They thought they were escaping the Olde Worlde, but the New World had a special hell in store...

Researchers uncovered shocking new information regarding the grizzly-bear-sized snowy owl that has been terrorizing the United States from Washington DC to San Francisco. A team of intrepid archaeologists working in the Jamestown settlement area of Virginia unearthed a collection of photos dating from the earliest years of European settlement in North America. Those photos included several astonishing images of a giant snowy owl engaged in acts of carnage and destruction that eerily recalled events of recent weeks.

A giant snowy owl flies over Berkeley Plantation in a photo believed to date to 1619

Dr. D. Freemont, who led the team that uncovered the photos, believes that they date from the early 17th century. 'One of the photos shows a huge owl flying over Berkeley Plantation, which apparently was the site of the first official Thanksgiving in America, in 1619,' Freemont explained. 'My sources say that celebration ended in tragedy when the entire party of colonists vanished, leaving behind only blood and a few shredded limbs. For a long time, we thought it must have been the Indians, but this new evidence suggests that maybe we should reconsider that theory.'

Two colonial citizens meet their demise under the deadly talons

The photos were discovered when Freemont's team noticed an unusual pattern in the sandy soil near their dig site. One of their members, an expert in the controversial, cutting-edge technique of using dynamite in archaological digs, blew a perfectly rectangular hole 1.73 m deep, revealing an oaken casket.

Freemont commented, 'Being more of an egyptologist than an early-modern kind of guy, i wasn't sure what we had here, but when we were able to get the chest open, I knew what we had was something really important.'

The owl feeds on a prized thoroughbred belonging to the governor of a colony

The earliest photograph, believed to date to 1619, shows the owl flying over Berkeley plantation. The other photographs showed a large white owl ripping the heads off colonists, eating a horse that is believed to have belonged to the governor of either Virginia or Massachusetts, or possibly George Washington, crushing more colonists beneath his feet, and glaring menacingly at colonists as it sits atop the Capitol building in Williamsburg, home to Virginia's House of Burgesses.

Coming in for a landing right on top of some hapless colonists

While the specific dates of the four photos not depicting Berkely plantation are unknown at this time, Freemont's team believes they probably depict events around 1776, when America declared independence from Great Britain. Freemont points out, 'If you look really closely at the guy standing to the left of the building [in the photo directly above], you can see it's Patrick Henry, and he looks like he just gave a rousing speech in favor of independence. I'm also pretty sure the couple on the right are George and Martha Washington.'

The owl perches atop the House of Burgess in Williamsburg

Based on the photos and other historical records, Freemont and his team estimate the death toll caused by the owl in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries may have been between three and around 8,000. 'We really have to reconsider the death toll caused by American Indians,' said Freemont. 'What if it wasn't Indians, but a giant owl that killed all those colonists back then?'

The details of the past events might also be less important than their implication for the present. 'I'm not trying to downplay the historical importance of the events in these pictures, but what strikes me the most is how closely the owl in these photos resembles the owl that attacked people on Free Cone Day. I mean, look at the pictures, it looks like exactly the same owl,' said Freemont. 'Maybe we, the present, need to learn from the past.'

A faculty member of a prestigious university offered a different perspective. Speaking authoritatively in a British accent, this academic asked to remain anonymous 'because it could damage my career to give even the barest suggestion of taking Freemont's ridiculous claims seriously'. He said, 'Anyone who looks at these photos and thinks there really was a giant snowy owl flying around Virginia in the 17th and 18th centuries has [expletive] for brains and would be a likely candidate for a Darwin award.'

The anonymous academic commented, 'Admittedly, there was a broadside from the early 1770s that referenced a "Daemon of the most hellish Nature, in the Form of a white Owell of great Proportion and Magnitude that was spewn forth by the foul papist land of Quebeck and incited against the Inhabitants of these Parts by a cruell and tyrannical Government in England". However, we have always believed, and the sane among us continue to believe, that this was purely an allegorical or figurative reference to the Quebec Act, and not a literal description of a giant snowy owl that was terrorising colonists in Virginia. The notion is utterly preposterous.