The sighting took place near Williamsport, Indiana. I have the GPS coordinates for the spot. I’m not sure how helpful these would be, but they would at least enable you to pinpoint on a map where I saw it and see how it corresponds with other sightings.

This seems to have been a very big year for turkey vultures and buzzards in this area. I’ve seen many of them over the last several weeks and have lived in this area long enough that I’m familiar with what they look like. On the 22nd, I saw many turkey vultures flying high over the road.

However, what caught my attention was a bird that was considerably lower, just over the treetops to the side of the road. It was more of a mottled gray color, with what appeared to be a featherless head, which was also gray and a long bare neck. The beak was short, so I’m certain it wasn’t a heron, which area also popular in this area. It also didn’t have the characteristic long legs of a heron sticking out from behind.

The bird flew behind the trees and I whipped the Durango over to get a better look. I grabbed my camera and headed for the trees only to be met with an electric fence and several large No Trespassing signs. Thunderbird or not, I don’t like to cross those, so I waited to see if it reappeared.

A few seconds later it flew out from behind the trees for one more peek. I was considerably calmer and able to pay more attention. From my vantage point I would say the bird’s wingspan was between 8 and 10 feet across. While it looked a lot like a turkey vulture, the color was wrong and it just seemed a little too big.

Unfortunately, my digital camera works best with a still target. I wasn’t able to get a picture.

I’d appreciate any feedback I can get on this sighting. I’m not sure there’s any more information I could supply other than the coordinates. Please contact me if you would like those.

Thanks,

Bret

I quote from the article: “African crowned eagles have been known to occasionally attack or eat human children, [Evolutionary biologist Susanne ]Schultz says.

“There’s one report from South Africa of a small child’s skull being found in a nest,” she added.

The article is about prehistoric eagles, some of which were larger than any modern eagle.

Even though eagles do attack mammalian prey in a devastating and dramatic fashion, not every animal they attack is killed or seriously injured - and most mammals don’t have removeable “skins” (clothes) like we humans do. If the bird grabbed young Marlon by the clothing, he would not necessarily suffer serious injury.

We do not know what bird or birds formed the basis of the Thunderbird legends. Maybe it was a species of large eagle. Maybe evn a species that survived the Pleistocene but is so rare that it has not been described by science.

As far as the weight of a peahen, it’s a guess but somewhere around 10-12 lbs.

Also, in my book “Strange Highways”, Chapter III, one could find a 25 year case study of the Lawndale Thunderbird event, complete with “on location” field notes.

Basic “homework” in eyewitness unreliability research shows that witnesses typically distort size and speed of events, particularly under circumstances of reduced visbility (9:00 pm, while still light, is not full daylight); emotional trauma; and the tendency for witnesses who discuss the events among themselves (as these surely did) to exaggerate in later retellings.

I heartily recommend Eyewitness Reliability in Motor Vehicle Accident Reconstruction and Litigation by Robins as a good overview of how people remember and report events. There are other materials on the same topic, mostly dealing with recognition of individuals, but this one is particularly apt as it deals with motion.

Three children and four adults (you can look up their names - I could write them down but it is clear to me people need to read the original accounts) reported two birds that had wingspans of 8-10 ft across on a 4 ft long body. That’s much different than what is written here about a “terrified kid” and “hysterical mother” (please note the loaded language used) seeing a “bird with a 6 foot wingspan.”

That they thought he was being carried off I can believe. But their descriptions of a bird with a 6 foot wingspan speaks against it.

Giant tropical eagles are not native to Illinois, but one could have either escaped from captivity, or maybe could have ended up out-of-place in Illinois through some other means. There are Harpy eagles in South America and they can hunt prey up to the size of large monkeys. Maybe one was somehow displaced north.