[OT] Giant bird spotted off Alaska

[Wicht]

Without actual proof, I can understand this. Eye witness are very unreliable.

But when there are multiple sightings, all saying about the same thing, I would give a little more credence to it than mere dismissal.

They don't have to necessarily believe it, but to casually dismiss it as impossible demonstrates a closed mind that is harmful to a good scientific inquiry (IMO).

 

[Crothian]

But when there are multiple sightings, all saying about the same thing, I would give a little more credence to it than mere dismissal.

They don't have to necessarily believe it, but to casually dismiss it as impossible demonstrates a closed mind that is harmful to a good scientific inquiry (IMO).

You are right, it shouldn't be 100% dismissed. However, with stories like that it's hard to say if after the first sighting, that the other sightings didn't just imagine or exagerate their story because they heard of the first story.

Alaska has everything, first supre Tsunamis and now giant birds. All we have is the only pro team that can lose to a college team (Bengals)

 

[Claude Raines]

I'm with the scienctists on this one. It's almost impossible for anything with wings and muscles to fly after a certain point. The power to rate ratios drop so fast past a certain point, that it would be impossible for anything this big to get airborne.

Condors (although not native to Alaska) can exceed 10 ft. wingspan. The Stellar's Eagle can exceed 8 ft. The 14 ft reported cannot be taken as accurate, but it could definitely be a very large bird and the Stellar's Eagle does live in Alaska. And even though I am a scientist, I have to say to be very careful of other scientists saying something is physically impossible. We've been proven wrong (i.e. the 4 minute mile) too many times to dismiss something out of hand.

 

[Sir Edgar]

It's probably an oversized Steller's sea eagle. Sometimes, you get a freak large specimen of an animal species appear out of nowhere. It's just like we have 7' tall humans.

If it finds a similarly large mate, who knows, maybe it'll start a race of giant eagles and we'll have to send a party of adventurers to kill it and take its treasure.

Thanks for sharing the story, Krug!

 

[Kai Lord]

Two words: Dino. Droppings.

 

[Vivictus]

Big Bird my arse...

Why has no one who's seen this had a camera of some type? Seems to me that pretty much half the people in the world own a camera nowadays in order to catch rodney king beatings. That's why scientists dismiss this. Not even a shred of proof.

 

[Sir Edgar]

You have a point, but you have to understand that this part of Alaska is sparsely populated. I would guess that a dozen or so people saw this bird and then it flew away. Even if they took a picture of it, it would most likely be in the sky and be difficult to judge a scale on it.

 

[Oni]

And sure lots of people have cameras nowadays but most people don't walk around carrying them.

Hey look a bird
Lemme go get my camera
*runs to get camera*
*runs back*
Hey where da bird go?

 

[Sir Edgar]

Yeah, if it was in metropolitan Los Angeles like the Rodney King beating, then I would expect one person would have a camera or camcorder out of the thousands of people where the incident occurred.

However, in this part of Alaska you're dealing with a few people here and there separated by miles and miles of barren rock. I would imagine they don't get as many tourists with cameras nor people even owning a camcorder like L.A.

Anyhow, I don't want to defend this bird any more, but I don't think it's entirely implausible for such a thing to exist. I wonder what its stats would be though.

 

[cbatt]

Overheard at a lunch counter in anchorage:

Guy 1: Alaska sure is boring.

Guy 2: Yeah, nobody wants to come here and more.

Guy 3: Yeah, no tourists.

Guy 1: Yeah, there's nothing to see in scotland, but tourists go there all the time. Must be the loch ness monster.

Guy 2: Hmmm... maybe all we need is a monster of our own.

Guy 3: I'll be right back...

I'll believe it when they've captured it and put it in a zoo.