Are all featherless long tails created equal?
The fiery flying serpent of the Old Testament may not be the same
species as the ropen of Papua New Guinea, but it appears to be
the same basic kind of flying creature. Both are associated with
the snake and with flying. The Biblical “fiery” could very well be
an ancient designation related to the bright glow of the nocturnal
ropen. The giant nocturnal flyer on Umboi Island, however, does
not have a reputation for regularly killing people.
How does the modern ropen relate to the fiery flying serpent of the Old Testament?
The Fiery Flying Serpent
Rhamphorhynchoid Pterosaurs Living Today
Searching for Ropens and Finding God—shocking nonfiction:
living members of the Rhamphorhynchoidea suborder, yes alive
Rhamphorhynchoid pterosaurs are well known from fossils:
long-tailed, with a particular head-neck-spine conformity
unlike the average Pterodactyloid. If the fossils were really
all we had to go by, members of the Rhamphorhynchoidea
suborder would be consistantly small; but modern versions of
those long-tailed pterosaurs can be almost any size, and that
means a few are huge: bigger than fossils yet discovered.
So what would ancient people think about a bioluminescent
flying creature like the ropen? What could glow at night with
no fire? Any creature like that could be labeled “fiery.”
Garth Guessman (left) interviewed the World War II
veteran Duane Hodgkinson in Montana, in 2005. The
veteran made it clear that he really did see the huge
long-tailed flying creature in New Guinea in 1944.
copyright 2014-2015 Jonathan Whitcomb
Patty Carson saw a long-tailed
featherless flying creature at
the Guantanamo Bay military
station in Cuba, around 1965.
Patty Carson’s sketch of the ropen she saw
Some cryptozoologists say it is related to
the fiery flying serpent of the Bible.
The U.S. Marine Eskin Kuhn also saw a featherless
flying creature with a long tail; in fact he saw two of
them, and at that same area of Cuba: Guantanamo Bay.
Searching for Ropens and Finding God (4th edition) is a cross-
genre: cryptozoology/true-life adventure more than spiritual.
Get your own copy in a quest for discovering modern pterosaurs.
