Great Seal > Myth > Eagle Side Myth and Misinformation about the Eagle Side Great Seal The American Bald Eagle has always faced the olive branch in its right talon. It was the eagle on the Seal of the President who used to look the other way. The eagle was not first a phoenix. Both an eagle and a phoenix appear together in the design suggested by the third Great Seal committee. And the phoenix was an appropriate, positive symbol "emblematical of the expiring Liberty of Britain, revived by her Descendants, in America." Congress approved Charles Thomson's eagle design the same day he submitted it – June 20, 1782. There was no "great debate amongst the Founding Fathers" about which bird would be the national one – as suggested by The History Channel program "Secrets of the Dollar Bill." More than a year after the Great Seal was adopted, Ben Franklin mused privately in a letter to his daughter about the wild turkey as a good symbol for "the temper and conduct of America." The eagle's tail feathers do not symbolize the Supreme Court, which did not exist when the Great Seal was adopted in 1782. The number of feathers in the tail and wings are not specified in the official 1782 description of the Great Seal. Neither are the number of olives or leaves. These details are determined by artists and engravers. They have no intended symbolic significance. The number thirteen is not "hidden" in the design of the Great Seal. It is clearly specified for several symbolic elements. The number of stars above the eagle is thirteen, but their individual shape is not specified as five-pointed or six-pointed, so there is no intended symbolic significance to their shape. Government versions of the eagle side of the Great Seal are not true to the original 1782 design that specifies rays of light breaking through a cloud. Also, the constellation of stars should be in a natural configuration. Much speculation is made about the symbolic intent of the hexagram pattern (two intersecting triangles that form a six-pointed star), but it may have been only a simple rearrangement of the 13 stars on the first American flag. The more we learn about what the founders put into the Great Seal – what its symbols and mottoes meant to them – the more we get out of it. The Great Seal has only been on the dollar bill since 1935, but television networks have denigrated the emblem of America – turning it into merely a financial symbol used as a background image for stories related to money. But NBC earns the clueless award for using the eagle side of the Great Seal in their "Fleecing of America" segment right after airing a report about America's national bird, the magnificent bald eagle being taken off the endangered species list. Recognize Myth and Misinformation about the Pyramid & Eye side which was not designed by Freemasons. Great Seal Symbols | Mottoes History | Myths Sightings ©2008 GreatSeal.com