(accessed as a free download from Tucson Tabernacle's Website)
In his book, The Acts of the Prophet, Pearry Green (PG) said that this incident took place on September 22, 1965, when WMB was in Sabino Canyon northeast of Tucson. He said that WMB took several pictures of the area, including one of a large boulder (which PG calls, "Eagle Rock") and the single word, Eagle, written on it. However, he never showed it to anyone or told them how to find it before he died 3 months later. Two and a half months after his death, PG went on a hike with a friend into Sabino Canyon to find Eagle Rock. Using WMB's photographs as references, he was able to locate it. PG claimed that the word Eagle was written on the rock in white quartz."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)
Soon after the discovery of Eagle Rock, PG said he led a group of people on a hike into Sabino Canyon to see it. PG said that not long after he gave this tour into the canyon, the word had vanished from the face of the boulder, apparently chipped away by returning Message-believing souvenir hunters. Although that is possible, I've never heard of anyone who claims to own a piece of this revered relic of Message history.
I've visited Eagle Rock many times. One thing I've found is that it's very easy to scratch words on the rock with a stone or metal tool. The words appear as if they're written with white chalk on a very uneven surface. I've often wondered if someone actually scratched the word Eagle on the rock, perhaps after seeing a nearby rock formation* shaped like an eagle that overlooks it. In his biographical book series, Supernatural (vol. III, book 6, p. 306), Owen Jorgensen said that just before WMB found the word Eagle written in the rock, he leaned against the boulder and looked up towards the eagle-shaped formation to pray. When he did, a voice told him to look at the rock he was leaning against, and there he discovered the word Eagle written on it.
Did WMB see the eagle-shaped formation above him and then write "Eagle" on the rock, and then take a picture of it to show his followers? Why did it disappear so soon after PG found it? Did the word eventually wash away in Tucson's notorious microbursts that commonly occur during monsoon season? Or did someone deliberately obliterate it, knowing it could easily be shown to have been simply scratched into the rock? All we know for sure is that it didn't last very long until it disappeared without a trace.
I believe WMB himself most likely scratched "Eagle" into the rock to appear as yet another supernatural event in his life to vindicate his commission as a prophet. I needed a sample of WMB’s own handwriting to test my idea that he wrote the word in the rock himself. I recalled that somewhere in my collection of Only Believe magazines there were samples of his own handwriting. I went through each magazine and found in the June 1991 issue, an article that showed actual copies of his 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” in WMB’s sermon notes from the Only Believe article. Jorgensen includes a heavily doctored copy of the word Eagle in the rock in his book on page 307. Even his retouched photo is pretty similar to WMB's own handwriting.
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* PG used a photo WMB took of this formation as a reference point in locating Eagle Rock. Locally, this formation itself is called, "Eagle Rock." This photo is provided as a free download from Tucson Tabernacle (https://france30.tucsontabernacle.org/downloads/b-board, accessed and downloaded 4-22-26).
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 very 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)