The Weird Creatures of the Eerie Bridgewater Triangle – Thunderbirds

The Weird Creatures of the Eerie Bridgewater Triangle – Thunderbirds

What is the Bridgewater Triangle?

A group of 17 towns and cities in Southeastern Massachusetts in the New England region of the United States. The area has seen massive amounts of hauntings, UFO sightings, ghastly creatures, and satanic cult activity dating back to colonial times.

When the Europeans first came to America, they killed off millions of Native Americans with two things they carried with them: muskets and diseases.  The indigenous people had few defenses for either one.  With his dying breath one of the Wampanoag chiefs cast a perpetual curse on both the people and the land of the Bridgewater Triangle.  Some researchers believe that might be the reason for the spate of problems that have plagued the region for the last four hundred years!

Thunderbirds

I’ve often said that I lived in the Bridgewater Triangle for over a decade without realizing there were scary creatures in it until I met one – a Puckwudgie in 1990.  When I made that comment in the 2013 film, The Bridgewater Triangle Documentary, I forgot that years earlier I knew an area police officer who had a scary scrape with a giant winged beast that may have been a Thunderbird.

As editor of a suburban newspaper in the 1970s my duties included checking the daily police logs of area communities for possible news items.  As part of my job, I spoke to, and interviewed many police officers and knew quite a few of them by sight and exchanged hellos with them.  One of those policemen was Sergeant Thomas Downy of the Norton, Massachusetts Police Department.

A hard working, veteran police officer who did his job well, Officer Downy would have retired respected and unknown, but for one early morning incident in the summer of 1971 on Bird Hill at the edge of the haunted Hockomock Swamp.  The Sergeant completed his shift in Norton and left the station and was driving through neighboring Mansfield to get to his home, one town further up the road in Easton.

It was well after midnight when he reached Bird Hill, near his house.  Appropriately, or perhaps ironically, the Sergeant saw a bird – a massive creature with a wingspan far larger than the width of a police car.  He later said that the enormous flying thing dropped down to the pavement and towered two or three feet above the roof of his car – making it at least six feet tall.  The wingspan of the Pterodactyl-like creature was estimated to be ten to 12 feet.

Sgt. Downy stopped his vehicle at an intersection and studied the strange winged giant.  Flapping its massive wings, the gigantic bird flew straight up and over the trees before it disappeared into the darkness of the Hockomock Swamp.  When he got home he thought about what he saw for a moment or two and reported it to the Easton Police.

A car was dispatched but after a check of the area, no giant bird was spotted.  In the following days, we of the area news media reported the sighting merely as a routine ‘blotter’ item - no hoopla, buzz or sensationalism.  Though Sergeant Downy was kidded about the encounter, most people who knew him, regarded him as a serious individual not prone to making up stories and not one who would make false claims about what he saw.

Within a few weeks the whole episode was pretty much forgotten by the residents of Mansfield, Norton, and Easton.  But over the years as more and more paranormal incidents were reported in these towns, people started pressing Sergeant Downy for more information.  After literally hundreds of queries from individuals from all walks of life, including the news media, Officer Downy said “Enough - no more” and refused further comments.  As far as I know he stopped talking about the big bird in the 1980s and never made a single additional statement. 

What was that brobdingnagian flyer? The easy answer is that Officer Downy saw a Thunderbird.  But there are two kinds – one more eerie and dangerous than the other.

There were real, live Thunderbirds back in the days when man was much more hairy than he is today.  As evolution began the gradual removal of the hair and fur of mankind, the giant beasts died off. 

Those early Thunderbirds (also known as ‘Teratorns’) were fearsome creatures weighing more than 30 pounds with wingspans close to 20 feet.  Partial remains of the mammoth flying creatures who lived 8000 years ago, have been recovered from the fames Labrea Tar Pits in the Western United States. Scientists report that despite their bulk, there is no doubt about their flying abilities.  Even the largest species which had a wingspan of some 26 feet, could take to the air after a few springing jumps. 

Nobu Tamaru's drawing of a Teratorn

The real life Thunderbirds were not a threat to humans.  They were vulture like, pouncing down on their prey and swallowing it whole.  Creatures up to rabbit size and even a little bigger, were the favoured food of the winged wonders of ancient history.

The second type of Thunderbird, the one known in the mythology of The Wampanoag people and other tribes of the United States, is a far more fearsome and dangerous predator than the actual giant birds that flew in the skies over what was to become the United States for many thousands of years before going extinct

The Wampanoag people, who lived in what is now called Southeastern Massachusetts, believed that the Thunderbirds were supernatural creatures of great strength and ability.  They could create thunder by flapping their giant wings and cast lightning-bolts from the claws of their huge feet.

Their shape appeared to be a form of the letter “X” to the people of the tribe.  The example shown has a French caption referring to a ‘marque mal’ which translates to a ‘bad mark’.  

In recent times there have been reports of Thunderbirds attacking humans and even carrying them off in flight after digging their claws deeply into a person’s body.

From Illinois comes this report:

Inside her home while doing her housework a mother heard noise outside.  She dashed outside and was startled to see a pair of massive Thunderbirds flying wing to wing chasing after her son.  She ran to the boy’s aid but before she could reach him one the birds succeeded in sinking its claws into the shoulders of the 56-pound youth and lifted him off his feet, into the air.

The mother kept chasing after the bird, which reportedly dropped the boy after a flight of about 10 yards.  The birds ran off, apparently in fear of the Mom’s terrible wrath.

This account is part of a series of articles about a strange, beautiful area of the United States – a pocket of about 200 square miles in Southeastern Massachusetts. Researchers claim it is a hotspot of paranormal activities.  Other articles in this collection appear under the same heading, or a similar one:  Eerie Creatures of the Haunted Bridgewater Triangle. 

Join me for more stories from the Triangle at Adventures in Type and Space: https://billrrrrr.blogspot.com/