5 Real Thunderbird Sightings | Giant Monster Bird Sightings - Darkness Prevails

April 26, 1890. This photo was taken showing several men holding up a massive winged creature known as a Thunderbird. Is it real or was it fake? Well, either way, it doesn't change the fact that hundreds have confessed seeing other Thunderbirds throughout the years. Huge birds that swoop down to take pets, livestock, and even people. So, today, I'll be sharing with you 5 allegedly real sightings of Thunderbirds. If you want your story in a future video, send it over at darknessprevails.org. Or, if you want to be on TV and have a creepy encounter from the woods that a friend witnessed as well, go to darknessprevails.org. Thank you. It Nearly Took My Brother By Pete According to my brother, I'm not the best at telling stories, so you'll have to bear with me. I'm 21 years old, but I was 13 when this happened. I lived on a ranch in Nevada with my parents and grandparents, and my brother, of course. He's 3 years younger than me, and his name is Tim. We are Native American of the Shoshone tribe. My family has owned this ranch for decades. My parents and my brother and I are Christian, but my grandparents still hold to their older traditions. This shows the obvious counter-information that I get from my parents versus my grandparents about the world and such. I remember this particular event all happened in the summer, because I remember it being so darned hot, not to mention it was during monsoon season. My little brother and I love going on walks at night out in the desert. The stars are mesmerizing out there. If you ever get the chance to really get away from the city and all that light pollution, I highly recommend going out at night, when there's no overcast, and just taking a look up. I promise, you'll be transfixed by the beauty of the sky. On that particular night, sadly, it was extremely cloudy. There was a storm coming in, but my little brother and I still wanted to go on the walk. It could get a little boring at our house. This was before we had a TV, before we could get hooked up to the rest of the world online. After some convincing, my mother said it was fine to go out, but we had to be back if it began to rain. Of course, mom, I'm not planning on getting soaked. As we were heading out, my grandmother chimed in, make sure you don't go too far, or else an evil spirit might take you. Obviously, she was just trying to scare us, but she always had a hint of seriousness in her warnings. To this, my mother yelled back not to worry about it, saying something about how demons don't just bother you cause you have God on your side. Encouraging, yes, but we were still kinda jumpy going out, thanks to grandma. Ah, so off we went out into the night. For some background information, our ranch is about 4 acres of land. Our house, barn, the stable, and a silo, and a chicken coop, are all on one side of a large fenced-in field for our horses and our two milk cows to run around in. And on the other side of our house, the grass slowly gives way to sand and rocky outcrops. My brother and I walked to our favorite spot, the spot with our favorite rocks and favorite tree. We must have been walking for a solid half an hour. To us at the time, it felt like nothing, but having done that walk again recently, I wondered how at all we would have done it and not felt winded. Anyway, it had not begun to rain yet, but the air was heavy and moist. You know, how it feels before a big thunderstorm. We sat down at our tree and were sitting for a few minutes before we heard a loud whooshing sound, like a big wind was blowing through and bursts. This didn't concern us, because we figured it was the storm coming in. But still, we decided to head back. That's when the rain came down, and we began to run home. I don't remember being scared just yet. A minute or so into running, and my little brother trips on a rock, falling down. He starts crying, so I turn around to go help him. As I do though, I look up behind him, maybe to try and see lightning, but all I saw was a massive black shape against the dark and moonless sky. I was confused. That was a weird looking cloud. But as I got closer to my brother, I saw that this shape was getting closer too, and fast. Tim! Duck! I yelled to my brother. Through sobs and screams, my brother decided to listen to me for once in his life, and he did duck down. The massive shape shot down and flew overhead just a few feet from my brother. I ducked as well, and I could feel the wind off of this thing as it zoomed past us. I scrambled to my brother and tried to get him up, but he was crying that his ankle was broken, and he couldn't move. There were a few large rocks nearby, so I thought that whatever this thing was, it would not be able to reach us between them. Or at least, I hoped. My brother and I crawled desperately to the rocks, but I could see the black mass turning around in the sky. It's coming back! My brother cried. And whatever happened in my head, I seemed to just switch into fight or flight mode. I wasn't a very strong kid when I was 13. Sure, I had the stamina to work for hours during the day, but that was with breaks. Maybe it was the adrenaline, or maybe I was stronger than I thought I was. But I lifted my brother off the ground, and I ran as fast as I could to those rocks. He was screaming, in pain, in fear, and I was probably screaming as well. I don't remember another event in my life when I was that afraid. But the two of us went silent when we heard another massive whoosh past the rocks, and then there was a deafening booming noise. It sounded like thunder mixed with a screaming woman. We grabbed our ears, and my brother started crying and screaming again. I was looking around for any sign of people, something or someone that could help us. Through the rain and the tears, I then saw the light from the ranch. I didn't realize how far we had actually run back home. I was so relieved. But it wasn't over yet. I somehow convinced my brother that he had to run with me back to the house, that we were so close, there was only a more ways to go. He screamed and cried the whole way, but he agreed that we had to get home. I knew that once we got back, Dad would help us, and he'd have a shotgun. So we ran. I tried to stay behind my brother so that he wouldn't stray. There was another screaming boom coming from behind us, echoing all around us. I didn't dare turn around, but my brother did, and I'd never heard him scream so loud. My grandmother even heard it through the rain and the thunder. She opened the door just as we both got to it, and we burst inside. What's the matter with you two? She asked, but she trailed off as she saw the black shape swoop close to the porch roof and over our house. She slammed the door and then turned to us. What did I tell you two about evil spirits? Our only response was more crying. My mom and dad rushed out of the kitchen, yelling and wondering what all the crying was about, and why we didn't just come home sooner. Why did Grandma slam the door? Grandma continued. I warned you two, didn't I? Grandma said. Evil spirits out there. My brother and I agreed with her, but my parents brushed it off as just being scared of the storm and thunder. What they didn't brush off was my brother's broken ankle. Well, not broken, turns out he just sprained it, but they scolded me for not being more careful. Of course, they blamed me when they were the ones that let us out in the first place. Whatever. I'm just glad he wasn't taken by that thing in the storm. As we were going to bed that night after getting cleaned up, my grandmother came into our room. With a little bit more scolding from her and a lot of kisses, she explained to us that what attacked us was known as a thunderbird. She said that they ride on storms and are big enough to carry a child away. She told us to never go out at night or during a storm again, like we needed to hear that. We were never planning on anything like that for a very long time. Eight years later, my brother and I still like to tell this story to our friends, though his version is much more thrilling than mine. He's just better at making things seem more adventurous than they are. But this event was more than enough adventure for me. We both gotten over our fear of storms now, but I can still see him jump a little bit every time we hear the boom of thunder. My Georgia Thunderbird Sighting by Quez H The story took place around the year 2000. When I was eight years old, I lived in a small town called West Point in Georgia. I lived in a very quiet residential neighborhood, and everyone had at least a half acre of dense trees in the backyard. I was outside on a beautiful, partly cloudy day, playing with my BB gun. I got the bright idea to go to the backyard and do some target practice with some aluminum cans. When I get to the backyard, I suddenly see this huge eagle-like bird on a kudzu-covered oak tree, and it was so big that the branch it was on was bending to the point that it nearly broke. My heart sank. I was so scared of seeing something that unnaturally large. But still, in my childlike logic, I thought, let me aim at it and see how real it is. I pumped up my weapon until I couldn't pump it anymore. Then I aimed, and fired. I definitely hit the thing. The giant bird flapped its wings twice, knocking a bunch of leaves off the tree, and I could feel the wind from it even from that distance. The wingspan of the bird must have been 30 feet across. I quickly ran into the house screaming like a baby, telling my dad what I saw. I basically dragged him back outside, but by then, it was gone. I think my dad somewhat believed me, but he said that there was nothing we could do, because it was gone now. Fast forward four years, I was watching the History Channel, and I had become obsessed with Monster Quest. One afternoon, I was watching, and they had a special about the Georgia Thunderbird. I almost had a freaking heart attack, because this was my first time hearing that other people had seen it too. I was glued to the TV, and the exact thing the people in the show described was exactly what I saw. Freaked out wasn't the word to describe how I felt. That was my validation that what I saw that day was a real thing, and to this day, I kind of want to see it again, but maybe that's something I shouldn't be wishing for. The Thunderbird By Clem I'm a teenager from an Arapaho Native American family, and my great-grandfather and grandfather used to tell us kids stories of the Thunderbird, or what they'd call it, Etsitane Bate. Being a foolish four-year-old, of course, I believed it. They told us never to wander around the forest at night, for the Thunderbird would take us from our family. Obviously, I obeyed. When I was about 10 or 11 years old, I stopped believing that the Thunderbird existed. That is, until a few months ago. It was in the middle of July, near the end of our summer break. My friend, Bella, was with me, and our other friend, Anne, was there in the mountains with Bella's family at their cabin. The cabin was built on Arapaho Native American land. At the time we did this, we were all 13. We decided at one point to sneak out after Bella's brother, sister, and parents were asleep, since the sky would be clear and perfect to look at the stars in. We played Uno for a good three hours, before Bella's family was finally in bed. Anne and Bella got ready to go and hike, while I was packing water, food, and other types of things. It was about midnight, when we left onto the trail to go hike and stargaze. After a few minutes of hiking, we stopped at a good spot, gazing at the stars and chugging water. The sky was as clear as water. Not literally, but you could see the stars and constellations. A few minutes peacefully passed. Then suddenly, Anne and Bella began to point at something in the sky. It was a solid black figure from this distance, but it looked to be a bird. As it drew closer, we saw just how big it was, and that it was covered in black and white. But it was the size that really horrified us. It was much bigger than the trees that surrounded us, and it was coming closer. We began to pack up briskly, and started walking back, when suddenly lightning struck around us. Yet there wasn't any rain. I looked over at the girls, and they could not stop looking up. Terrified, I glanced upward as well. That bird was circling us now. Shakily, but quietly, I said under my breath to them, we need to get back guys, now. The girls looked at me, panic filled in their eyes, and tears began to roll down their cheeks. They didn't know what we were looking at, but I knew deep down, it was the Thunderbird. We ran toward the cabin, in fear of that thing following us, and as soon as we arrived back, the girls and I ran into Bella's room. They were crying, begging me to tell them that that wasn't the Thunderbird, and that we were scared of nothing. But I shook my head, quietly admitting, the thing we just saw, it was the Thunderbird. My great-grandfather and grandfather used to tell my siblings, cousins, and I that we were never to go in the forest at night. We should have listened. They said that the Thunderbird would be flying, and it would take us away from our family. As I told them this, their crying grew harder, eventually they cried themselves to sleep, though I couldn't sleep at all after that. I had seen the one thing my family never wished for us to see. After actually seeing the Thunderbird, we refused to go back to that cabin, and frankly, I don't want to meet the Thunderbird again. All of you just remember, what you're getting yourselves into when you go into the forest at night in North America. It might be the last night of your life. Thunderbirds Fly Over My Home By Justin B. This happened shortly after I graduated high school, back in the late 90's. It was during the summer, so I hadn't yet started college, and I didn't have a job just yet either. This left me bored with a lot of time on my hands. It was during the afternoon, and the sun was high in the sky, not a single cloud in it. I was the only one at home, I was out in my backyard getting some work done around the place. I forget what I was doing exactly. That's when I noticed this large shadow zip across my yard in a diagonal direction. At first, I thought it was just a plane flying by, because my hometown had a small airport. As soon as the large shadow passed overhead, I immediately knew something strange was going on, because there was no sound of a plane engine. I didn't hear a thing. As soon as I realized this, and before I had a chance to react, several more large shadows passed over my yard going in the same direction. That's when I looked up to see what was going on, and I couldn't believe what was happening. There was a whole flock of these giant birds soaring very high up in the sky, much higher in the sky than any normal bird would fly. Yet their silhouettes were still huge. They were similar to eagles in appearance, but only if you scaled them up to a size that would be impossible to imagine. On top of this, eagles are apex predators that don't fly large flocks. I didn't count how many I saw that day, because I was too shocked by simply seeing them. All I could do was watch on as they soared by. They didn't circle the sky, they seemed to be on a long journey of some sort, but I was glad that they didn't want to stick around. They seemed to be passing over my house, and my roof was fixing to block my view of them. Part of me wanted to run around the house so I could continue to watch, but running through my house would get me to the front yard much faster, so I ran through the house as quickly as I could before throwing the front door wide open as I ran back outside. It only took a few seconds, but as soon as I was back under the sun, the birds were nowhere in sight. I looked everywhere for them, but they were gone. They couldn't have possibly flown out of sight in just that short amount of time, but here I was, seeing nothing, no trace of them. I ran throughout the neighborhood, hoping that someone else was outside and had seen them, but after talking to several of the neighbors, I found that I was alone in my search. I stood out there, hoping to catch a sight of them again for the rest of the evening, but the sky remained clear in every direction. I couldn't stop thinking about it all week, the sighting playing over and over again in my head as I tried to come up with any rational explanation for it, but I was never able to. It's going on two decades now since I saw them. I remember that day as if it only happened yesterday, and to be honest with you, I'm very happy that I was able to witness this, even if nobody else witnessed it with me. Plus, if I wasn't alone that day, something tells me that the sighting never would have happened. If anything, this encounter has shown me that our universe is far more complex, far more mysterious than what we can see with our own two eyes, most of the time anyway, because sometimes it might just decide to show itself to you. The Giant Bird by Alex C. This is a story from my cousin. I thought people would enjoy it here. This story happened to me back in the summer of 2010. I was working for a major landscaping company, and the crew I was part of was the smallest crew, just the three of us. Our job was to prepare new locations for landscaping. We always got to go to really cool locations and pretty much do nothing all day, save for some small stuff like planting grass and watering trees. We had been dispatched to a new warehouse that was being built, the grounds to which were absolutely massive, so we had a lot of ground to cover. We started early in the morning around 8am. The day seemed like it was going by quickly. Just to note, the warehouse was in the middle of nowhere. I do remember that in the distance, I could see rows of massive electric tower lines, maybe 300 yards away or so, and it was a clear sky that day. Around lunchtime, the other guys wanted to go grab some lunch. I had brought my own, so I agreed to stay with the trailer. They took off, and I began to sit against the trailer, enjoying my lunch. I was facing the power lines. I noticed something coming in the distance, and at first it looked like a black glider. But I didn't understand why anyone would be using a glider so close to the power lines. I saw this jet black glider fly over the power lines. It was maybe 100 yards away. To my shock, I noticed soon that it was no glider. It was more like a bird. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Something that big was a bird? The creature then took a quick U-turn, and started back from the way it came. I took off running towards it, trying to get a close look of it, but it was way too fast for me to get closer to. It flapped its wings and took off, just missing the power lines, but the gust from the wings making them vibrate and shake wildly. In my quick dash, I noticed that I had dropped my old flip phone, which I was going to use to try to grab a video of this thing. I've seen California condors, I've seen cranes, and even a turkey vulture, but those were nothing compared to the size of this, which had to have been at least 10 times larger. To give a good perspective of its size, I would guess that each power line tower was about 30 feet from one another, and the bird wings would be half that, so I would guess up to 22-24 feet, altogether I mean. It was absolutely jet black, like a smear in the sky. I didn't hear it make much noise, but when it did flap its wings, it sounded like giant sails flapping in the wind. I've never seen it again, I just wish I could have gotten a closer viewing of it. Beware the skies, because only in seconds time, they could go from empty to something massive coming down to take you away and make you its next meal. So, are thunderbirds real, or are they just a story to keep you scared from going out at night or in a storm? There are some pretty big birds out there, who's to say something the size of a small house isn't waiting, watching you from the distance, hoping you go out into the field, out in the open, because you might fit perfectly in its giant talons. Good night! Be sure to like, share, comment and subscribe if you enjoyed the video. Don't forget, you can send me your story for narration at darknessprevails.org. If you want to go further to support this channel, click the shop button below, or go to teespring.com.darkprevails.org to get some creepy and cool Darkness Prevails merchandise. Or, go to patreon.com.darknessprevails.org and donate any amount. You'll unlock ad-free mp3 episode downloads, and your name in the credits, for as long as you donate. Thank you! And as usual, here are my 5 favourite early comments from the previous video, the previous full one anyway, about 5 horrifying Haunted Forest encounters. BigBouse says, Hi Darkness, I'm going into the Navy, wish me luck. Good luck BigBouse, and be sure to come back in one piece and let me know of all the sea creatures you saw out there. Maybe I should do some Navy stories. JoshuaTheFunnyGuy says, The Haunted Forest just like my favourite Thomas the Tank Engine and Friends episode, Haunted Henry. I don't know if this is a joke, or some really cool Thomas episode that I never watched. Thomas the Tank Engine wasn't ever really my jam. Putting weird clay-like faces on inanimate objects really freaks me out. J.J. the Jet Plane really haunts my nightmares still. Wispry and Nyx says, Darkness, have you ever experienced a demonic presence? Oh boy, here goes. It all started a little over a decade ago, when my sister was born. What are you even doing mate? says, For once I am sort of early, so alright here we go. Jennifer dumped me, nailed it. Sorry mate, Jennifer doesn't know what she's missing. We all know you got a fat rooster and you love to show it off. Be proud. And Amad Fiez says, Will I find you if I go to the forest, huh Darkness? Well, if you do find me out in the middle of the forest, you should probably bring me some toilet paper. There's a pretty good chance that that's what I'm doing out there. Anyways guys, thanks so much for tuning in to another Darkness Prevails episode. More scary stories are coming soon, so stay tuned. Until next time, here are the credits to my patrons who continue to donate. Remember to stay safe out there, and stay creepy. Because this world is a strange one.