Big Bird (cryptid)

Big Bird refers to a mysterious creature(s) that was sighted several times in the Rio Grande Valley of deep South Texas during the mid 1970s. The bird was described by witnesses as being five feet tall, having a huge wingspan of up to 12 feet and resembling a pterodactyl or giant bird of prey with a long, pointed beak. A series of cattle mutilations in the Rio Grande Valley around the same time were attributed to Big Bird, and on one occasion, a local television station aired a segment purporting to show giant foot or claw prints stalking across a rural field near McAllen Texas.

For a short period, a wave of Big Bird hysteria swept the region and attracted some national and even international attention. An alleged attack by Big Bird on an elderly man outside his rural home made the national evening newscasts. Local radio stations played song parodies AbOUT the creature, and Johnny Carson joked about the creature on The Tonight Show. Although some local residents called for authorties to track down and kill the creature, a reaction against any harsh measures soon set in, and more sympathetic depictions of a "lost" and fearful creature from another age gained popularity. Local media stations received pleas from around the country, and from as far away as Germany and Australia, to leave the bird unharmed. Germany's Der Bild even carried a cover story about Big Bird in January 1976.

The Big Bird phenomenon faded as quickly as it had arisen. Some sightings were revealed as likely hoaxes, and the capture of a non-native giant stork that had apparently become lost during a migratory flight and inadvertently wound up along the Rio Grande River led many authorities to believe that this was the origin of the mystery. News footage of a very large blue heron in a local field-- a species native to the Rio Grande Valley-- was also aired, convincing other experts that this was likely Big Bird.

After the stork was found, Big Bird sightings dwindled, and the mystery slowly faded away. Cattle mutilations sporadically continued in the region, variously attributed to coyotes, to practitioners of pseudo-Catholic spiritual rituals known to exist in the heavily Hispanic region, or to hoaxers.