NARRATOR: This
thick jungle canopy offers many hiding places. No one knows all the animals
that live beneath it. It's believed that it's one
of the spirit from our ancestor. It's no surprise that
they call it the lost world. NARRATOR: This is the
real life Jurassic Park. They're potentially
extremely dangerous. I never in my life, of course,
had seen anything like that. Some of them may have achieved
spans of up to 12 meters. That's the size of
a small airplane. NARRATOR: Now Monster Quest
sets out on a dangerous journey, searching for the legendary
flying monsters of Papua New Guinea. There.
Look there. There, there. What on earth is that? NARRATOR: Witnesses around the
world report seeing monsters. Are they real or imaginary? Science searches for
answers on Monster Quest. The island of New Guinea is
often called the lost world. Separated from Australia
by a mere 100 miles, it is roughly the size of Texas. The tropical rainforest here
has one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. It is also one of the
most inhospitable. The second largest
island on earth, it's got violent
earthquakes, huge mudslides, titanic tsunamis,
and something else. I've seen up to seven
in the sky at once. It just come. It just go like make a
noise, just pass through. They are really mean,
and they will attack you. It is a very dangerous place. NARRATOR: Eyewitnesses
report seeing what can only be described
as giant flying monsters. The creatures are said to have
featherless, leathery skin, and wings spans of over 30 feet. The beast is said to have a
large crested head, which seems like a giant spike, and a long
beak full of razor sharp teeth. There are also some
reports that describe it as having a glow or
bioluminescence, meaning it is able to emit its own light. The reports all seem to
most closely resemble a prehistoric dinosaur,
thought to have been extinct for 65 million years. This was a pterodactyl. [growling] NARRATOR: In 1944, American
fighter pilot Duane Hodgekinson was stationed at the Allied
military base of Finschhafen in Papua New Guinea when he
saw something he would never forget. We were going up this trail. It was a pretty
heavily wooded area, but we did come to an area
that was relatively clear. NARRATOR: He was traveling
through the jungle when he heard a loud,
startling sound. Then this creature took off. He made a few steps down
through there and was airborne. He was so big. As he has wings deflected, you
could see all of the brush down below just flattening out. NARRATOR: Hodgekinson instantly
recognized the creature in front of him. And I was just absolutely
astonished at that time, because this was a pterodactyl. It had a long snout on it, and
a long appendage coming out the back of his head,
and great, big wings. [growling] NARRATOR: There have been
dozens of similar reports in the last 65 years. All seem to match
the same description. Well, we've got very good
intelligence that these may be the pterosaurs that,
according to evolution, has been extinct for
70 million years or so. NARRATOR: Garth Guessman is
director of field research for Genesis Park, a
research organization that works with local missionaries. Guessman believes that the
creatures are pterodactyls, also known as pterosaurs. When I found out that there
was research going on in Papua New Guinea looking for these
creatures, I was just amazed. NARRATOR: These animals are
believed to have gone extinct, along with the dinosaurs,
something that Guessman is now questioning. There is very good evidence
that is indicating that they still are alive. NARRATOR: The
island of New Guinea is a seeming real
world Jurassic park. New species, like the smokey
honey eater found in 2005, are often discovered here,
and most of the island remains unexplored
by scientists. This makes the area one of
the most logical locations on the planet to search
for unknown animals. Papua New Guinea is one
of those sort of places that you could consider
to be a lost world. And I am really hoping
to see a mystery animal. NARRATOR: Dr. Dave Martill is a
world renowned paleontologist. He's one of the few
experts on earth who specialize in
pterosaur research. We get the first signal
of them appearing some time in the latest Jurassic. NARRATOR: The professor is
extremely skeptical the mystery animal will be a pterosaur. If I was going to put some
sort of percentage on that, it would be 0.000001%. A very, very small percentage
because of the nature of pterosaurs. It's an animal who's volant. It flies. They would have been
seen by lots of people, and I would be really surprised
if there was one still here. NARRATOR: Martill believes
the explanation could be simple misidentification. He says that the key to the
mystery lies in native species. One of the things that I
think the natives could be confusing with pterosaurs
are some of the birds that we find in
Papua New Guinea. One of the birds that's
commonly found around the coast here is the frigate bird. And the frigate bird is
an ocean-going wanderer, which has a really marked
crook in its wings. And that is a bird
that's frequently cited as having an
attitude or an expression of looking like a pterosaur. NARRATOR: Martill thinks
that if it isn't a frigate, then what the locals call the
demon flyer could be a new bat species, which would
be an amazing find. The chances of finding a
new large species a bat are relatively high compared to
other places in the world, because PNG is so remote
and so poorly studied. NARRATOR: Guessman
counters this theory by citing the belief the
creature is nocturnal, which could explain why
it's not spotted more often. I've personally
seen more than one. Well, at least the
light of the creature. I've seen up to seven
in the sky at once. And others have seen, just the
natives in our correspondence back and forth, some
have access to internet. They come back from the
jungle and type to me that they've seen up
to five at a time. NARRATOR: Guessman will lead
a Monster Quest expedition to search for evidence of
the monster's identity. To do this, the
team will attempt to capture photographic
proof of the beast. They will set up a 360
degree observation point at the top of a mountain. Setting up night vision and
motion activated cameras, they'll try to get a
glimpse of the creature. Yeah, I'll stick
this is first. Yeah, put the heavy
stuff down first. Anything can go
on top of that. No, put this in last. There we go. Hold on to that one. NARRATOR: Guessman's
sources on the ground have reported a recent
cluster of sightings in a remote
mountainside village. The team will start the
search in that area. We're right here. We have to drive 50 miles
through some pretty rough terrain to get
where we want to go. And then it's a really rough
road for about two miles. At that point, there is another
village even further away that we will get the natives of
that village to help us carry our things on in, because
there won't be any more roads after that. OK, and just here we're likely
to get crocodiles in here. Are they gonna be a problem? Hopefully we won't have
to get too close to the edge of that swamp.
- Yeah. And we can go further. Far enough around it, there
should be safety from that. What do you think? It sounds good to me. All right. NARRATOR: Man-eating crocodiles
won't be their only concern. Papua New Guinea is surrounded
by active volcanoes. You know there's a volcano
here as well that's been giving a little bit of
activity recently, so that's something we
should keep an eye on. Yeah, that volcano has been
smoking for the last two years I heard. Yeah, but when it's constant,
then it's behaving itself, and it's less of a worry. Good. All right. NARRATOR: They will also have
to deal with the natives. [non-english speech] There are over 850 indigenous
tribes in Papua New Guinea, each speaking their own dialect. Many to this day have not seen
people of European descent. A fear of the unknown has led to
misunderstandings in the past. I'm a little bit wary about
stumbling into villages where people perhaps haven't been used
to seeing scientists working. And this island in particular
is rather more remote even than the main part of
Papua new Guinea itself. So I'm a little
bit apprehensive. As far as the
people are concerned, we have to be very
culturally sensitive to them. They may
misinterpret something, or we accidentally cross some
customary law or something, and there's always the risk
that people can get cross and we could get into trouble. NARRATOR: The biggest
danger, however, may be the demon flyer itself. We've had quite a few
reports of it attacking people. NARRATOR: Monster Quest has
traveled to Papua New Guinea to search for a
flying monster that is said to be stalking humans. Stories about the beast that
the natives call the demon flyer go as far back as
the 16th century. This is an old sea chart
from 1595 depicting Papua new Guinea. And it has animals
depicted on here that are similar to pterosaurs,
that could very well be distant memories of legends
of possible pterosaurs. NARRATOR: This sea chart was
found in the National Library of Australia. It was drafted
over 400 years ago, and warns mariners
of local monsters. All cultures, every
country, has stories of dragons in their legends. Couldn't that be possibly
based in real history? NARRATOR: The
description matches something paleontologists
have been looking for for over 200 years. Scientists have found
hundreds of pterosaur fossils all over the world, but
questions about the creature persist. Pterosaurs were a
really quite diverse group of flying reptiles. They first appeared in the
Triassic Period, more than 215, 220 million years ago. And they survived all the way
to the end of the Cretaceous. And the very last pterosaurs
we have a record of were 65 million years old. NARRATOR: These flying
monsters are believed to have disappeared with the dinosaurs. The fossil record also suggests
that when they were killed off, they were still evolving,
getting bigger and more deadly. Some of the first pterosaurs
were really quite small, and their wing spans were
little more than two meters. By the time you're into
the early Cretaceous, let's say around about
120 million years ago, we certainly have
pterosaurs with wings spans of four or five meters. By the middle Cretaceous,
we might even have reached wingspans of 10 meters. Now this is the wing skeleton
of a giant pterosaur based on quetzalcoatlus from Texas. And at the end of the
Cretaceous Period, these sorts of pterosaurs
were found around the world with these gigantic wingspans. Now, these animals with
their enormous skeletons have proved difficult to weigh. Some estimates suggest that
they may have had weights as low as 45, 50 kilograms. But other estimates
suggest weights as high as 200 kilograms. NARRATOR: That's more than
a full grown male lion, and every bit as frightening. This creature terrifies them. Hence the name "demon
flyer", because it comes in, and they'll say it has 3 meter
wingspan to a 6 meter wingspan. So it's extremely large. Traveling in New Guinear
is extremely tough. It's rough. It's hard on the body. NARRATOR: Paul Nation
is a cryptozoologist. He has made five trips to the
ISLAND traveling from one end to the other. Every trip I've
come back almost dead. I've come back with
malaria one time. I spent a week in the hospital. I've come back with a massive
staph infection, five days recovery on that. I've come back with foot and
a leg jungle rot, basically. NARRATOR: Nation has been
investigating the demon flyer for over 15 years. He says most of the sightings
have occurred at night, because not only are
the creatures nocturnal, but they're also bioluminescent. This means they emit
their own light, much like a giant firefly. Nation claims to have filmed
the creature glowing at night. I was down in the village
of Tawa, not too far off from the grass strip,
looking up toward a mountain when I saw what I thought
first was an open campfire. [growling] But then I saw a
second bioluminescence, and I thought, ooh, that's
when I threw the camera up and started filming. The first fire basically
died away, dimmed down, and the second bioluminescence
actually rose up and flew over the backside of what I call
a saddle between two hills and disappeared from sight. So that's what I have on video. NARRATOR: This video seems
to show two small lights in an otherwise
pitch black night. I was really amazed, because
the descriptions I had heard for 12 years were so accurate. When I say bright light,
they meant bright light. This thing actually generated
enough bioluminescence that it was mini candle power. [growling] NARRATOR: The Monster
Quest science team is testing the footage with
video analysis software. The two dots here
we'll zoom in on. At first glance
looking at the video, it almost looked like
a couple of aircraft in a landing pattern coming in. But what I didn't see was
the traditional strobe that you would see from
an aircraft coming in. And you can already see
them becoming pixilated. NARRATOR: The
resolution of the video is too low for regular analysis. The consumer
grade camera is only gonna give us so
much information. We've got about a 4x4 pixel
count, which is certainly not enough information there for
us to really determine anything other than a couple
bright spots out there. NARRATOR: Monster Quest must
turn to more advanced science, like the process
employed by the military to identify ballistic
missile heat signatures. Clifford Paiva, a physicist
specializing in advanced image processing techniques,
will analyze the video. He will take it apart and
study it pixel by pixel. The idea is to blow up
that target, and if possible, apply some edge gradients,
intensity gradients on that to get morphology out of
it, structure out of it, so we can classify it. NARRATOR: Paiva will use
gradient intensity variations and 3D enhancement to try to see
what's hiding behind the glow. What we have are
two sources that have no intensity or
very limited intensity in the inside. So this is not a fire. And this is not a fire. NARRATOR: Since most of the
sightings happen at night, the natives believe that
the demon flyer, also called the ropen, is a spirit
and a grave robber that eats the flesh of the dead. GARTH: At night?
- At night? GARTH: Yeah. NARRATOR: He says the beast
lights up large areas. GARTH: So it's really bright? Bright, very bright. Yes. How big across is that? Is it three meters? GARTH: Live in what?
- In our big mountain. GARTH: OK. Yeah, the stone. I mean, we mean the
stone, the big mountain. That's a spirit that
live our mountain. It just come and go. So they take it as a spirit
from our mountain coming down and go to and fro. [non-english speech] NARRATOR: These men come
from a local village, and also say the creature
they've seen seems to glow. [non-english speech] Small light. Small light. They see the light,
that small light goes by. But sometimes it's small
light, but sometimes light just like one blink. GARTH: A spirit from the dead. NARRATOR: Some believe
the demon flyer is simply an unknown species of bat. There's just so much
undiscovered territory. There's so many places where
people have never been before or looked before for wildlife. There's always the possibility
of finding new species. And almost every
scientific expedition that would come to
Papua New Guinea is likely to find new
species of some sort. NARRATOR: The
island harbors some of the largest
bats in the world, like the greater flying fox. These bats have a wingspan
that can reach six feet. The team spots the
roost of a flying fox. Dave Martill will
climb to the roost to see if he can rouse the
bats and get them flying. I'm getting
closer to the tree. NARRATOR: The plan is to enable
the team to capture images of the bats in flight. OK, I can see the tree now. I'm just about to the bottom. NARRATOR: Martill repeatedly
hits the tree with a stick, and finally gets
the bats in the air. Despite their size, these giant
fruit bats are not dangerous. They've got a good wingspan. I'm sure it's just around about
a meter, a little bit more than a meter. But they're not
spectacular in size. I mean, we're not
talking of an animal here of three or four meters,
which is what some people have claimed for this ropen animal. Their descriptions
match a pterosaur. It doesn't match a bat. They absolutely
know what a bat is. They know what an insect-- they
know what a lightning bug is. They know what meteors are. They know what planes are. And yet they say this thing
looks like a pterosaur. NARRATOR: The team reaches the
village where they'll begin their trek into the jungle. The villagers are
surprised to see outsiders. Garth Guessman manages to
convince the local chief to let the team conduct
research on their land. But they cannot reveal the exact
location of the village or film the chief and his family. Also, two trusted
men from the village will stay with the team
members for the duration of this expedition. They will also act both
as bodyguards for the team and as representatives
of the chief's authority. We have about 25 people
carrying all our gear. So it's a lot of people. NARRATOR: For the team to
reach the area of the most recent sightings, they'll
need to hike over 10 miles. OK, let's go. NARRATOR: Along the
way, they'll likely encounter spiders and snakes. It may be dangerous. The first challenge will
be to cross this river. The team is transporting
500 pounds of equipment, making it even more treacherous. The strength of that water
was so strong, it was almost pushing me over. It was really difficult. I think we're actually
just about heading for some virgin forest. Because if you see
these few trees here, that's the edge of this
village's plantation. And then that's all unspoiled
forest beyond there. NARRATOR: From here, the
trek to the mountain top will only get
tougher as the team gains 2,000 feet in elevation. I wonder if that's one
of your big fruit bats. It could be. We saw quite a few
flying around last night, so they must be roosting
around here somewhere. I was talking to the
chief back in the village, and he was saying the
last foreigners here were the Americans and
Japanese in World War II. - Really?
- Yeah. Well, that's incredible. I mean, that gives you an awful
lot of hope that you might actually find something new. NARRATOR: The trail
slowly gets steeper. The 95 degree temperature,
combined with 100% humidity, produce a heat index higher
than most people have ever felt. The situation is taking a
physical toll on the team. Because it rained
so much, the ground is really wet and slippery,
and all muddy and clay, and some of the hills we
go up are almost vertical. NARRATOR: Monster Quest is in
Papua New Guinea, investigating reports of bioluminescent
flying monsters. The locals call this
monster the demon flyer. It is said to have
killed men before, and is rumored to have
scavenged fresh graves. If this creature
does eat people, then that would be our issue. And we are literally trying
to get as close as we can to whatever it is. So that may be coming into play. NARRATOR: The area
near Finschhafen had once been the site
of a military base. In 1986, it was the site of
a killing by the demon flyer. [growling] A man was gardening, and
the creature, a very large one evidently, came down
and picked him up. Agh! Flew about 40 feet off
the ground, dropped him. He evidently dies
or is incapacitated. The creature picks him back up,
takes him up into a large tree, and eats him in
front of the village. [screaming] [growling] NARRATOR: Witnesses'
descriptions of the beast match those of pterosaurs,
even though these giant flying reptiles are thought
to have gone extinct 65 million years ago. Most sightings of
the flying monsters happened at night,
because the creature is said to have the ability
to glow in the dark. This creature is completely
linked based on its capability of shining and glowing. It can literally glow or
shine at any intensity, including a single strobe
flash all the way to just a solid ball of light. NARRATOR: Monster Quest
expedition team leader Garth Guessman has seen the demon
flyers three times before. [growling] I saw in my scope
a star just zip into the center of my scope. I was just at the right
place at the right time. And it really drew my
interest, because I felt I knew what I was looking at. Right about then, I'm watching
probably a minute and just to see if hit would move again. All of a sudden, seven stars
started moving to my right. And again, I say star meaning
I'm believing it's the animal. And they were moving in unison. [growling] NARRATOR: Many,
like Guessman, think the animal is a pterosaur. Skeptics counter that
nothing in the fossil record indicates that pterosaurs
ever had the capability for bioluminescence. I know very, very
few vertebrate animals that glow in the dark
except for fishes that live in the deep abyss. There is no evidence whatsoever
that pterosaurs possessed any form of bioluminescence. NARRATOR: Guessman
believes fossils may not tell the full story. Their bones are not a
good indicator of everything that they could possibly do. Certainly if we found
a fossilized firefly it might not be so obvious
that it could glow. NARRATOR: Recent studies
claim that some animals, such as owls, could
be bioluminescent, but there is no scientific
proof to support this theory. The expedition team finally
reaches its destination. I think that the campsite
that we've got, if there is a new animal, a flying animal,
a volant animal that lives in this area, and if it decides
that while we're here it's going to come out
of the jungle, then we stand a very, very
good chance of seeing it. NARRATOR: The campsite will
also act as the main observation point. It's on a narrow ridge
presenting another challenge. If you fell down
those slopes, you could go tobogganing down the
hill for hundreds and hundreds of meters and really
do some injury. So it's quite a
dangerous expedition. A lot of potential for injury
there, if we're not careful. Extremely slippery conditions. We're in the rainy season. NARRATOR: The team begins to
set up their gear in preparation for a nocturnal observation. [chattering] The team has brought
a thermal camera. They will use it to detect
infrared radiation emitted by every object. The hope is that it will
help locate the creature. That's gonna be great with
this thermal camera tonight. Yeah, it sure is. Your hand just stands out so
clearly against the background. Nice. I can even see the air. I can see your hand
and the warm air coming off your hand around it. The plume? Yeah, the plume that
forms around your hand. That's your aura. You're glowing even
in the daytime. If these things land at all,
we're gonna be able to pick 'em out pretty good. We'll keep it running
and scanning the skies. NARRATOR: They're also equipped
with audio monitoring devices aimed at detecting
creatures like bats. What it is, is this ultrasonic
microphone, basically most of the bats here in PNG, they
use a type of sonar at night. They don't use their eyesight
to find their way around. This thing, it
divides the frequency that they're calling out to
a level that we can hear it. If it's possible that
this monster actually makes calls that are ultrasonic,
then we'll at least pick it up. [non-english speech] NARRATOR: The team also set
up a 300 square foot bat net, which they hope will catch
the mystery flying monster. What I'm gonna do is string
up over this tree fern here and this tree over here. NARRATOR: The net
is almost invisible, and is so thin that it
will not be picked up by the bats' sensors. The way these network by
catching things that can't see them, hopefully we'll get
anything that's flying around in the night. NARRATOR: This net will not hurt
the bats or anything else that might get caught in it, but will
restrain the animal long enough for the team to capture its
image with their cameras. In addition, the team
will use an array of motion-activated
infrared cameras. We're right in the saddle. We've got a little peak there. We've got a peak back here. And this is a low spot
where birds actually fly by, and hopefully
our big bird, too. This is brand new
for this island. No one has ever used these
things to actively seek out a demon flyer. Arm camera, OK. NARRATOR: When night finally
falls, it's time to go to work. The area's variety of
bats come out in force. You got the night vision. I've got the thermal
camera and the bat detector. I'm just gonna set
the thermal camera. NARRATOR: With so many
nocturnal animals moving around in such a diversified
ecosystem, it doesn't take long for the team to spot something. Oh, oh.
Wait, wait. Look, look.
What on Earth is that? NARRATOR: Monster
Quest has traveled to the South Seas of the Pacific
and the large remote island of New Guinea in search of
a mysterious flying monster. Just go towards-- I can see a very,
very faint glow. I can see the glow,
but it's not coming up on the thermal camera. It's probably too far away. It's beyond this hill. It's in the next hill over. Oh, that could be two
or three kilometers away. Easily. NARRATOR: Whatever
they are seeing is too far away to be
accurately identified. There's nothing coming
from those lights over there on the thermal. I'm just gonna take
note of all these lights, whether we can see them in
the thermal or naked eye, because those are the ones
we don't want to get confused with potential other
creatures that glow. NARRATOR: Night time observation
in the middle of a jungle is extremely difficult. Even
with high tech equipment, visibility is poor. Did you see the flash, David? That one down there, yeah. Is it moving? Looks like it's moving. No? I just saw it again. Somewhere over
to the southeast. There.
Look there. There, there. NARRATOR: Those lights look
eerily similar to the lights filmed in 2006. Garth, have you actually
seen the same creature that the local people
claim that they've seen? I believe I have. When I was about a quarter
mile away from a mountain, I saw what appeared to be a
shooting star, just barreling straight down, just at a 90
degree angle to the earth. And all of a sudden, it
just puts on the brakes, and stops on the
top of the mountain. And that starry trail that
goes behind a shooting star just descended like
pixie dust on top of it while it was on the mountain. It was completely
fascinating to watch. I believe I saw it. NARRATOR: The other
eyewitnesses who saw the shape of the creature
say it has a head crest bigger than its beak. This description seems to most
closely match the pterosaur, a flying reptile that is
thought to have gone extinct 65 million years ago. There's a whole
bunch of pterosaurs which have got a head crest. And one that's
particularly spectacular is an animal called
thalassodromeus. That's got a head
crest which sticks out from the back of the skull, much
in the same way a pteranodon does, just a little bit
differently constructed. And that must give the skull
a length of around about six feet. Now, it's difficult to determine
the wingspan of that animal, because not all of the
bones have been found, but it probably
comes out at, I mean, I think if I said
20 foot wingspan-- Wow. You know, you're talking
of a very big animal. NARRATOR: Pterosaurs have been
studied for over 200 years, and paleontologists
have used fossils to reconstruct the
skeletons and create a likeness of the creature. Surprisingly, pterosaurs,
although they're rare as fossils, they
turn up in strata where almost magical
processes have resulted in exceptional preservation. So we have a lot of
pterosaur specimens which not only do they have
the skeletons intact, complete, every single bones
showing all the minute details of the
skeleton, but also we have specimens which show
us impressions of the wing membrane. Sometimes we find specimens
which show impressions of fur, and we even have some specimens
of pterosaurs which are still in their eggs. The majority of
pterosaurs have teeth. NARRATOR: This means
the demon flyer could be aggressive and dangerous. Oh, oh. Wait, wait. Look, look. I got one. What on earth is that? Oh, yeah. What on earth was that? Was it a big beetle? Elephant beetle, yeah. It came on the camera, I
was like, I've got something. NARRATOR: The intruder turns
out to be a giant elephant bug. What the heck? It's a bug. It's got heat, though,
which is quite amazing. Way out there? No, it's just heat. It's on you know, Oh, That's a giant scarab. That's a beetle. Wow. Let's get some light on that. That is amazing. Hey. Oh, he's angry! Yeah, these are awesome. NARRATOR: The jungle
is alive with a million different creatures, but the
team has been unable to capture the image of the elusive demon. Daylight breaks with rain. It's still raining, then. NARRATOR: It's the
rainy season here. During these four
months, the island can get as much as
20 feet of rain. You know, I reckon that
half of these small butterfly species, they could
be new to science simply because there
is so much stuff here. The entomologists just
haven't had a chance to document it all. Half of these are
probably new species. Yeah, the diversity is
just amazing, isn't it? All this stuff at the
moment we're looking at is really small stuff, but
with all that thick jungle down there, and you can
see how far it just goes on forever and ever
with those mountains, you can imagine there's still
gotta be some pretty big stuff in there to discover. Oh, definitely. NARRATOR: The team knows that
what they are looking for must be unique. It is a living
object that generates its own bioluminescence. What kind of object is
inside the bioluminescence has yet to be found,
yet to be discovered. That is a point of
mystery right now. What is able to generate so much
bioluminescence and still fly? NARRATOR: The remote
island of New Guinea is the site of a Monster Quest
expedition in search of a giant flying monster that the
natives call the demon flyer. This man has been investigating
this creature for five years. He believes it's a pterosaur
that somehow survived extinction and evolved
into the demon flyer. This man is a paleontologist
and a world renowned pterosaur expert. He doesn't believe that
pterosaurs survived or that they could
hide in this jungle. And this man believes he has
filmed Papua New Guinea's mystery creature. Physicist Clifford Paiva is
analyzing a video shot in 2006 to try to identify the beast. These are the two sources
under magnification. NARRATOR: Using spatial
scaling procedures in a series of
computer manipulations, Paiva managed to get a clearer
picture of the two lights. The left source, source number
one is decreasing in intensity. That's important, because if
I have headlights on a car, I don't I expect this headline
to get dimmer and this one not get dimmer. I expect them both to get dim. NARRATOR: The high
resolution 3D imaging enables Paiva to eliminate most
of the possible explanations. They're not flashlights. They're not fires. They're not airplanes. They're not meteors. A meteor, incidentally, will
leave a vaporized trail, an ionized trail behind it. Very luminous. There is no trail
behind these targets. NARRATOR: Using the video and
various eyewitness accounts, Paiva says there's only
one possible explanation. Paul Nation did photograph
what the islanders have seen. They were ropens, and at
the end, they took off. They went straight up, he said,
and right out over a hill. NARRATOR: The monster expedition
team is still searching. The thing about this place
is, it's got loads and loads of critters, which just
have been hanging on ever since the Mesozoic. NARRATOR: The team
has seen lights, but these turn out to simply
be campfires across the valley. And they're coming
up as little red dots, even though they must be, what,
at least how far do you think? 500 meters, a kilometer? No, no, no, more than-- 800 meters? NARRATOR: Team leader Garth
Guessman still believes the demon flyer is out there. Every culture in the world
has stories of dragons. And if you think
about it, they also have stories of people
killing dragons. And when you ask the question,
what happened to dinosaurs, people never want to
put that together. NARRATOR: There are
still several things that scientists don't
understand about pterosaurs. The biggest mystery of all
is, where did they come from? Because the very first
pterosaurs that you find in the fossil record
have a skeleton which is absolutely and
utterly modified for flight. There is no halfway pterosaur. There's nothing that is
halfway between a pterosaur and some reptile that was
perhaps living in the trees. NARRATOR: This means there
are no transitional fossils between prehistoric
lizards and pterosaurs. There is no missing
link for pterosaurs. NARRATOR: The team continues
to scan the horizon. We're just looking to see
if there's anything perching in that tree in front of us. Can you see anything? I can see the tree. Here we go. Flying fox? It's a giant flying fox. Yeah. Wow. Nice. Great, great job. That was beautiful. It must have been quite close. Couldn't hear anything, though. Could you? Oh, something else
just flew over as well. You saw a black figure? No, I just saw
something light, round. I couldn't see it well. I wasn't using my night vision. I just saw it as I
happened to look up, and I suspect it might have
been the flying fox again. It might be sort of
flying around us. Did you hear something
close by, then? No, I didn't. Check it with the thermal. NARRATOR: Checking the
300 square foot bat net, the team finds that they
have caught something. There's something
down the bottom here. Got something? Yep. Oh, it's a little blossom bat. Is he alive? Yeah, he'll be all right. NARRATOR: It's a small
blossom bat that will fully recover from this ordeal. The next morning,
Guessman has a look at the motion-activated cameras. There are over 4,000
images recorded. While some appear strange,
none seem to be pterosaurs. This Monster Quest has made
some interesting discoveries. The expedition
team met a variety of witnesses who
clearly describe what they see as a beast
that glows in the dark. And they do so in
startlingly similar detail. The science team's analysis
of video footage showing strange lights in the skies
proved not to be a known object or species, evidence
that whatever was captured is unknown to man. In my heart, I would love
us to discover a pterosaur. I've worked on pterosaurs for
a lot of my scientific career. But I'm afraid to say that I
think the pterosaurs became extinct about 65
million years ago. I think a lot of
cryptozoological creatures, mystery creatures
around the world, are simply not found because
they're not looked for. And people aren't
expecting to find them, so they don't bother
even paying attention to people that report them. They just dismiss them as some
anomaly or obviously something else, anything but what they're
obviously telling us it is.
