What if you saw a strange flying creature: no feathers, a “pterodactyl” head, and maybe a long tail? Who could you tell about your experience? You would find yourself in the position of many eyewitnesses in the United States, for you would have seen something that our culture teaches us should not now exist.

What would you call the creature you had seen? “Dinosaur bird?” “Pterodactyl?” The correct name for this flying creature is “pterosaur,” thought by many (but not all) professors and scientists to have become extinct millions of years ago. In recent years, it has become increasingly obvious that these creatures are not all extinct; at least one species, or a few species, are still surviving, although they are rather uncommon and usually very reclusive. Many of them, including the ropen of Papua New Guinea, are nocturnal. Many of them glow with bioluminescence. (That brings up questions about ancient legends of fire-breathing dragons.)

Let’s take a particular eyewitness, for example, Duane Hodgkinson (a World War II veteran who spent part of the war on the mainland of New Guinea). He has been interviewed numerous times, with cryptozoologists that include Jonathan Whitcomb and Garth Guessman (both of whom explored in Papua New Guinea, interviewing native eyewitnesses of the ropen). It seems that everyone who interviews him believes his account of the 1944 sighting near Finschhafen, New Guinea. He described the creature as having a wingspan similar to that of a Piper Tri-Pacer (small private airplane). When asked about the tail length, he paused and said, “I don’t know . . . at least ten or fifteen feet.” He was entranced at the head appendage, paying little attention to other parts of the creature’s body, so he did not know what the end of the tail looked like (many eyewitnesses describe a Rhamphorhynchoid tail flange).

Whitcomb has named the creature the ”Hodgkinson-Hennessy Ropen.”

Duane Hodgkinson, in New Guinea in 1944, saw what he described as a “pterodactyl.” More than half a century later he completed a questionairre and was interviewed several times by two cryptozoologists. In recent years he has been a flight instructor near Livingston, Montana, having many thousands of hours of flying time:  a credible eyewitness.

Brian Hennessy, in New Guinea in 1971, saw what he described as a “prehistoric” creature flying overhead. More than three decades later he completed a questionairre and was interviewed by one cryptozoologist. In recent years he has been a psychologist at a medical university in China: a credible eyewitness.

It now seems that Hodgkinson and Hennessy saw the same species of living pterosaur, with a long thin beak, a long tail, and horn-like head appendage (head crest). The cyptid has been named the Hodgkinson-Hennessy ropen. Of course, the creature is still unclassified by Western science, not listed in a biology textbook but living within the realm of cryptozoology.

Near Gurdon, Arkansas, (about 75 miles south of Little Rock) a headless ghost wanders around, looking for its head . . . anyway, that’s the story. Take the hike on a dark night and you’ll see what many others have seen: a strange wandering light that keeps the legend alive.

But a simple idea by a Mr. Fred Silcock, of Australia, might nail shut the coffin lid on that headless ghost. According to this bird expert, as recorded in his book, The Min Min Light, wandering lights that behave much like hunting barn owls are probably barn owls. It seems that some of these nocturnal birds can glow with an intrinsic bioluminescence; it may be used to catch insects when rodents are scarce.

So the truthfulness of the death of a railroad worker on those tracks years ago—that is irrelevant. The Gurdon Light behaves like a hunting barn owl (Tyto Alba, to be precise), so that is probably what it is.

From the non-fiction book (published in 2009) Live Pterosaurs in America, an eyewitness reports a sighting near San Antonio, Texas (about 1986):

“One evening, I was outside my apartment building . . . talking to my brother. . . . We knew what the local birds and bats looked like . . . My dad and I had, on several occasions, noticed bats flying right near our heads . . . Neither my brother or I was prone to being scared by anything outside at night. This night was different.

“We noticed something flying around across the road from where we were. . . . the creature was flying just above the phone lines. It would go one direction, turn, and swoop back. The shape was wrong for any large bird of the area, and the size was much too large to be any bat I have ever seen . . . The wingspan was huge, anywhere from 6-10 feet across.

“. . . I could easily accept an out-of-place bird if that was the case, and that was something we thought about at the time, but we watched it long enough to know that it didn’t fit . . .

” . . . this was no water fowl. I have spent many years in Florida, where there are large numbers of those, and this was different. The behavior was all wrong as well. Whatever it was, it was no bird. No crane, stork, pelican, heron, owl, buzzard, eagle, hawk, or any other that I have seen, looked like this. A bat is possible, except that even the flying fox (have seen these) isn’t anywhere near the size of this thing.”

First let’s look at Jose Capablanca, the world chess champion from 1921 (or 1920, depending on legalities) to 1927. His string of games without a loss (grandmasters often draw games with other grandmasters), from 1916 to 1924 (a 63-game streak without a loss) is astonishing. For his whole life, with only 34 losses (out of 571 games) in serious chess competition, his mastery of the game is legendary. Not until the year 2000 did another player win the world title without losing a game in the title match. And what other world chess champion obtained the title with fewer loses in serious competition: probably none, for it normally takes hundreds of loses in tournaments and matches to refine the world-class skills of a world chess champion.

Now look at Bobby Fischer, who probably learned much from his study of the games of Capablanca. According to Wikipedia, “starting at age 14, he played in eight United States Championships, winning each by at least a point.” In the 1963-64 U.S. championship, he scored a perfect 11-0, astonishing everyone, even though one of his strongest American competitors (Samuel Reshevsky) was absent from that tournament. Even more astonishing was Fischer’s streak in the 1970 Interzonal competitions. In the first two matches, against two of the strongest players in the world, he won all twelve games (no loses or draws), unheard of before or since. He then met the former world champion, Tigran Petrosian. The first few games were a struggle, with one win and one loss. After three draws, Fischer won four straight, taking him to the world championship match. But those 13 wins in a row (without any draws), against three serious official candidates for the world championship match, were extraordinary. (And what other grandmaster has ever won four games in a row against Petrosian: probably none.)

After researching many accounts of “ghost lights” in various parts of the United States, I have found an obvious answer: Many of these lights are from hunting barn owls, the common Tyto Alba. But the glow of barn owls seems to be far from common, in fact shocking, for the answer involves an intrinsic bioluminescent.

According to the avian researcher Fred Silcock, of Austalia, at least some of these birds have the potential to glow, although it may not be used except in extreme need, in particular near-starvation. Glowing barn owls can catch insects when other prey is unavailable. That would explain why pet barn owls never glow: They are never starved.

The Ghost Light of Masters Knob (Johnson City, Tennessee) may be the bioluminescent glow of one or more barn owls, for it has been described as swinging back and forth as if someone were carrying a lantern. This resembles descriptions of strange flying lights in Australia, the Min Min lights researched by Silcock.

Other American ghost lights are not so easily explained away as hunting owls, such as the Marfa Lights of Texas and the Brown Mountain Lights of North Carolina. Especially intriguing are the Marfa Lights, for they sometimes appear to dance: Two lights separate, flying in opposite directions for a time, then they rush back together. This is not at all typical barn owl behavior, notwithstanding those birds often hunt in pairs.

Ghost lights that appear to move intelligently, yet not according to barn owl traditions—those lights can be explained in many ways, most of them inadequately. The most likely explanation for Marfa Lights is a group of intrinsically bioluminescent flying organisms, much larger than fireflies, perhaps even larger than barn owls. Less-likely are they UFO’s, ball lightning, dancing demons, ghosts, or atmospheric conditions. From my interviews and other experiences, I estimate that the probabilities of correct  interpretation of Marfa Lights are these: living nocturnal pterosaurs (perhaps similar to ropens of Papua New Guinea)=75%; unknown living organism=10%; barn owls=8%; misc (UFO’s, ball lightning, demons, ghosts, atmospheric conditions, etc)=7%.

From In a Nutshell, we learn that it seems that three distinct types of giant dinosaur have been seen by eyewitnesses on New Britain Island (Papua New Guinea) within the past twenty years.

Something resembling a “tyrannosaurus rex” was reported to have eaten three dogs near a swamp in the eastern part of New Britain Island. “Christine Samei told reporters she saw the ’dinosaur’ . . . in a marsh . . . very huge and ugly looking.” Someone reported that it was a “ten-foot-tall grey-colored creature with a head like a dog and a tail like a crocodile.”

InaNutshell also reports, “Near the coast of southwest New Britain, two different dinosaur-like creatures have been observed by natives. According to . . . Brian Irwin, Dililo Island . . . has an apparent sauropod dinosaur . . . the length was estimated at “about 20 metres” (over 60 feet). And Umbungi Island has an apparent Therizinosaurus . . . with length estimated at “10–15 metres” (about 40 feet).”

I recently communicated with the explorer Brian Irwin by email. The islands where natives observed the apparent sauropod and the apparent Therizinosaurus do not have many sightings of such animals. Irwin (not related to Steve Irwin) seems to have little hope of observing one of those creatures at those locations. I hope that he (or some other adventerous explorer) finds a location where these kinds of creatures are seen regularly. If only I could come along and videotape a dinosaur!

The ropen of Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, has received more attention since the 2007 Destination Truth and 2009 MonsterQuest television broadcasts. But “kor” seems to mean “ropen,” around islands 200 miles north of Umboi. It, too, is a glowing nocturnal flying creature that likes sea food. Unfortunately for one native fisherman, in the 1960′s, one large kor failed to differentiate between fish and fisherman.

The man dived into the water after the creature attacked him, but the attack continued. After hours of fighting, the man was able to put his spear into the mouth of the kor, killing it. Local islanders found the man, badly hurt, but he died three days later. He had more than wounds, however: His body had burns.

In other areas of Papua New Guinea, large nocturnal flying creatures (reported to glow brightly) have a fearful reputation. It’s not just the reports of the largest ones carrying away a pig or even a human, on occasion; the danger is also in the creature’s secretion, for it can burn human skin. Some cryptozoologists believe that the secretion is related to the bioluminescence of the pterosaur-like creatures (called “pterodactyl” by many Americans).

Police in Hubei province, China, have shut down a company that taught thousands of potential hackers how to launch cyberattacks, according to media reports. The Chinese police were reported to have shut down “Black Hawk Safety Net,” arresting three people. Black Hawk had been labeled China’s “biggest hacker training website.”

Much organised computer hacking has been reported to originate in China. This has chilled relations with the United States; last month, Google threatened to get out of the Chinese market because of cyberattacks. But strict police actions may succeed in reducing such attacks.

“Susan Wooten was driving east on Highway 20 . . . on a clear mid-afternoon in the fall of about 1989. . . . . surrounded by woods and swamps . . . [she] saw something flying . . . ‘It swooped down over the highway and back up gracefully over the pines . . .’”

The first chapter of the nonfiction book Live Pterosaurs in America goes into detail about what Wooten saw that afternoon on a remote highway in South Carolina: “as big as any car . . . NO feathers, not like a huge crane or egret, but like a humongous bat.” But some bats could take offense, for the huge creature had a long tail and a head crest.