WELCOME TO THE CFZ BLOG NETWORK: COME AND JOIN THE FUN

Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

Search This Blog

WATCH OUR WEEKLY WEBtv SHOW

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON

SUPPORT OTT ON PATREON
Click on this logo to find out more about helping CFZtv and getting some smashing rewards...

SIGN UP FOR OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER



Unlike some of our competitors we are not going to try and blackmail you into donating by saying that we won't continue if you don't. That would just be vulgar, but our lives, and those of the animals which we look after, would be a damn sight easier if we receive more donations to our fighting fund. Donate via Paypal today...




Wednesday, February 04, 2009

GUEST BLOGGER RICHARD MUIRHEAD: The Ropen - a living pterosaur in Melanesia?

As Regular readers will know, Richard is one of my dearest friends, and furthermore someone I have known since 1970 when we were children together in Hong Kong. He is a natural polymath, and one of the best researchers I have ever met. Today he brings us an overview of a mystery flying dragon from New Guinea and Melanesia..

If there is any possibility of prehistoric survivors on the planet then Melanesia and Papua New Guinea would be the place where they might live. The Ropen (“demon flyer”) a putative pterosaur ,”said to frequent lakes and mountain caverns”according to M.Newton`s Encyclopaedia of Cryptozoology (1) was brought to the attention of the cryptozoological world in late 1999 by Bill Gibbons,(2) It is actually quite suprising that the Ropen is still not particularly well known in the cryptozoological world given that it is ten years since its “discovery” though this is changing with the publication of the 2nd edition of Jonathan Whitcomb`s Searching for Ropens in 2007.

See also http://www.ropens.com/ There are also its parallels elsewhere in the world which should be considered. For example,the giant flying snake of Namibia is said by locals to have a light on its head(3.) Could this flying snake actually be a pterosaur? It is possible. Roy Mackal in his book Searching For Hidden Animals mentions reports of living members of “ extinct” “pterodactyls” in Kenya in March or April 1974 and in a swampy area of Namibia in late 1975, allegedly filmed by an American team but this is nearly all the information Mackal gives. (4.) Large flying creatures are also reported from Mexico and parts of the U.S. In Indonesia,the ahool and the Orang-bati may relate to the Ropen of Umboi Island off Papua New Guinea.

One of the earliest reports of the Ropen was from Perth, Australia,rather than Papua New Guinea. In December 1997,one evening, a couple saw a flying creature with “ a lizard appearance” and a size of “thirty to fifty feet”. Even earlier,in 1944,Duane Hodgkinson, a friend and a native guide witnessed a giant flying pterodactyl emerge from the undergrowth having been startled by a pig. “The creatures` colour was dark,its neck was long, and the head-length…Both the head-crest and beak(or mouth) were long and narrow,parallel to each other,and,in flight,almost parallel to the neck.”(4) In 2003 a man named Abram saw a Ropen glowing red and white flying 100m above Opai Beach on Umboi island. The bioluminescence is said to be related to secretions which fall from the creatures as they fly,which can cause severe burns to human skin. In October (2004?) a David Woetzel saw a golden shimmering light coming from the direction of Mount Barik,on Umboi Island,flying at mountain top height. It has been said that the Ropen light is brighter than the moon. Frighteningly, the Ropen was once said to rob human bodies from graves. It is worshipped by at least some in parts of Papua New Guinea and there are said to be grey-spotted,blue-spotted and dark-spotted Ropens. Critics of the Ropen as pterosaur theory suggest that the Ropen is a flying fox bat. But as Whitcomb points out: “……fruit bats never grow long tails,never eat fish,never glow at night, and never dig up the grave of a recently-deceased human to carry away the body”(5.)


REFERENCES.


M.NEWTON. ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF CRYPTOZOLOGY. p.401
IBID P.401
R.MUIRHEAD. THE FLYING SNAKE OF NAMIBIA: AN INVESTIGATION. IN CENTRE FOR FORTEAN ZOOLOGY YEARBOOK 1996. pp112-123
R.MACKAL. SEARCHING FOR HIDDEN ANIMALS. P.54
J.WHITCOMB SEARCHING FOR ROPENS. 2ND EDITION p.26




Yours sincerely


Richard Muirhead
112 High Street
Macclesfield
SK11 7QQ

Telephone +44 (0) 1625 869048

eMail: richmuirhead@tiscali.co.uk
website: http://www.cryptozoology.net/sabretoothtiger/

No comments: