The Vanishing Bird Family

About 1900, a family considered to be very strange by their few, isolated neighbors, lived on a high point above the North Fork of the Kentucky River. There were nine members in this family and they lived in a large log house built in an unusual oblong fashion. They made no friends and allowed no one except the family to enter their home.

On occasion, people passing along the road in front of this dwelling could hear screams and a flapping sound such as a large-winged bird might make. There were also sounds of high pitched voices and the sound of blows such as might be made if a person were beaten. At night passersby in Williams Creek might hear a splash as if a large object were being dropped into the water. The sound was always heard near this house. No one ever saw any lights at night, and no smoke was ever seen coming from the chimney. Eventually, the sounds from this house became the talk of the few families living upstream.

Years passed and a graveyard appeared on the hill behind the house, although no neighbors had ever heard of a death or burial in the family. Several years after it was first noticed, the graveyard had grown to contain over 50 small tombstones made of plain creek rock. Strangely, it appeared there were still nine members in the family. They were seen separately, at various times, in the local village some two miles away, where they purchased only bare necessities, but they always bought some type of grain.

Not only did they appear to be the same individuals, but they seemed never to grow any older. They were physically small, and the few people who ever saw them up close, swore their faces resembled that of a bird, with a long nose and receding chin. They all walked with a quick, jerky kind of step, spoke in a high-pitched voice, and always wore gloves and a long coat.

After about 10 years, curiosity got the best of a group of men and they made plans to check on the actions of this strange family. They wanted some explanations...how did they live - they did very little farming and owned no farm animals...why did they seem never to age...why did a cemetery continue to grow when there were no known deaths in the family? Before going to talk to the odd family, though, the men checked on travelers who were known to have used the road. They found no reports of missing persons, violence or death.

On a clear, moonlit night, about fifty men assembled to visit the unusual family. They formed two groups so they could approach the house from different directions. One group reached the front yard as the other came into the back yard, and all were amazed to see nine large birds fly away from the rooftop of the house. They entered the large dwelling to find nothing but piles of straw resembling huge birds' nests. No furniture, clothes, tools or other human necessities were found.

The next morning, the men investigated the graveyard. They opened some twenty of the graves and found small human skeletons. The skeletons revealed an amazing trait never before seen by any of those present. Each had two large extra bones along the shoulder. This seemed to indicate that while the bodies appeared human, they had somehow developed the ability to fly. The bones were hollow, like those of birds, and some of the first bodies to be buried had completely disintegrated. Before leaving, the men burned the house and the area was avoided after that.

What kind of creatures were these? Where had they come from: where did they go? The number of graves would indicate an impossible birth rate for a normal, human family. Might the sounds of objects being dropped into the large creek have been eggs that would not hatch? (A bird will throw these out of the nest, especially one without a shell). All traces of the house's foundation, the cemetery and the bridge are gone now, and only slight indentations above the river show where the old road used to be.

Today, on the high point of land where the dwelling stood, some unusual blackbirds are occasionally seen. They are exceptionally large and seem reluctant to fly away. They watch and follow people who come near. At times it seems they are trying to speak.