The terrifying creature rose above the horizon of Chernobyl and Pripyat, a hideous humanoid with giant wings, a black headless body and red glowing eyes sending a message of doom to all who gazed upon it.
In the days leading up to the Chernobyl disaster
, several of the workers in the control room of the nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine claimed to have seen the creature that is known as the Blackbird of Chernobyl.
Those unlucky enough to see the creature were said to be plagued with terrifying dreams and threatening phone calls.
Still others believe the Black Bird of Chernobyl was a form of the creature known as Mothman whose presence only ever meant one thing: that a catastrophic event would soon follow.
Last month marked 33 years since the Chernobyl tragedy and it seems the further time moves away from the event, the stories, folklore and legends continue to captivate and grow. And, since the huge success of the TV series,
Chernobyl, there's a seemingly endless desire for more knowledge about the disaster - the known as well as the unknown.
The Black Bird Rises In Chernobyl
Sydney archaeologist
Robert Maxwell is the only archaeologist who has ever worked at Chernobyl, completing two field excursions at the exclusion zone in 2010 and 2012.
He is passionate about the place in both a historical and archaeological sense; there is little Maxwell doesn't know about Chernobyl, on matters of both the physical and supernatural world.
Maxwell told news.com.au that the legend of the Blackbird of Chernobyl was something he heard about when he was in the exclusion zone.
"The legend states that in the days leading up to April 26, 1986, that a supernatural creature was sighted in the sky over Chernobyl by many of the men in the control room. They also claimed to have seen this terrifying creature just before the explosion," Maxwell said.
Comment: A sighting of something similar was posted on July 16, by Youtuber Cody Kennedy, who spotted it in Twentynine Palms, California: