By Steve Hathcock
South Texas has its own private, unidentified flying object — a huge, winged creature that glides silently through the streets at night, terrifying citizens, and police. For want of a better name, residents are calling it “Big Bird.” Rumors of the bird, described as having a wingspan the length of an automobile, began on a playground in Robstown, Texas, two months ago. Reports from persons who claim they saw the huge bird led to tongue-in-cheek spoofs by a Corpus Christi television station and newspaper, which were thought to have put the legend to rest.
They didn’t.
Numerous sightings of “Big Bird” continue to come in from miles apart, especially in the lower Rio Grande Valley along the Mexican border.
Last week, a Harlingen television station showed giant bird prints, photographed in a freshly plowed field in the area of the “Big Bird” sightings. The prints showed a three-toed impression nine inches wide and 12 inches long. The same day, San Benito police officer Arturo Padilla and Homero Galvan, traveling in separate squad cars through dark streets, reported seeing a huge bird with a 15-foot wingspan gliding through Valley City without a single flap of its wings.
“It more or less looked like a stork or pelican type of bird,” Padilla said. “The wingspan I guess was about like a pretty good-sized car, about 15 feet or so. The color was white.
I’ve done a lot of hunting, but the thing was really oversized.”
San Benito Police Chief Ted Cortez said “Big Bird” first was reported to his department about six weeks ago by a man who rushed terrified into the police station. “He came down and told us, I’m not drunk. I’m sober. But I saw it,” Cortez said. “Later, two kids came over and said they saw it. They said it had kind of bald head, like a monkey.”
At Rio Grande City, 70 miles West of San Benito, Sheriff Ray Alvarez said rumors circulated in Stark County for 45 days of people claiming they saw a giant bird. One report said the fowl was perched on top of the courthouse.
“It’s just rumors to me,” the sheriff said. “They said it looked like half human and half bird.”
At tiny Olmito, between Brownsville and Harlingen, residents reported seeing a strange bird, saying it resembled a flying ostrich or Rhea. Near the port of Brownsville, a woman said she saw a bird as big as a car.
Last Wednesday night, Alverico Guajardo, 35, told police he heard something sounding like a sandbag hit the corner of his mobile home near Brownsville. Guajardo left his wife and child inside the house, grabbed a knife and drove his automobile to the back of the trailer for a better look. There, Guajardo said, he spent three terrifying minutes, eye to eye with what he described as a “strange animal, 4 feet tall, eyes like silver dollars, wings like a bird and a face like a bat.” (Editor’s note: this was originally published in the Valley Morning Star on Jan. 13, 1976)
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