Since late September 2002, dozens of residents of the villages of Tojyak, Manokotak and Dillingham in Alaska, as well as a number of local pilots, have seen "a huge bird with dark plumage." According to some eyewitnesses, its wingspan exceeded four meters. John Bowker, a pilot with 22 years of experience, was one of those who met such a "bird" in the sky.
In the Alaskan sky …
On Saturday 5 October, Bowker made a regular flight from Dillingham to one of the coastal villages. The weather was excellent with a little cloud. At about four o'clock in the afternoon ahead of the cloud emerged, as it seemed to Bowker, a small plane, flying the same course and obviously going for a rendezvous. Such a meeting in the sky of Alaska is a common thing: there are almost no roads in the state, and instead of cars, residents often use airplanes.
“I kept a close eye on the passing car,” says Bowker, “because here, unfortunately, we often have mid-air collisions. And suddenly I saw the approaching "plane" … flapped its wings. My God, it was a bird! I informed the passengers about her, and they clung to the port side windows. We flew not far from this giant and managed to get a good look at it. Most of all, she resembled an eagle of incredible size. All her plumage was dark brown, she hovered in the air, only occasionally flapping her wings, and kept in her beak a large polar hare the size of an average dog. In my opinion, the bird was not at all afraid of us. Her wings were huge, their span was 4-4.5 meters. Believe me, I know very well what “normal eagles, including the largest, look like. This bird was three times the size of any of them. I often see motor hang gliders in the air. So, she was like a hang glider.
For the first time we noticed a bird about four miles from the airport, and soon after I landed the plane, it appeared over the airfield and made two circles above it, so that at least 20 people saw it from the ground. In addition to its size, this bird was distinguished from large eagles by the absence of white blotches in the plumage, while the latter always have white feathers either at the ends of the wings, or on the tail, or in the neck.
In one of the October 2002 issues of the Anchorage Daily News, it was reported that recently an unknown creature with a wingspan of about five meters was seen in the vicinity of the villages of Tojyak and Manokotak. So, on October 10, the 43-year-old mechanic Moises Kupchak was repairing a tractor near the garage, when something "like a huge bird swooped down in its direction from above." Moises informed the villagers about the incident on his mobile phone and advised them not to let their children out into the street.
And here is a message from Margot McKenzie, a high school teacher from Manokotaka: “The bird was monstrous! She slowly circled in the sky about 250 meters above the ground. The flying monster was brown - in places lighter, in places darker - no white feathers anywhere. A couple of days ago, my neighbor John saw a similar bird, and then an eagle was flying near it, and so John says that the eagle was two or three times smaller than this colossus."
… Nevada and Washington …
When information about the unprecedented bird appeared in the media and on the Internet, news from all over the United States began to come from people who had seen the same flying giant at different times. This information is collected and summarized by Linda Moulton Howe, an American journalist and writer who studies anomalous phenomena.
“In November 1993,” writes Martin Wright from Nevada, “I went with my son to hunt deer in the north of the state, in the sparsely populated area of Mahogany Spring. We were driving along a country road, when in front, on the top of a low hill, I noticed some large animal, from a distance like a black bear. For several minutes my son and I were looking at a rare animal in this area, when suddenly the "bear" spread its huge wings and smoothly rose into the air. We were both literally stunned by the sight of the giant bird. After all, the span of her wings exceeded four meters! Almost ten years have passed, but this fantastic picture still stands before my eyes."
“It's strange,” says Benny Rawson from Mount Vernon in his message, “but a year ago I saw the same huge bird here in northern Washington. It flew right over my country house in Skagit Valley at an altitude of about 250 meters. There are many eagles in our area; they even make nests in the nearby cedar forest. But this bird was not an eagle. As it flew closer, its size amazed me. The main thing is the length of its wings. They appeared to be two, or perhaps three times longer than that of the largest eagle. The flaps of these wings were rare and very powerful. And the color of the bird was different from all the eagles I know. In its plumage, I did not notice a single white speck, it was all brown - the head and neck are slightly lighter, the wings and body are slightly darker."
Promotional video:
… and on TV screens in Detroit
Here's another message from Steve Bevington: “In 1968 or 1969, in Detroit, I saw a documentary about a huge, dark-colored bird that knocked an adult mountain goat off a ledge of a high cliff. The voiceover announced that this is the Andean condor (Vultur Gryphus), which is known to be one of the longest-winged birds in the world, with a wingspan of three meters.
While the goat was rolling down a steep slope about 400 meters high, the bird folded its wings and rushed after it in a steep peak. When she caught up with the goat, she clutched at the back of the neck with her claws, spread her wings and, to my amazement, without letting go of the goat's claws, climbed up and flew along the mountainside. The camera lens followed the flight of the bird until it, along with its prey, disappeared behind the tops of trees growing on the slope.
I studied all the information available on the Internet about the Andean condors and realized that they are not able to grab prey with their claws and, like eagles, rise into the air with it. And if so, then the bird captured in the film is not a condor. The goat that became its victim weighed at least 35 kilograms, and in order to stop it falling down a steep slope, and then lift it into the air, the bird must have tremendous strength, such as is not characteristic of any eagle.
The film was shot at a time when the cinematic special effects were very primitive and easy to read. I'm sure this film is "not fake."
Skeptic commentary
Sensational information Linda Howe asked Douglas Casey, Chief Vertebrate Specialist at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, to comment.
Apparently, an old school scientist, Dr. Casey turned out to be very skeptical, he categorically denied the possibility of the existence of unexplored flying giants in our time. In his opinion, the Steller's eagle is most suitable for their description, especially its variety "niger", which has a solid dark color, with the exception of the white stripe bordering the tail. However, the biologist believes that the size of the bird, and especially the span of its wings, is greatly exaggerated by witnesses. For Steller's eagles, it does not exceed one and a half to two meters.
But with all due respect to the authority of Dr. Casey, I somehow cannot believe that numerous eyewitnesses, including professional pilots, who undoubtedly have extensive experience in assessing by eye the dimensions of various kinds of flying objects, are so amicably and, most importantly, equally wrong … And with the colors, too, there is a discrepancy. All large eagles always have white blotches in their plumage. And those who saw the mysterious bird from below, and from above, and from the side, all as one assert that there is not a single bright spot in its plumage.
Evidence from impartial science
In nature, there are two species of birds that are not inferior to the Andean condor in size and wingspan: the royal albatross (Diomedea epomophora) and the wandering albatross (Diomedea Exulans). These seabirds can weigh up to 12 kilograms and have a wingspan of over four meters. But albatrosses live exclusively in the coastal zone of seas and oceans, gray and white tones prevail in the color of the plumage of petrels, and none of them is able to fly, holding a 35-kg goat in its claws.
In 1980, the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History displayed fragments of the skeleton of the largest bird that has ever lived on Earth. These fossils were found in salt marshes along the banks of the Salinas Grandes de Hidalgo River in the Argentine province of La Pampa, 400 miles southwest of Buenos Aires. Judging by the found parts of the skeleton, the huge bird named Argentavis magnitlcens had a wingspan of more than eight (!) Meters, and its length from beak to tail exceeded three and a half meters. This bird lived from 23 to 5 million years ago.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №6. Author: Ilya Konstantinov