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It's a plane! Or is it a bird?
Skeptical biologists say people are probably reporting a Steller's sea eagle
By Peter Porco / Anchorage Daily News
A giant winged creature, like something out of "Jurassic Park," has reportedly been sighted several times in Southwest Alaska.
Villagers in Togiak and Manokotak say they have seen a huge bird that's much bigger than anything they have seen before.
A Dillingham pilot says he spotted the creature while flying passengers to Manokotak last week. He calculated that its wingspan matched the length of a wing on his Cessna 207. That's about 14 feet.
Other people have put the wingspan in a similar range.
Scientists are puzzled
Scientists aren't sure what to make of the reports. No one doubts that people in the region west of Dillingham have seen a very large raptorlike bird. But biologists and other people familiar with big Alaska birds say they're skeptical it's that big.
A sighting of the mystery bird occurred one morning in early October 2002 when Moses Coupchiak, a 43-year-old heavy equipment operator from Togiak, 40 miles west of Manokotak, saw the bird flying toward him from about two miles away as he worked his tractor.
''At first I thought it was one of those old-time Otter planes,'' Coupchiak said. ''Instead of continuing toward me, it banked to the left, and that's when I noticed it wasn't a plane.''
The bird was ''something huge,'' he said. ''The wing looks a little wider than the Otter's, maybe as long as the Otter plane.''
Warning to children
The bird flew behind a hill and disappeared. Coupchiak got on the radio and warned people in Togiak to tell their children to stay away.
Pilot John Bouker said he was highly skeptical of reports of ''this great big eagle'' that is two or three times the size of a bald eagle. ''I didn't put any thought into it.''
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