Early Texas Big Bird Researcher Dies
Posted by: Loren Coleman on July 9th, 2008
Ken Gerhard, author of Big Bird! Modern Sightings Of Flying Monsters, sends along word of the death of Guadalupe Cantu III, a historically significant participant in Texas Big Bird matters:
I was very saddened yesterday [July 8, 2008] to learn of the passing of my friend Guadalupe Cantu III recently. Guadalupe first rose to prominence in the classic cryptozoology book, [Creatures of the Other Edge] by Jerome Clark and Loren Coleman [(NY: Warner, 1978; reprinted, NY: Anomalist, 2006], when the authors had discovered the then teenage Cantu investigating Big Bird reports in San Benito, Texas. Years later, I rediscovered him as a grown man, following his own Big Bird sighting during the 1990s. According to Guadalupe, he and his brother-in-law had spotted the man-sized bird perched on a telephone poll near Rangerville, Texas while driving their newspaper route early one morning. Cantu was an integral part of my research in the Valley and appeared with me on local news broadcasts in San Antonio, as well as making an appearance on the Birdzilla episode of “Monster Quest.” He will be dearly missed.
Guadalupe Cantu III is shown in the following video clip, briefly, beginning at the 2:50 mark:
This post was written by
Loren Coleman no longer writes for Cryptomundo. His archived posts remain here at Cryptomundo.
It appears we are losing many people in the field of Cryptozoology lately. A very sad situation. My heart goes out to all their families and friends.
I hate hearing that. I didn’t know of him directly, but I’ve always been attached to the whole “winged things” subject (and not just from living in Texas, since those stories never seem to come from my region anyway).
Are any other working the Giant Bird puzzle ATM?
This is one cryptid that is seen when you think it should be…in the sky, because it flys. I have a soft place in my heart for giant child-eating raptors. They are doing God’s work.
If I had to rank cryptids I believe in, most to least (and that would make a great thread on its own really…) Thunderbirds are up there just under dinosaurs in the Congo, and way above a still living population of bigfoot in the lower 48.