Childhood experiences often leave a lasting imprint, subtly shaping who we become. One such formative memory for me is the series of 'flying monster' reports that emerged from Texas during the nation's Bicentennial year in 1976 - events that remain vividly etched in my mind.
As a young Texan, I was both fascinated and terrified by the frequent reports of a local monster. The nightly news always led with the latest sightings, and during the summer, I was too afraid to play outside, convinced the creature might swoop down and attack or abduct me.
While my online research only uncovered news reports of sightings near the Texas/Mexico border, the creature was actually being spotted across the state. Descriptions of the mysterious being ranged from a flying dinosaur (pterosaur) to a dragon-like creature with a head resembling a bat or even a gorilla.
In the early hours of December 26, 1975, a rancher named Joe Suárez in Raymondville, Texas (about 30 miles north of the Rio Grande in southeastern Texas) discovered that a goat he had tied up in a corral had been ripped to pieces and partially eaten. The goat had been mauled on the right side, its heart and lungs were missing, and its snout was bitten away. The blood was still wet and warm when police officers examined the carcass, but they could find no footprints around the goat. They concluded that an unknown flying creature had caused the death.
On January 14, 1976, around 10:30 PM in the north side of Raymondville, a young man named Armando Grimaldo was sitting in the backyard of his mother-in-law's house when he was attacked by a strange winged creature. As Armando told the Raymondville press, "As I was turning to go look over on the other side of the house, I felt something grab me, something with big claws. I looked back and saw it and started running. I've never been scared of nothing before but this time I really was. That was the most scared I've ever been in my whole life."The strange flying attacker had suddenly plunged from the sky. Grimaldo described it as around six feet tall, with a massive wingspan of ten to twelve feet. Its skin was leathery, blackish-brown, and completely featherless. Huge, glaring red eyes protruded from its head. Grimaldo was paralyzed with terror. He screamed and tried to flee, but tripped and fell face-first into the dirt. As he struggled to get up and keep running towards his mother-in-law's house, the beast's razor-sharp claws continued swiping at him, shredding his clothes to tatters. Grimaldo managed to dive under a nearby bush, and the now-winded creature flew off into the sky. Grimaldo then burst into the house, collapsing on the floor and muttering "pájaro" (Spanish for "bird") over and over, in a state of shock. He was taken to the hospital, treated for his minor wounds, and released.
A short time later, in nearby Brownsville along the Rio Grande, a similar creature slammed into the mobile home of Alverico Guajardo on the outskirts of town. Alverico went outside to investigate the crash into his house. He noticed a large animal next to the crash site, so he got into his station wagon and turned the lights on to get a better look.
As soon as the lights hit the creature, it rose up and glared at Alverico with blazing red eyes. Alverico, paralyzed with fear, could only stare back as the creature's long, batlike wings were wrapped around its shoulders. It was making a "horrible-sounding noise in its throat."
After two or three minutes of staring into the headlights, the creature backed away to a dirt road behind it and disappeared into the darkness.
These sightings of what seemed to be prehistoric creatures were just the first in several similarly strange encounters reported in the area at the time.
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