The torso was about as big as that of the 8 point roadkill buck deer it was eating on and when it took off its wingspan was wider than the blacktop of a 2 lane highway with shoulder.

Along the line of discussing big birds I will quickly relate an incident that took place about five years ago.
My son who is now an Army aviator, was visiting us on the southwest coast of Florida (at Christmastime) along with two army buddies that had no way to get home for their Christmas vacation, (living on the west coast and I believe, in Hawaii) We were fishing in a very productive mangrove jungle canal (adjacent a 900 acre refuge nearby), along with my Nephew. So there were five of us in the boat. We decided to move from one location in the canal to another—slowly in order to not spook the fish. (Snook and grey trout or weakfish) In doing so we flushed out a huge black bird that looked like a dull black turkey vulture crossed with an eagle, only much, much bigger. The first thing that got everyone’s attention was the very loud squawk (qhaaaaak) followed almost simultaneously with a very loud disturbance in the mangroves approx. 100 feet away. The bird (and it was definitely a feather covered bird, though barely feathered about the grey skinned head area) flew flapping incredibly huge wings very slowly, BUT wind noise could be heard sounding like; whomp……whomp, nonetheless! It was and is difficult to estimate its size while it flew away as there was no sure point of reference. If I had to hazard a guess id say the wingspan was somewhere in the area of 16-18’ We all watched it until it was almost out of sight—and majestically perched on the top of a telephone pole on a dead end, unpopulated street that crossed the canal Northwest of it. The pole had attached to it a transformer measuring approx. 24” in dia. And 38” tall. The bird with wings folded was about the same size not inclusive of its eagle like legs. Tufts of feathers could be readily seen at its stout leg /body juncture
Three of us had digital cameras but everyone was so startled that we just stood there in the boat flabbergasted. When we came to our senses the bird was atop the phone pole but too far away to get a picture. (3/4Mile)
I have the witness of my nephew and son but none of us know how to contact the two soldiers anymore.

So There!

In fact I’d love to see a collage of what people remember the photo to be.

I’ve read a lot into the missing photo myself and after a while I too thought I’d seen it. Only to realise that it had been a combination of photos found online, films/programs I’d seen (notably Jeepers Creepers 2, with “bat of of hell” nailed to the barn) and my imagination.
As there is no way I could have seen any of the original publications as I’m simply not old enough.

Good luck my friends.

In the meantime, for all of you Thunderbird enthusiasts, you may be interested in this post from my website that I wrote recently about a monument in Bismarck, ND to the legendary Thunderbird.

Sculpture Celebrates Thunderbird Mythology

i really stopped my heavy interest back then.

whether it’s really from the 1800′s, i don’t know but’s it’s been around.

If anyone reading this is a psych student and needs a good topic for a paper, or is a go-get-them journalist this might be right up your alley and I think a lot of us would be behind you. I’m half tempted to start it all and then ask a few friendly souls at Google to take the ball and run with it. If it exists I’m sure they can find it and I’m sure at least one or two of their technicians has ‘seen’ this picture as well.