Thunderbirds Away
Way Of The Ray
COPIED: January 15, 2001
http://www.parascope.com/en/cryptozoo/predators10.htm
10. THUNDERBIRD
The strange case of the Thunderbird is unique in the study of unknown
animals, because it contains two mysteries in one: the search for a
long-lost and probably nonexistent photograph of the creature has
virtually
eclipsed the search for the creature itself.
The Thunderbird is a part of Native American mythology in tribes of the
Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes. These giant, birdlike creatures
were
said to generate lightning from their eyes and to cause thunderclaps by
flapping their massive wings in the sky. There are countless sightings
on
record of the revered supernatural entity, or a huge bird fitting its
description, both by Native Americans and the "white man."
The most celebrated Thunderbird encounter took place in 1890, on the
desert
sands of what was then the Arizona Territory. Two cowboys had a bizarre
confrontation which has varied widely in the telling, but the gist of
the
story is this: they saw a giant flying bird, shot and killed it with
their
rifles, and carried its spectacular carcass into town.
A report in the April 26, 1890 Tombstone Epigraph listed the creature's
wingspan as an alarming 160 feet, and noted that the bird was about 92
feet
long, about 50 inches around at the middle, and had a head about eight
feet
long. The beast was said to have no feathers, but a smooth skin and
wingflaps "composed of a thick and nearly transparent membrane... easily
penetrated by a bullet." Perhaps the hardest part of this story to
swallow
is that two horses could manage to haul a dead behemoth like this for
any
distance.
Sounds like a typical tall tale of the Wild West, and that's probably
what
it is. But it apparently does contain a kernel of truth. In 1970, Harry
McClure claimed that as a boy he knew the two cowboys from the story
later
in their lives, and they had told him a different version of the events.
McClure said the giant bird they saw in the desert actually had a
wingspan
of more like 20 to 30 feet -- much more reasonable than 160, but still
enormous. The two riders shot at the creature, but it was out of range.
Their spooked horses refused to chase it, so the men rode into town
empty-handed, carrying only news of the one that got away.
The Tombstone newspaper printed its highly embroidered version of the
cowboy's sighting, which was spared from fading into obscurity by its
inclusion in a 1930 book on the Old West. In 1963, the story came to the
attention of writer Jack Pearl, who revived the tale for an article in a
pulpy men's adventure magazine called Saga. As if the Epigraph report
hadn't
spiced up the facts enough already, Pearl liberally embellished the
encounter into a dramatic rip-snorter entitled "Monster Bird That
Carries
Off Human Beings!"
Pearl pushed the date of the encounter back to 1886, and he described
the
witnesses as two prospectors who killed the bird and proudly showed off
their trophy in Tombstone. Pearl also added some extra conflict by
telling
of a how a second Thunderbird snatched up a heckler who had ridiculed
the
prospectors and flew away with him in its talons. But Pearl's most
significant editorialization was this: he said that the Epigraph
newspaper
story had run with a photograph of the giant bird's carcass, nailed up
to a
wall with its mighty wingspan unfurled, and a number of men posing next
to
it for scale.
This part of the legend, the Thunderbird photo, has taken on a life of
its
own. Pearl's fictional account of a photograph of Old West settlers with
a
big dead bird was picked up and repeated time and again, multiplying and
evolving just as it had before Pearl ever got hold of it.
In time, people who heard the story began to believe that they had
previously seen the photo with their own eyes. Somehow, people felt
convinced that they had once marveled at the strange picture in some old
book or newspaper, often noting that they didn't realize the
significance of
the photo at the time, and regretting that they had not kept it. The
details
might differ from one recollection to the other, with some recalling the
bird had feathers and others saying it looked more like a pterodactyl,
and
some thinking the bird was nailed to a wall and others remembering that
it
was held with wings outstretch by a large group of men. But no matter
what
the specifics, each person feels certain his or her memory is true.
Many have reported that they saw the Thunderbird photo in FATE Magazine,
National Geographic, Grit, or some other similar publication, but entire
archives of these periodicals have been searched, and no Thunderbird
discovered. The experts in the cryptozoology field are no less
susceptible
to Thunderbird recollections than the common layman, with Ivan T.
Sanderson
and John A. Keel among those who claim to have once held the photo in
their
hands. Some accounts of seeing the photo are amazingly precise and hard
to
disregard. Larry Thomas told Strange Magazine that he saw the photo in a
library in the early 1980s, as an adult, in a thin hardcover book of
photography from the Old West. He says that he was so fascinated by the
picture that he looked at it dozens of times over a four-year period,
and he
even checked the book out once so he could take it home for his wife to
see.
(The illustration on this page is based on Thomas's recollection.)
It's difficult to tell someone that an experience as vivid as that never
really happened, but what is the alternative? What's the word with the
Thunderbird?
The best explanation for the phantom photo phenomenon is that these are
memories of things that never existed. It might simply be that people
have
read descriptions of the cowboys and the giant bird that were so
colorful
and evocative that their imaginations created a near-tangible mental
image
of the scene. As the controversy surrounding "false memory syndrome" has
demonstrated, the things we think we recall can be distorted by external
suggestion, mismatched fragments of things that did happen, and maybe
even
debris from the collective subconscious. Some might view this line of
reasoning as party-pooping skepticism, but if it's correct, what it
reveals
about the mysteries of the human mind is way more interesting than any
big
bird could ever hope to be.
Sources
Weird Predators Petting Zoo Entrance
Enigma: More Bizarre Creatures
ParaScope: Something Strange is Happening!