“Big Bird” in Texas
by admin on Feb.13, 2012, under Strange
When somebody reports a “big bird,” it’s not necessarily a bird, at least when it’s in Texas.
Like many other writers on cryptozoology, Ken Gerhard has focused on outdated ideas regarding the names “ropen” and “duah,” without knowing or appreciating their relationship to the hundreds of languages spoken in Papua New Guinea. Regarding the word “ropen” in the Kovai language on Umboi Island, it surely does not come from any combination of words that separately mean “demon” and “flyer.”
From the cryptozoology book Live Pterosaurs in America (page 34 of third edition):
“I saw a featherless flying animal with a wingspan of about 4 1/2 to 5 feet and a long tail with a diamond type shape at the tip of it. No hair or feathers anywhere, just leathery reptile type skin . . . The animal had bumps down its back, feet with longish toes, and long black claws like an osprey has for grasping fish . . . a long mouth/beak full of long sharp teeth that somewhat protruded from the mouth like a crocodiles [mouth] when closed.
That sighting was in daylight, a sunny afternoon in Marion County, Texas, around 1995.
