Talk about foreign objects. News of an apparent extraterrestrial being that was lodged in a duck's gizzard is grabbing headlines from San Francisco to cyberspace.
Workers at the International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) in Cordelia, CA, were stunned when they examined a plain radiograph of a sick mallard, according to an article in today's San Francisco Chronicle.
Lodged in the duck's ventriculus was the unmistakable mug of a "grimacing, bald-headed being," the article reported. The image bore an uncanny resemblance to the classic extraterrestrial of popular culture: large dark eyes, prominent eyebrows, and a tiny nose.
"I don't know my aliens well, but it looks like one of those with the big eyes and the long fingers," Jay Holcomb, the center's executive director, told the Chronicle.
The mallard, weak and emaciated, arrived at the center on Sunday with a broken wing, the article reported. Assistant rehabilitation manager Maria Travers acquired the plain radiograph and was stunned by what she saw, shouting that she had found an "alien head."
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| Above, a mallard presented with a broken wing, weakness and exhaustion. Radiography revealed what appeared to be an alien head lodged in the duck's ventriculus. You can help IBRRC by bidding on this unusual x-ray image online via eBay.com. Radiograph and photo by Marie Travers/IBRRC, image used with permission of the International Bird Rescue Research Center. |
An autopsy was performed when the bird succumbed later that week, the newspaper reported. By that time the "alien" had vanished, however, and there was nothing left in the gizzard but some grain.
"Since aliens are notoriously short, reports are they are usually no more then 3 feet tall, we initially thought the small proportions of the face meant the duck had consumed a juvenile extraterrestrial being," the center's public affairs director Karen Benzel said on the group's Web site. "We immediately knew this was something we had never seen before in our 35-year history."
The duck enigma isn't the Cordelia area's first brush with unexplained phenomena. Crop circles have been discovered twice in the past three years on wheat fields near the rescue center.
As for the 14 x 17-inch radiograph, it will be auctioned off on Sunday, with proceeds going to benefit the Center, the article reported. The auction is scheduled to begin on eBay on Sunday, May 28, 2006, at 3 p.m. PDT.
By Eric Barnes
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
May 26, 2006
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Girl with 'x-ray vision' raises eyebrows in Russia, January 16, 2004
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