(accessed as a free download from Tucson Tabernacle's Website)
In his book, The Acts of the Prophet, Pearry Green said that this incident occurred in Sabino Canyon, northeast of Tucson, on September 22, 1965. William Branham was killed in a car crash three months later. In March, 1966, Pearry Green discovered the rock with the word “Eagle” written in it with the help of several photographs WMB had taken while on his many hikes in the area. Since the discovery, Pearry Green said he took a few people to the rock, but to this day, I don’t know of anyone who has seen the word “Eagle” in the rock except Pearry Green, Harold McClintock, Billy Paul Branham, and of course, William Branham himself. The word disappeared not long after its discovery. The reason that PG gives is that it was gradually chipped away by hundreds of Message-believing souvenir hunters. But to this day, I have never heard of a single person who owns a piece of this revered relic of Message history."I laid my hands against the rock and looked up towards Heaven and started praying, and I heard a Voice coming out of the top of the rocks there, said, 'What are you leaning against, over your heart?' And I raised back like this, my bare shoulders; naked from my waist up, hot. I looked back. And there was wrote in the quartz, in the stone, 'White Eagle'; just exactly what the vision said that the next Message would come forth by. I was so excited, I run home; got a camera and come back the next day, and took the picture of it. It was still there, wrote in the rock: 'White Eagle.'"
(William Branham, “On The Wings of a Snow-White Dove,” sermon #65-1128E)
I’ve visited “Eagle Rock” myself many times. One thing that is very easy to do on this rock is to scratch marks or words into it with a rock or metal tool which appear as if it had been written with white chalk. Did someone actually scratch the word “Eagle” into the rock, seeing the nearby rock formation that itself looks like an eagle (to see a photo of this formation, click here)? Did WMB see the word in the rock that somebody else had written and take it as a supernatural sign? Or worse, did he write the word into the rock himself?
I needed a sample of WMB’s own handwriting to test my theory that he wrote the word in the rock himself. I recalled that somewhere in my collection of Only Believe magazines there were samples of WMB’s own handwriting. I went through each magazine and found in the June 1991 issue, an article that showed actual copies of WMB’s handwritten sermon notes on the 7 Church Ages (pages 4-5). Without even thinking, my eyes were instantly drawn to the word “Eagle” on one of the pages. Below, you can see a side-by-side comparison of the word “Eagle” in the rock with the word “Eagle” from WMB’s sermon notes.
The word "Eagle,"written on a boulder in Sabino Canyon (left--accessed from a free download from Tucson Tabernacle's Website) compared to a sample of the word "Eagle" written in WMB's handwriting (right--portion of a photo from Only Believe magazine, vol. 4, no.2, June 1991, p. 5).
Though not identical, they are similar. One wouldn’t expect them to be identical, since one was written on rough rock using another rock, a metal tool, or maybe a piece of chalk, while WMB’s sermon notes were written by pen or pencil on a smooth sheet of paper. I make the comparison only to show that the writing in both pictures is close enough that WMB could have written both of them.
I would like to list a few points of interest that I believe should cast doubt on this being any kind of supernatural sign given to WMB by God.
- There are no more than 3 witnesses besides WMB that I know of who have seen with their own eyes the actual word written in the rock. I wouldn't consider these witnesses to be reliably objective since all were Message believers and close to William Branham or knew him personally. I don't doubt that they saw the word, just that they can be considered objective in their claim to the nature and cause of the word itself. After all, there was a time when they all used to claim that the Cloud was photographed on the day WMB was hunting javelina in Arizona.
- There are no known persons who own souvenir chips from the rock.
- It is very easy to scratch words into the rock, or even write on with a piece of chalk.
- Scratches in the rock would tend to wear away over time due to the natural elements such as rain or wind. If WMB or somebody else had scratched “Eagle” into the rock, it would naturally disappear. If it were written with chalk, it most definitely would have been totally washed off within weeks or months.
- If one compares a photo of the rock with the word “Eagle” with pictures of the rock without it, I can see no discernable difference in the surface of the rock in the area where the word appeared. There is a larger section of rock that has broken off higher up on the boulder, but not where the word "Eagle" appeared. Photos compared side-by-side look virtually identical except for the missing word. Also, one would think any chipping away of the white quartz "Eagle" would leave scarring in the shape of the word itself. There is no such scarring visible.
- William Branham discovered the word while there were no witnesses present. And his handwriting is similar to the writing on the rock.
Side-by-side comparison of the rock with "Eagle" written on it (left) with the rock as it appears today (right).
(Both photos accessed from a free download from Tucson Tabernacle's Website)