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mysteries |
Monsters on The Wing |
Other Information |
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| Age old myths tell of great birds that preyed upon human
beings. Ornithologists scoff at the idea but some people think they have
encountered such monsters.
In Tippah County, Missouri, USA, a teacher had this tragic story to tell in 1878: A sad casualty occurred at my school a few days ago. The eagles have been very troublesome in the neighbourhood for some time past, carrying off pigs, lambs, etc. No-one thought that they would prey upon children; but on Thursday, at recess, the little boys were out some distance from the house, playing marbles, when their sport was interrupted by a large eagle swooping down and picking up little Jemmie Kenney, a boy of eight years, and flying away with him. The children cried out, and when I got out of the house the eagle was so high that I could just hear the child screaming. The alarm was given, and from screaming and shouting in the air, etc., the eagle was induced to drop his victim; but his talons had been buried in him so deeply and the fall so great that he was killed.... This is not the only case of a child being carried away by an eagle. In 1838, in the mountains of Switzerland, a five-year-old girl called Marie Delex was snatched away by her friends. She was not carried to the bird’s nest - a search party found two eaglets there, with heaps of goat and sheep bones, but no sign of her. It was not until two months had passed, that a shepherd found her mutilated corpse, lying on a rock. Svanhild Hantvigsen, a Norwegian, claims that when she was three-years-old, in 1932, she was seized by an eagle and carried to its nest. She was rescued by some people who noticed the eagles strange behaviour, and she was lucky enough to escape without a scratch, though her dress was torn. Such attacks are frightening, but not mysterious. Sometimes, however, there are reports of a different kind - of monstrous winged creatures that do not seem to fit the description of any bird known. Sometimes they seem almost like giant flying creatures that became extinct millions of years ago. And sometimes they seem half human. The largest living bird known to science is the wandering albatross, which is seen only in the southern oceans and has the largest known wingspan - 11 feet. Very close in size is the Andean condor, with a 10 foot wingspan. Even the condor would look tiny however compared to the teratorn, a bird that became extinct about 10,000 years ago, it is thought to have been the largest bird ever to inhabit the earth, having a length of 11 feet, a wingspan of 25 feet and a weight of 150 to 160 pounds. Fossils have been found in Argentina, Mexico and the southern US; some of them are thought to be 5-8 million years old. Huge birds have featured in mythology. The Illini Indians painted a picture of a monstrous bird called the piasa or ‘bird that devours men’, on a rock face near Alton in Illinois. They used to fire bows at it as they passed in their canoes. The painting was seen by missionary explorers in the 17th century, before the rock face was destroyed. According to the Illini, the piasa is scaly, with a long tail, horns and red eyes, it can be seen once a year, at dawn on the first day of autumn but despite vigils over the years no-one has seen it recently. However, some Indians claim to see another type of huge winged creature, the thunderbird. According to James Red Sky, an Ojibwa Indian of Ontario, Canada. ‘We saw a thunderbird a few summers ago. A huge bird it was; a lot bigger than planes you see go by today. It didn’t flap its wings not even once. It was white on the underside and black on top.’ Modern reports of giant birds came from the USA in the late 19th century. At Dent’s Run, Pennsylvania, in 1882, Fred Murray saw a flock of birds that, he said, looked like giant buzzards. With wingspans of more than 16 feet. In February 1895, 10 year old Landy Junkins, in West Virginia went missing, this was ascribed to a giant bird. Landy was sent to a neighbours house by her mother but never arrived; a search party found her tracks in the snow, which led to a field and then they started to be all over the place as if she had turned around in a circle as if to avoid something. No trace of Landy was ever found. An incident a few days later gave a suggestion as to what happened to her. A bear hunter, Peter Swadley, was attacked by a massive bird, which swooped down and dug its talons in his back. He was only saved from death by his dog, which attacked the bird, unfortunately the bird then turned on the dog and ripped its stomach open in one go, and then flew off with it. In 1947, farmers in Ontario, Canada, were experiencing problems with a giant black bird that was attacking livestock. A few months later an outbreak of sightings occurred in Illinois. ‘There’s a bird outside as big as a B-29!’ gasped 12-year-old James Trares as he rushed indoors to his mother. That was in January 1948 and on 4th April the same year, Walter Seigmund, a former army colonel and even though it was estimated that it was over 4000 feet up in the air, he was certain that it was giant bird. More sightings followed including some over Missouri, in which several witnesses thought they were seeing a large plane until it flapped its wings. Police and flying instructors were among the witnesses at the time. The last sighting seems to have been on 30th April 1948, by Charles Dunn, who could not believe his eyes when he saw a bird the size of a Piper Cub plane flying at 3000 feet. There have only been a few authenticated reports since then, and they have been in the 50's, no-one knows for sure whether they actually exist or if they are just overactive imaginations. |
Sources: The Unexplained |