In Papua New Guinea there seems to live a strange flying creature of the night. Some call it “demon flyer,” although the native names for it are “ropen,” and “seklo-bali,” and “kor,” and “duwas,” and “indava.” Most people in developed countries, those who have heard about the nocturnal flying creature, call it “ropen,” or “pterodactyl,” or “pterosaur,” or “dinosaur bird.” There now seems to be another opinion about “demon flyer.”
Demon Flyer of Papua New Guinea
Interviews with native eyewitnesses, including the 2004 interview with Mesa Agustin, can reveal a fear that natives have of the ropen, but that does not necessarily mean that those eyewitnesses believe that the creature is an evil spirit or monster.
It seems that a more recent opinion is that the early origin of this name is not literally translated into the English “demon flyer.” It is more likely just “flyer,” for one meaning in one language, is simply a common bird, while in another language (Kovai) it means a large nocturnal flying creature that sometimes glows brightly.
. . . in southwest Greensburg, Pennsylvaniva, a karate teacher and two of his students were talking outside . . . they saw something that at first could have been mistaken for a large bird. . . . [The karate teacher said:] it caught my eye. Being that far up the “birds” body still appeared to be much larger than my 100 pound dog . . .