This happened when I was working as a hired geologist for an American mining company. I was sent (for a substantial fee) to the mountains of New Guinea, to explore the richest deposits of copper ores. Our camp was located in the village of the Papuans.
And so, somehow, on my own business (now I don't remember what) I went to the outskirts of the village, where the children were playing. It all happened unexpectedly. Two huge black birds (as I later saw, not birds, but some kind of monsters) dived down from the sky and chased one of the children.
The unhappy child ran away from them as fast as he could, but how can you overtake a diving bird? Clawed paws grabbed him and lifted him into the sky. Fortunately, the predator did not grasp the child tightly - the boy fought back desperately and was able to slip out of his paws, escaping with a lacerated wound on his shoulder.
The second "bird" tried to catch the boy on the fly, but missed, and the child, having landed on the bushes, escaped with wounds and bruises. In those seconds, I saw a winged monster - it really looked like a giant eagle, but the head was not at all a bird's, but resembled the head of a monkey - though partially covered with feathers. People ran out of the village with hunting rifles, and the monstrous creatures flew away behind the treetops.
Who was it? In Greek mythology, harpies are known - monstrous half-women, half-birds of a disgusting look. It was believed that the gods send them to punish mortals. The word "harpy" itself comes from the Greek "to seize", "to abduct". They are described as vultures with feminine faces and sharp hooked claws.
It was believed that these are the daughters of the sea deity Tavmant, transformed by the gods into ugly birds for their vile and quarrelsome nature. Harpies began to abduct children and annoy people, flying suddenly like the wind, and just as suddenly disappearing, instilling terror in everyone.
I think this myth was not formed from scratch - probably those whom the Greeks called "harpies" represent an ancient and dying branch of evolution. The ancient Greeks met them somewhere, which became the basis of the legend. And today the "harpies" survived only in the mountains of New Guinea and, perhaps, in other remote corners of the planet.
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Nikolay Eduardovich, Tomsk