In a Nutshell

Tag: Papua New Guinea

image_pdfimage_print

Falling Meteors and Glowing Pterosaurs

by on Sep.29, 2010, under Environment, Strange

Meteor Crater, known by scientists as “Barringer Crater,” forty-three miles east of Flagstaff, Arizona,Meteor Crater in Arizona is now recognized as a meteorite impact crater; but for decades it was believed to have been caused by a volcanic explosion. Daniel Barringer, early in the twentieth century, suggested that the crater came from a large meteor collision with earth. Skepticism continued until the middle of the twentieth century, when is was proven that an impact was involved, not any form of volcanism. Science rarely remains dormant for long, as scientists replace old theories with new.

In October of 2004, at about 10 p.m., on Umboi Island (known by natives as “Siasi”), inLake Pung on Umboi Island, home of the ropen Papua New Guinea, David Woetzel, an American cryptozoologist, was searching the sky for any sign of the flying animal that natives call “ropen.” He and his American associate Garth Guessman, had been searching in vane for days, but their luck now changed. Woetzel saw something bright flying almost horizontally, toward a crater lake a few miles away. What was flying? He said, “. . . almost golden and shimmering around the edges. . . . There was no [meteor] tail.” It was large enough to have had a long tail, if it had been a meteor, for Woetzel also described the angular-size as about 20%-25% the size of a full moon. But the place where the flying light disappeared is significant, for it strongly suggests what that light was.

A few weeks before the Woetzel-Guessman expedition, the American cryptozoologist Jonathan Whitcomb was exploring Umboi Island (but only in the south-central area). He found three eyewitnesses who had seen the giant ropen flying in daylight. Where? Over Lake Pung. The flying creature was described as without any feathers, with a tail “seven meters” long, and a mouth “like a crocodile.”

So how does this strange giant-pterosaur-like creature (natives call it “ropen”) relate to the strange light flying towards this crater lake, a few weeks after the interviews of these eyewitnesses? Other eyewitnesses were interviewed by Woetzel, Guessman, and Whitcomb, and some of them described the creature that they had seen: a large flying creature that was glowing as it was flying over Umboi Island. Apparently the ropen has an extraordinary bioluminescent capacity, revolutionary to modern concepts of bioluminescence. But science does progress, as extraordinary as is the concept of a modern bioluminescent pterosaur.

Comments Off on Falling Meteors and Glowing Pterosaurs :, , , , , , , , more...

Pterosaur Explanation for Ghost Lights

by on Mar.03, 2010, under Strange

According to National Geographic, regarding the Marfa Lights (Texas), “Reports often describe brightly glowing basketball sized spheres floating above the ground, or sometimes high in the air.” (Word-for-word National Geographic correlates with Wikipedia here.) Wikipedia adds that skeptics attribute the lights to “mistaken sightings of ordinary nighttime lights, such as distant vehicle lights, ranch lights, or astronomical objects.”

According to Jonathan Whitcomb, author of the nonfiction book Live Pterosaurs in America, some of the America ghost lights may be from bioluminescent pterosaurs, similar to the ropen of Papua New Guinea. Those flying lights are sometimes seen above mountains, sometimes with a mountain background, and sometimes moving too fast to be from any human source; they are not from vehicle lights (especially where there are neither vehicles nor roads, especially in the sky), astonomical objects (with mountain background), or natives’ flashlights.

The British entomologist Evelyn Cheesman investigated the strange lights she saw deep in the mainland of New Guinea, in the 1930’s. She never was able to come to any conclusion about what caused the lights, although she was sure that they were not from any human origin.

See also “Pterosaur Interpretation of Chessman Sightings.”

3 Comments :, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , more...

Looking for something?

Use the form below to search the site:

Still not finding what you're looking for? Drop a comment on a post or contact us so we can take care of it!

Interesting News and Views

Please leave a comment