By Jonathan Whitcomb
Brian Hennessy gave me a detailed account of his sighting of an apparent "prehistoric" flying
creature. His description matches that of the ropen, although this apparent Rhamphorhynchoid
pterosaur has many names in Papua New Guinea. For now, I call it the "Bougainville Creature,"
for Hennessy saw it flying over Bougainville Island in 1971.
Aside from the loud sound of the flapping of wings, the first description Hennessy gave to me
was that the creature was "very large." He added that "it certainly looked prehistoric" and had
a "longish narrow tail." There was not a feather in sight.
What is not often related on web pages (but it's in my book, Searching for Ropens) is head-
description: "The head had no 'normal' beak. Rather there seemed to be . . . a kind of beak
that was indistinguishable from the head, and the head seemed to continue this 'point' at the
back of the head."
Brian Hennessy is a psychologist at a medical university in China.
It was flying overhead one day, when he was on Bougainville Island, Papua New Guinea. It was nothing like a Flying Fox bat (a fruit bat).
|