The glowing form seen one night in 2004, in Papua New Guinea, by a New Hampshire businessman, was probably a pterosaur, according to the newly published book “Searching for Ropens.” David Woetzel was watching the sky, looking for a creature called by natives of various languages “duwas,” “kundua,” “seklo-bali,” and “ropen.”

 

The book, by Jonathan Whitcomb,

a Southern  California  forensic videographer, compares Woetzel’s sighting with other sightings in the same part of Umboi Island. (The horizontal movement was one of the clues that the object was no meteor.) Whitcomb noted that the light disappeared behind a mountain where natives had seen the creature both at night and in the daylight. His book declares that the daylight sightings suggest nothing other than a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur.

 

Long-tailed bat-like creatures seen in coastal areas of Papua New Guinea had previously been thought by some to be misidentifications of Flying Fox fruit bats, despite the fact that the bats are almost tail-less. But two natives de-scribed a ropen holding itself upright on a tree trunk (fruit bats hang upside

down),  and  it  seems  to  have a bioluminescent  glow that  the rare nocturnal creature may use to catch

fish and to navigate over land.

 

Although Whitcomb admits having no photograph to disprove textbook dec-larations that the last pterosaur died 65-million years ago, his book notes a native tradition that suggests a relationship between the ropen’s tail and a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur’s tail. Woetzel and his fellow explorer, Garth Guessman, a Southern California fire-fighter, are credited with uncovering this correlation between the ropen and pterosaur fossils.

 

According to Guessman, a native named Dickson explained to them a tradition about the ropen’s tail: It is stiff except where it connects to the body. Guessman relates this to what is known about the long tails of Rhamphorhynchoids: They could move only near the tail base.

 

Before Whitcomb’s own expedition to Papua  New  Guinea,  in 2004,  he interviewed Duane Hodgkinson, a flight instructor in Livingston, Montana, who maintains he saw a large long-tailed “pterodactyl” in 1944, near Finschhafen. The World War II veteran’s description

resembles that given by a couple who saw a creature flying over Perth, Australia, in 1997. Whitcomb noted similarities to native accounts recorded by earlier explorers (1994 to 2002), recorded by Woetzel and Guessman, and recorded by himself.

 

The ropen has a long beak or mouth and no feathers. Around Manus Island, the wingspan is three to four feet, according to  Jim Blume, a missionary in Wau, on the mainland.  Blume’s  investigations indicate that wingspans may reach ten to fifteen feet in other areas. Whitcomb’s book mentions a few ropens that are even larger, including Hodgkinson’s.

 

Fossils of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs are  distinguished  by  their  long  tails. Contrary to some accounts of ropens, very few of these fossils show head crests. In addition, two ropen eye-witnesses described dorsal ridges which are not a characteristic of the fossils. Whitcomb’s book acknowledges differences and that ropens grow larger than Rhamphorhynchoid fossils but it emphasizes that the “diamond” on the ropen’s tail may relate to the tails of the fossils.

 

Whitcomb, a 57-year-old independent videographer who records evidence for attorney firms, seeks funding for a major expedition to videotape a ropen before the end of 2007.

 

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