She saw, in Arkansas, a Pterosaur Soar

In the summer of 1977, at about one or two in the afternoon, the sighting involved a close encounter with an apparent pterosaur (albeit labeled "teradactyl") that had a large head and a wingspan of about eight feet. According to one of the two eyewitnesses:

My father and I saw a huge, featherless bird in Arkansas, between Van Buran and Cedarville when I was 16. I've been telling people my story since. We were sitting on big rocks at a cliff about 300 foot above the river when it flew out just under us and we watched it all the way down toward the river till it passed the tree lines. It was an awesome experience, indeed.

I have been interviewing the eyewitness for several days now, with the questions and answers including the following:

Q: Did the creature have a tail?
A: yes, but it was not bird-like, (fanned or feathered)

Q: How would you compare the length of the tail, compared with other things:
   a) similar to the length of one wing
   b) similar to the length of both wings (wingspan, tip-to-tip)
   c) Other
A: "similar to the length of one wing"

Q: Did you notice any detail or details on the head?
A: Large pointed head, we couldn't see the mouth because it was going the other direction from us.

Arkansas Sighting (Live Pterosaur) (a different sighting in AR)

"Me and my older brother were sitting in our carport . . . in Texarkana, [Arkansas]. It was getting dark but there was plenty of light in the sky when we saw what we believe to be a pterodactyle. The wingspan seemed to be about 25’ to 30’ ft wide. It was probably about 70’ to 80’ off the ground, flying over a large tree in front of the house. . . . it just glided on air.”

Live Pterosaurs in the Southern United States

This post gives a few details about sightings in Arkansas, Ohio, and South Carolina. The apparent pterosaur in Arkansas had a wingspan estimated at twenty-five to thirty feet--not likely any bird. The Ohio pterosaur have have been less gigantic, but it was still shocking to the lady who was driving the car that seemed to have been dive-bombed by a flying creature that did not have feathers. Her experience was similiar to the one by the eyewitness Susan Wooten, except that Wooten was driving in daylight and in South Carolina.

Giant Pterosaurs of San Diego

The apparent pterosaurs were said to have huge wingspans, one wing alone being 10-15 feet, making a wingspan estimated to be about 20-30 feet: obviously no seagull. The long tails suggest the animals were ropens. One of the two eyewitnesses of the November 4, 2011, flyover (San Diego, California) contacted me by email; we soon had a phone conversation in which he appeared to me to be quite credible, not at all like a hoaxer. He and his friend had seen two flying creatures, one following the other.

Why believe that the two men saw large ropens? A few years ago, in daylight, another eyewitness had seen a giant ropen flying into the San Joaquin Wildlife Sanctuary in Orange County, which is also in Southern California.

Nocturnal Pterosaurs in San Diego

“I was at my friend’s house. Well it was a really clear night, because it had rained the day before. We were standing in the street and I couldn’t keep my eyes off the stars, they were really bright. Then from the west came this dark object in the sky. It was right over us about, I say, 40 yards [high]. As it got closer we both yelled, “What the hell is that?” It looked like a huge bird. It was gliding . . . I was stuck looking at it the entire time. I began yelling at it, then it turned around and it stood still in the air. It was flapping its wings while it was there. Then outta nowhere here came another one. It was waiting for it; as it got close to the other one, they both went east.

Third Edition of Live Pterosaurs in America

In the United States of America—that’s where Scott Norman, in 2007, became the first American cryptozoologist to see a clear form of a living pterosaur while searching for one: a large flying creature with a head three to four feet long. We mourn the passing (from natural causes) of our young friend who is deeply missed in the cryptozoology community.

Wingspan Hoax Eliminated

Several factors eliminate a hoax or combination of hoaxes as an explanation for any significant portion of reported sightings of apparent pterosaurs. One is the analysis of eyewitness estimates for wingspan.

The following two graphs illustrate the difference between one type of hoax and the actual data from sighting reports. In the first, we see what would be expected if a random combination of wingspan estimates (at 80%) is combined with 20% of sightings being hoaxes of Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs, with hoaxers giving wingspan "estimates" less than seven feet, consistent with the fossils of long-tailed pterosaurs. In the second, we see what actually was reported in the sightings. Rhamphorhynchoid wingspan sizes were chosen, in this example, because long tails were reported so often (well over 75% of those sightings in which tails, or lack thereof, were observed).

In these two graphs, the difference between one column and the next is only two feet in wingspan estimate, a small difference when we consider that these are only rough estimates, some of which may have been made in difficult conditions (such as a rather distant flying creature being observed for a limited amount of time). This means that a difference, between two columns, of one verticle degree (number of reported sightings) has very little significance. Nevertheless, general directions of slope may be greatly significant. For example, in the first (hypothetical) graph, the difference between 4.25-6.25 and 6.25-8.25 is great, but notice the general difference between the first three columns on the far left and the for columns that follow. The steep fall to a low plateau is obvious. But in the second graph (from actual sighting reports), the peek near the far left is followed by a gradual slope to the right (into the larger wingspans). This actual sighting data supports the idea that a number of species, of various sizes, have been observed by eyewitnesses who have varying abilities in estimating wingspans.

Wingspan Estimates Eliminate Hoax

To put it in a nutshell, the fifty-seven wingspan estimates show a fairly smooth curve downwards toward the giant wingspans, and it is far too shallow a curve to have come from hoaxers who would have tried to fool people into thinking that the hoaxers had seen long-tailed pterosaurs. The reason for that is that those Rhamphorhynchoids are commonly believed to have been smaller pterosaurs with wingspans generally less than seven feet. The statistics show something far different.

Evil Name Removed from "Demon Flyer"

The literal meaning of "ropen" is not actually "demon flyer." On Umboi Island, in those villages where Kovai is the local language, "ropen" refers to the strange nocturnal flying creature that sometimes glows briefly as it flies from one mountain to another or to-or-from a mountain and a reef. Setting aside the legends and traditional beliefs about the ropen, some native eyewitnesses have seen it up close, too close for comfort. But the point is this: "Demon flyer" is not the literal interpretation. This phrase probably came about from one or more Westerners who were too-deeply impressed with the negative aspects of the legends and the spiritual connotation.

Demon Flyer of Papua New Guinea

So in those two small areas of Papua New Guinea (villages of Umboi Island including Opai and Gomlongon, and at least one village near Wau on the mainland) the meaning of the word “ropen” differs greatly. An examination of the expedition reports from American cryptozoologists who have searched for living pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea in the 1990′s and early twenty-first century—that reveals that the Western-world usage of ”ropen” comes from the Kovai-speaking islanders of Opai and Gomlongon.

Strange Flying Creature in Pennsylvania

I received an email from a lady who was a passenger in a car one night; both driver and passenger saw a glowing creature as the strange thing flew by. Afterwards she did some research and told me, “I have found that a pterosaur is identical to what we saw.” She has not yet told me any details about her research nor what image she may have seen that looked like what was encountered; but it is sufficient to consider that it was a possible American ropen. The sighting was in Pennsylvania, and I believe it involved bioluminescence.

Third Edition of Live Pterosaurs in America

The third edition of this nonfiction cryptozoology book has recently become available from the online book seller Amazon. From the title page of Live Pterosaurs in America:

How are sightings in the United States related to those in the southwest Pacific? How do some apparent nocturnal pterosaurs pertain to bats, and how are bats irrelevant? How could modern living pterosaurs have escaped scientific notice? These mysteries have slept in the dark, beyond the knowledge of almost all Americans, even beyond our wildest dreams (although the reality of some pterosaurs is a living nightmare to some bats). These mysteries have slept . . . until now.

From the Acknowledgements page of the book:

In the United States of America—that’s where Scott Norman, in 2007, became the first American cryptozoologist to see a clear form of a living pterosaur while searching for one: a large flying creature with a head three to four feet long. We mourn the passing (from natural causes) of our young friend who is deeply missed in the cryptozoology community.

Live Pterosaurs in America (Third Edition)

After months of email interviews, I became convinced that Susan was a credible eyewitness. I believe she saw something like a ropen—probably a Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur—that flew in front of her car. The overall communications we have had are inconsistent with both a hoax and a mental health condition. Her descriptions of the creature, and the closeness of the encounter, repudiate a misidentification of a bird or bat.

Media Room - Live Pterosaur

“Suddenly it sat up, as if it had been eating something or resting. The head and upper part of its body, . . . showed . . . [It appeared] right in front of us about thirty feet away. All of us froze for about five seconds, then it took off with a fwap fwap fwap sound . . .”