Credibility of the Umboi Island Eyewitnesses
Why we believe eyewitnesses who report a giant ropen and describe it in terms suggesting a pterosaur
Gideon Koro Interview, 2004
Do pterosaurs still live? Are they extant, even in the 21st century? Don’t rush to any conclusion; get the facts, then judge credibility. According to Jonathan David Whitcomb (a legal videographer in Long Beach, California, at the time he gave this report): “On October 7, 2004, I left the Gomlongon Village [Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea] area with my interpreter and some local guides. We arrived at Akure Village, giving almost no notice to the locals, who were unaccustomed to seeing a white-skinned man. “I waited there while someone was sent to get Gideon. It is very unlikely he had time to prepare for the interview, yet he was at ease being questioned while being videotaped about his experience en- countering the giant ropen about ten years earlier. “He acknowledged that he had been interviewed before. I had studied his previous video-recorded testimony and noticed that he was much more at ease than he appeared to be years earlier. “It should be noted that the previous interview may have taken place soon after the sighting itself took place, so he may have been nervous being interviewed on camera [the first time]. “These villagers have probably never seen a movie or television [show] or even a live dramatic play. They are unaware of acting techniques in the way Westerners are. The many facial expressions of Gideon during our videotaped interview were highly consistent with his verbal answers. He was not play acting. “There is no reasonable possibility that he was willfully giving false information and that he had not seen any creature like the one he described. I interviewed him in front of the villagers who knew him. After I asked him the length of the tail of the ropen, he looked back and forth at the ground for a few moments and then he looked back at me and answered emphatically, “sefan meetuh” (seven meters). He was surely doing this to get a feel for both what the tail would have looked like if it were stretched out on the ground and then to estimate the length. . . . “In regard to any possibility that he firmly believed in a creature that he thought he saw but which was only . . . an illusion or dream, we need to consider a broad perspective on this sighting. A specific hallucinated image does not affect a group but is experienced by an individual. The ropen sighting involved seven boys. They ran home in terror after the sighting. “Wesley, the brother of Gideon, described the ropen to me and I was able to videotape his answers. Likewise, another of the witnesses, Mesa, told me that he saw the ropen at that time. These videotaped interviews are available to all who would like to examine them. What these young men described to me was no dream or hallucination.” See also Ropen Credibility
copyright 2007-2017 Jonathan David Whitcomb
Some natives report a flying light at night, others report what other eyewitnesses have told them, but a few report a huge featherless flying creature in clear daylight
Michael answered Jonathan Whitcomb’s questions about the ropen: The flying creature robbed a grave in Gomlongon (1949)
“In December, 1997, my husband and I both sighted a huge creature flying over a densely populated area, while we were out walking one night in Perth . . . Australia, on the coastline around 10:30 pm.”
“Garth Guessman, a living-pterosaur investigator, interviewed three Americans who had worked in or visited a medical mission in Central New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea. . . .” [They had at least three separate sightings, in daylight, of big apparent pterosaurs, although the flying creatures were apparently not ropens, for the did not have long tails.]
“Animals that are classified as cryptids seem to be known through stories or through a limited number of eyewitnesses.”
“An Australian [expert on birds], Mr. Fred F. Silcock, declares that a few barn owls (Tyto Alba), on rare occasions, glow with intrinsic bioluminescence.”
Hoaxes (or not)
“In 1856, according to The Illustrated London News (newspaper) at the time, men working on a tunnel in France discovered a living pterosaur (by whatever name) . . . is now believed by many to be a hoax.”
When Whitcomb asked him about the length of the tail, the native looked away to imagine the tail and then estimated its length. This was done in a highly credible way.
Wesley’s testimony agreed with Gideon’s and was consistent in manner and content (credible)
Gideon Koro, of the Akure Village area of Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea (2004)
Mesa verified that what Gideon said was true. Although he was nervous while talking about the creature, his testimony is considered credible.
When asked if the creature had any feathers, Gideon showed nonverbally that he considered the question strange: He said, “There’s no feathers.”
Eyewitness descriptions are consistent: Most of the natives on Umboi Island see only a distant low-elevation flying light that lasts about 5-6 seconds. The islanders who get a closer and clearer view of the ropen, however, tell us it is a large long-tailed flying creature.
Let’s try to be objective about reports of apparent modern pterosaurs
The images of a ropen shown on this page are from a sketch drawn by the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn (eastern Cuba, 1971)
Credibility of the Umboi Island Eyewitnesses
Some natives report a flying light at night, others report what other eyewitnesses have told them, but a few report a huge featherless flying creature in clear daylight
Why we believe eyewitnesses who report a giant ropen and describe it in terms suggesting a pterosaur
Gideon Koro Interview, 2004
Do pterosaurs still live? Are they extant, even in the 21st century? Don’t rush to any conclusion; get the facts, then judge credibility. According to Jonathan David Whitcomb (a legal videographer in Long Beach, California, at the time he gave this report): “On October 7, 2004, I left the Gomlongon Village [Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea] area with my interpreter and some local guides. We arrived at Akure Village, giving almost no notice to the locals, who were unaccustomed to seeing a white-skinned man. “I waited there while someone was sent to get Gideon. It is very unlikely he had time to prepare for the interview, yet he was at ease being questioned while being videotaped about his experience encountering the giant ropen about ten years earlier. “He acknowledged that he had been interviewed before. I had studied his previous video-recorded testimony and noticed that he was much more at ease than he appeared to be years earlier. “It should be noted that the previous interview may have taken place soon after the sighting itself took place, so he may have been nervous being interviewed on camera [the first time]. “These villagers have probably never seen a movie or television [show] or even a live dramatic play. They are unaware of acting techniques in the way Westerners are. The many facial expressions of Gideon during our videotaped interview were highly consistent with his verbal answers. He was not play acting. “There is no reasonable possibility that he was willfully giving false information and that he had not seen any creature like the one he described. I interviewed him in front of the villagers who knew him. After I asked him the length of the tail of the ropen, he looked back and forth at the ground for a few moments and then he looked back at me and answered emphatically, “sefan meetuh” (seven meters). He was surely doing this to get a feel for both what the tail would have looked like if it were stretched out on the ground and then to estimate the length. . . . “In regard to any possibility that he firmly believed in a creature that he thought he saw but which was only . . . an illusion or dream, we need to consider a broad perspective on this sighting. A specific hallucinated image does not affect a group but is experienced by an individual. The ropen sighting involved seven boys. They ran home in terror after the sighting. “Wesley, the brother of Gideon, described the ropen to me and I was able to videotape his answers. . . . Another of the witnesses, Mesa, told me that he saw the ropen at that time. These videotaped interviews are available to all who would like to examine them. [The ropen] was no dream or hallucination.” See also Ropen Credibility
Michael answered Jonathan Whitcomb’s questions about the ropen: The flying creature robbed a grave in Gomlongon (1949)
“In December, 1997, my husband and I both sighted a huge creature flying over a densely populated area, while we were out walking one night in Perth . . . Australia, on the coastline around 10:30 pm.”
“Garth Guessman, a living-pterosaur investigator, interviewed three Americans who had worked in or visited a medical mission in Central New Britain Island, Papua New Guinea. . . .” [They had at least three separate sightings, in daylight, of big apparent pterosaurs, although the flying creatures were apparently not ropens, for the did not have long tails.]
“Animals that are classified as cryptids seem to be known through stories or through a limited number of eyewitnesses.”
“An Australian [expert on birds], Mr. Fred F. Silcock, declares that a few barn owls (Tyto Alba), on rare occasions, glow with intrinsic bioluminescence.”
Hoaxes (or not)
“In 1856, according to The Illustrated London News (newspaper) at the time, men working on a tunnel in France discovered a living pterosaur (by whatever name) . . . is now believed by many to be a hoax.”
When Whitcomb asked him about the length of the tail, the native looked away to imagine the tail and then estimated its length. This was done in a highly credible way.
Wesley’s testimony agreed with Gideon’s and was consistent in manner and content (credible)
Gideon Koro, of the Akure Village area of Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea (2004)
Mesa verified that what Gideon said was true. Although he was nervous while talking about the creature, his testimony is considered credible.
When asked if the creature had any feathers, Gideon showed nonverbally that he considered the question strange: He said, “There’s no feathers.”
copyright 2007-2017 Jonathan David Whitcomb
Eyewitness descriptions are consistent: Most of the natives on Umboi Island see only a distant low-elevation flying light that lasts about 5-6 seconds. The islanders who get a closer and clearer view of the ropen, however, tell us it is a large long-tailed flying creature.
Let’s try to be objective about reports of apparent modern pterosaurs
The images of a ropen shown on this page are from a sketch drawn by the eyewitness Eskin Kuhn (eastern Cuba, 1971)