Marfa Lights Keep Flying

Comparing Marfa Lights with ropen lights may be speculative, but the potential for a dramatic scientific discovery is thrilling. What at potential! Living bioluminescent pterosaurs in Texas! Even if the flying creatures turn out to be something other than pterosaurs, it would be a wonderful discovery of such incredible glowing flying predators.

Headlights and Hard Heads Knocking Marfa Lights

So why do some blog writers and blog-post commenters still insist that all mysterious lights seen around Marfa are from car headlights? What could it be other than careless thinking? For those who would like to really learn the truth about what is known and about the possibility (however probable or improbable) of Marfa Lights coming from large bioluminescent flying predators, read one or both of these nonfiction books: Hunting Marfa Lights by James Bunnell and Live Pterosaurs in America, second edition, by Jonathan David Whitcomb. Both books are the result of years of research and investigation.

Science and Marfa Lights

. . . scientists have tried to know and understand Marfa Lights: observing, testing photographing, and theorizing. Interesting ideas have emerged; none but one, however, seems to come close to adequately explaining the apparent intellegence associated with those flying lights, the mystery lights of Marfa, Texas.

Ropen Chasing Ropen in Marfa, Texas

I'll call it the "Huntington Hypothesis" (HH), this conjecture that the May 8, 2003, sighting by James Bunnell involved one flying predator that was chasing another one for many miles. Consider this carefully; I see no problem with this hypothesis. It involves a male flying predator chasing off a rival male, in a chase that lasted eleven miles.

Pterodactyls in Texas (including Marfa)

With mammals the size of houses diving deep under the surface of the oceans, with not-quite-so-large mammals having noses many feet long, with birds that can swim, with spiders that catch small birds, with so many wonderful forms of life on this earth, why not pterodactyls in Texas?

Marfa Light Madness?

One commenter on a recent blog post responded briefly to my two long comments with, "Dude, you are a certified whack job. Pterodactyls? Fie and pshaw!" He then sarcastically referred to "glow-goblins" as the cause of Marfa Lights. (Houston Press blog post by Richard Connelly, Dec 7, 2010; comment by "Doc")

A timely note before proceeding: Sarcasm is not satire.

Leaning heavily on sarcasm does more than guarantee a writer's work will be forgotten. It puts the writer's opinion in doubt, for reasoning should come first. The person who wrote the above critism may have had something worthwhile in mind, before writing; but the comment itself throws the possibility of deep thinking into doubt.

One definition of "whack job" is this: "an extremely erratic or irrational person." In my two lengthy comments (over fifty lines of comment, much longer than the blog post by Richard Connelly) I said much about Marfa Lights and the work of the scientist James Bunnell. I said little about pterosaurs. But for those who have read much of my writings, it is obvious that I rely on eyewitnesses, for I have never seen anything like a living pterosaur (although I hope and pray to see one before leaving this world). If the writer of sarcasm really believes me to be insane because I believe in the words of persons who declare that they have seen living pterosaurs, what about Brian Hennessy?

Several years ago, this Australian reported to me his 1971 sighting of a "prehistoric" looking flying creature. It had no sign of feathers but a long tail. The long beak and long tail made it very unlike any bat; the lack of feathers made it very unlike any bird. If I am insane for believing him, what about Hennessy? Why believe he is mentally healthy? The problem with labeling this Australian with "whack job" is that Brian Hennessy is a professional psychologist.

See also "Those Mysterious Marfa Lights."

Can Satire Backfire?

According to Wikipedia, "satire is primarily a literary genre or form" in which "vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement." I suspect that some writers enjoy using satire to be humorous; also, some writers want to make a point without actually reasoning on the point, by using bulverism (whether or not they know the meaning of that word). Although satirical writing is common, satire about new scientific ideas is uncommon.

A recent use of satire in Texas, however, may have backfired, with potential consequences unforseen by the blog writer. Prompted by a press release about a new interpretation of the Marfa Lights of Texas, and the publication of a nonfiction cryptozoology book with a chapter devoted to those strange ghost lights, the blogger ridiculed the idea that the source of those lights are bioluminescent flying predators that may even be living pterosaurs. I wrote both the press release and the book it promotes.

On that blog post by Richard Connelly, I replied with two comments, neither of which referred to bulverism or satire. My comments mostly emphasized the error of assuming there are no strange lights around Marfa (Connelly had assumed car headlights account for all reports of strange lights there). I used that bloggers two links, demonstrating that careful reading of his references result in meanings different from what he had assumed: Those two scientific studies do not support Connelly's assumption.

I said little about pterosaurs in those two comments. After writing books on the subject of living pterosaurs, I have given up on the possibility that even the best-formulated comment or the most thoughtfully prepared article can, by itself, convince all readers that their culture has wrongfully indoctrinated them into the assumption of universal extinctions of dinosaurs and pterosaurs. My best hope is that a single comment or article will awaken most of the readers to the possibility of modern pterosaurs, and Connelly's blog post seems to have done something similar, contrary to his intention.

I am grateful that comments were allowed for that post. I believe that some readers notice the comments, and in this case I have an audience that I would not have had without Connelly's remarks.

For those interested, the blog post of Richard Connelly is not itself the best example of bulverism (it is, however, a clear example of satire); the third comment, by "Doc," is a better example: Referring to me, he said, "Dude, you are a certified whack job." Of course, that commenter's idea is hardly original: that I am a hopeless lunatic; it seems to be a common misconception. But for those who desire to reason on a subject, I suggest actual reasoning, not bulverism.

Pterosaur Extinction . . . or Non-Extinction

How often are we exposed to the word "extinction" when dinosaurs or pterosaurs are mentioned! Extinction is declared as if it were a scientific fact. Facing into the wind of those declarations, look for yourself at the possibility that pterosaurs, in at least a few species, are still living (dinosaurs set aside for the moment).

There is no scientific evidence for universal extinction of all species of pterosaurs. Not a speck of evidence. Consider only a few eyewitness reports, then decide if you would like to investigate further, looking more deeply into those sightings and other similar sightings. I have been investigating pterosaur sightings for over ten years, and the evidence continues to accumulate, both in quantity and quality. I believe the credible eyewitnesses.

I do not set myself up to be more intelligent than the paleontologists who disagree with me. But investigating reports of living pterosaurs is outside the speciality of paleontology, and I have probably spent more hours on this obscure branch of cryptozoology than all the paleontologists in the world combined. Please, if you doubt that any species of pterosaur could be now living, at least consider the length of my experience, before dismissing this idea outright, and look at the eyewitness accounts that I have analyzed.

We could start with Duane Hodgkinson, but his report has been written about and analyzed for years, so let's just take a brief look here (see other blogs and web pages for more information). Hodgkinson was not drinking---he has never been a drinker---when he saw the giant long-tailed "pterodactyl" in a jungle clearing just west of Finschhafen, New Guinea (now the nation of Papua New Guinea). He was not alone, for his army buddy was with him. It was not an indistinct vision in the dark of night, for it was the middle of the day. It was not too brief to be sure, for the two men saw the creature take off into the air before flying away, and it flew back over that same clearing, allowing the two soldiers to get a second clear view of it. It was not far away, for they were in the same clearing as the creature that took off into the air and that clearing was less than 150 feet across. It was not a bird, for there was no sign of feathers. It was not a fruit bat, for the tail was "at least ten to fifteen feet" long. That creature was a clearly observed Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaur, notwithstanding it was a giant size and the fossils we now have of Rhamphorhynchoids are much smaller.

Consider excerpts from the second edition of my second nonfiction book, Live Pterosaurs in America [to be published within the next few weeks, probably before Thanksgiving]

“I was 15 yrs old [when] I saw two ropens together sitting on a fence. . . . on a wood plank fence were two of the biggest bird-like creatures I could ever imagine! I almost crashed my bike! They were about 50 ft from me; the first thing I noticed was their heads . . . I would have to say it [the head] was maybe 4 ft long with the beak . . . the wings looked like black rubber. . . . their wing span was about 20 ft tip to tip . . ." [Washington state]

“Hello, my name is [RA] and I live in central N.M.. Fourteen years ago, in [Socorro], N.M., me and a close friend, who now has a masters in biology, were hiking during the midday sun at [a] box canyon and something blocked the sun for a moment. . . . “It had a 20-30 foot wingspan and was about the same length long. It had a long tail with [a] seeming spike at the end. Its head was very pterodactyl shape . . ." [New Mexico]

So consider this: When a flying creature is clearly seen to resemble a pterosaur, maybe it is a pterosaur.

Flying Fox Misidentifications? No!

How often, during the past twenty years, has somebody suggested that Flying Fox fruit bats are the cause of live-pterosaur sighting reports! But many details shoot down that fruit-bat idea, and one detail is a long tail.

Both the Australian Brian Hennessy and the American Duane Hodgkinson describe a long tail on the large flying creatures that they observed in New Guinea (the country is now independent and is called "Papua New Guinea). Hodgkinson said that the tail on the "pterodactyl" that he saw was "at least" 10-15 feet long; Hennessy described the tail on the "prehistoric" flying creature as long. Both eyewitnesses seem to have observed the same type of creature, possibly the same species.

I have interviewed both eyewitnesses, giving both of them survey forms to choose the sketches that best correlate with the creatures that they had seen. The composite sketches of the head show striking similarities, completely different from any flying fox fruit bat, completely pterosaur-like, with a thin pointed head crest.

Why then have critics suggested the flying fox for sightings of living pterosaurs in Papua New Guinea? It seems that those critics may be completely ignorant of the details in critical eyewitness sighting reports.

See New Guinea Ropen

See also Marfa Lights

Worldwide Sightings of Live Pterosaurs

Woetzel's Ropen Sighting in Papua New Guinea

David Woetzel led the second ropen expedition on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, late in 2004, accompanied by fellow-American cryptozoologist Garth Guessman. One night . . . Woetzel saw a strange light flying towards the mountains near Lake Pung. Consider this excerpt from my interview with him in 2005:“My sighting was so quick that it was impossible to get a video  . . . [The flying light was] almost golden and shimmering around the edges. . . . There was no [meteor tail] and it was flying horizontal from Mt. Barik toward Mt. Tolo [Lake Pung area] . . . The size, color and speed made it immediately stand out as unlike any other thing I’ve ever seen in the sky.”

Near Collision Over Indonesia

The pilot of a small plane reported a large flying creature . . . about 150 miles southeast of Bali, Indonesia, at 6500 feet. Immediately after the near collision, both the pilot and co-pilot said, "pterodactyl!" They are both former navy pilots . . . without any sign of a hoax and without any sign of a predisposition to promote the concept of living pterosaurs. They do not seem inclined to either disparage or promote our investigations. . . . the size of the creature (at first the pilot thought it was another plane) and altitude seem inconsistent with common birds or bats in the southwest Pacific. It could have been a ropen.

See also: Pterodactyl Flies Over Military Ship (It may have been around Indonesia.)

Live Pterosaurs in the Western United States

(Eyewitness was 16 years old)
"I saw two ropens together sitting on a fence. I was riding my bike home [in Washington State] . . . on a wood plank fence were two of the biggest bird-like creatures I could ever imagine! . . . I noticed . . . their heads, then I thought this can’t be! Could they be dinosaurs? . . . They were huge! . . . [Their] heads I would have to say it was maybe 4 ft long with the beak. . . . Their tails were . . . maybe 6 ft long . . . I told my mom and she saw them too . . . if I would have had someone other [than] my mother to talk to about them we would have mentioned it. But my mother was worried no one would believe it. I can tell you I believe their wing span was about 20 ft tip to tip."

Pterosaurs in Georgia and South Carolina

I live in a small town in northeast Georgia . . . On August 27, [2008] I woke up very early in the morning . . . I had driven less than ten miles . . . and suddenly an animal flew out from my right . . . it flew directly in front of my car . . . the shape of the tail . . .  was very long with a shape on the end. . . . head that was curved, like a hammer; the head had a crest on the top that was solid, not feathery at all . . . [from the book Live Pterosaurs in America]

[South Carolina sighting] It was huge, as big as a plane . . . a huge pterodactyl looking creature, flying very high in the sky. The strangest thing about the sighting was how slow the wings were flapping and how high it was flying.

Two Pterosaurs Observed in Cuba

As a member of the United States Marine Corps, [Eskin Kuhn] was stationed at Guantanamo, with the 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment (reinforced), H&S Co., 106mm recoiless rifle platoon. . . . The  two creatures were very unlike any bird, for they had no feathers. They could have been strange bats except that the heads were completely wrong and they had long tails. Their flight, the flapping of their wings, was described as graceful.

Pterodactyls in Texas

Why not? With mammals the size of houses diving deep under the surface of the oceans, with not-quite-so-large mammals having noses many feet long, with birds that can swim, with spiders that catch small birds, with so many wonderful forms of life on this earth, why not pterodactyls in Texas? After all, we believe in whales, elephants, penguins, bird spiders (big tarantulas), humans.

Getting specific, what some particular eyewitnesses have observed in Texas are not fossils, and the correct general name for the flying creature is "pterosaur," not "pterodactyl," but why could they not live in Texas? With plenty of space to hide in the day, nocturnal flying predators could roam the skies at night, rarely seen by humans, even if the creatures are not extremely rare. But some Texans have seen pterosaurs, and some of the descriptions cannot reasonably be much else except modern living pterosaurs.

Texas Pterosaur in Marion County

. . . he was only eight years old . . . He reported his sighting to me in 2009 (I interviewed him in January, 2010), and that throws light on the reliability of his experience. Why? Childish imaginings do not usually remain misunderstood after a person grows into adulthood; even what is vividly imagined will normally become revealed as imagination as a person matures. My communications with Mr. Tullock revealed no symptom of any abnormality related to potential hallucination or delusion, and I have had adequate experience with those with that kind of problem. I believe that Mr. Tullock observed a flying creature with features basically the same or similar to those that he described to me.

Marfa Lights of Texas

The flying light appeared to have “on and off states as well as occasional bursts to brightness.” He concluded that it had “the appearance of chemical combustion including at least two re-ignitions and step changes in brightness.”

All day, the men searched along the base of the Chinati Mountains . . . where the lights had been. They found no evidence that Indians had been anywhere in the area. No tracks, no doused campfires, no nothing. But the next night and the next after that, they again saw the strange lights. Cowboys kept seeing the lights night after night, week after week, and year after year.

Balls of light sitting in a chico bush, atop a small pile of rocks or on the foundation of a removed radio antenna spitting streamers and shifting color from yellow to purple and red, a few flashes of yellow streamers and the light blinks out. . . . One I really enjoyed watching moved straight up a cliff face and then rested on top of the mountain changing from bright yellow to a dim red then blinked a couple times and was gone.

Marfa Lights, New Insights

. . . one of the lights [was] many miles away . . . flying around in the same general area . . . This light lasted for well over an hour . . . during which time several other lights [closer] appeared to the left. The group of lights here behaved somewhat differently, seeming . . . to interact with each other . . .

Pterosaurs and Texas

What does Texas have to do with extant pterosaurs? A lot. Not only do eyewitnesses report apparent living pterosaurs in Texas, but two Texans are pioneers in this cryptozoological investigation. . . . Recent investigations suggest that some living pterosaurs eat bats and/or birds at night. Pterosaur extinction is for the birds.