Wilmington . . .

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Fiery Flying Serpent

A scientific paper written by David Woetzel, early in the 21st century

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By cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb

I submitted the following comment to Snopes on January 12, 2017. If it is eventually published in full by them, then I’ll probably condense what’s written here:

I have been investigating reports of sightings of apparent pterosaurs for about 13 years, often getting emails from various parts of the world. A name now more-commonly used for apparent long-tailed living pterosaurs is “ropen,” which name comes from a few villages on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea.

I led a brief expedition on Umboi Island in 2004, failing to see the nocturnal flying creature but getting a number of videotaped interviews of native eyewitnesses. (I am a certified forensic videographer; at the time of this expedition, I was videotaping for attorney firms, mostly in Southern California.) I found the native eyewitnesses to be highly credible, almost never hearing from them anything regarding their local superstitions about the ropen (which superstitions are common).

Since my expedition in 2004, I have written three nonfiction books about sightings of apparent pterosaurs (in eight editions). I have also written a peer-reviewed paper that was published in a journal of science. Some of my online writings, however, were written under two pen names, for a limited time. That resulted in criticisms, with some skeptics accusing me of dishonesty. I deny any desire to deceive anybody.

Yet a long-term criticism has been that eyewitnesses are dishonest. I have analyzed a number of characteristics in the details of what people report to me, however, and have found that, statistically, hoaxes have been eliminated as a viable general explanation. It is practically disproven in this sense: The overall sighting reports cannot have any significant contamination from hoaxes (several analytical methods were used to show this, each one working separately from the others).

Some skeptics have declared that all stories about ropens are false and that practically all of them come from me and that I have used deception in promoting believe in non-extinct pterosaurs. Yet I had returned from my 2004 expedition declaring that I had seen nothing unusual flying in Papua New Guinea. But critics appeared to be unhappy that I published much about my BELIEF in what eyewitnesses reported to me.

The point is this: The ropen can easily be dismissed as a general hoax because the possibility of non-extinct pterodactyls appears so hard to believe in Western cultures. Yet apparently-valid eyewitness sighting reports continue to come in, with some eyewitnesses revealing their real names.

American eyewitnesses include the following (partial list):

U.S. Marine Eskin Kuhn (Cuba, 1971)

Patty Caron (Cuba, 1965)

Sandra Paradise (Georgia, USA, 2008)

Brian Hennessy (New Guinea, 1971)

The late Duane Hodgkinson (New Guinea, 1944)

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Both doubt and open to living pterosaurs, in a book review

A Whole New Level of Weirdness: Book Review of “Live Pterosaurs In America” (3rd Edition) [book by Whitcomb]

Ropen pterosaur

Youtube video of an interview with Duane Hodgkinson and Garth Guessman

Ropen of Papua New Guinea

Over the years of ropen investigations in this part of Papua New Guinea, some of the natives mention that the creature is hairy. Well, it just so happens that the “Pilosus” of Sordes Pilosus is Latin for “hairy.”

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