Ropen of Papua New Guinea
When Carl Baugh, director of the Creation Evidence Museum (in Glen Rose, Texas), visited a remote island
in Papua New Guinea, in 1994, he could hardly have imagined what the next 14 years would bring. He had learned, from a World War II
veteran (
Duane Hodgkinson) about a sighting of a "pterodactyl" near Finschhafen. Baugh interviewed a few natives on Umboi Island,
a little north of Finschhafen, and was impressed by accounts of a large nocturnal glowing
cryptid that flies over their island--obviously
no
bat. He returned two years later, but found limited direct evidence. Expeditions by several other American
Creationists followed: in 2002, 2004 (two), 2006, and 2007.
A "modern
pterosaur" is how these Americans classify the
ropen, but by the end of 2008 the mysterious creature was still not classified by science, living within the shadows of
cryptozoology.
But an expedition, late in 2006, by Paul Nation, resulted in video footage of the
bioluminescence, in fact two strange slowly-pulsating
lights, on top of a ridge deep in the mountainous interior of the mainland of Papua New Guinea. Analysis of the video showed the lights
to be non-fire, non-lantern, non-car-headlights, non-meteor: truly strange lights that explorers maintain are created by a
modern
pterosaur (AKA
pterodactyl).