Introduction to Investigations of the Ropen Light and the Indava Light of Papua New Guinea |
How can we be so audacious? We insist that the ropen lights and indava lights in Papua New Guinea are giant Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs. How brazen! Our critics insist that there must be a simple explanation, a more reasonable explanation. Did not all pterosaurs become extinct millions of years ago? Even if some pterosaurs were still living, why would they be bioluminescent?
Please consider this brief introduction. In 1994, 1996, 2002, and 2004 American-led expeditions in Papua New Guinea resulted in many interviews with natives. Many of the eyewitnesses (of the strange lights) gave details of what they saw, details devoid of any mention of native superstitions: They just described what they saw. These horizontally-flying lights are fast, and usually fly just above the forest canopy. Occasionally one will fly just above a reef, returning to the land soon afterwards.
During these investigations, we also inter-viewed eyewitnesses of apparent giant living pterosaurs: long-tailed and with no sign of feathers. Those who have seen them are not just natives: One is a professional psychologist who works at a medical university in Central China; one is a flight instructor with over 13,000 hours of flying experience; two are a respected Australian couple.
Also, a few eyewitnesses (the Baptist minister Jacob Kepas, and the natives Jonah Jim and Jonathan Ragu) describe a pterosaur-like creature that glows as it flies. Each of these three men have seen just that: a glowing pterosaur-like creature. And Mr. Steven Cottingham, a government official in 1972, saw, near Lab Lab, Umboi Island, the bioluminescent glow of the ropen, as it flew with a “slow wavelike motion” (probably from the ropen’s wing-flapping). |
updated March 7, 2008
www.ropens.com/intro-lights |
29-foot wingspan pterodactyl, 1944 |
in Pterosaurs |
Book: living |
Ropen eyewitness on Umboi Island |
in the news |
The Americans Carl Baugh, Paul Nation, Garth Guessman, David Woetzel, and me are not the only ones who have interviewed these eyewitnesses of apparent living pterosaurs. Jim Blume (a missionary for decades in Papua New Guinea, now in the Wau area of Morobe Province) has interviewed dozens of natives. The creatures live in many coastal areas of Morobe Province and probably elsewhere.
In November of 2006, Paul Nation returned, following up on reports of glowing lights seen deep in the interior of the mainland. He video-taped two “indava” lights and returned to the United States with what we believe is the first visual evidence of the bioluminescent glow of these creatures. We were hardly shocked when two natives of the Tawa Village area verified that the glow comes from giant flying creatures (one of them said that the creature he saw one day near a river was the size of a “small yellow airplane”).
In early 2007, the “Destination Truth” expedition team explored some caves on the coast, about 80 miles east of the Tawa Village area visited by Nation. Josh Gates’s team also videotaped a strange light (the episode was broadcast on the Sci-Fi channel in June of 2007). I was hardly shocked when the native that Josh Gates interviewed identified the ropen with a sketch of a pterosaur.
Different scientists have independently verified that the lights videotaped in these two independent expeditions have no reasonable commonplace explanation. For those living in Western countries, the only thing making the pterosaur-explanation seem unreasonable is generations of indoctrination into the idea that all pterosaurs became extinct many millions of years ago. But that’s another story. |
By Jonathan Whitcomb, Certified Court Video Specialist |