The Thunder Bird myth is perhaps one of the most wide spread among the Native Americans. Thunder Bird mythlore can be categorized into two types: as a benevolent (or sometimes malicious) nature deity, or a type in which the bird is not spiritual but corporeal and co-extant with the aboriginal inhabitants of pre-colonial North America.
But there is another side of the thunderbird. A side that may now be showing itself, a side that may prove that it is not actually just a native american legend, but actually a real creature that has been spotted all over Canada and the United Sates.
Sightings
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 known as a "Thunderbird." 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, a local Pennsylvannia resident reported that a 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 said, "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).
Abductions
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.
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.
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."
Conclusion
So, is this beast a manifestation of human fear? A creature that survived days gone by? Or something else all together? Well, I'm not exactly sure. Whatever this beast is, it has caused panic in the hearts of many, and is sure to not stop. It is my belief that this creature actually lives up in the mountaineous regions of trhe world, and comes down time to time to wreak havoc on the unsuspected. I hope that this giant piece of poultry be stopped and catalogued before it can do anymore harm.
