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"Ropens: PTEROSAURS In Papua New Guinea?" Topic


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Cacique Caribe22 Jun 2007 10:24 p.m. PST

What the hell???

link
ropens.com
searchingforropens.com

Is that instead like the mother of all glider lizards?

LOL.

CC

Cacique Caribe22 Jun 2007 10:33 p.m. PST

This is just too funny:

link
link

CC

DeanMoto22 Jun 2007 11:23 p.m. PST

Chubacabra! Gesundheit!

Personal logo John the OFM Supporting Member of TMP23 Jun 2007 6:36 a.m. PST

That's how to REALLY encrypt information, CC.
Your first link has small lilac colored text on a dark red-marbled background.
If they don't want me to read it, why bother? Or, is it an evolutionary mechanism to separate the color blind out as food for the ropen? If I can't read it, I can't take precautions.

Cacique Caribe23 Jun 2007 9:52 a.m. PST

John,

The first link has the following article (with some graphs and drawings attached). I know how you hate long posts, but you wanted to know. :)

CC
-----------------------------------

Pterosaur-like Creatures Reported in Papua New Guinea

Intermittent expeditions on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, from 1994 through 2004, resulted in the compilation of eyewitness testimonies that substantiated a hypothesis that pterosaurs may not be extinct.

Long Beach, Calif. (PRWEB) July 20, 2006 -- The conflict between evolution and creation took a new form with an investigation of reports of a pterosaur-like creature in Papua New Guinea. According to standard models of science, all pterosaurs became extinct by about 65-million years ago, but traditional interpretations of the Bible suggest that they lived in human times. According to Jonathan Whitcomb, a forensic videographer who interviewed native islanders in 2004, the "ropen" of Umboi Island is at least similar to a long-tailed pterosaur.

He maintains that the creationists who explored the island intermittently from 1994 through 2002 were not overly imaginative in believing the creature to be a pterosaur. According to Whitcomb's new book, "Searching for Ropens," there are many similarities between American, Australian, and native eyewitness accounts. Ropens appear featherless with long tails, and reports indicate they eat fish.

Whitcomb, from Long Beach, California, disputes an old idea that they are misidentifications of Flying Fox fruit bats. Two natives described a ropen holding itself upright on a tree trunk (fruit bats hang upside down from branches), and his book also describes an apparently bioluminescent glow that may help the nocturnal creatures catch fish.

The puzzle for the creationist investigators is that they're unlike Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur fossils in some ways: A few ropens are too large and have dorsal ridges along the back. In addition, some eyewitnesses report a head crest on the ropen while few long-tailed pterosaur fossils have such appendages.

Although Whitcomb admits having no photograph to disprove textbook declarations that all pterosaurs are extinct, he disputes the idea that the ropen is an unknown bat. His book examines an investigation by the explorers Garth Guessman, a Southern California firefighter; and David Woetzel, a New Hampshire businessman. Their 2004 expedition, a few weeks after Whitcomb's, uncovered a native tradition about the ropen's tail: It moves only near the tail's base. This, says Guessman, relates to Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur anatomy.

Before his expedition to Papua New Guinea, Whitcomb questioned Duane Hodgkinson, a flight instructor in Livingston, Montana, who maintains he saw a large "pterodactyl" in 1944, near Finschhafen. The World War II veteran's description resembles that given by a couple who saw a creature flying over Perth, Australia, in 1997. Whitcomb also noted similarities to native accounts recorded by earlier explorers on Umboi Island between 1994 and 2002.

Whitcomb found no indication of any hallucination or hoax with the two Australians and the American veteran. He also noted that the native eyewitnesses he interviewed mentioned no supernatural elements and that their descriptions resemble those given by the Westerners.

Around Manus Island, the wingspan is three to four feet, according to Jim Blume, a missionary in Wau, on the mainland. Blume's investigations indicate that wingspans may reach ten to fifteen feet in other areas. Whitcomb's book mentions a few ropens that are even larger, including the ones seen by Hodgkinson and the Australian couple.

The book acknowledges differences between the ropen and Rhamphorhynchoid fossils but it emphasizes that the "diamond" on the ropen's tail may relate to the fossil tails.

Whitcomb, a 57-year-old independent videographer who records evidence for attorney firms, completed his book after one year of compiling and analyzing eyewitness testimonies. He encourages a major expedition to videotape a ropen before the end of 2007.

Daffy Doug23 Jun 2007 9:56 a.m. PST

I am partially color blind in the red spectrum too, OFM, yet have no difficulty reading that lilac text. My trouble is when someone puts deep red text on a black background: then I am sunk.

1066.us

Cacique Caribe23 Jun 2007 9:58 a.m. PST

That's really weird. Mine comes up nice and clear, in a press release format. No funky colors and contrasts.

Are we talking about the same (the very, very first) link?

CC

artslave23 Jun 2007 10:09 a.m. PST

I've spent all my long life lovin dinos, so all this just makes me sad. I wish I could just laugh at it, but this kind of thing is getting too weird. The mental gyrations that one has to go through to lump this into "creationism" has exhausted me. I would love nothing better than someone finding a "living fossil", but how that would then prove the earth is only 5000 years old is confounding.

Cacique Caribe23 Jun 2007 10:32 a.m. PST

I just find it interesting how all those cryptids don't quite match what is in the fossil record.

C'mon. Even before we found a living coelacanth, we had plenty of fossils of what they would look like. And the living ones matched exactly, without new and weird mutations.

If some of those creatures do exist, like the Ropens of Papua New Guinea, or the Mokele-Mbembe of the Congo, or the Mapinguari in South America. However, I sure hope that all the weird descriptions of them are part fancy, because I would love for them to actually be Pterodons, Apatosaurs and Sloths (what those creatures are supposed to be), and not some weird mutations with glowing eyes, et.

Oh well. Like I've always said . . . I want to believe, but it is so damn hard sometimes.

CC

Coelacanth193823 Jun 2007 12:04 p.m. PST

Don't forget that a ropen might be another animal that's evolving along the lines of a pterosaur.

Cacique Caribe23 Jun 2007 12:08 p.m. PST

Good point, Coelacanth.

I guess that, like in Australia, some marsupials in the past filled the niche that other carnivores would have occupied otherwise.

Well, if Papua New Guinea has tree-dwelling kangaroos, who knows, right?

CC

Kaptain Kobold23 Jun 2007 12:16 p.m. PST

How come something interesting like this has been subverted by the creationist Bleeped texts?

Cacique Caribe23 Jun 2007 12:20 p.m. PST

Oh, well. Either side in that argument is going to see what they want to see from the "evidence" found. I guess the same can be argued when a Creationist reads an article of a finding that describes how it fits with evolution. To each his own I guess.

What astounds me is that I really had never heard of the rumor of pterosaurs sighted anywhere. I truly found it humorous and very, very interesting.

CC

Kaptain Kobold23 Jun 2007 12:28 p.m. PST

"Either side in that argument is going to see what they want to see from the "evidence" found. "

Hoorah! So lets teach geocentrism and Holcaust denial in schools as well as the creationist cobblers shall we? Let everyone assess the evidence and make up their own mind.

Creationism died 150 or more years ago. A few morons resurrected it in the 1960s and think they can make it replace genuine scientific research and thinking. They are wrong. Now, personally, I wouldn't be worried if it stayed confined to the US where any kind on lunacy seems to be accepted as reality. But, sadly, it seems to have been exported to the civilised world as well. And needs to be opposed.

Personal logo John the OFM Supporting Member of TMP23 Jun 2007 12:37 p.m. PST

Hoorah! So lets teach geocentrism and Holcaust denial in schools as well as the creationist cobblers shall we? Let everyone assess the evidence and make up their own mind.

No one is saying that, Alan.

I said much the same thing that CC is saying in the thread on John Edward. Proof won't convince some people, and it's useless to try.

You cannot hold a gun to someone's head and say, "Believe these True Facts!" It's been tried before.

I daresay that 10% of the world strongly believes that the world is flat. Well, maybe 5%. How are you going to convince them otherwise?

Top Gun Ace23 Jun 2007 2:48 p.m. PST

I guess it is possible, since the Pterosaurs date back from the time of the Coelocanth, and they have found those living currently, even though they are 65 million years old.

Here's some more related info on a quick search for Thunderbirds:

link

link

I'd love to see one.

Here's a link with a photo of one of the big Argentinian birds next to a man. Not sure if the picture is real, or not, so someone familiar with the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles may wish to chime in here. It looks real though.

link

Coelacanth193823 Jun 2007 5:24 p.m. PST

This isn't the only spooky flying thing in this part of the world. There's supposed to be a giant (6') flying apelike creature in those parts that H.G. Wells once used in a short story.
Nearby in Vietnam, there have been stories about batlike creatures that are positively Lovecraftian.

Margites724 Jun 2007 6:17 a.m. PST

My dad spent some time in New Guinea during WW2- he had dengue fever and saw all sorts of things…hmm

I'd love it if some cryptids panned out.

Cacique Caribe01 Jul 2007 11:24 p.m. PST

Heck. I thought it was neat when they found the climbing kangaroos in New Guinea:

link

I guess I'm just easy to please. :)

CC

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