Searching for Ropens and Finding God: Walking by faith and working with people of other faiths, in a quest for the discovery of modern living pterosaurs

by Jonathan Whitcomb, Dan Nedrelo (Illustrator), Eskin Kuhn (Illustrator)

Fly above common true-life adventures as you dive into what may become the most unsettling scientific discovery since Copernicus and Living pterosaurs of the modern world---what a discovery! It soars above disputes about religion, revealing why an official discovery of an extraordinary animal has been delayed for so long. Above all, this explores human experiences—of eyewitnesses and those who interviewed them. People have become connected by common encounters; persons of various faiths, with various levels of education, from various countries and cultures, have seen a living pterosaur, commonly called "pterodactyl." Notwithstanding the delay in the official scientific discovery, eyewitnesses from around the world continue to encounter these flying featherless, long-tailed, often larger than any known bird. A few Americans explored a few islands in the southwest Pacific, in brief expeditions scattered between 1993 and 2007, looking for a modern pterosaur. “Creationist” each man was labeled, yet many of those following them, in recent years, carried no religious purpose. The creatures have many seklo-bali, duwas, wawanar, indava, kor, kundua. In Papua New Guinea, natives in isolated communities speak in village languages numbering in the hundreds, yet many natives carry a common fear in the a huge glowing creature flying in the night. Natives on Umboi Island call it “ropen.” Three American Christians—one middle-aged LDS-Mormon high priest and two younger Protestant Young Earth Creationists—explored parts of Umboi Island in two separate expeditions in 2004, interviewing native eyewitnesses of the elusive ropen. They returned home even more convinced that long-tailed pterosaurs live, even thrive, in Papua New Guinea. This resulted in the publication of several books, two scientific papers in a peer-reviewed journal, and over a thousand blog posts, written mostly by those who trudged the jungle trails of Umboi themselves and spoke with the eyewitnesses face to face. Those two expeditions in 2004 also cleared the path for other searches in Papua New Guinea and elsewhere, including expeditions led by those with no religious purpose in searching for ropens, namely the Destination Truth and Monsterquest television shows. This book illustrates how we succeed better by working with those of different faiths in pursuing a common goal, in this case finding a modern living pterosaur and supporting each other in our common beliefs and values. Why has the official scientific discovery been so long delayed? The causes are multiple and interrelated, but one obstacle has been resolved. Speculation that religious bias of investigators has played a big part in sighting reports of apparent pterosaurs—that conjecture has been shot down.

354 pages, Paperback

First published April 18, 2014

Reviews

[Viktoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

So first, the bad: The writing itself is unskilled, rambling and redundant. Often the sentence structure is disjointed. He uses long convoluted metaphors to belabor his points to death, so the read did feel like a long slog.

The good: I found him earnest and honest, and sometimes I did like his writing, like his word plays. I see "reviews" of this book or just opinions out there that say things like, "This is clearly garbage." I think people easily dismiss it offhand as crazy nonsense, which it definitely is not. Unlike most people, Whitcomb has gone out and interviewed eyewitnesses, and since then as has many people write him with more accounts.
Now, maybe some people start off with the belief that most people are liars or idiots, and I guess no eyewitness would ever therefore be credible to them. But though I know there are stupid and dishonest people, I have a more positive outlook on people and I actually read the whole book. The native testimonies, and the variety and widespread distribution of others' testimonies is compelling to me. Like the author says, it's not just creationists that believe they have seen a pterosaur. Those that are skeptical don't actually engage with the arguments or evidence; they believe those are not worth their time, because it's obviously stupid. But if you read the book, its not, and they would have to actually dispute the evidence with a reasonable alternative (not just a token, "they must have mistaken a bat") to convince me ropens are not out there. Whether or not he's wrong, you're not going to convince me Whitcomb is crazy or stupid. Being wrong doesn't make you those things. Neither does being weird. He's done a heck of a lot more research than you, and his conclusions make sense from the evidence presented. Haters are gonna hate, mockers are gonna mock, skeptic gonna skep.

[Mathew White · Rating 1 out of 5]

The outspoken creationist underbelly of cryptozoology. It's always a whimsically fun ride, but never on any occasion for the reasons the authors believe. The fact a book such as this (even factoring in self-publishing) can go through 4 editions is perhaps one of the best examples of that strange grey area prevalent in some fringe literature in which pure bullshit is unintentionally made some of the most entertaining stuff you'll ever read...