Cryptids - Thunderbird

Birdwatching can be a pretty interesting hobby for some, if you're into that kind of thing. But imagine just taking a normal walk one day, and then all of a sudden, seeing a giant pterodactyl-sized bird flying around. Some people have claimed to see just that, and they call it the Thunderbird. The Thunderbird is a cryptid that has reportedly been seen flying across the skies all across the United States. The bird is described as having a body that is 4 to 8 feet in height, and a wingspan that is 10 to 20 feet in height. Its weight is unknown, and its diet is also unknown, but presumed to be carnivorous. Legends of the Thunderbird go all the way back to native tribes all across America. Some of these stories would say that the bird was so powerful that when they flapped their wings, thunder was created, and when they blinked their eyes, lightning was created, and that water would fall off their backs, creating rain. The tribes would sometimes use the Thunderbird as a way to explain things that happen naturally, such as storms and bad weather. Throughout time, there have been multiple sightings of the Thunderbird. One of the most bizarre sightings occurred on July 25th, 1977. In Lawndale, Illinois, sometime between 8 o'clock to 9 o'clock p.m., a mother was cleaning up the kitchen while her kids were playing outside. While cleaning, she heard a scream from outside. When she ran outside to see what it was, she saw two massive birds chasing her 10-year-old son, and then one of the birds sunk its claws into the boy's shirt and lifted him up off the ground. The mother began attacking the birds until it finally let go of her son and then flew away. The mother reported this to the police and described the bird as having a white ring around its neck, a black body, each wing was four feet, and the entire length of the bird, from beak to tail, was about four and a half feet. Some people believe the bird she saw was an Andean condor, which is a black bird with a 10-foot wingspan and a white ringed neck. Andean condors, however, are not capable of lifting heavy objects. Another interesting Thunderbird sighting happened in 1980. In Arizona, two cowboys claimed to have killed a giant bird with a huge wingspan. The bird supposedly had smooth skin, featherless wings, and an alligator-like face. This description vaguely matches that of a pterodactyl. The cowboys dragged the bird into town and pinned it up against a barn. Allegedly, a picture of this was published in the local newspaper, but there isn't really any proof that any of this actually happened. Although there are a lot of people who claim that they remember this happening, no one has ever actually produced a copy of the supposed picture. Some people believe that the description of the image is enough to create a false memory in the minds of people, so they may think they saw the picture before when they actually haven't. There have been many attempts to produce the image that was supposedly shown in the newspaper, but most of these examples either don't depict what was described or if it's been proven false. This one, for example, is just a museum's recreation of the now-extinct bird called Argentavis magnificens, which was a type of pterodactyl. Its wingspan was about 20 feet and weighed 176 pounds and went extinct about six to eight million years ago. This picture is the closest I've seen to what was depicted in the article, but a lot of people believe this to be fake too, since in the picture, you can actually see deer feet that whoever made the picture forgot to edit out. Now let's take a look at some of the actual video sightings of the Thunderbird to see if any of them are convincing. In 2012, a video was uploaded called Thunderbird Caught on Tape. All the video shows is just this bird flying around in the sky. This obviously isn't very convincing because all we see is the bird in the sky, but we have nothing to compare its size to, so we have no idea how big it actually is. For example, in this picture, which is fake by the way, we can see the bird standing on a telephone wire thing, so we can compare how big it is, so this video is not very good evidence. This next video has been slowed down a little bit by whoever uploaded it, but here it is. This video kind of gives a better scale as to how big the bird is since it flew over his house, but still not the best scale for comparison. Regardless, people have identified this bird as being a blue heron, so this is one which is a false sighting. The final sighting I found is the most interesting. It provides the best scale to judge the bird's size. The person who made the video claims the distance between these two branches is 3 to 4 feet, so we'll estimate that distance as 3.5 feet. According to the scale, 3.5 feet would be about 1.8 centimeters. If we now measure the bird in the photo from feather to tail, we get about 2.5 centimeters. 2.5 centimeters would be equal to 4.86 feet, and that's just his body, which is pretty big. Now if we measure the wingspan, we get about 6 centimeters, which is about 11.6 feet, which is also really big. Now I'm not sure exactly how off my measurements were because the title of the video says the wingspan of the bird is only 8 feet, but I showed you guys how I got my measurements, so just let me know if I made a mistake. Now, I'm not saying this was a thunderbird, but it was a pretty big bird. Overall, nature is filled with fascinating things, and whether or not some of these sightings were true thunderbirds or just other birds that were pretty big, it's still a very interesting sight to see. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you on the flip side.