Cloudy with a Chance of Thunderbirds

Several years ago, I read a book entitled Shadow of the Thunderbird by Dallas Tanner.  It was a pretty exciting story, though parts were a bit unbelievable.  That's what fiction is for, though, suspending your belief and letting your imagination fly away with you.

This book is the first of a trilogy by Mr. Tanner touching on several cryptids, including Bigfoot, Nessie and the Thunderbird.  The protagonist is a cryptozoologist out to prove that his childhood encounter with Bigfoot was real.  In the process, he is recruited by a top-secret research operation out of New York and is sent on a mission to find the truth behind several sightings of the legendary Thunderbird.  Dallas Tanner takes the Native American stories and sightings from the last couple centuries and ties them together into this fantastic book.

But I'm not here to tell you about this book.  Instead, I'll seek some enlightenment on the famous Thunderbird.

Photo from http://en.wikipedia.org

According to Native American folklore, the Thunderbird is a giant raptor with the power to control storms.  These birds were dark in color, with gigantic wings from whence the clapping of thunder could be heard when beating.  When the bird blinked, sheet lightning would appear.  Lightning strikes were the golden snakes carried as it flew. Native Americans represent the birds in totems with multi-colored heads, two curling horns and teeth in its beak.

Thunderbirds are the bringers of storms, controlling the rain in Native American culture.  Some say it roosts at the top of high mountains, others in a nest at the top of the tree of life.  The birds would protect the Indians from evil spirits in the form of snake-men.  Many said they were solitary creatures, while some thought they lived as a community.  Those that were tribes could transform into human form by tilting their beak back like a mask and shedding their feathers as a blanket from their shoulders.  These groups lived closer to northern Washington or in Ontario, though Thunderbird folklore spreads from the Great Lakes to the American Southwest and across the Pacific coast.

Across the ocean, there are similar stories.  Legends from continental India and the Arab nations tell of a large bird that could carry off an elephant in its talons.  This bird, called the Roc, is described across Europe also, as well as literature such as 1001 Arabian Nights.

Photo from http://webdesign.gcufsd.net

Sightings of the Thunderbird go back to the 1800's.  One photo of a Thunderbird hung in front of a barn with several men standing in front of it was supposedly lost, then mysteriously turned up again in 2011.

Photo from http://markturnersmysteriousworld.blogspot.com

Many pictures of supposed Thunderbirds don't match up with the traditional description of the bird itself.  These photos match better with descriptions of prehistoric creatures - pterosaurs and rhamphorhynchus.  Some legends across the world tell of isolated populations of dinosaurs surviving extinction, which could explain some sightings and pictures - if they aren't hoaxes.

Photo from http://mysteriousuniverse.org

Of the actual sightings, in 1977 there was a 10-year-old boy who was playing with his friends in his yard in Illinois.  They saw two huge birds swoop down toward them.  While his friends were able to get to safety, the 60-pound boy was picked up by his shirt by one of the birds.  His mother came out to investigate the commotion.  She saw the bird carrying her son about a foot off the ground for about 40 feet until the bird dropped the struggling child.

Originally thought to be a large turkey vulture, it was discovered that this bird was a California Condor or an Andean Condor, though I'm not sure either bird would be able to pick up a child of this size.  And what were either species doing in Illinois?

In 2002, a bird with a 14-foot wingspan was seen flying over a couple of villages in Alaska.  Not only was it witnessed by people on the ground, but also by a pilot and his passengers.  If the thought that it might be a condor in this case crossed any one's mind, that changed when they saw the massive wingspan.  Condors only have a span of 9 feet.

While it is possible that these were both condors, many think that they may be a species of teratorn.  Teratorn are the ancestors of today's buzzards.  They were much larger than those buzzards we have today and were believed to have gone extinct in the Pleistocene Era, approximately 10,000 years ago.

The size of these ancient birds was amazing, the smallest having a wingspan of 12 feet, standing 30 inches tall and weighing 33 lbs.  Remains of this whopper were discovered in northern Oregon at the La Brea Tar Pits.  The largest of the teratorn, Argentavis magnificens, stood up to 26 feet tall with a 20-foot wingspan and weighed in at a massive 126 lbs.  Dallas Tanner explores the idea of a hidden colony of these monstrous birds surviving to the present in his book.

Photo from http://mysteriousuniverse.org

Could we have house-sized birds flying in our skies?  Are they hiding in the clouds or in a hidden aviary?  Are there dinosaurs soaring over our countryside?  Just ask the men in the photos.

Notes taken from http://webdesign.gcufsd.net, http://markturnersmysteriousworld.blogspot.com, http://mysteriousuniverse.org, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird_(mythology), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird_(cryptozoology), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratornithidae