“I saw a bird in California on the western slope of the southern Sierra foothills that was so huge that my brain could not even register what I was looking at. The first few moments that I looked at it, my brain was trying to register it as a guy in a condor suit, or some kind of man made device that looked like a giant condor, but it wouldn't hold in my mind because it was up in the air hovering in place in the wind while batting its massive wings. So its body was a little bigger than the average sized man. I ended up thinking of it as a condor and just thought they must be bigger than I thought. That bird was huge enough that it could probably fly way up in the air and glide from the mountains where I was straight over to the pacific coast and channel islands in no time, and I think that's what it did because I don't know what it could possibly eat except dead whales, sharks, dolphins, sea lions etc., but the area I saw it in was full of open range cattle which die on the range all the time, and it was a place that blew forty mile an hour winds every day for the bird to ride on.” - Stuart Johnson
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“One summer vacation, when I was a kid in the sixties, my dad took the whole family on a camping trip on the nether side of Folsom Lake, in California (east of Sacramento). And, on a hike by myself one day, I saw a bird perched on a tree trunk. Not on a branch or a twig: the trunk. Because it was fully five feet long from the tip of his tail feathers to the top of his head. And it looked like a brownish grey hawk or eagle, or something like that. Not buzzardly or vulturish or condorlike. But five feet long. I didn't ever get to see the wingspan. I just watched it for a while and didn't actually feel much like stirring it up just to see it fly. I just hiked back to the camp, eventually, and never even mentioned it to my parents. Because I was nine or ten or something, and there was no way they were ever going to believe me, anyway, so.” - Dwylbtzle Dwylbtzle
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“I went in my backyard in Squirrel Valley, California. There was no light and the sound of it was as big as these Thunderbirds are described. I never saw a damn thing but the sound of its wings was unquestionably bigger than me and I was in 7th grade. We had all gravel in my backyard and I was just laying on my back trying so hard to see anything in the black night. It stayed there for a good couple minutes and it flew off and I was so mad, I couldn't see a thing. I didn't even care to tell anyone. Every flap of his wings was impossible to believe. I guess I doubted myself and I thought I'd hear an eagle or something later in life that would explain that night but I don't think I ever will." - Gary York
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“I remember the summer the Silverado Canyons in California caught fire. There was the freakiest large bird. It had huge crawls, a sharp beak that would put fear in any animal 150 lbs or less. I wouldn't turn my back on that bird. It was hunting to eat. It ended up looking at my pitbulls to maybe attack one. It was just sitting on the fence daring one of my pits to attack it. My pits were smart enough not to separate until I threw something at it to make leave. It didn't leave far either. It wanted one of my pits. My pits have killed other animals in the backyard too. But this bird was a monster to my pits.” - BBB
American Monsters: A History of Monster Lore, Legends, and Sightings in America
Thunderbirds: America's Living Legends of Giant Birds
Mothman Dynasty: Chicago's Winged Humanoids
Encounters with Flying Humanoids: Mothman, Manbirds, Gargoyles & Other Winged Beasts
Lon's Suggested Reading List - Books & Films / DVDs
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