by Margaret Roach

The Lake Taghkanic Flying Birdman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page.
• This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.
• The neutrality of this article is disputed.
• This article may be in need of reorganization to comply with Wikipedia’s layout guidelines. Please help by editing the article to make improvements to the overall structure.
• This article uses first-person (I, we) or second-person (you) inappropriately. Please help rewrite it to use a more formal, encyclopedic tone.
• This article possibly contains unsourced predictions, speculative material, or accounts of events that might not occur. Information must be verifiable and based on reliable published sources. Please help improve it by removing unsourced speculative content

Not to be confused with Mothman
For other uses, see Birdman (disambiguation)

In American Folklore, the Lake Taghkanic Flying Birdman or “Tacky” is a bird-like humanoid creature reportedly seen in Columbia County, New York in the early ‘90s. The story spread across the United States but quickly lost popularity in the press due to the assault of Nancy Kerrigan. As usual, there are more interesting stories to follow.

Legends and Legacy

There are brief mentions of a bird-like man in New York State folklore throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, but it is unclear if these sightings are the same as the Lake Taghkanic Flying Birdman. In the legends, the bird-like man will watch people as they go through their day, often flying in the sky over them. Sometimes, they will be aware that this is a sign of doom. Other times, they will go throughout the day as normal. All stories end in death. These are not very good stories most of the time. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end, but there isn’t much added to it. The people are given very little personality and the Birdman is just a figure in the distance. However, the stories do imply that there is nothing modern about the Birdman. This has already been seen before.

There is no legacy. There are soft blankets left in a decaying building. There is a LinkedIn profile of a smiling woman who works as a public speaking consultant. There is a nuclear plant that closed down because the radiation was sinking into the ground. There is an unsmiling woman who wears dark sunglasses driving on the highway. There is something in the sky overhead and there are still dreams of the future. There is a woman who sleeps in a motel and only dreams of the past. There are only little things left now. There is nothing that amounts to a legacy. The Birdman has not been well remembered.

History and Sightings

The Roller Magic

Mary Beth Allen first met the Lake Taghkanic Flying Birdman during open skate night at Roller Magic. He was not the Birdman yet. He was just a young man who couldn’t grow a beard; much less feathers. The future was still a bad dream. The two of them shared one unremarkable loop around the rink. Mary Beth does not remember this. She would have remembered it if she knew what would happen, but it was just another Friday night to her. All of her visits to the roller rink would eventually blend into one memory. A pleasant memory, but too vague to put any real details in. She remembered falling and bruising her knee, but she did not remember the young man who would later become the Birdman.

The Birdman remembers it, at least. He remembers it for both of them. He remembers that she wore a blue dress. He remembers that she wore her hair down. He remembers that she was very nice and that he liked her. He doesn’t remember much of what his life was like before the feathers, but he remembers these things. He had a dream once as a child about roller skating with a girl. It was the first dream that he remembered. He had dreamed of this moment for years and he would remember it for years to come. It wasn’t always chaos and disaster. Once, it was just a loop around a roller rink. Then, it seemed as if a dream coming true was a positive.

May 3, 1992 (The O’Leary Fire)

It was reported in the Poughkeepsie Journal that the O’Leary Farm burned down on May 3, 1992. The house smelled the same hours after the dream. It smelled the same, it looked the same. It was the same. Things burn down all the time. It’s not uncommon on summer nights for kids to stay up too late and have fires in the woods, but this fire was exactly the same as it was in the dream. The firefighters would later remark that everything was completely ordinary about the fire except for the young man who was standing on the other side of the road watching as it burned down. He had a dream that the O’Leary Farmhouse burned down. He had a dream of smoke and cold air. It almost appeared that he was going on a walk and had stopped to watch as the building burned down. It was much too early for a walk. The firefighters thought that it was a little bit strange, but they didn’t have time to question him. Something was on fire. There were other things more pertinent to worry about.

On May 3rd, Mary Beth Allen graduates from high school and feels proud of herself even though she had no reason to. Lots of people graduate from high school. She had faced no adversity in her life. She did not graduate with honors. She was very proud of all that she did and she was even proud of all of the things she would do. She does not know what things she will do, but she is sure that they will be worth being proud of. Mary Beth had no idea what the future would be. She did not have the gift of prophecy, only the confidence of an 18-year-old graduating from high school.

Other Early Sightings

In those early days, there were many sightings of the Birdman. Most of them seem to be a bit far-fetched. For example, Mrs. Wilson insists that the Birdman was there the day that her husband died because she heard the fluttering of wings moments after his death. Her youngest daughter told her that maybe it was her husband flying to heaven, but Mrs. Wilson says that her husband could never be an angel, so the reasonable explanation was that it was the Birdman. There are many similar stories to this one. They are all so similar that they do not bear repeating. Everyone wanted to be the first to see the Birdman. These accounts are all false. The roller rink was where it began and then the O’Leary Fire and then a long gap. This gap is also a disaster in hindsight. The Birdman had taken residence in the old nuclear waste factory and was busy growing feathers. They kept him so nice and warm as he dreamed his strange dreams. He had a dream that everyone would miss him. The people of the town had no idea what would happen. Cars crashed. People died. Mary Beth started an associate’s degree that quickly became a waste of money. The Birdman wasn’t there to warn them that these horrible things would happen.

Sightings in the Spring and Summer of 1993

The Birdman started to emerge from the nuclear waste factory. He had a lot to do. In May of 1993, three people were murdered in the city. This was not unusual. It was a city and even though it was a smaller city, people tend to get murdered in cities. These murders are unique because the Birdman predicted them. In each of these cases, the Birdman was either spotted by the victims or seen flying by them. He tried to warn them by placing maps of other, safer places on their coffee tables among their magazines and cable bills. He even circled towns that he thought would be nice to visit. These maps would later be placed in evidence.

Then in June, two people drowned in Lake Taghkanic. It is not unusual for people to drown in that lake even though it is a smaller lake. People will drown anywhere that there is water. It’s human nature to drown. The Birdman had tried placing pamphlets about the dangers of eating before swimming, but the pamphlets were ignored, as pamphlets often are. A month later, a man was found headless and partially eaten floating in the Hudson. The Birdman did not warn him, because he did not know what was going to happen to him. He still feels a little guilty about it. He should have seen that one coming. He did his best. That is one thing that could be said about the Birdman: He always did his best.

That whole summer, Mary Beth saw a large bird in the sky daily. She thought that it was good luck, so she began taking risks. She tells herself that she knows everything that she needs to know already so she does not go back to college. She gets a job at Home Depot in the flower section. One day, a man comes in wearing a large winter coat and scarf wrapping his face looking for hay. They have a nice conversation and she hopes that he will come back because she has a horrible habit of falling in love with strangers who are remotely nice to her. He didn’t come back. She started running in the park when no one was around. Mary Beth starts dating Steven Brown who works in the lumber section of Home Depot. She likes him just fine. One morning, she found a book about dating advice on her bookshelf that she didn’t remember buying. Mary Beth Allen had a nice summer, but her summers were always kind of nice.

Uptick of Sightings in the Winter of 1993

1993 started with four houses burning down on New Year’s Day. The Birdman thought to himself that maybe this would be a good way to start the year. New beginnings and all that. He didn’t try to stop those houses from burning down. The Birdman couldn’t help but think that this was all deeply unfair. He saw no point in being able to see the future if he could not fix it. Everyone is tied together by red strings. They are tangled together. The strings are too tight. He thought that maybe he could just untangle one and leave the rest be. One morning, he placed Women Who Love Too Much on Mary Beth’s coffee table on the growing pile of pamphlets, maps and books. He knew how she would die. He wished that he did not know these things. He wishes that he was normal. As he flew away past Mrs. Wilson’s window who lived in the condo above, he worried about all these things. He didn’t even look as she chopped off the tip of her middle finger while cutting carrots. The finger was not able to be reattached. It was her favorite one. The Birdman knew that would happen

Mary Beth quit working at the Home Depot and got a job at the mall selling pretzels. She was starting to feel as if she is going insane. There are books, pamphlets, and maps everywhere in her house that she doesn’t remember buying. They are all about self-confidence and living the life that you deserve to live. Mary Beth doesn’t believe them at all. Mary Beth picks up the pamphlet about returning to college and thinks about taking classes again. She didn’t know what to do about the future. She was only 19. She was afraid of all the years that she would have to fill. She put the pamphlet down. Mary Beth got the sense that maybe she was doomed by some horrible piece of fate.

The Summer of 1993

In July of 1993, Mary Beth and Steve go to the drive-in. When driving home from the drive-in, they spotted the Birdman on the side of the road. According to the report, they would later give to the police officers, he is tall, feathered, and terrifying. Steve kept focusing on his horrible red eyes. The cops laugh at them, but a reporter had been tipped off with a Post-It note stuck to his fridge that said there would be something exciting happening. By the end of the week, the story had reached all the major news networks. People love a mystery and people loved the Birdman. Commentators would later say that he came at the perfect time in American politics. The country needed something to delight in and the Birdman was delightful. He was dangerous but far away. He was strange but he wasn’t overly so. He was what they needed him to be.

The Birdman is reported to be seen around town almost daily. He doesn’t do much but watches as the people go by. Blurry photographs are taken. Reporters are brought in. He gives no interviews. Mary Beth spoke to all the major networks and she was deemed to be a major star. Mary Beth broke up with Steve. She found him pathetic. She started to write a book about the Birdman because everyone wanted to hear what she had to say. One morning, she found an empty notebook on the kitchen table. For the first time in her life, Mary Beth wonders if she isn’t always going to aimlessly wander from life event to life event. She told this to Jay Leno, who just smiled blankly.

Mrs. Wilson sits by her window, waiting day after day. She wants to see if the Birdman will stop to see her. She’s been so alone. It’s getting colder. An apartment building in the city loses power for two weeks. The Birdman does his best to keep them warm. He doesn’t remember what it is like to be cold. He doesn’t remember what it is to be human anymore. No one dies this time. He thinks to himself that maybe it would all be okay. You know that the story does not end here. The future is not so hard to guess. You do not need the gift of prophecy to understand that if something looks like a tragedy then it will end in a tragedy.

The Fire

The city throws a celebration for the Birdman. It is the first and last time. Mary Beth is crowned the bird queen. At the moment of her crowning, there is an electrical fire that kills sixteen people. Mary Beth’s beautiful feathered cap bursts into flames, but she gets it off. Her hair will smell like smoke for weeks after. The Birdman is seen flying away. In most accounts of the Birdman, this is seen as the end of the story. One last horrific moment of prophecy and death. He didn’t see that part coming. He knows now that it will not be fine. That night was the last night the Birdman would be seen. In December, Mary Beth Allen moved away for real this time. There is a blanket in the back of her car. She does not die this time, but maybe she’ll die next time. She knows that we are all one step away from a horrible accident. She is too focused on the road ahead to see if there is something in the sky above her. She doesn’t need a warning to understand anymore.

Explanations

There are many explanations for the Lake Taghkanic Birdman, as there often are for things like this. Maybe, it was a year for unusually large birds or maybe it was a dinosaur. It could always be mass hysteria. That seems like a reasonable response. Those were wild times and wild years. People were dying all the time, it seemed. They weren’t really. People were dying at normal rates, but it just felt worse then. There had to be a reason other than the world being a very cruel and horrible place where people just die for the sake of dying. I cannot explain why a child gets hit by car playing in the street or why a meteor has destroyed the car that you saved years for. I can only tell you that these things happen. The Birdman was something to blame for horrible things and it was kind of nice to have him around for a while. They needed something to blame. We can leave it at that.

The Future

There is a future. There is a future, and it is coming. There is a future, and it is coming and it will be bad. Please, don’t go into the woods. Don’t drive on the highway anymore. Don’t talk to men on LinkedIn. Don’t do it anymore. Those hotels are bad. There are bad things that have happened in them and there are bad things that will happen. I had a dream that you drowned while swimming in a motel pool and I saw you floating. You were lovely and too pale. You are very pale. Don’t go in the sun. I had a dream that you were diagnosed with skin cancer. Stay pale, but not too pale. You need more rest. You need to take a break. You need to stop worrying so much about the future. You don’t need to do that. All you need is to lie down and sleep. It will be okay if you do.

The other night, I had a dream that we were holding hands. Yours was soft with red-painted fingernails and mine was what it was. I had a dream that I’ve loved you since the roller rink. You bought me a pair of roller skates for our anniversary. Thank you. I had a dream that we had a little house where we sat at the kitchen table. At this table, we would sit and we would eat dinner like real people. I had a dream that we watched Jeopardy every night and I knew all the answers. We still watched it, though. I knew when the host would die years from now, but I didn’t tell you. I didn’t tell anyone things like that anymore. I kept things to myself. I had a dream the other night, but it will stay a dream. Nothing bad happened in the dream, but I’m sure that something bad would happen. I understand the future now. Everything will end eventually in tragedy. I know what will happen. A divorce. A fire. A death.