leeroy
What's your opinion on this? Is it really possible or does Alaska just need more tourism?
Giant Winged Creature
Sighted Several Times In Alaska
By Peter Porco
Anchorage Daily News
10-15-2
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A giant winged creature, like something out of Jurassic Park, has reportedly been sighted several times in Southwest Alaska in recent weeks.
Villagers in Togiak and Manokotak say they have seen a huge bird that's much bigger than anything they have seen before.
A pilot says he spotted the creature while flying passengers to Manokotak last week. He calculated that its wingspan matched the length of a wing on his Cessna 207. That's about 14 feet.
Other people have put the wingspan in a similar range.
Scientists aren't sure what to make of the reports. No one doubts that people in the region west of Dillingham have seen a very large rapto-like bird. But biologists and other people familiar with big Alaska birds say they're skeptical it's that big.
A recent sighting of the mystery bird occurred Oct. 10 when Moses Coupchiak, a 43-year-old heavy equipment operator from Togiak, 40 miles west of Manokotak, saw the bird flying toward him from about two miles away as he worked his tractor.
"At first I thought it was one of those old-time Otter planes," Coupchiak said. "Instead of continuing toward me, it banked to the left, and that's when I noticed it wasn't a plane."
The bird was "something huge," he said. "The wing looks a little wider than the Otter's, maybe as long as the Otter plane."
The bird flew behind a hill and disappeared. Coupchiak got on the radio and warned people in Togiak to tell their children to stay away.
Pilot John Bouker said he was highly skeptical of reports of "this great big eagle" that is two or three times the size of a bald eagle. "I didn't put any thought into it."
But early this week while flying into Manokotak, Bouker, owner of Bristol Bay Air Service, looked out his left window and 1,000 feet away, "there's this big ... . bird," he said.
"The people in the plane all saw him," Bouker said. "He's huge, he's huge, he's really, really big. You wouldn't want to have your children out."
Nicolai Alakayak, a freight and passenger driver from Manokotak who was flying with Bouker, said the creature looked like an eagle and was as large as "a little Super Cub."
Comparison to an eagle, certainly. Super Cub? Probably not, scientists said.
"I'm certainly not aware of anything with a 14-foot wingspan that's been alive for the last 100,000 years," said federal raptor specialist Phil Schemf in Juneau.
Schemf, other biologists, a village police officer and teachers at the Manokotak School said the sightings could be of a Steller's sea eagle, a species native to northeast Asia and one of the world's largest eagles. It's about 50 percent bigger than a bald eagle.
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service http://www.shns.com
7 Answers
Darci13
PEOPLELOVER
Well I think I have the Answer. We had a similar occurence in out back Queensland in Australia. A farmer saw this huge bird similar to what is described here and when he saw it he got his 308 high powered rifle and let fly. As he reported to the local newspaper he did not get the bird but he did make it drop the man it was carrying who unfortunately was dead either from the bullets or the fall. Further investigation led to the discovery that it was in fact a hang glider who had been blown off course. Oh well cant winem all.
| 13 years ago. Rating: 4 | |
leeroy
This story gets better. Just last night (10-15), an old friend, who is an avid hunter, stopped by on his way to a hunt today. We were telling various animal stories, and I brought up the story of this bird (this was before I had seen the article published on the site). My friend, who in addition to being a hunter is also a very skeptical person, did not believe me when I told him that this eagle-looking bird was about as tall as a person. Well, to say the least, seeing the article on the site today was an odd coincidence, which is probably not anything new to you. Hope you found the story interesting, and thanks for the great work.
Respectfully,
Chris McTaggart
Comment
| 13 years ago. Rating: 3 | |
Comment
From: Chris McTaggart
cmctaggart@yahoo.com
10-17-2
Jeff,
I am a long time follower, and very much enjoy the articles and features on the site. I was particularly intrigued with the article posted on 10-16 regarding the large, eagle-type bird spotted on multiple occasions in Alaska, as I had a similar experience when I was in college.
I attended Michigan Technological University in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and played soccer for the school. On a particular weekend in 1990, the team was traveling from MTU to Northern Michigan which is located in Marquette, about 2 hours away. The area is very sparsely populated and heavily forested. I happened to be glancing out the van window when something in the tree caught my eye, and I really couldn't believe what I had just seen. It was a HUGE bird, that looked like an eagle, but was grayish in color and much larger than any eagle I have ever seen (I am very familiar with both Bald and Golden, and have never seen one even close to this size). Because it was in a tree, I couldn't say exactly how large the bird was, but I would venture to guess that it was similar in size to that reported in the story. I asked if anybody else in the van had seen it, but nobody was paying much attention, so I just assumed it was one of those "unique" experiences.
| 13 years ago. Rating: 3 | |
eggplant
From Art Brzostowski
10-17-2
About 5 or 6 years ago, I was in my garage working on my car (north central New Jersey) and my attention was diverted by the sound of what must have been thousands of crows. I peered out the window and noticed a large lump on the branch of a very large, very old oak tree that borders my yard. There were crows all over the yard, on the ground, in the surrounding trees, on top of the fence, all making loud crow sounds.
Then I noticed the "lump" in the oak started to spread its wings! The first thing I noticed was the wing tips looked like spread eagle's wings commonly seen in artwork, photos and general depictions of those majestic birds in flight. Then I noticed how broad the wingspan was. I guessed 8 to 12 feet.
I was so excited I called a local zoo too see if they had any large birds on the loose. The person I spoke to said "No, but this time of year large predatory birds do stop and rest during migration". I accepted the answer. The thing that kept haunting me over these past few years was how big this thing was. It lumbered to take off. When it left the crows became silent. Then they all flew away too.
| 13 years ago. Rating: 2 | |
