Canoers Have Possible Thunderbird Sighting!

A couple on a canoeing trip have a sighting of a very large bird. What makes this significant is the fact one of the witnesses is bird watcher and can identify numerous species of birds, but not this one. The witness gives a good description of the unknown bird and compares the wingspan to the width of the river. This gives us a good estimate as to the size of the bird.

Here is the full report.

-Start Report-

Name: Shelley ****

Email Address: On File

State: Arkansas

County: Unknown

Date of Sighting: Around 1982

Time of Day: Afternoon

Nearest Town: Unknown

Length of Sighting: Less than a minute

How many Witnesses: 2

Any Photos/Videos: No

Describe sighting in detail:

In the early 80's my boyfriend (now husband) and I were canoeing on either the White River or the Spring River in Arkansas. I cannot remember which because it was a long time ago and we went more than once. It was one of those day-long trips where a shuttle service would drop you off upriver and you would canoe back to the original point. We had been traveling for a couple of hours and were going slowly through the water when I said something to him. About 150-200 yards or so (estimation, not good with distances) downriver we both saw a big bird take off from near the top of a large old tree on the left bank.  

At first I thought it was an eagle because that's what the shape looked like sitting there. As it took off, I saw that it was pitch black and much bigger than an eagle, at that point and I could tell that it was large and heavy because of the way it flapped its wings, slowly, like it was pushing a lot of air and lifting a lot of weight.

The wingspan was almost as wide as the river with about 6-8 feet of clearance on either side. It flew just below the tops of the trees away from us and the river took a turn to the right so we lost sight of it.  Since it was black, I could see that it had feathers but no other details besides there being 'fingers' at the ends of the wings where the feathers splayed out. My husband is a bird watcher and knows birds. He did not know what it was. I asked him what he thought the wingspan was. He said that it looked to be about 25 feet across and that's what it looked like to me as well. There has never been any doubt in my mind that we saw a Thunderbird that day.

-End Report-

Thanks goes to Shelley for submitting the sighting to us. This sounds like it could have very well been a thunderbird.

Also, I would like to add that while some details are missing from the report, like County and Nearest town, it is totally understandable. If you are canoeing down a river it would be hard to know that kind of information unless you were really familiar with the area. 

If anyone else has had a similar sighting of a possbile Thunderbird, then feel free to contact us and submit a report.

Thanks
~Thomas~

This post by Thomas Marcum, Thomas is the founder/leader of the cryptozoology and paranormal research organization known as The Crypto Crew. Over 20 years experience with research and investigation of unexplained activity, working with video and websites. A trained wild land firefighter and a published photographer, and poet.

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