lost thunderbird pic

[Cryptid_Control]

Ahh, i remember the old topic for this Good times. Oh god, now i sound old . I think I might have seen it on a TV show once but i forget which one! I spent months last year searching for it!

And the hunt is ON!

[digitalartist]

Perhaps this is what some remember

http://www.burlingtonnews.net/thunderbird.html

[+HerNibs]

This is the picture I remember seeing in a book - post #3.

Nibs

[louisvilleseeker]

what likely happened is the govt erased as much as they could of this. but some got leaked, like the drawing, but none of the original pic... hmm... this reeks of a cryptid conspiracy..

[Cryptid_Control]

This is the picture I remember seeing in a book - post #3.

Nibs

That looks like what I saw, but not sketched.

[+HerNibs]

That looks like what I saw, but not sketched.

Right. I don't remember it being sketched either. It's just a good guide as to what we are all searching for.

Nibs

[Cynical Sounds]

Just something that should be said the "civil war" photos are fake. the original one (top one in the photo in post 14) was originally made for the TV show freaky links (made by the same production company that brought us the blair witch)which sprung a couple of copy cat photos.

as for the "missing thunderbird photo" I've always just considered it a confabulation (there's a word I don't get to use nearly enough)ask people where they saw it and alot of younger people will say the internet within the last 15 years older people tend to say books memories always vague and no1 can remember where they saw it and all copies have magically disappeared. To me a false memory is the most likely explanation.

[sam12six]

Just something that should be said the "civil war" photos are fake. the original one (top one in the photo in post 14) was originally made for the TV show freaky links (made by the same production company that brought us the blair witch)which sprung a couple of copy cat photos.

as for the "missing thunderbird photo" I've always just considered it a confabulation (there's a word I don't get to use nearly enough)ask people where they saw it and alot of younger people will say the internet within the last 15 years older people tend to say books memories always vague and no1 can remember where they saw it and all copies have magically disappeared. To me a false memory is the most likely explanation.

I agree. Like Nibs, I could swear I've seen a picture in an old book sometime when I was a kid. What I really believe is that I've seen the sketch a few hundred times (between print and online) and that power of suggestion has convinced my memory that it has seen an actual photo because I couldn't tell you when or where I saw it.

I think it's kind of like people saying, "You know how you can feel it when someone's looking at you?", and everyone just says, "Sure". I've tested this with many people being both looker and lookie but nobody seems to have this super power but it's just taken for granted that we all do...

[Cynical Sounds]

Also I forgot to add people often say it looks like the picture in nibs post (post 3) but alot of the stories behind the photo say it had no feathers and a alligators head where the sketch clearly shows neither

[Kar-zid]

I remember seeing it both on the internet AND in a book. I'm about 15 and a half, so it wasn't that long ago, maybe 4 or 5 years TOPS. I remember specifically a giant bird, nailed to a wall of a barn, and a few men down the bottom holding hands. The sketch is not what I saw, I saw the photo, I'm sure of that much. But the sketch DOES look an awful lot like the photo. If anyone's game, we can start an internet wide search. With google, forum sites and even the searching of actual books, someone might find this thing.

To detail it a bit more, the men down the bottom were using their combined arm widths to show the sheer size of this amazing bird.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Kar-zid

[louisvilleseeker]

everyone who says they saw a photo - and there are a great deal of them, couldnt all be imagining things, could they? and another thing, they all aggree, this picture dissappeared sometime recently, and very suddenly.

[Essan]

This is the picture I remember seeing in a book - post #3.

Nibs

Having been interested in cryptozoology for the best part of 35 years ....... I can honestly state that whilst I have seen the sketch a number of time, I have never seen the original photo, if it ever existed.

However, I'm sure I have seen another picture that hasn't featured in this thread yet

But it's not this one either:

http://forgetomori.com/2008/skepticism/the-brazilian-lost-thunderbird-false-fortean-memories/

Maybe I just think I remember ......

[Cynical Sounds]

everyone who says they saw a photo - and there are a great deal of them, couldnt all be imagining things, could they? and another thing, they all aggree, this picture dissappeared sometime recently, and very suddenly.

honestly I can't see how it could be recently, 30-40 years ago the missing thunderbird photo was already considered missing but as you can see from this thread there are tho who claim to have seen it within the last 5 years. how is this possible something cannot be missing yet cropping up every now and again just to vanish back into the ether. I mean Ivan Sanderson died in what 73 and he claimed to have owned a copy of the thunderbird photo (loosing it in the early 60's)

seriously the only answer that makes sense is a mass confabulation

[Mikezilla]

Hi, just joined the forums. I could swear I've seen that picture too, maybe in a book I got out of the library years ago. Looked and looked, can't find it either on the net. Was supposedly published in the Tombstone Epitaph on April 26th, 1890. Now it's gonna drive me nuts....not that I had that far to go,lol.

[Dimly]

There's no such thing as a thunderbird or 'the thunderbird pic' but the fact that EVERYBODY can allegedly remember seeing the pic somewhere is an extremely interesting phenomenon. I've never seen anything like it before.

Hell, I actually feel like there was a picture like that in a book I had as a kid... except I know there's no way that's possible. Or even if there was 'a' pic in some book I had, there's no way it was 'the' pic because every damn copy of it could not have disappeared off the face of the planet, especially with everyone looking for it.

[isis-999]

You had me until i seen it was on YouTube....

[Kar-zid]

Okay, so I bought the book Mysteries of the Unexplained off eBay (came with another nice little book, Great Hauntings, only $11 Australian, pretty good. Also this is the 1982 Reader's Digest version, which if I remember correctly is the reissue without the photo). I looked across the whole 'Monsters and More' category, no Thunderbird photo. Even looked through 'The Unquiet Sky' and nothing. To be fair, it IS the 1982 version, and not the 1960 (I'm pretty sure that was the year...) version which I could not find. It's still extremely interesting for anyone interested, so many things I hadn't heard of or known in both books.

Also, just had a quick look in the Index pages, and Thunderbird isn't even in the book. If this IS the reissued version, then they took it out completely.

[Everybody's Fool]

i know for a fact i seen tha photo. i can even remember what school i was at when i seen tha pic in a book at tha school's library. i know this isn't a "phenomenon" of me having a false memory because i remembered wondering about tha pic before i even came to UM. then this weird 'missing photo' thing happened, it's just weird.

[Cynical Sounds]

i know for a fact i seen tha photo. i can even remember what school i was at when i seen tha pic in a book at tha school's library. i know this isn't a "phenomenon" of me having a false memory because i remembered wondering about tha pic before i even came to UM. then this weird 'missing photo' thing happened, it's just weird.

contact the school ask for the book/to photocopy the book.

anyway its not like they will have it (it would have magically disappeared). Anyway false memories can be very detailed, and a false memory can be created at anytime (so you could have "remembered" this when you later came across the story)thats kinda the whole thing of false memories you dont know they are fake.

as I have pointed out the photograph HAS BEEN CONSIDERED MISSING SINCE THE 70'S maybe even earlier. there is no way this image could exist and still be cropping up without some1 coming up with it by now

Okay, so I bought the book Mysteries of the Unexplained off eBay (came with another nice little book, Great Hauntings, only $11 Australian, pretty good. Also this is the 1982 Reader's Digest version, which if I remember correctly is the reissue without the photo). I looked across the whole 'Monsters and More' category, no Thunderbird photo. Even looked through 'The Unquiet Sky' and nothing. To be fair, it IS the 1982 version, and not the 1960 (I'm pretty sure that was the year...) version which I could not find. It's still extremely interesting for anyone interested, so many things I hadn't heard of or known in both books.

Also, just had a quick look in the Index pages, and Thunderbird isn't even in the book. If this IS the reissued version, then they took it out completely.

why you after these books? where did you hear these had the photo in?

you got authors for these book I've know a couple of people who might be able to track down copies

Edited May 5, 2010 by Cynical Sounds

[Kar-zid]

I had read in a few other topics discussing the same photo that the book, namely Mysteries of the Unexplained, was where the lost Thunderbird photo was originally published.

http://www.amazon.com/Mysteries-Unexplained-H-G-Carlson/dp/0809234971 I don't quite remember who the author was supposed to be, but there's a different version, not sure when it was made.

Just found another site that mentions yet ANOTHER book it was supposedly in On the Old West Coast by Major Horace Bell. And yet another claimed it was in one magazine about the Old West, but the issue of that magazine was unknown at the time. To be fair I hadn't had much hope in finding the photo in the Mysteries of the Unexplained book, but it is a great book nonetheless.

[Antimony]

So. Cryptozoology has never been a big interest of mine, apart from the occasional browsing. I've even less been interested in Thunderbird tales. To me, it was just a Native American mythological beast. Then I came across the lost Thunderbird photo, and I started researching a bit, and now I'm completely hooked!

There is more to that story that meets the eye!

Anyway, I'll be posting more about this. For now, I found another sketch of the supposed pic that I haven't seen on here yet.

It's unfortunately a bit small.

One weird thing I came across is this picture in this thread:

This what the poster of the picture said about it: I was able to get ahold of a guy who I knew took a picture of a thunderbird in NM. His name is Randy Lewis. He did give me permission to use his picture for this thread.

And two posts down, someone then wrote: That is a cool photo Thom! I wonder how it came out looking so much like the 'legendary' Thunderbird?

Now, am I crazy or is there absolutely nothing on that picture, apart from a lovely landscape? Do you see anything I don't? So what is the other poster referring to? I don't think he was being sarcastic. Weird.

One question I have for all those who are sure they remember the picture ( BTW, I for one, DO NOT remember it, just to show that it is not automatically a collective confabulation):

Do you have clear memories of remembering or thinking about the picture independently before coming across the "lost picture enigma"?

[Kar-zid]

So. Cryptozoology has never been a big interest of mine, apart from the occasional browsing. I've even less been interested in Thunderbird tales. To me, it was just a Native American mythological beast. Then I came across the lost Thunderbird photo, and I started researching a bit, and now I'm completely hooked!

There is more to that story that meets the eye!

Anyway, I'll be posting more about this. For now, I found another sketch of the supposed pic that I haven't seen on here yet.

It's unfortunately a bit small.

One weird thing I came across is this picture in this thread:

This what the poster of the picture said about it: I was able to get ahold of a guy who I knew took a picture of a thunderbird in NM. His name is Randy Lewis. He did give me permission to use his picture for this thread.

And two posts down, someone then wrote: That is a cool photo Thom! I wonder how it came out looking so much like the 'legendary' Thunderbird?

Now, am I crazy or is there absolutely nothing on that picture, apart from a lovely landscape? Do you see anything I don't? So what is the other poster referring to? I don't think he was being sarcastic. Weird.

One question I have for all those who are sure they remember the picture ( BTW, I for one, DO NOT remember it, just to show that it is not automatically a collective confabulation):

Do you have clear memories of remembering or thinking about the picture independently before coming across the "lost picture enigma"?

I believe they may be referring to the shape of the lighter grass on the hill, which looks a TINY bit like a tail and one wing, but the other wing sorta just stretches off into nothing. Easily Pareidolia there.

I have a clear memory of the picture itself, and I know that I saw it before I'd seen or read anything about the missing photo. I remember being stunned by the massive size of the bird, and at the time I was also stunned by how old the photo looked. When I first saw it was just after I began to become interested in the paranormal and cryptozoology.

Also, a little question to everyone interested on the topic that I've never seen answered before...

Who drew that sketch?

[+HerNibs]

I remember seeing the picture before I ever heard about a thunderbird or cryptozoology.

I was young and going through books at my grandparents. Heck, I even remember sitting on the black and tan couch with my grandparents outside in the garden.

Could I have created this memory? Sure, but I don't think I did. I remember other things around it.

________________________

I don't know who drew the sketch but that is a damn good question.

Nibs

[Antimony]

Thanks for that. So, just that we're absolutely clear, you two also remember remembering the picture, as in, thinking about it, before the "lost photo" encounter? Like, thinking about your childhood, and then remembering the book? This is quite important. To counter the argument of confabulation, we have to establish an independent memory of the picture before reading about the "lost picture".

Kar-zid, with regards to that "empty" picture I posted, I see where you are coming from, but why would the guy describe it as photo of a thunderbird? It's pretty obvious that that's just the accidental shape of the tree-line.

The guy who drew this sketch is Larry Thomas, an artist & designer. His drawing & account below is taken from the StrangeMagazine article "Cowboys & Dragons" link , the most thorough study of the missing picture I've come across so far.

"Larry Thomas gives us one of the most detailed descriptions of the photo and feels strongly that his depiction of the photograph is the most accurate for reasons that I will let him delineate himself below.

In 1980 while working as a designer...in upstate New York, I would spend many lunch hours in the local library. This is when I first saw the Thunderbird Photograph. While looking through the section dedicated to the Old West, I pulled out a rather thin book from around the turn of the century. As I flipped through the pages I came across the most fascinating photo; there spread out before me was the biggest bird I have ever seen. The photo quality was sharp and clear, every detail was visible. The bird's wings were supported and stretched out by a large group of men standing on a loading dock of a barnlike building. The bird must have possessed a wingspread of 25-30 feet. I have a pretty good eye for form and shape; my livelihood depends on it. The photo/rendering is as accurate as I can possibly get, given that it's been at least 12 years or more.... I feel that its accuracy is quite high. [see figure 2]

Secondly, I am the only person so far who has seen it as recently as 1980, and for a period of four years thereafter. That makes it only fifteen years ago. Canadian correspondent, W. Ritchie Benedict, remembers it as similarly as I. I quote, "As I recall, the creature had a very pointed head, and its eyes were closed. I particularly recall the ramp, and the top hats on some of the men." (Strange #6, page 44)"

What I find interesting about that article & other sources are two things:

Firstly that people's memory of the picture goes all the way back to the Fifties. And even further. Although the article in the 1890 "Tombstone Epigraph", from which the story is said to have originated from, never mentions a photograph being taken or depicts one, according to this mail archive a 1920 newspaper article was found which "features two drawings that also

feature in descriptions of the Thunderbird photo."

Secondly, that there are two distinct groups of memories, one group clearly remembering a giant bird, feathers & all, one group swearing to remember a Pterodactyl-like animal (such as John Keel f. ex.) or this guy

To add to the confusion, the source of the picture varies as well. Some swear they saw it in early men's magazines, marvel type magazines, books they possessed, school books, library books, and now recently web pages.

[+HerNibs]

I think I was about 7, under 10.

Going through the books in my grandparents living room closet. Old books. Some from the 1800's. Just thumbing through them.

I remember that the book was a hardback. Larger book but thin.

Looked similar to this

Probably 8x11. Fifty or sixty pages. It may have had a dust jacket at one time but not when I had my hands on it.

Didn't look quite as beat up as the one in the photo above.

I don't believe the caption under the photo actually said "Thunderbird". I believe it was something about the "mystery bird".

Heck. I can even tell you that it was on the right hand page.

Nibs

Edited May 6, 2010 by HerNibs