Whitcomb-Paina
Ropen Expedition
© Jonathan Whitcomb 2011-2015
A real place loved by C. S. Lewis
By Jonathan Whitcomb
My interpreter Luke Paina and I were there to
videotape or photograph a ropen. Discovering
a living pterosaur proved more difficult than
I had hoped, but we discovered a life of hope
in the human inhabitants of Umboi Island, a
faith in God revealed to them from the Bible.
During those two weeks on that remote island
in Papua New Guinea, I saw no pterosaur, but
Luke saw the flying light that the natives call
“ropen.” For a few seconds, with the village
leader Mark Kau, Luke watched the light as it
flew across Mount Bel, well below the summit
(in defiance of common meteors that fly much
further away and in the sky): the ropen.
With several villagers from the Gomlongon-
Opia area, Luke and I headed into the bush
for our first excursion: towards Mr. Tolo,
near the crater lake Pung. We never made it
to the lake where seven island boys had seen
the giant ropen in about 1994. (For details,
read the fourth edition of Searching for
Ropens and Finding God.)
But the second excursion brought us the
success of interviewing eyewitnesses of
the ropen, including eyewitness Gideon
Koro. He and six other boys had been
terrorized by the huge ropen years earlier.
Gideon Koro had no idea that an America was coming
to his village, to interview eyewitnesses of the ropen.
Photo by Whitcomb
Photo by Whitcomb
The children of Opai Village, Umboi Island, were delighted, in 2004, to see
their images in the viewfinder of the American’s camcorder: a rare treat.
In the vaste tropical wildernesses of the islands of Papua New Guinea, countless hiding places may be home to countless unclassified flying creatures, even pterosaurs
Lake Pung, Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, where
the nocturnal ropen sometimes flies, at least once
(around 1994) even in daylight (seen by seven boys)
Photo by Garth Guessman
The ropen of Papua New Guinea may be
related to the “Gitmo Pterosaurs” (Cuba)
witnessed by Eskin C. Kuhn in 1971.
Two pterosaurs were seen at Guantanamo Bay
The American cryptozoologist and explorer Paul Nation
also searched for the ropen of Umboi Island, Papua New
Guinea, on an earlier expedition (seen here in 2002).
Mark Kau and his two sons (Umboi Island, 2004)
Luke Paina (left) and Jonathan Whitcomb, as they
wait for the cargo-passenger ship on the mainland
Native describes the flight of the bioluminescent ropen, how
the large flying creature passed overhead (earlier expedition)