Thunderbird Part II

Lon’s recent reports on a thunder bird sighting has triggered additional reports to come forward and we now have enough good reports to reach a few conclusions regarding what we are dealing with.  Google this blog for Mothman, thunderbird and also pterodactyl to get all the separate reports that we have seen so far.  If it becomes better known that someone is collecting reports, I suspect that plenty of additional reports will surface.

First, I have posted on three separate possibilities regarding these huge creatures. 

1                    One possibility for which we have a few reports is most certainly a modern pterodactyl.  The body is feathered and there is little evidence of the head crest shown in the fossil record.

2                    The second possibility is some form of giant owl, possibly the Eurasian eagle owl.

3                    The third possibility is an unknown American bird that is plausibly a giant eagle which is presently supported by these recent reports.  This also fits native descriptions received in times past.

I can now make an extended conjecture regarding these birds.

A soaring large bird conforms nicely to the behavior of a raptor but could still be an owl with its special wing lift capability.

The natural food for such a bird would be deer.  Just dropping from the sky would kill the deer and it is possible that the bird could carry the deer a short distance to a safe clearing to consume.  Increasing deer herds are likely encouraging a population explosion of these birds.

The bird has fabulous eyesight and avoids humanity easily.  It likely has decent eyesight for the night, but does not rely on that for hunting.

Most important we need to understand where the bird safely roosts.  It is too large to roost in large trees high in the air and if they roosted in high points they would be spotted every day.  The key comes from the reports themselves.  They like the ground and become airborne easily from a standing start.

These birds actually roost on the ground itself.  The moment one accepts that option other reports turn out to be about disturbing a roosting thunderbird at night.  They roost in the thick conifer woods throughout the Eastern US at least.

A comment on this is due here.  Large conifers standing alone by the edge of a clearing develop a full skirt around the tree’s base.  It is impossible to see easily into that base and little sunlight penetrates.  The base itself becomes covered with a thick mat of dry needles and the branches become quite bare.  In winter, only a small amount of snow will actually penetrate this skirt canopy.  It would provide a comfortable roost and nest for a huge bird as a human can also easily set up inside such a canopy.  Importantly, it is possible to retain sightlines out into an open clearing from such a hide.

The point is that we have a secure residence, a constant food supply, and the capacity to possibly hunt day and night.  Most important, the roost is never obvious to human hunters who could walk right by.  Even better there are thousands of prospective roosts to choose from.  The bird itself faces no threats whatsoever from other carnivores who it nicely out masses.  That is why the ground is attractive. Particularly when it is kept fairly dry and consists of inches of pine needles.

Reader Submissions: Flying Cryptid Reports

MONDAY, JANUARY 16, 2012

http://naturalplane.blogspot.com/2012/01/reader-submissions-flying-cryptid.html

This past weekend I posted two separate flying cryptid encounters by the same witness in two different locationsand within a two month period this past Summer - Reader Submission: Thunderbird Encounters - Illinois / Wisconsin - Since then I have received several reports of cryptid bird or bird-like sightings. Here are a few of those reports (NOTE: I have not edited these submissions except for some spelling...otherwise, posted 'as is'):

Dear Lon,

After reading your article I wanted to share our encounter with you.

Back in the Summer of 2002 during the late morning to early afternoon we were driving south on Highway 83 leaving Round Lake Beach, Illinois going towards Grayslake when we were startled something large and black crossing in front of the car and landing in small open area of brush to our left. One wing easily filled the entire view ahead of us.

We saw that one huge black bird had landed next to another one and that they were devouring what looked like a small deer or a large dog. It was just for an instant but they were prehistoric looking and larger than the local turkey buzzards. We watched the evening news thinking that some large vultures may have escaped the zoo but we saw no mention of any such creatures. We often wondered if anyone else had seen anything like these large black birds in northern Illinois.

Thank you for posting the article and letting me know that I wasn't the only one who saw this.

Sue R.

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During the late 1970s, as I and my brother Mark were late and racing to The Jazz Mobile jazz school in Harlem, I saw what I first thought was a ash on a spider web spiraling in the sky.I thought it was that for it made such smooth tight circles that it was unnatural on such a windless day.

Though I called Mark's attention to it, he continued to run for we did not have time to stop. Jazz Mobile was a weekend school and it's policy was if you were late you were marked absent and two absences you were out. So he was right in telling me to forget it and come on as he went racing toward the school.

At four o'clock when we were on our way home I remembered the ash and looked for it as we were heading back to the subway. As we neared the lot I saw the thing was still there and stopped to try and focus in on it. To my shock I saw what I was looking at was a big bird not too far away from us riding the heat thermals. I called Marks attention to it again and he stopped and his mouth dropped open. This bird was greyish brown and did not flap its wings like other birds did that I had seen do in the skies over New York. It would just barely move them and soar with out doing it again. It was not a seagull, eagle, hawk, osprey, buzzard, or condor. First I thought it was just a big bird until it started flying through thunder heads so it was way up there, and not as close to the ground as we first thought it was.

"How could it be so high up but still look so huge? " I asked aloud. "Do you realize how big that thing has to be, when it comes down?" Mark said his voice tensing up " We better get the hell to the subway."

Where we were standing, we were in an open space for they were renovating the area and most of the old tenements had been torn down and so we were surrounded by vacant lots and abandoned buildings. Mark was right if that thing got into it's mind to come down and grab one of us there was nothing there to hide under or hold on to. At that moment it flew in to a cloud and did not come out of it. We hurried to the subway and went home.

The next weekend as I was getting out of bed a news report came in over NEWS 1010 radio about a man and a woman somewhere upstate New York who had fought off a giant bird that had tried to carry either a child or one of them off. I called the news station with hopes to talk to someone and see if I could get in contact with the couple I had heard about, but I was told that the news I was hearing was on a tape and there was no one for me to talk to in the station. I was told however that the report had come in over the Reuters machine so maybe there is a record of it somewhere in their archives.

If you or anyone can get this report please email me a copy of it like that I will be able to pinpoint the year, month and date of my sighting because that happened a week after my sighting. We never returned to the area again I do not know if it was because of our sighting or not but we did not speak of it. - Posey Gilbert

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Near Wisconsin Dells, WI, many years ago a woman claimed that a huge giant bird grabbed up her young daughter and flew away. she reported this to local sheriff's dept. On radio heard that if anyone has seen such a bird to please contact sheriff's dept. Sounded as if the sheriff's dept. Did not believe her story. Outcome? I have no idea.

I did see one that almost took my boyfriend away. It was in a farm field that I saw this huge winged creature. Which reminded me of those dinosaur birds. The ones that its head came to sort of a peak. It came swooping down out of the tree tops; it was flying above from. I was shouting to my boyfriend to run away. he could not understand what I was shouting. Then as he turned his head around and saw this huge bird which was just getting ready to grab him in its claws. He ran and the bird decided to just keep on flying away. My boyfriend was about six feet tall. One wing span on the bird was three times that and more.

It was something we could not believe our eyes. Even so, it did happen and I am the only one alive now, to remember our hearts in horror that one day. Least to think that something had missed a meal.

**********

Lon - I used to live ten miles North of Lake Geneva in the East Troy WI area, and I investigated several reports of UFOs sailing over the rolling farmland and hovering low enough overhead to "hit with a rock", but never ran into any BigBlackBird (BBB) reports there.

However, my brother has had several strange encounters with weird things near his home in Providence, R.I., and one event that affected him the most was a sighting of two giant birds during a dawn fishing trip in Providence's famed Roger Williams Park.

As he was approaching one of the Park's larger interconnected lakes, walking across a tree-studded lawn surrounding a marble music temple, a pair of huge black "crows", with bodies as large as VW bugs, came swooping out of the early morning lake mist, flapping their enormous wings slowly as they swept between the treetops, curving past him thru the swirling fog, then twisting between the large shoreline oaks' intertwining branches and vanishing out over the lake!

They made no sound except the soft whoosh of air over their beating wings; their feathers were jet black, as were what he could see of their eyes; there was no odor. He froze in place as the apparitions flew past, then he rushed down thru the trees to the water's edge and scanned the lake's surface, but the creatures were nowhere to be seen, and never seen there again. 

There are many other reports of paranormal activities in and around that Park over the years, including several experienced by my brother.

Thanks - Wayne