Danger from Pterodactyl Attacks

Two sketches of living pterosaurs

By Jonathan Whitcomb, executive director of Animal Discovery

Is the ropen, or any other modern pterosaur, dangerous? First, we have more than one animal of that type in our modern world. At any particular time and place, a particular long-tailed ropen may search for bats or jack rabbits or fish, and that choice of prey depends a lot on the experiences of that particular animal.

Yet at least a few non-extinct “pterodactyls” seem to have found it easier to catch and subdue farm animals or family pets: cats and dogs are sometimes on the menu, unfortunately for pet owners. As of October 15, 2021, I do not have a name for any missing pet or farm animal, but I do have a name for the ropen that has attacked chickens and barn cats in a rural area of Nevada a few weeks ago: the “Draper ropen“.

remote area of Nevada: hills and mountains

Remote desert in Nevada (not necessarily where the Draper Ropen now lives)

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Early this month, I received several emails from an eyewitness in a rural area of Nevada. I am under a strict charge not to reveal his name or the neighborhood where he lives, but here are some of his words, a small portion of his emails:

These creatures are big enough and defensive enough to pose a genuine and serious threat to life for any would-be fame seekers. [according to native American traditions] . . .

Approximately 9:20 pm Saturday, 02 October, 2021 (tonight), I experienced something unusual (even unusual for this rural area in . . . Nevada). . . . While … on the computer in the garage, I heard something very heavy land on the tin roof … I turned off the lights. And, quietly, and very carefully I opened the door and went outside. . . .

The garage’s roofline measures 26 ft wide. This creature’s wingspan spread wider by about 2 feet on each side and its wingtip flapped within about 4 feet of my head as I opened the door. . . . I don’t know how they got labelled as thunderbirds, because I heard its wings as it flew away. It makes an audible whooh whooh whooh sound of much air moved as its mighty wings power it at takeoff and climbing, then starting to flap slower as it gets about 50 or 60 yards above the terrain (or at least this big one did). . . .

Over the past few weeks, many of my neighbor’s barn cats disappeared . . . Something at night has been eating her cats. Every few nights I hear a cat screaming its last breath trying to fend off something, which kills it very quickly. . . .

Synchronous with the one neighbor’s cats disappearing (only at night), my neighbor to the south has been losing chickens . . . [But they are not eaten but squished as if stepped on by something or someone heavy; the dead chickens are then left there.]

[a few days later] Something unusual this morning (Friday morning): My neighbor said, her horses refused to eat this morning. She said this struck her as odd, because they simply refused to look anywhere except toward the open desert (rotating between looking at the surface and slightly elevated in the sky toward the nearby mountain range to the east. Horses don’t normally look up at the sky. She said “they weren’t just nodding their heads up, they were looking at the sky”). And, they wouldn’t quit snorting. She said this continued for hours. . . .

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Pterodactyl Attack

Many years ago, a native fisherman in Papua New Guinea was attacked by what his people call a “kor”. Many years before that attack, apparently, the natives stopped fishing at night because of the danger from those flying creatures.

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Shocking Pterodactyl Sighting in Nevada

“. . . its wing appeared nearly light/tan/brown/sandy on the topside, but more the color of the night sky underneath. . . .”

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Pterodactyl Attacks – Dog almost carried away

Two “pterodactyl” sightings in the Gainesville area of Georgia, in 1995, were shocking enough, but in one of those encounters a large family dog was almost carried away by an apparent modern pterosaur.

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What is a Ropen?

Those cryptozoologists who have explored tropical islands in Papua New Guinea, in search of living pterosaurs, believe the ropen is a large long-tailed flying creature having no feathers. [It is now known to live in many other areas of the planet, not just in the southwest Pacific.]

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Living Pterodactyls

“[I] estimated the size to be in excess of thirty foot, possibly as great as fifty foot. My eyes told me it was nearer the greater of these, my rational mind wants me to believe the lesser, since either of these is astounding for a flying creature . . .”

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