Cryptid Thunderbird Photograph Missing
Other Alleged Unidentified Mystery Animal, UMA, Images Exist
Mar 18, 2009
Gigantic birds have been reported in various geographic locations. Europeans call them rocs, named after the mythological bird of prey; North Americans, the Thunderbird, based on Native American legend.
Comanches called it ba'a'; Potawatomis, chequah. Some Native American Tribes believed he brought thunder and rain by flapping his wings and lightning, by closing his eyes. In North America, most modern sightings are reported in Pennsylvania and the Central states.
Possible Thunderbirds Filmed and a Terrifying Experience
In 1977, 10-year-old Marlon Lowe and two friends were playing in a yard when they saw two huge birds in Lawndale, Illinois. Marlon was snatched by one of the birds. Four adults heard his screams and ran to help him. The bird freed the boy after flying 40 feet away. Witnesses said the cryptid resembled a condor, but was much larger.
On July 30,1977, photographer John Huffer, an ex-marine, shot a one hundred foot color film roll of two birds taking off from a tree by a Lake Shelbyville inlet in Illinois.
The motion picture concentrates on one of the birds. Some believe the bird is a turkey vulture. Others believe it’s a possible UMA. There’s been little, if any, scientific evaluation of the video.
Lost Thunderbird Snapshot, Ivan Sanderson and Forteana
It’s called the "Thunderbird Photograph" which, allegedly, was taken in Texas at the end of the nineteenth century. The image depicts six adult men clothed in Western attire in front of a barn, standing fingertip to fingertip, where the bird is nailed to an exterior wall.
Many have claimed to have seen or held this photo. The late Ivan T. Sanderson reportedly had a copy in 1966. He said he gave it to a couple of Pennsylvanians who were searching for the Thunderbird, then lost the snapshot.
Sanderson was a naturalist, paranormalist, cryptozoologist and follower of Charles Hoy Fort who researched and wrote about paranormal and anomalous phenomena. Many of these anomalies are referred to as Fortean Phenomena and Forteana, while others, such as cryptozoology, the scientific study of hidden animals, and Ufology, have their own fields.
The Thunderbird Photograph was alleged to have been published in an 1886 edition of the Tombstone Arizona Epitaph. In 1963, Jack Pearl wrote an article, "The Monster Bird That Carries off Human Beings!" in Saga magazine.
After the article was published, the Epitaph and others conducted an extensive search for the Thunderbird Photograph and found none, but discovered an article dated April 26, 1890 about a sixteen foot bird that ranchers found in the desert.
Existing Thunderbird Images
The Internet and other media have many versions of the alleged lost photo. Some are artists’ depictions; others are computer generated ones and presented as such. There are those that purport to be the lost photograph.
Images include:
- Five men in Western clothing standing behind a big bird lying on the ground;
- Drawing of six men in Western attire holding a Thunderbird in front of them;
- The “Mystery Civil War Pterodactyl” photograph which was computer generated for a televised Sci-Fi program;
- Artists’ renditions of Marlon’s abduction, and;
- Drawings and sketches of the Thunderbird, some based on witnesses’ description; others, from artists’ imaginations.
Extensive Internet searches haven’t uncovered the photograph of six men standing in front of a barn with the huge bird nailed to the building behind them.
It appears that the lost Thunderbird Photograph is as mysterious as the cryptid itself. Could it be that this image never existed?
Related Reading on the Thunderbird
Readers may also enjoy Thunderbird, the Cryptid.
Sources:
- Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Clark, Jerome, (New York, 1999).
- Unexplained!, Jerome Clark, (Visible Ink, 1999).
