Thunderbird Terrorizes Witnesses
The Thunderbird of legend has been told for centuries, long before the days of Christopher Columbus. When explorers first started heading west and heard the legends, they kept a lookout for the immense creature, convinced it must be yet another incredible bird that inhabited the new world. As reports of the creature dwindled, it was eventually considered largely a creature of legend. But as with all creatures of legend, this bird found its way into the field of cryptozoology. And now, after a string of recent incidents with the Thunderbird, this incredible story comes up.
Stan Gordon, researcher and cryptozoologist unveiled this report on his website regarding an incident on August 26, 2010. A group of friends were enjoying a get together in a rural area of South Greensburg in Pennsylvania when suddenly they noticed a tremendous flapping of wings, causing them all to look up to see where it was coming from. The creature they observed was reminiscent of the ancient reports of the Thunderbird so easily dismissed when sightings were rare. As the witnesses watched in shocked horror, the bird turned in the sky, gliding on the air current and swooping away. Within less than half a minute it had disappeared entirely.
Upon receiving the report, Stan sprang into action and interviewed the witnesses. The creature they described had a short beak relative to its size, and massive wings which they estimated to be up to ten feet in length. When Stan asked them why they had not photographed the incident, they reported that they had been in shock throughout the short encounter, having never seen a bird of this size before. And as Mr. Gordon reports, this is not the first time such an encounter has come up in the vicinity of South Greensburg.
These creatures have been immortalized in ancient petroglyphs and totems throughout the West, and have their own word of mouth legends which are likely to outlive even these ancient pictures. And with the sightings happening even today, some wonder if these legends are even necessarily fictional.
On July 25, 1977, 10 year old Marlon Lowe was allegedly grabbed by one of these creatures as he tried to run from them. Marlon felt the talons of the creature grab onto the shoulders of his sleeveless shirt and lift him up into the air. He was carried a total of ten feet before the 65 lb child was dropped. His parents, hearing the commotion ran out and came to his rescue. The bird was called everything from a misidentified unusually large vulture to a Condor. Neither species is known to be able to lift a child, let alone carry him ten feet.
Will these incidents involving giant birds continue to crop up? Given the history of the Thunderbird, the legend and the sightings are far from dead. And we can only hope that every incident brings us one step closer to discovering what these creatures really are, and why they are so elusive to those investigating them.