Since I published my recent article about Thundercrows seen around the Hoh Rainforest in Washington State, fellow Fortean researchers have shared with me some frankly jaw-dropping information that appears to support the idea of there being abnormally large, cryptid corvids in the Pacific Northwest. 

First, Dr. Karl Shuker sent me a link to an article he wrote in 2017, titled, "Are Giant Flightless Ravens Something to Crow About in Canada?" Dr. Shuker provided commentary on a report from the Cryptodominion website that was brought to his attention in 2012, although the original story is undated. On a list of "Unrecognised [sic] Birds of Prey," Cryptodominion included a mystery species it called the British Columbian Giant Raven. Although the author qualified the story as a "piece of local folklore," they stated that enormous ravens, larger than golden eagles, inhabit a valley that is rich in timber and nestled within the interior of British Columbia. Cryptodominion suggested that the British Columbian Giant Raven is a specialized species which developed in the isolation of their home valley. Bush mechanics claimed to have encountered these birds and described them as dangerous, very opportunistic, and unhesitant to tear apart a campsite. "They are nearly flightless," stated the report, "and have much red in their tail plumage." Note that in the Hoh Rainforest sighting, the male ravens were reported to have red plumage, albeit around their eyes. Also, those birds were quite capable of flight, but the similarities still raise an eyebrow.

Next, "Mysteries of Canada" author and YouTube documentarian Hammerson Peters pointed out a fitting reference to the Thunderbird tradition recorded by anthropologist James Teit in his 1905 ethnography of the Shuswap (Secwepemc), a First Nations people from the interior of British Columbia. Writing on Shuswap religious beliefs, Teit stated, "The conception of thunder is the same as among the Thompson Indians. The thunder-bird is large and black, and covered with down or short downy feathers. Some part of its body — according to many, its head — is bright red." 

The Shuswap description of the Thunderbird is startlingly similar to the 21st century British Columbia account of giant ravens, possibly reflecting a surviving native tradition in the same region. It also reflects the the more recent sightings from Washington state, just south of British Columbia, which a Hoh elder told one witnesses was a Thunderbird. Does the Pacific Northwest hide a species of giant raven, possibly the elemental Thunderbird known to the Shuswap?

On a related note, Frank Graves, "The Cryptid Hunter," told Peters in 2018 of seeing large ravens during his 1965 expedition to the remote Nahanni Valley in Canada's Northwest Territories on behalf of cryptozoology forefather Ivan T. Sanderson.  "[The] ravens up there have like four or five-foot wingspans. They’re very big. We used to see them walking around, and they’d be like, maybe three feet tall... But everything up there was big." The ravens Graves described would be only slightly larger than the Common Raven found throughout the entirety of Canada and western North America, which can attain an approximately four-foot wingspan and a length of over two feet. It's an interesting observation, if not on the level of the massive ravens described elsewhere in this article.

Giant ravens might not be contained to the Pacific Northwest, either. In my 2021 article on Thundercrows, I provided numerous examples of giant corvids spotted in the United States. Soon after I published that article, Fortean researcher, podcast host and Mothman authority Ashley Hilt shared with me her own sighting of an enormous, black bird in Ohio:

On 4/5/2021 at around 2 p.m., I was driving in my car, taking my daughter to a follow-up appointment because she had just had surgery. We were driving down Marshall Road in Kettering, Ohio (on the Kettering/Centerville line).

Anyway, I’m driving and I notice a crow. Not unusual. They’re very common in Ohio. Except I watched this “crow” come down, down and try to land on a utility pole. That’s when I noticed that this bird had a wingspan that was twice the size of the horizontal part of the utility pole. 

Before anything else happened, I asked my daughter, “Hey, do you see that? What is that?” She confirmed, “It’s a big crow.” It didn’t land on the pole (probably because it couldn’t) and instead flew off into the neighborhood. By the time I had really thought about it and thought to turn back, we were already so far away. And that was it. 

Being who I am and being in the field, I knew it wasn’t natural. I knew it wasn’t a known species. It wasn’t massive. Not anything like the 20-to-30-foot wingspan other people report. However, it definitely had a 12-foot wingspan, minimum. I haven’t figured out how long those horizontal bits are yet. Before it had tried to land on the pole, I would have just been happy assuming it was a regular crow. And that just goes to show how simple it would be for something like that to fly under the radar because our eyes play tricks on us while our brains try to reason away what we are seeing. 

The location of Ashley Hilt's 2021 Thundercrow sighting in Kettering, Ohio. Image provided by eyewitness. Map data ©2021 Google.

I remain fascinated by the continual reports of Thundercrows, and the historic sources that describe a similar creature. I'll be sure to share more information as I find it.

 —Kevin J. Guhl      

For full references please use source link below