Back months ago (June 6, 2004) I wrote a blog entry regarding a gigantic bird scaring the bajesus out of me while I was driving. My uncle has brought it too my attention that this outsized bird may not have been my mind playing tricks on me like I previously thought, but an actual thing! The Thunderbird, not acknowledged by science, could be the culprit of the witnessed winged monstrosity. This mythical creature last officially observed in the month of September 2001 has been reported to have a 15-foot wingspan with a body length of 5 feet. The legend of the bird goes something like this:

The legend of the Thunderbird is an ancient myth that survives even to the present day in some Native American cultures. Though the Thunderbird myth varied from region to region and tribe to tribe, the Thunderbird was, in the eyes of the ancient Native Americans, a magical animal that was sent by their gods to protect them from the powers of evil. Riding on the wings of the storm, the Thunderbird embodied the power of the storm. Its eyes flashed fire, its cry was like the crack of lightning, and its mighty wings beat with the sound of rolling thunder, ever protecting its people from the powers of evil.

There are at least three different legends of the Thunderbird available to us today, that can give us some information about what this creature was like. The first comes from the Winnebago Indians of the northern Midwest and Plains states, a second comes from the Passamaquoddy Indians of Maine, and a third comes from the Quillayute, a Chimakoan tribe living along the Quillayute River, a six-mile river on the Olympic Peninsula, near Seattle, Washington.

Of course the bird I saw didn’t have lightning coming out of its eyes, but it still scared the crap out of me. Could this really be what I saw in the air? Maybe. Maybe not. I’m sure some of you will think I am just as crazy as ever, but it’s sort of neat to think that I’ve seen something that science knows nothing about. Though I’d say the same thing about aliens too…