Thunderbirds

The Thunderbird is a name given to any gigantic bird of prays that allegedly carries off full-grown humans to feed upon. The name comes from an assumed legend from various Indian cultures that have different names for similar birds:

Kwakwaka'wakw: Jojo.

Lakota: Wakinyan, meaning, “sacred,” and “winged,” at the same time. They believe these birds killed a race of reptilian monsters known as the Unktehila. Some scholars believe that the Indians used this legend to explain dinonsour fossils found in the area, and that the fossils of the winged pterosaur created the myth of the Thunderbird.

Nuu-chah-nulth: Kw-Uhnx-Wa. They believed that these enormous birds lived on top of mountains and would carry messages from the Great Spirit to other spirits. When it flew, it created thunderstorms.

Ojibwa: Animikii, which is closely associated with thunder.

However, some say that the legends are true and that the birds are still alive and well today.

In 1838 in Switzerland, a gigantic eagle supposedly carried off five year-old Marie Delex. Search parties found a huge nest with two chicks surrounded by goat and sheep bones, but there was no sign of the girl until someone found her body on a rock nearby.

In 1868 in Tippah County, Missouri, eight year-old Jemmie Kenny was reportedly carried off by a humungous bird while he was at recess with the other children; he was dropped when the other children began screaming and died on impact.

In April 1890, Arizona’s newspaper, the Tombstone Epitaph, supposedly published a picture of a large, bird-like creature that two cowboys had shot down. Cryptozoologists believe this creature was a prehistoric pterodactyl, if the beast was actually shot down.

In 1932, three year-old Svanhild Hantvigsen of Norway claimed she was carried off by an eagle but was rescued from its nest.

In 1673, French explorers Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquett were following the Mississippi River to see if it connected to the Pacific Ocean. When they reached the present location of Alton, Missouri, they noted a painting on the cliff walls along the river in their journals. It was a gigantic winged monster, painted green, black and red. It had a horse’s body and antlers, a long beard and tail, and sharp teeth and claws. The Native North American Illini Indians made this painting. Legend has it that this creature swooped out of the sky one day and carried off a full-grown person from the Illinwek Tribe. The other braves shot arrows at it, but it seemed impervious. The shaman of the tribe, Ouatoga named the beast Piasa (pronounced: Pie-uh-Saw), or, “bird that devours men.” The holy man fasted to learn the bird’s weakness and finally, the Great Spirits came to him and revealed its weakness. So, he used himself as bait and climbed to the highest peak of a cliff and soon the bird came for him. He grabbed onto some roots as the bird tried to carry him off, and the braves that were in hiding jumped out and shot their arrows under the bird’s wings, its only vulnerable spot. The bird fell into the Mississippi River and the painting was placed on the cliff to mark the event. For along time after, Indians would shoot arrows, and later bullets, at the painting for good luck. The piece of Native art was finally restored to all its glory by the city of Alton.

Is this legend just a myth? Consider what events took place 1948 in and around Alton in 1948. A series of sightings of a gigantic bird were reported by many eye-witnesses:

April 4: In Alton, Former Colonel, Walter F. Siegmund.

April 7: Farmer Robert Price of Caledonia.

April 10: Clyde Smith, his wife and their friend spotted a similar bird in Overland.

April 13: Chiropractor Kristine Dolezal spotted the bird outside of her apartment window; she said it barely missed a passing plane.

April 14: a flight instructor at the Lambert-St. Louis International Airport spotted a huge bird.

April 28: Salesman Harry Bradford spotted the bird off of King’s Highway in St. Louis.

April 30: Again in St. Louis, Clifford Warden and Mary and Charles Dunn spotted the bird.

May 5: In Alton, Arthur Davidson spotted the bird. Later that day, Mrs. William Stalling spotted it in St. Louis.

Is it just a coincidence that these sightings took place around Alton, where the legendary Piasa was killed?

The sightings didn’t just stop then. A series of sightings also took place in 1977 in Illinois:

July 25: In Lawndale, three boys were playing in the Lowe’s backyard when a huge bird seized ten year-old Marlon Lowe. His mother ran out of the house and saw her son being carried three feet off the ground. She screamed, and the boy was dropped unharmed. She reported that the bird had a wing-span of at least ten feet.

July 28: In McLean County, farmer Stanley Thompson spotted a similar bird. On the same day, James Majors saw two huge birds flying in the air, and later that day, a woman from Chester, Illinois reported she saw a huge bird sitting in a tree in her back yard.

More recently, a Thunderbird was reported in 2002 in Alaska. Skeptics point out that it was probably a Steller's Sea Eagle, a bird with a wingspan of up to eight feet. In 2003, one was allegedly sighted in Harrow, Ontario. In 2004, one was spotted in the Ohio Valley and was said to be a Californian condor. In 2004 in southern California, a high school student claimed to have seen one at the head of a thundercloud, but its wingspan was hundreds of feet long.

Is this, as many say, just a California condor? A large black bird with a wingspan up to 10 feet? This condor is very rarely found outside of California, and it is endangered. Can the Andean condor of the Andes Mountains in South America be mistaken for a Thunderbird? Considering they have never been seen outside of the mountains, it is highly unlikely.

Could a Turkey vulture, with a wingspan of up to 6 feet be the culprit? All vultures are carrion-eaters, after all, and wait until something is dead before it decides to eat it.

Could it be a simple eagle? The largest and most powerful eagle is the American Harpy eagle. Their wingspan is up to seven feet, but even the most powerful eagles can only lift something the size of a rabbit.

Many Cryptozoologists believe that the bird was a Giant Condor, also called an Aiolornis. They aren’t related to condors, but they had a wingspan of up to 18 feet. They became extinct 13,000 years ago, but some believe there may still be some alive and well in the United States.

Others believe that they could be prehistoric pterodactyls.

In The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs by Doctors David Norman and Peter Wellnhofer, there appeared two pictures of pterodactyls shot down by two separate Civil War units and one picture of a boy with what seems to be a baby pterodactyl. The photographs have never been authenticated.

So, is the Thunderbird real or just an Indian myth? The legend doesn’t explain similar stories found in the Middle East. The roc (also spelled rukh) is often white but is so large it can allegedly carry off an elephant. 13th century trader and explorer, Marco Polo, wrote the first written record of these birds:

“It was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size; so big in fact that its quills were twelve paces long and thick in proportion. And it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him, the bird swoops down on him and eats him at leisure.”

The birds had existed in Persian and Arabic oral tradition before then and, as the legend goes, attacked Sinbad the Sailor’s ship; the story was eventually written down in 1001 Nights’. It also appears under different names in various Middle Eastern countries:

Egypt: Phoenix.

Iran: Simurgh (or Simorgh).

Persia: Amrzs (or Slnamurv).

Skeptic say that perhaps this legend has been retold to account for the African ostrich, or perhaps even the enormous Aepyornis elephant bird, which was larger than an ostrich but was extinct around 120 AD.

The giant bird theme also appears in Hindu and Buddhist mythology as the Garuda, a great, winged beast that the creator-god Vishnu rides. Ancient Jewish tradition called such a creature Ziz, and it is large enough to block out the sun. Mythology in Fiji records a similar bird called a Kanivatu, and in China it is known as a Peng.

If the giant bird were indeed simply a symbol, it would have to be taken in the context of the time and area of the legend.