Does anybody know the term “cryptozoology?” It’s really not an official branch of science however, its the study of living of animals whose existence has not been proven due to lack of evidence (chupacabra, bigfoot, loch ness monster).  Back in the mid 1970’s there was all types of strange sightings of a giant flying bird flying across Texas, but most of the sightings were around the Rio Grande Republic.  What happened?

It was winter, 1975 and two cops out of Harlingen were on patrol when they saw a giant bird with a wingspan of about 12 feet.  They stopped their vehicle and got out to take a look at this unbelievable flying creature.  One of the police officers told the other “What the fuck is that?, is that a giant pelican?” the other responded “No that ain’t no damn pelican, it’s flying right towards us, quick get the hell in.”  The police drove away and told the story to the press to which they just regarded as police having too much time in their hands.

New years rolled in and two girls, Jackie Davis aged 14 and Tracey Lawson aged 11 were playing outside their house when they see a huge bird standing only a couple of meters in front of them.  The girls couldn’t believe what they were seeing, they yelled out at the top of their lungs, the bird flew away.  The girls parents came outside the house to investigate, but they didn’t see anything. As they walked closer to where the girls pointed the bird was, they saw on the floor one giant feather about 100cm long and they saw fresh foot prints on the ground, to that of a 3 toed animal.

A few days afterwards that the girls had an encounter with “Big Bird” a man from Brownsville named Alverco Guajardo saw this creature, he said that he’s never seen anything like it from this planet before.  A week later the most chilling version came from Raymondville, Armando Grimaldo was smoking outside his porch when he heard the sound of what appeared to be flapping wings. Armando got up from his chair to find out what he was hearing when he came face to face, with the beast. Fearing for his life, he turned the other way and ran as fast as he could but in doing so tripped and fell.  As he tried to get up, he felt the giant claws of the bird dig into his back trying to lift him up into the air.  He tried to fight back the creature and was able to break free but was wounded with blood searing from his back. He was taken to the county hospital to treat his wounds. The police came to investigate his version of his story  “It was a big bird, giant claws, it had huge red eyes, it’s the most I’ve been scared in my life”, said Grimaldo his accounts of the story.

Clipping from Waco Tribune Jan 13, 1976

Reports all over the Rio Grande Valley of the terror bird surfaced, with sightings extending to as far as Laredo. A local radio station even offered a sizable reward for the capture of the bird, DEAD OR ALIVE.  The month of January of 1976, there wasn’t a day that went by that people didn’t talk about the creature. While many recollections of big bird were different from story to story, there was 4 common things, huge bird, black, huge claws, and leathery skin. Then something happened, all of a sudden the sightings stopped, it’s as if the giant bird was slain or possibly returned to it’s native land. Whatever happened, Big Bird fever had quieted down.

Could it be possible that a giant bird actually flew over South Texas? Was it a Dinosaur? Let’s see what flying creature could of been that many people saw during that month.

Pteranadons, were ancient flying dinosaurs that existed during the Cretaceous period (86 million years ago). They were relatively large and reached 3 meters in length with a wingspan up to 6 meters (18ft). They had leathery skin,  could some of these dinosaurs escaped extinction millions of years ago and still be around today? It is very unlikely that a heard of these winged reptilians managed to survive the conditions that wiped out the dinosaurs and even if they did, they probably evolved into something else.

Teratorns were huge North American birds of prey which had a wingspan of generally of 20+ ft which could describe what many people saw back in the mid 1970’s however these birds went extinct over 7 million years ago. The picture above is what one of these birds looked like.  As with the pteranadons, these birds must of had to survive millions of years of climate change and gone through evolution and would look very different, perhaps crows are descendants of these birds as they seem to have the same wing shape.

I think what more than likely people may have seen, was that of a Andean Condor. These are some of the biggest birds that fly (10+ ft wing spans) currently alive today and is actually the national symbol of Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador. These birds travel all across the Andes Mountains in South America and migrate during different seasons.  These birds are closely related to vultures and have dark neck with no feathers which would count for some eye witnesses it had “leathery skin”  These birds also happen to have red eyes and giant claws.  It could be possible that one of these birds got lost and made it all the way to South Texas, keep in mind these migratory birds rely on weather patterns and there was a lot of unusual weather patterns then.

Jorge Salinas a Raymondville native started a small documentary about the bird of terror “Pajaro” which is still in the w

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