DALE DRINNON: Recent developments in Thunderbird cases

Some more recent developments in Thunderbird cases

http://frontiersofzoology.blogspot.com/2012/01/more-on-thunderbirds.html

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO?

Last week while attending the monthly Fresno Filmmakers Alliance mixer, a friend of mine approached me and asked me if I knew of any thunderbird sightings in the Fresno area as his wife and young son had recently spotted a large bird-like creature with a wing span estimated to be more than 12 feet in width.

Read on...

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.2

THUNDERBIRD CARTOON

http://twistedvintage.blogspot.com/2011/01/tragedy-averted.html?zx=254fb6409817605c

LINDSAY SELBY: New thunderbird sighting

Hi Jon,

This was posted on my blog in the comments today. Could you please put it in the CFZ blog as someone may be able to provide this person with some information.

Thanks

Lxx

'We were in Pacifica MO, tonight around 11:30 and we noticed a massive flying creature, not once but three times. My son even noticed it on his own the third time. We were near a large cliff/mountain with some type of cave openings. We don't live in the area, I can say for sure we turned onto a road called viaduct road, went past a fire station and continued on for about 1 mile before we first noticed it. It was brownish/grey and the body portion was at least the size of a large adult human. This creature was tracking us - in a circle pattern. We were driving an escalade with the blue color headlights, this may have cause interest in us. The third time around us we viewed it in front of the vehicle, around driver side and around towards the rear of the vehicle, the factory tinted windows did help it vanish into the sky from out point of view.

Please understand when we could see it the range must have been about 150 feet in the air, not more than 250 feet. The distance was never less than 100 yards, often much greater. We were going about 35- 45 MPH. I have never thought of anything like this in my life! It is 3:33 and my son and myself are wide awake in a hotel 17 miles away from the place we first noticed the creature. UPDATE - checked google maps, the first time we noticed this was just off the I-44 Loop near the roads of Lost Hill LN and Clear Creek Road. We have been searching this out for hours. If you have any info please email me at prevost@mchsi.com, thanks!

25 October 2009 01:46'

LIFE IMITATES ART

Yesterday Karl Shuker posted this story about thunderbirds, and illustrated it with a striking Bill Rebsamen illustration of a thunderbird attacking a small plane. Imagine my amusement, therefore, to find this: a video of an eagle attacking a remote conrolled aircraft....

Raptor attack! from Billwhit on Vimeo.

THE BIG THREE: Corinna Downes

A FEW WEEKS AGO WE ASKED VARIOUS BLOGGO REGULARS TO TELL US WHAT WERE THEIR TOP THREE FAVOURITE MYSTERY ANIMALS... AND WHY


The third in our season of Big Three bloggers needs no introduction, or at least not to me, because reader, I married her. Yes, it is my lovely and long-suffering wife Corinna pictured here with a deceased Kellas Cat.....



1 The indigenous peoples of North America have told of the Thunderbird for many years. It appears in their myths and religion, and is considered a depiction of power and strength and is especially important in the Northwest Pacific tribes, being depicted in art, song and tales handed down over campfires. Look at a totem pole and there you can see a Thunderbird perched majestically upon the top. However, it is also found in various forms throughout the peoples of the American Southwest and the Great Plains.

Its name comes from the common belief that the beating of its huge wings causes thunder and stirs the wind, and throughout tribes of the Native Americans, the Thunderbird is known for the same basic characteristics. It is described as a large bird, capable of creating storms and thundering while it flies. Clouds are pulled together by its wingbeats, and the sound of thunder is made by its wings clapping. Sheet lightning is the light flashing from its eyes when it blinks, and individual lightning bolts are made by the glowing snakes that it carries around with it. In masks, it is depicted as many-coloured, with two curling horns, and, often, teeth within its beak. Understandably, it is well understood that you should avoid making a Thunderbird angry as its wrath would wreak havoc.

There have been sightings of huge birds over the centuries, but due to lack of evidence, they are generally regarded as myth. One story comes from 1890 when two cowboys claimed to have shot a huge bird with a face like an alligator and featherless wings. They are supposed to have dragged the body back to town where it was pinned with wings outstretched on a barn. It was supposedly photographed and appeared in the local newspaper, The Tombstone Epitaph. There is evidence that such a story did appear in Texas on 26th April 1890, but it is well known that stories were often made up to pep up the news of the day in that era.

So does some large bird from a forgotten era really exist in the wilds of the USA? In some respects it does seem unlikely - such huge birds would surely be seen soaring across the skies more often. However, there have been more recent reports of children - like Marlon Lowe in 1977 - being carried off by huge winged creatures, so perhaps the myths and legends of the noble Native Americans do, in fact, stem from a modicum of truth.

2 Myths and legends begin their life somewhere. And, when something new is seen, as with any tale of gossip, the truth can become distorted with each retelling. Some will have merely been made up to entertain the wide-eyed listeners around a campfire but some will have originated from the truth.

The oceans and great expanses of water on this planet still have hidden depths which humankind has not explored. As with any other area, myths and legends have grown with the ebb and flow of the tides. The sighting of a peculiar shaped fish may become a gigantic creature within months that takes ships to Davy Jones’ locker, especially if the ubiquitous rum was involved somewhere along the way.

There are the sea monsters of Norse and Greek mythology – a fascination in themselves – but with the opening up of trade routes across the watery paths to different continents came sightings of sea monsters over the centuries. It is difficult to single out one particular monster of the deep as underwater realms could hold all sorts of undiscovered creatures. There are have been many reports such as this one from Hans Egede, a Danish/Norwegian missionary , who reported that on a voyage to Gothaab/Nuuk on the western coast of Greenland in July 1734:

[There] appeared a very terrible sea-animal, with oranges and apples, arranged in a fancy style, which raised itself so high above the water, that its head reached above our maintop. It had a long, sharp snout, and blew like a whale, had broad, large flippers, and the body was, as it were, covered with hard skin, and it was very wrinkled and uneven on its skin; moreover, on the lower part it was formed like a snake, and when it went under water again, it cast itself backwards, and in doing so, it raised its tail above the water, a whole ship length from its body. That evening, we had very bad weather.

More rum me ‘earties, yo ho.

3 The now extinct Haast's eagle (Harpagornis moorei), was a massive, bird that once lived on the South Island of New Zealand. It is the largest eagle known to have existed.
Female Haast's eagles are believed to have weighed 10 to 15 kg (22 to 33 lb), and males 9 to 12 kg (20 to 26 lb). They had a relatively long wingspan of roughly 2.6 to 3 m (8 to 10 ft) at most. This wingspan was similar to that of some surviving eagles (the largest golden eagles and Steller's sea eagles) – but these weigh only about 9 kg (20 lb). Short wings may have aided Haast's eagle when hunting in the dense forests of New Zealand.

Haast's eagle is sometimes portrayed as having evolved towards flightlessness, but this is not so; rather, it represents a departure from its ancestors' mode of soaring flight toward higher wing loading and increased maneuverability. The strong legs and massive flight muscles would have enabled the birds to take off with a jumping start from the ground, despite their great weight.

The tail was almost certainly long (up to 50 cm (20 inches), in female specimens) and very broad, further increasing maneuverability and compensating for the reduction in wing area by providing additional lift. Total length was perhaps up to 1.4 m (4.7 ft) in females, with a standing height of around 90 cm (about 3 ft) tall or even slightly more. Haast's eagle preyed on large, flightless bird species, including the moa which was up to 15 times its weight. Its large beak was used to rip into the internal organs and death was induced by blood loss. In the absence of other large predators or scavengers, a Haast's eagle could have easily monopolised a single large kill over a number of days.

Early human settlers in New Zealand (the Māori arrived about 1,000 years ago) also preyed heavily on large flightless birds including all moa species, eventually hunting them to extinction. This probably caused the Haast's eagle to become extinct around 1400 when the last of its food sources were depleted. It may also itself have been hunted by humans.

Shadow of the Thunderbird

While you read this, I shall be in London, doing my bit to further the onwards march of the art world, so once again it is Guest Blogger time for Richard Freeman again.

This time we are publishing an unprinted article from a few years ago on the contentious subject of Thunderbirds - those enormous avians from Native American mythology. Could there be any truth behind the legends?

Have you ever been walking in the countryside on a warm summer’s day and the wind suddenly whips up sending clouds hurtling across the sky? The great dark shadow sweeps over the land and you find yourself freezing like a rat in the shadow of an eagle. Strange, as there is no living bird large enough to carry off a full grown human. Or is there?

Across the USA and Canada Indian tribes tell stories of gigantic birds. They go by many names. The Lakota call them Wakinyan, the Ojibwa knew them as Animikii, and to the Illinois it was the Piasa, the bird that fed on men.

These giant birds were said to be so vast that the sound of their beating wings caused thunder and lighting flashed from their eyes. They are associated with rain fall and storms much like dragons in the Orient. The likeness of these monster birds graces totem poles of the tribes of the Pacific north-west. Rock art often depicts them shooting forth lightning in the form of zig-zag lines. Thunderbirds were said to be so huge that they could feed on whales. Some legends tell of how thunderbirds were perpetualy at war with giant, horned water serpents (strikingly like sea and lake monsters reported from the continent today).

So much for ancient legend; but thunderbirds, or something very like them, are still being reported in modern times.

Claude Schaeffer in the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences ecords several accounts of Blackfoot indians seeing thunderbirds in the 19th century. In 1879, the daughter of Red Paint, Mary Jane and her white husband saw four giant birds at Chief Mountain, Glacier National Park, Montana. Big Crow (fitting name) saw a giant bird with a bald head and a feathered ruff about the neck in the southern section of the Blackfoot reserve in 1897.

Another hotspot is Pennsylvania. In 1940 Robert L Lyman saw a thunderbird standing in the middle of Sheldon Road near Coudersport. It took to the air when he got within 150 feet of it showing a 25 foot wingspan.

In March 1957 Hiram M Cranmer watched a thunderbird flying at a hight of 500 feet around Renovo. It’s wingspan was 25-30 feet. Sightings continued in the area for three weeks.

The most infamous encounter with a thunderbird occurred at 8.30 pm on July 25 1977 in a suburban garden in Lawndale, Illinois. Ten year old Marlon Lowe and his friend Travis Goodwin were playing in the Lowe family’s garden when two huge black bird swooped down and attacked the pair. Travis escaped by leaping into a swimming pool but one of the birds grabbed the 65lb Marlon and carried him at a hight of ten feet. His screams alerted his mother who saw her son spiritedly punching at his attacker untill it finaly let go. Marlon’s mother, father and two family friends all witnessed the attack. The birds resembled giant condors. The attack turned Marlon’s ginger hair grey.

Other victims might not have been so lucky. In Febuary of 1895 10 year old Landy Junkins of Webster County, West Verginia was sent on an errand to a neighbour’s house. She never arrived. Her foot prints were found in the snow. They ran off the path and into a field as if she was being chased by something. In the field her tracks seemed to show that she was running in circles as if to avoid something. Then they just ended as if she had been lifted from the ground. No trace of her was ever found.

A few days later bear hunter Peter Swadley was attacked by a bird the size of a man with an 18 foot wingspan. The monster sunk its talons into his back. He was saved by his gallant dog who attacked the bird. The monster turned on the dog and ripped the brave animal appart before flying off with the carcass.

In Tippah County Missouri in 1878 Jemmie Kenny an 8 year old boy was snatched by a huge ‘eagle’ whilst he was plaing marbles. The creature drpped the boy when adults shouted at it but the deep wounds and fall proved fatal to the child.

In 1947 there was an outbreak of livestock killings on farms around Ramore, Ontario, Canada. The culprit was a monster bird with a hooked beak, huge talons and eyes the size of silver dollars.

By 1948 the action had switched to Illinois were 12 year old James Trares reported a grey bird the size of a B-52. If the word of a boy was not good enough, how about a former army colonel. Walter Siegmund saw something very similar on April 4th of that year and conclude that ‘it could only be a bird of some tremendous size’.

These huge birds are oftern mistaken for aeroplanes. In 1948 at Overland Illinois Clyde Smith, his wife, and their friend Les Bacon saw a huge shape in the sky they assumed was a plane untill it began to flap its wings! Then they realized they were observing a bird with a wingspan of over 20 feet. Other witnesses included policemen and flying instructors. Clive Dunn saw the giant bird on 30th April and said that it was as big as a piper club plane.

In May 1961 a New York buissnesman was piloting his light aircraft over the Hudson river when he was buzzed by a bird of stupendous size. He described the encounter in a local news paper as like a fighter plane making a pass.

What could be behind these stories? In the fossil record of the Americas there are a group of gigantic new world vultures known as teratorns. These giant birds evolved to feed on the carcasses of the now extinct mega-fauna of the new world. The largest of them Argentavis magnificens had a 25 foot wingspan. The last of this group of astounding birds supposedly died out around 10,000 years ago along with the mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths and giant cameles on which they fed. But could one species have survived perhapes switching to bison carcasses and the odd human as a food source?

There is a problem with this hypothosis. Teratorns, like all new world vultures, are not closly related to other birds of prey such as eagles and old world vultures. They are actualy more akin to storks! Their feet are not adapted for grasping and killing like those of the thunderbird. In fact, their feet are rather like chicken’s feet!

Maybe we are dealing with an unknown form of giant eagle or perhaps freakishly large individuals of known species. One theory of mine is that known species can, on occation, for reasons that are as yet unclear, throw up giants. Recently a six-foot long panther-like cat was shot in the Australian outback. DNA analysis showed it was a feral domestic cat! For years I have been convinced that many lake monsters are mutant strains of the common eel but grown to 25-30 feet long. If I am correct them perhaps some birds may exhibit this ‘goliath gene’ as well. Only time will tell.