Indava

From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

In a remote mountainous area of Papua New Guinea (northwest of the capital, Port Moresby) around Tawa Village, the natives call a giant nocturnal flying creature "indava." In November, 2006, the American living-pterosaur investigator Paul Nation (of Granbury, Texas) found what at first appeared to be a colony of the creatures (in March, 2007, another expedition revealed that the creatures change daylight sleeping locations, probably depending on the weather).[1] He videotaped what appeared to be two of the bioluminescent indavas as they were on a ridge and about to take off into the air. On returning to the United States, Nation was interviewed by Jonathan Whitcomb (author of Searching for Ropens) who made digital copies of the seventeen seconds of video. One copy was given to Cliff Paiva, a missile defense physicist,[2] who analyzed the video over several weeks. He concluded that the two lights were not from any hoax or camera artifacts; they were also not made by any airplane lights, automobile headlights, lanterns, meteors, or camp fires.

The First Daylight Sighting

The 2006 expedition was the first living-pterosaur expedition to result in a daylight sighting of a giant creature with wings. While Paul Nation was in Tawa Village, his interpreter and fellow-explorer, Jacob Kepas, hiked up to a higher elevation where a local man, Joseph, was observing an indava. (Joseph and Kepas had been in radio contact, and Joseph requested assistance with the camcorder.) Kepas failed to get any clear video image of the creature they saw. The adjacent mountain ridge was distant and the viewing angle was too great. He believed that he could make out the wings and thought he saw the head covered by a wing but he was unsure. Joseph, however, had been to a higher location and was sure of what he saw: He described the "indava" as being the size of a small airplane.

Living-pterosaur investigators believe that the indava is similar to the ropen of Umboi Island. In daylight, they look like giant pterosaurs and at night they glow brightly as they fly just above the tree canopy.