Thunderbirds Are Go!
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on December 19th, 2012
Eagle Snatches Baby in Viral Video: Caught on Tape – Is it Real or Fake?
What do the Cryptomundians think?
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
If it was a golden eagle, their typical prey weighs half of their own body weight, so up to about 8-9 lbs. They can also fly with prey more then half and even slightly above their weight, and the limit for a large one may be 14-16 lbs. A small child or infant could certainly be in those weight ranges.
Looks real. Probably an immature Bald Eagle rather than a Golden, because of wing/body color.
Looked like a hoax, felt like a hoax, and now it’s been confirmed as a hoax!
A very nice job but…fake.
I loved the original “Thunderbirds”. Did you know that the Tracy brothers were named after the Mercury Astronauts?
Allen, Virgil, John, Scott and Gordon.
Fab.
looks pretty legit. the clearest shot of it lifting off has to be slowed down to be seen. plus it’s not shot from inside a tent or behind a bush
Anyhow, don’t believe there are golden eagles in eastern North America! And I saw golden eagles in NM regularly – this is one outsized eagle! Nice piece of fakery, though…
Hey Loren, would you mind explaining how exactly it was faked? My first thought was that it was a fake baby with a trained eagle, but I’ve never been very good at telling how something is faked.
I’m no bird expert, but that doesn’t look like any golden eagle I ever saw. It looks more like a Stellars Sea Eagle which is significantly larger. They are an intimidating bird. I can’t be sure, but something just looks off about it.
Could someone share a link confirming that this is fake please instead of just posting that it’s been confirmed as such?
I don’t know whether this video is real or fake, but either way it’s an interesting study in gullibility vs. skepticism–though perhaps not in the way some would think.
When the video came out, skeptics (rightfully) questioned its authenticity, since anything can be faked on video these days, and so asked to see more evidence. Just as I did.
But then when someone in Montreal comes out and says his students did the video, skeptics universally accept this claim at face value–without asking to see any evidence to back it up, strangely. (This, despite the fact there could well be a profit motive behind a computer animation school taking credit for something like this, as a way to generate more enrollment.)
Fascinating, how one’s standards of evidence shift when the claims are in line with one’s own beliefs.
Loren, we need the link that confirms the hoax, if it is one.
@Goodfoot…….There is a population of Golden Eagles on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. I have personally seen a group of them, probably laying over during a migration, at Lake Hudson State Park, apx. 25 miles north of the Michigan/Ohio state line last June.
They’re fairly rare in these parts, but they do occasionally move through. Bald Eagles (I actually think the bird in the video is an immature Baldie) are much more common.
The brunette in the blue distracted me from the video on my first viewing.
It’s a hoax, a very clever hoax.