I met Garth Guessman early in 2004 when the two of us were preparing to explore Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea. I was impressed by his cheerful disposition and his enthusiasm for a Creationist approach to cryptozoology. His plan was to go to Umboi with David Woetzel and possibly a few others, including Paul Nation. I hoped to go with these three men, but Paul later learned that he could not go in 2004. By mid-2004 Guessman and Woetzel had made detailed plans to fly in a small plane to Umboi, and they would use Jacob Kepas as an interpreter. I decided to go alone and got to Umboi ahead of the others. On my way home, in Australia, I sent Guessman and Woetzel emails on my experiences on Umboi Island. They arrived on Umboi a few days later. But before leaving the mainland of Papua New Guinea (to go to Umboi Island), Guessman interviewed Jim Blume and Jacob Kepas.
In 2005 Guessman traveled to Livingston, Montana, where he interviewed Duane Hodgkinson, a World War II veteran who was an eyewitness of a living "pterodactyl." I later edited the videotaped interview and put in onto YouTube as "ropen-pterodactyl American eyewitness." Hodgkinson was near Finschhafen, New Guinea (now the country of Papua New Guinea), one clear day in 1944, when he and his army buddy saw a giant creature fly up into the air; its wingspan was similar to that of a Piper Tri-Pacer airplane. I've concluded that what Hodgkinson saw was a ropen, probably the same species as the creature seen by Gideon Koro on nearby Umboi Island.
Also after his expedition with Woetzel, Guessman interviewed three American eyewitnesses of what I later labeled the Central New Britain Flying Creature (CNBFC). This is definately not a ropen; it seems to be a Pterodactyloid pterosaur.
Around mid-2007, Guessman and a few associates went to a secret location where they witnessed many flyovers of what they believe are creatures related to the ropen. |