Opai Village on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea

These humble people of Opai Village

greatly enjoy being videotaped. Some

have been interviewed in regard to

what seems to be a pterosaur or

pterodactyl that flies overhead.

Opai Village is a small community, one kilometer from

Gomlongon Village. What sets this small settlement

apart from the many other small villages in Papua

New Guinea is the ropen. This giant nocturnal

creature is seen at least once a month, flying over

 the village. It is seen because it glows very brightly!

The villagers of Opai are happy to meet visitors who come with some

kind of introduction. They do not seek tourism; for the most part, they

do not even know what tourism is. Many of the villagers in Opai have

seen the legendary ropen as it flies over or near the village on some

nights. One villager, Michael, saw the creature long ago, as it robbed

the grave of a man who had recently been buried. Most of the people

of Umboi Island have never seen any exact form of the ropen. It is

usually seen as just a bright distant light, but there are exceptions.

 

For those who think that the living pterosaurs are only seen by the

“superstitious” natives,  what about  the professional psychologist

who saw a long-tailed “prehistoric” creature flying over Bougainville

Island (Eastern Papua New Guinea)? And what about the American

World War II veteran who saw a giant long-tailed “pterodactyl” near

Finschhafen, Papua New Guinea, in 1944? Compare their accounts,

for both Duane Hodgkinson and Brian Hennessy are Westerners, not

natives, yet they describe the creature like native eyewitnesses do:

long-tailed, large, and with no sign of feathers: like a living pterosaur.