Two Milestones in Living-Pterosaur Cryptozoology
By investigative journalist Jonathan Whitcomb (contact)
Next year will be the 50th anniversary of two sightings of ropens: at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and on Bougainville Island, New Guinea, both in daylight in 1971. I mention them now, a year before the semicentennial, because of a plan to promote public awareness, over the next 12 months, of those two encounters with modern living "pterodactyls". The testimonies of those two eyewitnesses deserve attention.
Sighting in the Southwest Pacific
I got an email from Brian Hennessy in 2006, two years after my expedition in Papua New Guinea, where my team of native islanders and I had searched for the ropen of Umboi Island. The following is part of the first email I got from Hennessy, who is an Australian psychologist who sometimes works in China. His sighting was in the southwest Pacific, on what is now an autonomous island of the nation of Papua New Guinea.
Brian Hennessy
The creature I saw one early morning in Bougainville is etched in my memory. It was so unusual. . . . The air was still, and our truck had stopped on our downward journey from the top of the range to the coast way below. . . . on the road from Panguna down to Loloho on Bougainville Island in 1971.
When I looked up, trying to see what was making this sound, I saw a very unusual creature. Firstly, it was very big (wingspan at least two metres, probably more . . . possibly much, much more). It was black or dark brown.
I had never seen anything like it before. It certainly looked prehistoric, in that it did not look like any other bird that I have seen before or since. Why prehistoric? Well, maybe my memory has been influenced by the intervening years, but I recall seeing this creature with a longish narrow tail . . . The body seemed to be quite narrow. However, the head was disproportionately large compared to the body (no feathers in sight).
The wingspan was large. The head had no ‘normal’ beak. Rather there seemed to be (and this is difficult to describe) a kind of beak that was indistinguishable from the head, and the head seemed to continue this ‘point’ at the back of the head. . . .
The most striking thing was the giant wingspan (in relation to the size of the body), and not a feather in sight (and that is not to say that there weren’t feathers . . . maybe I could not discern them). I know for sure, however, that my impression of this creature at that time was that it might be a relic of prehistoric times. . . . [email from Brian Hennessy]
Sighting in Cuba in 1971
I learned about the "pterodactyl" sighting of Eskin Kuhn from the web site OOPARTS (out of place artifacts) many years ago. I then gave Mr. Kuhn a surprise phone call early in 2010. I was impressed with his honesty-credibility during that phone conversation. He had witnessed two large featherless flying creatures at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 1971, when he was a U.S. Marine stationed there. Here is part of the letter he sent to me in 2011:
I recall wondering at the time if the ones I saw had such a temperament to be aggressive . . . and how much they could carry off . . . and figured that at 175 lbs. I was well beyond their capacity.
I really tried to ‘cram’ my study at that time, focusing on details as well as taking in the overall form and motion of the pair in flight. I tried to memorize the details that would enable me to commit them to paper in a sketch so as to accurately define the creature.
Some of the things that I focused on were the bony vertebrae of the back that were clearly defined as they are on a slender person; the bony crest at the back of the head that had a scythe-like shape instead of a pick-like shape; the long strands of hair in a tuft at the end of the tail (a brush.., not flesh covered as the rest) ... and that detail has become muted by the many copies of the drawing, the original newsprint type coarse paper and pencil. . . .
Two pterosaur sightings in 1971
Apparently both sightings were of a kind of modern pterosaur called "ropen".
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We do not expect that any one eyewitness sighting report will be close to perfect in itself, for who can expect to have both a perfect observation and a perfect memory? Some eyewitnesses in the southwest Pacific have seen a flying creature that appeared very similar or somewhat similar to Hennessy’s.
I believe these flying creatures are Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs, even if no paleontologist has yet found a fossil with very similar characteristics (both a horn-like head crest and a long tail).
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Charlamagne Tha God saw a Live-Pterodactyl
In a podcast with Andrew Schulz, late in August of 2020, Charlamagne Tha God said the following (quoting part of what he said) . . .
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Pterosaur sighting by Eskin Kuhn
I am an artist with sharp eye for detail; and was determined to drink in the visage before me for future recording on paper. I saw 2 Pterosaurs (or Pterodactyls...what's in a name?) flying together at low altitude, perhaps 100 feet, very close in range from where I was standing, so that I had a perfectly clear view of them.
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Youtube video on the channel Protect Animal Life
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