The same basic principle applies to birds.

Without a familiar object beside the bird, there is no reliable reference point.

A bird several hundred feet away can look enormous if its wings are fully spread.

And if the observer is already surprised by the sight, the brain may interpret the unusual silhouette as something much larger than it really is.

This is especially true when the bird is moving.

The observer has only a few seconds to judge:

Those estimates can easily be wrong.

The Camera Was Supposed to Settle the Question

In the age of smartphones, strange sightings often produce photographic evidence almost immediately.

Witnesses reportedly reached for their phones when they saw the bird.

But there was a problem.

The sky was bright.

The bird was distant.

Something Enormous Crossed the Texas Sky And Witnesses Still Can’t Explain It