Splat

<a href="http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/1979660p-2066841c.html" target="_blank">Giant bird reportedly spotted in Alaska.</a>

Well, whaddya think?

Seraphim

What I think? Too many people forgot to take their medicine in the morning.

Doubting Didymus

"It was almost as big and strong as God!"

Hats off to Spike Milligan.

Seraphim

""It was almost as big and strong as God!"
Hats off to Spike Milligan. "

A bird with a wingspan of 14 metres is NOT something radar could miss ... yet it seems radar didn't spot it since 1960s.

Plus Alaska been one of the best spots for invasion from either Rusia (during Cold War) and China so you can be sure that the Military eyes are upon this area, and YET they didn't spot such of any Big Bird stray from Sesame Street around there since 1960s.

There never been any reports of any attacks to men or beast that could indicate something large attacked them - (pecked by an oversized pecker is not something you could miss), YET no report of that since 1960s.

What does this say? Most likely that the person who say it imagined it. Till a picture at least is display of this giant Big Bird of Alaska, the chance that it doesn't exist is higher.

Autonemesis

The story is pretty incoherent on what size the thing is actually supposed to be. There's this one guy who "calculated that its wingspan matched the length of a wing on his Cessna 207. That's about 14 feet." OK, so it's 14 feet, and we compare this to "a wing" on some airplane. I have no idea without looking it up how big a Cessna 207's wing is, but a Google search turns up a wingspan of 35 ft. 10 in, and a cabin width of 44.5 inches. Call it four feet. That implies "a wing" is about 15.5 feet.

Eh, OK that's kinda 14 feet-ish.

But then, the article compares the bird to the size of a Super Cub several times. Well a Super Cub has a wingspan very close to a Cessna 207, namely 35 ft. 3 in. But wait, one guy says it's as large as "a little Super Cub" (their quotes). Does that mean he thinks the Super Cub is a little plane compared to others and that this bird is the same size as this little plane (35 feet), or that he's comparing the bird to a hypothetical Super Cub that's little compared to ordinary Super Cubs (something less than 35 feet)?

Then there's Moses who says from two miles away he could see it was the size of an old-time Otter plane. That turns out to mean the DeHavilland Otter, the single engine version of which has a wingspan of about 57.5 feet! Furthermore, Moses says "The wing looks a little wider than the Otter's, maybe as long as the Otter plane." Wider, longer, what's the difference, right Moses? The Otter is 36 feet 3 in. long, but I can't tell what he is supposed to be comparing. The bird's wings seem to be either about 57 ft long and 36 ft wide, or it's 36 ft "wide" meaning the wingspan. According to Moses. From two miles away.

But the biologist, the last quoted in the article, vouches for the witnesses credibility in that they could recognize an eagle, since they live in this area where eagles are often seen. Sounds plausible, but then she seemingly refutes claims by "the people in that area" of a bird "three times the size of an eagle or the size of a Super Cub". So what was she told by "the people in that area", that the bird has a 14-15.5 foot wingspan, or a 35 foot (or littler) wingspan?

And pilot Jim Bouker is said to be skeptical of a bird "two or three times the size of a bald eagle." A bald eagle's wingspan is up to about 5 feet. That the "great big eagle" might measure as small as 10 feet seems more reasonable than 14 feet, or 35 feet, or 57 feet(!), but Jim is still skeptical.

And rightly so. The real Super Cub is reporter Peter Porco, whose follow-up has the catchy headline <a href="http://www.adn.com/alaska/story/1979660p-2081808c.html" target="_blank">Tale of big bird catches some air.</a> Look how Peter cleverly abuses poor pilot Jim Bouker, who appears to be getting very tired of this whole thing.

Now the claim is simply stated as "up to" 14 feet. And look how Porco tries to impute pilot Jim Bouker's sighting with the rest, even some people who wrote into the newspaper to say they thought the bird was really an Ice Dragon. Porco doesn't actually report what size Bouker says the thing is, in either article. He has Bouker commenting that other people's estimates seem too large, but no quote or paraphrase from Bouker on what he actually saw when he looked at the bird (except "there's this big . . . bird"), but only what he recalled the other people saying about it. Poor guy! The victim of spin by Super Cub reporter Peter Porco!

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: Kind Bud ]

[ October 22, 2002: Message edited by: Kind Bud ]</p>

Bane

<a href="http://www.theonion.com/" target="_blank">Giant bud reportedly smoked in Alaska</a>

I fixed the title to the link for ya.

atrahasis

neee......at least CNN should have been there.......Remember....Their popular slogan....."Be the first to know"....So...i think all those guys had a bad dream..

Best

Splat

Smart ass! Infidel! You're missing the WHOLE POINT!

It's definitely an immense bald eagle (with a 35 foot wingspan--AT LEAST). It's a sign, called forth from the mythopoetic past by John Ashcroft hisownbadself to renew Amerka's faith in its own self-rightous splendor on the eve of battle. Think about it. Why else would it appear just a looong frozen spit away from ANWAR? It's a sign, dammit, one you'd all do well to heed.

[as for the title fix: <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

MortalWombat

Well, it's obvious that Gandalf has gotten himself into some kind of jam again, apparently in Alaska this time.

Mageth

Perhaps it migrated from <a href="http://www.unmuseum.org/quet.htm" target="_blank">Texas?</a>