Jim Blume's Investigation
Baptist Missionary Helps Ropen Seekers
American Living-Pterosaur Investigators in Papua New Guinea
Jim Blume, a missionary in Papua New Guinea for thirty years, has interviewed dozens of eyewitnesses
of the creature that islanders
of Umboi call “ropen.” He gave a telephone interview, in 2000, in which he described the creature to ropen investigator Garth Guessman. Blume’s findings suggest that long-tailed pterosaurs (Rhamphorhynchoids) are not extinct; many of them live in Papua New
Guinea.
According to Blume, the ropen has a long tail, with some reports describing a flange at the end of the tail. The wings
are much like a bat’s: “hands” half-way up the wings. Some ropens grow to have a wingspan of twenty feet, although in the northern
islands they’re smaller: wingspans of three to four feet.
The bill is like a pelican's but there’s a comb at the back of
the head, like a rooster comb “only stiffer.”
Some of the larger, darker-colored ropens are quite dangerous, sometimes killing
an adult human. In 1985, West of Finschhafen, a man was working in his garden when he was attacked by a ropen. When the other villagers
came to see what the noise was about, it was too late: The pterosaur-like creature carried the man into a large tree where it ate
him. (See the book Searching for Ropens.)
"No reasonable objective person will reject all of these sighting
reports
as either misidentifications or hoaxes, not after examining each and every report."
Finschhafen Harbor (note relics of World War II), near where a man was killed by a giant flying creature in 1985 (photo by J. Whitcomb)
Mount Sual, Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, where the ropen is said to fly, sometimes, at night (photo by Jonathan Whitcomb)