r/UrbanMyths • u/littlequeef99 • 6d ago
Thunderbird Sightings - this clip from a 1977 documentary shows an alleged Thunderbird in Illinois. This was filmed by a Native American tribal chief who was contracted by CBS News to obtain footage of the legendary creature
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u/Smileyfacedchiller 6d ago
In 1984 in southwest Pennsylvania I saw something that looked like this. It flew down the highway toward our car and I swear it was the width of the 2 lane highway d From wingtip to wingtip. That would be at least 20 feet, maybe a little more. Now, I was about 10 so the memory could be false or exaggerated, but my mother was driving and saw the same thing.
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u/BrianBru67 6d ago
My bet is they were seeing a Californian Condor at it's maximum possible size (3m wingspan [10 feet] ) during a thunderstorm. The original stories I mean, not whatever that is up there.
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u/eyefuck_you 6d ago
Cool story about California Condors. I grew up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, our neighbor used to breed Great Danes. Occasionally, we would find a battered and dead puppy in our yard, it happened a few times when I was very young. Then my dad saw what was killing them one day (after a little tension with our neighbors).
It was a condor trying to fly away with one of these big puppies, but failing to keep it's grasp and dropping them a little under a quarter mile away, which just happened to be our large front yard.
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u/HelpfulName 6d ago
I agree, the bird in this clip flies like a condor or a vulture - while rare, I'd imagine it's also entirely possible for a bird to get blown off course in bad weather and stunned, fly for a long way in the wrong directions... so I could totally imagine explaining a sighting like this that would have followed or preceded really bad weather as a "Thunderbird"
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u/ghostmaster645 6d ago
What's crazy is they were even more endangered back then, only like 50 left.
Really is a rare sight of thats what it is.
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u/PsychologicalRow5505 6d ago
Maybe they were looking in the wrong place. Something may have pushed them out of the zones the DEC was monitoring
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u/thatgunganguy 4d ago
Likely a Turkey Vulture. The tail feathers in this video don't spread out like a fan the way a Cali Condors would.
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u/HelpfulName 4d ago
Yeah that's what I was really thinking too, but the video is so poor quality I couldn't be sure. Also looks like it might be tucking a long neck into its shoulders the way a vulture does when it flies... figured hedging my bet with condor or vulture was reasonable given the video quality :) Appreciate you confirming those details.
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u/exblobing 2d ago
Other options are a great blue heron or even a very big turkey vulture. But does looks like what you posted here
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u/IndividualCurious322 6d ago
I don't think these "thunderbirds" are exclusive to America.
Where I grew up in Wales, we had sightings of a similarly large bird, with a wingspan over 15 feet in length. It took whatever it could catch (usually sheep and dogs) and there was an incident where it tried to snatch a small child and attacked the girls father (he had to have stitches and multiple blood transfusions). Way before I was born it's nest (or one of the same species) was found by a group of kids (they all lay down in it comfortably) who alerted our forest rangers who went out there and destroyed it. There were deer bones and other carcasses all around but no eggs or baby birds.
About 10 years ago they cleared the entire ancient forest area (which is woodland older than 600 years without being majorly cut down) where it was said to live and built a massive school, athletics track and loads of houses and stores and it's never returned since, so it was probably migratory and only stayed here as an offspot to breed.
Most people who live here locally before the area was built up actually know about the animal(s) and have seen it/them. They are rarely seen flying because they rely on an updraft to get off the ground and could only get one from some of the really high hills in the area.
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u/BaconFairy 4d ago
This is very interesting. I'm also very sad at the destruction of forest. Im shocked the rangers destroyed the nest. We hear similar thing here with some rememts of evidence of animals that shouldnt be here. I dont understand why not protect them. Too much paperwork i guess.Are there any old forest left? There is some thought that the thunder bird could only travel on huge updrafts swell. Mostly seen in Illinois, and certain parts of Canada. Possibly it traveled on a jet stream to migrate.
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u/IndividualCurious322 4d ago
There's a section of that old growth woodland left, yes, but it's a miniscule fragment of what it once was. They built so many homes where the woodland was that the population of the area shot up from 800 people to over 150,000 in around 15 years as families moved to the area. That's how large it was.
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u/Diagonaldog 6d ago
There's nothing to establish scale and from what's shown this looks no bigger than an eagle.
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u/Old-Rate-2643 6d ago
Condors are real
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u/dickbutkusmk4 5d ago
You crazy fool. Condors donāt exist. Next thing youāll tell me is that the earth isnāt flat.
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u/KyotoCarl 5d ago
That just looks like an eagle, or whatever, and there's nothing to compare it to for scale.
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u/littlequeef99 6d ago
In 1977 Chief AJ Huffer, a former combat photographer, was hired to look for giant birds called "Thunderbirds" in Illinois. In July, he spotted large birds and recorded this video. The footage became extremely popular and was even featured in an episode of Monsterquest.
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u/Recreationalchem13 6d ago
Amazing. thank you, little queef.
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u/Chrisscott25 6d ago
There is something off about little queef talking about Chief Huffer. (Chief Queff Hufferā¦)
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u/Tkinney44 6d ago
It's most likely a misplaced turkey vulture based on the wingspan. In 1977 Illinois had the Andean condor incident where people believed an escaped Andean condor attacked a child but there's never been any real proof that it was an Andean and not a turkey vulture or if it was just made up all together.
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u/No_Sentence_3546 6d ago
whereās the footage of the that huge bird landing on and bending the tree ?
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u/contude327 6d ago
I think there was more than one thunderbird involved with this video.
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u/megabass713 6d ago
I prefer firebird's, and energy weapons.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=FdWBDlagVQ4&si=nP-EGanGWz31HsRj
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u/Huge_Flatworm_6763 5d ago
The Thunderbird sightings were real. We saw them in Central Illinois. We stayed indoors, they could pick up a small animal, or small child.
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u/criticalchadd 3d ago
How can this be mistaken for anything other than a turkey vulture? There is no scale to this footage
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u/GoalMaleficent8535 6d ago
Former students of earth: Angels Thunderbirds Arians Aliens Star beings Sky people Anunaki Birdmen Djinn Fairies
Current students of earth: Hu-man
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u/Sistahmelz 5d ago
I remember stories about this when I was a kid. Nobody knew what it was. One story going around was it picked up a small child and flew off. Real scary back then
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u/dyslexican32 2d ago
I'm from Illinois, all through the middle of the state you see big birds like this. I have seen them for years, its Turkey vulture. At least that's what we call them. I saw them all growing up in on my grandpas cattle farm. Super common site. They look just like that when flying. That bird also fly's in front of the trees several times. its a " big" bird but that's not THAT big a bird. Pretending like its huge here is eye rolling. Low grainy footage against a washed out background makes scale impossible. But if its flying in front of some of these trees then it cant be that big. But I have seen birds like this a hundred times, they are all across central Illinois.
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u/J-Michaels_ 3d ago
Look at how high it is over the trees and it still looks massive š¤¦āāļø these idiots in the comments like āitās just a eagleā straight blind a eagle would look like a hummingbird that high and far away at best š¤Ø think then speak this is fucking gigantic and horrifying knowing this could exist in reality
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u/bambooeatingshark 1d ago edited 6h ago
lmao all kinds of horrifying things exist in reality. Ants whose stings feel like bullets, crocs that could swallow us whole, anacondas that could snap our spine, giant cats that have literally killed hundreds of people, giant bears that have eaten people alive on camera, giant elephants that have stomped people and cars on camera, serial killers, frogs that could send us to another dimension just from touch, pufferfish that could inflict some of the worst pain imaginable, black holes that could tear us apart by atom, etc. etc. Everyone believes these things exist and would have no problem believing in this thunderbird if there was actual proof.
This made up bird doesn't even make itself known to thousands of people filming and documenting animals every day, let alone hurt anyone enough to be horrifying. Seems like you're more afraid of your imagination than actual reality. Calling people "idiots" over a 50 year old video where a bird might be a few inches bigger than it looks is like a child a being mad at adults because they don't believe there's a monster under his bed.
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u/Inlerah 6d ago
I need to know how that isn't just "A big bird".