The Hoh and Quileute of western Washington boast of a thunderbird so large that its wingspan was twice as long as their war canoes. The Indians knew that they had never seen a bird like it before.” 6 There was a long, bony crest on its head. The strange creature had fierce claws on its wings, as well as on its feet, and the beak was long and sharp. But the braves could see that its wingspread was as big as four tall men standing on top of one another. The bird had fallen so hard they thought, that its bones were partly sunk in the rock. “The Indians shuddered as they looked at the monster’s skeleton. Nothing was left of the terrible creature but its bones….
“The band of hunters traveled over the badlands for days until they came at last to the spot where they thought the giant bird had fallen. Looking up in terror, the Indians thought they saw the shape of a giant bird falling to earth…. There was a clap of thunder that shook the earth. Before they realized it, the group of braves found themselves alone in the bare and rocky badlands of the West. “One day, long long ago, before the white man came to America, a party of Sioux Indian warriors were out hunting. The Sioux Indians tell a story about an experience some of their warriors had with a thunderbird that perfectly fits the description of the pteranodon. Its description is very much like one of the prehistoric flying reptiles that flapped its way through the skies in the days of the dinosaurs.” 5 The thunderbirds’ description, albeit distorted by time and retelling, so much fits that of pterosaurs that even some evolutionists have conceded on that point: “The thunderbird appears in many Indian tales and Indian art work.
The impressive size of the thunderbirds meant that during midday flight they would cast strikingly large shadows upon the ground. Indians attributed thunder and lightning to these birds: the thunder resulted from the flapping of their wings, while bolts of lightning proceeded from their mouths. Stories of thunderbirds are widespread, extending from Alaska all the way down to South America. One creature in Indian mythology that has long puzzled anthropologists is the thunderbird. The Indians of the Swell apparently saw a bird-like creature with enormous wings, a tail, a long neck and beak, and a vertical head crest, which some flying reptiles sported. In the Black Dragon Canyon there is a beautiful pictograph of a pterosaur. In Utah’s San Raphael Swell there is other suggestive evidence for man’s coexistence with pterosaurs. After many deaths, a young boy who lost his family to this bird killed the creature with a bow and arrows. Every morning it would fly out to capture its human prey. 3 The Yaqui Indians spoke of a giant bird that lived on the hill of Otan Kawi. Stories of giant man-eating birds are common among many other Indian tribes of the American Southwest. We are told the bones of this creature were found during the pacification of Mexico by General Don Hernándo Cortés and were sent to Spain.
The Pima recalled another story of killing a similar creature in the pueblo of Oposura by using the same strategy. The creature couldn’t escape and, growling fiercely, died as it was asphyxiated by the flames and smoke. When it was sound asleep they closed the entrance of the cave with wood collected for this occasion then set it on fire. One day, after the creature had eaten its fill, some Indians followed it back to its cave.
There are many stories.suggesting that the American Indians may have a long history of encountering creatures reminiscent of pterosaurs. It was a menace to the Pima because it would fly around and catch as many Indians as it could eat. While exploring the Sonora Desert on 12 February 1699, Captain Juan Mateo Manje, accompanied by Jesuits Eusebio Francisco Kino and Adamo Gil, was told by the Pima Indians that a giant monster lived in a nearby cave in days past. The following stories, all on similar themes (even though they generally have obvious legendary aspects, presumably accumulated through retelling), raise the intriguing possibility of a common basis in historical reality. There are many stories and related lines of evidence suggesting that the American Indians may have a long history of encountering creatures reminiscent of pterosaurs, especially the huge Pteranodon or the even larger Quetzalcoatlus (see aside below). However, my research on the Indians of North and South America permits a different conclusion. Of course, the standard long-age scenario of our evolution-riddled culture says that such encounters between pterosaurs and man have never happened, because all flying reptiles, along with the dinosaurs, allegedly became extinct some 65 million years before man came on the scene.
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