The Giant Thunderbird Returns
Skywise
Today these enormous birds have been seen soaring through the skies of
Pennsylvania, and in the past they've even been blamed for snatching children
from the ground
A gigantic bird has been sighted in Pennsylvania. On the evening of Tuesday,
September 25, 2001, a 19-year-old claimed to have seen an enormous winged
creature flying over Route 119 in South Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The witness's
attention was drawn to the sky by a sound that resembled "flags flapping in a
thunderstorm." Looking up, the witness saw what appeared to be a bird that had a
wingspan of an estimated 10 to 15 feet and a head about three feet long.
This is the most recent sighting of an incredible creature - most often
considered a myth - known as a "Thunderbird." Sightings of these gigantic birds,
apparently unknown to science, go back hundreds of years and are a part of many
Native American legends and traditions. They have even been blamed for
abducting, or attempting to abduct, small children. And now they seem to be
soaring through the skies of Pennsylvania.
On September 25, the witness told researcher Dennis Smeltzer, that the huge
black or grayish-brown bird passed overhead at about 50 to 60 feet. "I wouldn't
say it was flapping its wings gracefully," the witness told Smeltzer, "but
almost horrifically flapping its wings very slowly, then gliding above the
passing big rig trucks."
The witness observed the creature for about 90 seconds in total, even seeing it
land on the branches of a dead tree, which nearly broke under its great weight.
Unfortunately, no other witnesses saw the bird on this date and no tangible
evidence could be found for the bird after the site was searched.
What makes this story more interesting, however - even plausible - is that other
sightings of similar description were reported in Pennsylvania in June and July,
2001.
On June 13, a resident of Greenville, Pa. was startled by the great size of the
grayish-black creature seen soaring overhead, at first thinking it was a small
airplane or ultralight aircraft! This witness observed the bird for at least 20
minutes, clearly seeing its fully feathered body and confidently estimating its
wingspan to be about 15 feet and its body length at about 5 feet. This bird,
too, was seen to perch on a tree for at least 15 minutes before taking to air
again and flying off toward the south. A neighbor of this witness claimed to
have seen the creature the next day, describing it as "the biggest bird I ever
saw."
Less than a month later, on July 6, a witness in Erie County, Pa. reported a
very similar sighting, according to an item in Fortean Times magazine. Again,
the creature's wingspan was estimated to be 15 to 17 feet and was described as
"dark gray with little or no neck, and a circle of black under its head. Its
beak was very thin and long - about a foot in length."
These were not the first sightings of Thunderbirds in Pennsylvania, as you'll
read later in this article. And if these reports are accurate, these birds are
the largest flying creatures not yet identified by science. By comparison, the
largest known bird is the wandering albatross with a wingspan of up to 12 feet.
The largest predatory birds - which the Thunderbird is most often likened to -
are the Andean condor (10.5-foot wingspan) and the California condor (10-foot
wingspan).
Centuries-Old Legend
The legend of the Thunderbird reaches back hundreds of years as part of the
mythology of several Native American tribes of the Pacific Northwest and the
Great Lakes region. And the legend might have remained strictly a part of those
cultures had not the great winged creature been seen countless times by the
"white man" over the centuries.
According to the Native American myths, the giant Thunderbird could shoot
lightning from its eyes and its wings were so enormous that they created peals
of thunder when they flapped. (For an excellent article on the Thunderbird of
Native American myth, see "The Fabulous Thunderbird.")
Tall Tales or Crypto Creature?
There are many tales of the Thunderbird that are more recent than the Native
American legends. The animal is almost always listed in the catalogs of
cryptozoologists' mysterious creatures, and although the Thunderbird has been
sighted on numerous occasions, a credible photograph or video of one has never
been produced, and one has never been killed or captured... except perhaps once.
A tale comes out of the Arizona Territory desert about two cowboys who
encountered the giant flying creature in 1890. As cowboys are wont to do, they
took careful aim with their rifles at the amazing creature and blasted it from
the sky. According to an article in the April 26, 1890 edition of the Tombstone
Epigraph, the cowboys and their horses dragged the lifeless monster into town
where its wingspan was measured at an incredible 190 feet and its body measured
at 92 feet long. It was described as having no feathers, but a smooth skin and
wings "composed of a thick and nearly transparent membrane." Clearly, their
description more readily resembles a pteranodon, pterosaur or pterodactyl than a
large bird.
Most paranormal researchers consider this story to be a good example of Old West
creative writing on the part of the newspaper. But there may be a hint of truth
in it. In 1970, a man named Harry McClure claimed that he knew one of the
cowboys when he was a small boy. The real story, as the cowboy told the youth,
was that the creature they shot at had a wingspan of 20 to 30 feet. They did not
kill the Thunderbird, however, and returned to town only with their fantastic
story.
One more intriguing element to this anecdote is that a photo was supposedly
taken of the great creature, held up with its wings spread by several
townspeople. Remarkably, many people recall seeing this photograph printed in
Fate, National Geographic or Grit magazine, or in some book about the Old West,
but as yet this photo has not been produced.
In his book Unexplained!, Jerome Clark lists many more sightings, including:
In the early 1940s, writer Robert R. Lyman spotted a Thunderbird sitting on a
road near Coudersport, Pennsylvania. It soon took to the sky, spreading its
20-foot wingspan.
In 1969, the wife of a Clinton County, Pa. sheriff saw an enormous bird over
Little Pine Creek. She said its wingspan appeared to be about as long as the
creek was wide - about 75 feet!
In 1970, several people saw the gigantic bird "soaring toward Jersey Shore
[Pa.]. It was dark colored, and its wingspread was almost like [that of] an
airplane."
In 1948, several witnesses along the Illinois-Missouri border sighted a
condor-like bird about the size of a Piper Club airplane.
Abductors of Children
The most terrifying stories about giant birds is that they occasionally attempt
to carry away small animals and even children. This item appeared in the July
28, 1977 edition of the Boston Evening Globe:
CARRIED OFF
10 year-old Marlan Lowe and his mother Mrs. Ruth Lowe claim that one of two
large black birds with eight-foot wingspans tried to carry Marlan off in its
claws Monday evening in Lawndale, Illinois. Although several birds experts say
that no bird native to Illinois could lift 70 pound Marlan. Mrs. Lowe say that
Marlan was carried 20 feet before the bird dropped him when he struck the bird
with his hand. (UPI)
Despite what the "birds experts" say, why would a mother make up such an
incredible story that would certainly expose them to ridicule?
In September of the same year, in Burlington, Kentucky, a small dog was the
victim of a similar abduction attempt. This item appeared in the September 2,
1977 edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer from a report by the Associated Press:
A five-pound puppy remains in critical condition today while wildlife experts
try to decide whether it was attacked by an American Bald Eagle. Mrs. Greg
Schmitt, Rabbit Hash, Ky., said the beagle was snatched from her farm and
dropped in a pond 600 yards away. Mrs. Schmitt said she did not see the incident
but that a 7-year-old neighbor boy did. He said it was a "big bird" which took
the puppy skyward. The veterinarian, Dr. R. W. Bachmeyer, of Walton, Ky., said
wounds on the puppy might have been caused by talons.
In this case, it seems to have been assumed that the predator was a bald eagle,
but could it have been a Thunderbird?
Other abduction stories include that of a 42-pound five-year-old girl named
Svanhild Hansen who in June, 1932 was carried away by a "huge eagle" from her
parents' farm in Leka, Norway. The giant bird carried her for more than a mile,
the report stated, after which it dropped her unharmed on a high mountain ledge.
In 1838, another five-year-old girl was snatched from the slope of the Swiss
Alps, where she was playing, by an eagle that carried the child to its nest.
Unfortunately, the girl did not survive the ordeal, and her badly mutilated body
was discovered some two months later by a shepherd. The eagle's nest,
subsequently found, was said to contain several eaglets surrounding "heaps of
goat and sheep bones."