The Thunderbird is a mythological creature and is a big part of many Native American tribes’ beliefs in North America, especially those of the Pacific Northwest Coast including parts of both the US and Canada. From tribe to tribe there are varying stories and belief in them. Such differing belief includes as a few examples, the Menominee Tribe believed that Thunderbirds lived on a giant mountain that floated through the sky and were able to control the elements and observe human life and that they were a great enemy of the Misikinubik, which were Great Horned Snakes, the Thunderbirds would defeat them to prevent mankind being devoured by them.
Featured Image: By Drhaggis from Wikimedia. License.
The Winnebago people believed Thunderbirds were able to delegate great powers to chosen people and also had a tradition that during fasting, any man who had a vision of a Thunderbird would go on one day to become a great war chief.
Meanwhile the Algonquian peoples believed that Thunderbirds were ancestors of humans and had many stories about Thunderbirds being the creators of the universe. They believed that these Thunderbirds also ruled over an upperworld, a good counterpart to the bad underworld which were ruled over by Great Horned Serpents. They believed that the Thunderbirds would protect the humans from these underwater serpents by hurling lightning at them.
But what is interesting is that many ordinary people have claimed to see giant birds in the skies, which have often been dubbed as Thunderbirds.
These many sightings often take place in more sparsely populated areas such as in the countryside’s and small towns/villages and is most often in the Northern US states and Canada, but sightings have also been reported on numerous occasions in more Southern US states. All in all, the Thunderbird is a giant and fearsome bird but in many Native American tribal beliefs they are seen as benevolent and a force of good and defender against things more sinister and it was a strong belief in many of the tribes that they punished the immoral. The belief is also widespread that the beating of their wings created the sound of thunder, which is possibly where their name comes from.
There was also belief in that they had many powers, such as the ability to turn people to stone, if they dared to anger Thunderbirds, releasing its fearsome nature and wrath against them. There was also belief that they had the power to control the weather, which they could use to both destroy and nurture life, as they saw fit. Some even believed they were able to shapeshift into humans and walk among them without being noticed… maybe if that part is real, perhaps that is how they hide so well if they do exist?
Common descriptions from eyewitnesses of these creatures are that they are immense in size and often dark in colour and resemble that of a bird of prey, such as a raptor. The length of their wings are often described as reminiscent of a small airplane, spanning anywhere from 20-25 feet in length and in a number of accounts longer still! Such birds with this length of wingspan are not documented as existing today in science, with the largest accepted living bird wingspan being that of the Wandering Albatross, with a wingspan reaching 12ft, which is already freaking huge.
Of course, it isn’t completely impossible that there may be a bird out there a bit bigger than that, but it is clearly extremely rare if there are and science has yet to discover it. There is though the interesting case of the Washington Eagle, a species of eagle that ornithologist John James Audubon claimed to have sighted at least four times, the first sighting being in 1814, which he saw flying along the bluffs of the upper Mississippi River, he even claimed to have killed one of them to put into his book. This bird was described as having a wingspan as large as 10-16ft, which if it did actually exist, made it the largest wingspan existing today and in all of North America at full length.
At the time it was accepted fairly widely as a new species, and there was even another who claimed to have captured one alive, a Naturalist from Boston called Dr. Lemuel Hayward, he eventually killed it with mercury and sent the specimen to a museum, possibly the London Linnaeum Musuem, which claimed they did receive the specimen, but later auctioned it off, its whereabouts now unknown. But it is now widely accepted by professionals that the Washington Eagle wasn‘t real. Some say it was a simple case of mistaken identity with a juvenile bald eagle or other eagles, others though say it may have existed but is now extinct, but proof of this is yet to be found.
If it does still exist or if it ever existed, could this be what is mistaken as a Thunderbird? Although its huge wingspan was still beaten by the usual reports of the Thunderbirds wingspan…
So, the immense length of the Thunderbirds reported wingspan certainly singles it out… what could people be seeing to mistake such a length of wingspan… if it is a mistake at all? And if they are real, the big question of “how are they keeping themselves hidden so well if they are so huge?” Comes about. Many believers will often argue that they are perhaps in such small numbers that they often are able to keep themselves hidden, as well as staying away from more populated areas and keeping themselves in the sparse wilderness. Perhaps they are also much more intelligent than the usual animal? The Native Americans would certainly believe so.
There was once giant birds that roamed the Americas, back in more prehistoric times with wingspans that are much more in-line with those reported on the Thunderbird, which have been proven through numerous fossil finds and research conducted on them, such prehistoric birds have included the Pelagornis sandersi, with the sole and only discovered specimen estimated to have a wingspan of 20-24ft, a truly monstrous gigantic bird, with the fossil dating back 25 million years during the Oligocene period. This fossil was found at Charleston International Airport, in the US State of South Carolina as early as 1983, discovered during the construction of a new terminal.
Another was that of the Argentavis, also called a Giant Teratorn, one of the largest flying birds to have ever existed, fossils of this very old bird have been found in Northwest Argentina, dating back to the Late Miocene period and wingspans have been debated and estimated to be anywhere from 16 to 26 feet.
So clearly such massive birds did once exist, but could it be possible that tiny population of these birds could still potentially exist? Or perhaps some distant cousins hiding out in the wilderness away from prying eyes?
Skeptics have said many times that it can be, as usual, simple mis-identification, perhaps even of larger than usual species of a bird that has grown freakish big, which in of itself isn’t a totally proven thing either and it would have to grow pretty freakish big indeed to produce some of the eyewitness sightings that are reported. Some historians, such as Andrienne Mayor and Tom Holland have theorized that discovery of pterosaur fossils by Native American tribes could have led to the belief of the Thunderbird. Others believe that early Native Americans may have witnessed now-extinct animals, a number of which came apart of their belief, such as the case with the Thunderbird.
We also need to make I think a logical distinction here between the legendary mythological Thunderbird from Native American belief and the apparent cryptid version of the Thunderbird that people have been seeing, as it is likely if they do exist, they won’t abide by Native American belief and won’t have the powers they are said to have and could even be totally different from each other. Although, this is a strange world, so who knows.
I do like to myself be weary of Native American beliefs as I think some of it can actually be quite scary, such as that of the Wendigo which we will talk about soon and then Skinwalkers as well, they really have some superstitious stuff in all of that and it is always good to be on the safe side of things and respect the traditions of these peoples, I know I would, cause none of these creatures aren’t going to be getting me… I hope. I’m the kind of person who all though may not fully believe in such things, still make sure to be careful and not foolish, just in case.
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