Stretching over 4,872 square miles, the Rio Grande River in southern Texas runs through the valley of the same name. It is one of the fastest growing regions in the United States and is home to large expanses of untouched wilderness.
There are several nature reserves and national parks, including the Atascosa Laguna Nature Reserve, Santa Ana Nature Reserve and Bentsen Rio Grande Valley Park, which attract many tourists and vacationers every year.
And it is in these places that since 1976 a large flying creature has been regularly noticed, which is described as a very large bird, sometimes with a humanoid body, assuring that the creature has a monkey face and at the same time a long beak, a bald head and blood-red eyes, which are sometimes described like glowing.
On January 1, 1976, 11-year-old Tracy Lawson was playing in the courtyard of her home near Harlingen, Texas, along with her 14-year-old cousin Jackie Davis. At some point, the children noticed something very strange a hundred meters away near an irrigation canal.
They did not approach him, but got hold of binoculars and through it they saw a "terrible giant bird", which was 5 feet in height (1.5 meters), and its face was like that of a gorilla, but completely bald and with glowing red eyes. The strange beast stared at the children for a while, then reportedly let out a completely unearthly scream before disappearing out of sight behind the trees.
At first, the adults did not believe the children’s words, but Jackie’s stepfather found the next day near the canal unusual three-toed footprints 8 inches in diameter (20 cm). It was also strange that the Lawson family dog, which is usually very friendly and active, began to act in a very unusual way, hiding in its kennel and refusing to go outside.
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The next sighting of the strange creature occurred a week later in San Benito, where in the early morning of January 7, two police officers Arturo Padilla and Homer Galvan saw what they described as a very large bird with a gorilla-like face, flaming red eyes and a huge wingspan in 12 - 15 meters. That is, practically word for word what the children saw.
Later that day, another eyewitness named Alverico noticed the creature near his home in Brownsville. He described it as a bat-like creature with large wings, large eyes and a long slender beak. Curiously, neither the children, nor the policemen mentioned anything about the beak. So they were two different creatures? Or maybe it can change forms?
Alverico also said that the creature made eerie sounds, similar to a moan, and the sounds were completely foreign, as if this creature was from another planet. In an interview with the Brownsville Herald, Alverico said that he was very scared and that "the creature had wings like a bird, but it was not a bird, but an animal out of this world."
There were other observations as well. Brothers David and John Doubt were once driving along a rural road in the Rio Grande Valley when a winged, wolf-headed humanoid creature landed in front of them, causing them to screech and slow down. When they tried to move away from the nightmarish creature, it jumped forward, as if about to attack, but then it just took off and flew over them with an audible whistle of wings.
The appearance of the strange bird of the Rio Grande echoes the appearance of the so-called "Batsquach". There is only one main difference, the Betsquach did not notice the beak. But as mentioned above, not all eyewitnesses mentioned the presence of a beak. However, Betsquatch was often described as having a hairy, ape-like body, while no one from the Rio Grande bird had such a detail.
On January 15, 1976, an eyewitness named Armando Grimaldo claimed that he was in the courtyard of his house in Raymondville (a city in southern Texas) when he heard a popping sound and a strange whistle. When he looked up, he saw a huge bird that looked like a creature with a monkey face and a bare head. The creature swooped down on the man and tore his clothes with its claws.
Armando's neighbors confirmed that the man first started screaming, and then ran to them in torn clothes and in a completely shock state.
A couple of days after the incident, another man named Francisco reported that he was also attacked by a giant birdman in Eagle Pass, Maverick County, Texas, and doctors confirmed that he received deep scratches from an unidentified wild animal. …
All these cases eventually caused a feeling of panic among many local residents and some even refused to leave their homes after dark for fear of being attacked by the beast. There were even claims that pets were missing and farmers in the region found mutilated cattle.
On January 18, there were two cases of observation of the strange creature, first it was seen by the sisters from Brownsville, and then by two soldiers near Potit. Further, observations of the mysterious huge bird began to come almost daily for several weeks from people of all ages and all walks of life, and stories about these creatures began to appear regularly in all local news.
Another notable case of observation was on February 24, 1976, when three teachers saw a creature near the city of Harlingen (the same Texas), and this time the bird seemed to them as a prehistoric flying reptile - a pterosaur, or rather a pterodactyl.
Indeed, in many reconstructions of pterosaur images, they have a bald leathery "face" with piercing eyes. Could people who know little about pterosaurs describe this creature as "a bird with the face of a gorilla"? It may well be, especially in those years when there was no such boom in dinosaurs. So an ancient pterodactyl is flying somewhere over the Rio Grande?
One of the eyewitnesses, according to him, saw a huge bird three times. He described that she had short legs, black eyes, a translucent beak, and wings with stripes. He even tried to describe why other people might not have noticed the bird's beak:
“Its beak is so translucent that if you look at it from a certain angle and with a glimpse, you might not notice it. The bird itself is so huge that I have never seen such. She is dirty brown, without long legs and does not stand on her feet like ordinary birds."
This description is also very similar to that of a pterodactyl.
The hysteria over a huge bird eventually reached the point where large sums of money were offered for its capture, alive or dead. As a result, many groups of bounty hunters began to roam the Rio Grande Valley and shoot any large birds. For which they were cursed by the defenders of wildlife, who believe that the huge bird may be a representative of a rare endangered species.
During this time, there were several false alarms, such as the massive sighting of a “big bird” south of the Alamo, which was shot but later identified as a blue heron. After that, many skeptics began to say that only this heron was actually observed by all people.
Great blue heron (Ardea herodias).
Eventually, the stream of observations began to fade, but isolated cases continued to appear in the 70s and 80s and beyond. One rather chilling incident happened in 1977 when a woman in Santa Rosa saw a giant bird with black eyes and an old woman's face.
The creature flew directly at the woman and when she retreated home, the bird began to cross at the door until it was chased away by the neighboring dogs. The bird did not appear here again, but the next day people found the mutilated bodies of these dogs, torn apart by a clearly very strong beast.
Since then, the huge mysterious bird of the Rio Grande has become a local legend like Nessie in Scotland. From time to time, they continue to see her even in our time, although there are still no photos of her or videos.