Monster Birds Of America
For most of the recent human's existence, say over the past 50,000 to 100,000 years, if we saw something fly under its own power, it had been a bird, a bat or an insect - maybe a 'flying' fish or 'flying' fox if you would like to stretch things a touch. Relatively few of those feature prominently in any culture's mythology. Bats may need an association with vampires, but your average run-of-the-mill garden variety bird is typically taken without any consideration - unless they're monstrous in size and like humans for dinner.
If there's nearly one thing universal in Native American mythology it's giant birds, monster birds, even the Thunderbird (which has been adopted as a name for several products to not mention the name of a television program with associated spin-off motion pictures). Now aside from the particular observations of those winged monstrosities, there's nothing all that unusual about giant flying creatures in mythology. What sets these 'birds' apart is that they often wish to snack on the natives - as takeaways, not eat in. Is there any natural terrestrial explanation for birds carrying away humans, sort of a crow learning a kernel of corn? Or, might one need to resort to a different, more unnatural and maybe extraterrestrial explanation?
Mythological Monster 'Birds' of America
Dragons: While primarily connected with the Old World (Europe, the Far East, etc.), dragons have some, albeit lesser-known connection within the New World of America, perhaps a touch more within the guise of serpents, that's taking over a serpentine appearance. this is often most notably so concerning that famous feathered serpent (sounds more sort of a bird actually) Quetzalcoatl, a central Aztec deity, but noted also in Mayan culture which other, and mysterious initial Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs.
However, we do have the Piasa Bird which is depicted as a dragon during a Native American Indian mural above the Mississippi near modern Alton, Illinois. It's thought that the originals were done by the Cahokia Indians way before any white settlers arrived in their territory. Their pictographs of animals, birds like the falcon, bird-men, and serpents (monstrous snakes) were common, as was the Thunderbird icon. consistent with an area professor living within the area within the 1830s, John Russell, the Piasa Bird depicted within the mural was a monstrous bird that inhabited the world and attacked and ate the locals that inhabited various Indian villages within the area. Apparently, it got a taste for human flesh after scavenging human carrion (corpses).
Thunderbirds & Related: These beasties are nearly universal in Native American Indian mythology, and what's more they carry many similar features. they have a tendency to be very large birds that are seen because of the personification of thunder (the beating of their wings) and lightning and everyone things stormy; a kind of Zeus or Thor but with wings, talons, a beak, and feathers. The Native Americans believed that the enormous Thunderbird could shoot lightning from its eyes. Say what? Even odder is that the Thunderbird often has teeth in its beak. We've all heard the phrase "rare as hen's teeth" - well that's because modern birds are toothless.
Thunderbirds were also related to the good Spirits so common in Indian lore. They were servants of those deities and apparently acted as messenger-boys (sorry, messenger-birds) - a kind of extra-large homing pigeon - carrying communications between these various Great Spirits. Thunderbirds were related to the weather as we have seen, and also with water. Now a stimulating parallel is that dragons within the Old World are often viewed as go-betweens between the gods and humanity (sort of again like carrier pigeons) and therefore they're having some control over the weather and the waters were a standard feature also.
So, this mythological monster bird is common throughout Indian legends. Actually in one case there was a Thunderbird that resembled an enormous eagle that was large enough, and powerful enough to hold a whale in its claws. Say what again? consistent with the Makah people of the Northwest Coast, a Thunderbird saved a village from famine by snatching up a whale from the Pacific and giving it to the community to feed off of, giving the village food lasting for several weeks. Would this be an American example of a case of manna from Heaven? Now no bird could actually carry even a little whale in its beak or talons, so there must be another explanation.
I've previously related how the Navajos have associated Ship Rock (or Shiprock) in New Mexico with a legend that says they were flown by a 'flying rock' (Ship Rock) provided by their Great Spirit to flee their enemies from up north. The Navajos, in other legends, have associated Ship Rock with the presence of 'Bird Monsters' or cliff monsters that preyed and prey on human Navajo and Zunis flesh. I'm wondering if that would be a garbled tale of UFO abduction.
Related are the tales of the Yaqui from round the Sonora region in NW Mexico. Yaqui legends tell of enormous birds around Skeleton Mountain that carried off men, women, and youngsters.
There's a petroglyph at Puerco Pueblo (or village) located within the Petrified Forest park of a huge bird with a person's suspended within the air by its beak. If we assume the human is of average height, say 5' 6" tall, then the bird, to scale, is roughly 13' 9" tall. That's one very big bird! The petroglyph was carved into stone many, many hundreds upon many years ago by the ancestors of the Hopis, maybe even by the lost Anasazis.
When it involves the Thunderbirds, scholars of mythology strongly suggest that this creature is simply the embellishment of the California condor, eagles, or the extinct teratogens. However, to my way of thinking, one doesn't usually associate birds with thunder and lightning (i.e. - storms). Now you'll see birds riding the thermals which may precede a storm, but you do not tend to ascertain birds out and about in stormy weather - they seek shelter from the weather too. Yet many tribes just like the Lakota Sioux or the Ojibwa of the good Lakes Region make the connection between these Thunderbirds and lightning especially. Perhaps the association with something flying and thunder and lightning suggest something a touch more technological!
I mean something which will function a monster homing pigeon between the gods, lift huge weights, abduct humans (recorded in many Indian legends) and shoot out lightning bolts doesn't sound like biology to me, rather more something artificial. Now perhaps of these legends of abducting and man-eating giant birds are nothing quite a rogue eagle or condor with an excessive amount of testosterone in its system who, feeling threatened, attacked a lone Indian and just like the fish that got away, the bird just grew and got embellished, and grew some more and got even more embellished until it reached ridiculous proportions and skills. Well maybe.
Real Monster 'Birds' of America
Pterosaurs and Pterodactyls: These beasties weren't really birds-of-a-feather, rather just winged and flying (or gliding) reptiles that belonged way back actually to 'The Age of Reptiles' - the Mesozoic. the most important of those discovered (to date) was Quetzalcoatlus, named obviously then Mesoamerican feathered serpent deity. Quetzal-baby had a 36 to 40-foot wingspan and just may need to be been ready to snack on a person's. However, pterosaurs and pterodactyls all went kaput by the top of the Mesozoic - Q-baby made it actually through to the top of the Cretaceous, 65 many years ago. Alas, that was a minimum of 64 million years before anything resembling humans walked the earth as a food source. While Native Americans were probably conscious of the fossils of those flying reptiles, that they had nothing to fear from them in terms of being snack-food.
Terror Birds: Well, these terrors really existed within the Americas and for a short time were thought to be contemporary with the earliest humans within the Americas. Though they survived and thrived in mainly South America, some made it across the Isthmus of Panama land bridge into Central and North America about 3 million years ago. the foremost recent of them is now thought to possess gone extinct about 1.8 million years ago, well before humans arrived on the scene.
But even assuming humans and terror birds were contemporary, why the terror? Well, these crows-on-steroids were up to 10 feet tall and will gallop after you at velocities up to some 37 miles per hour. Relatives of those monsters with equally large beaks and talons are found in Texas and Florida, and presumable bridged the geographical gap in-between. So, should the natives are afraid; very afraid? Well, during this case the highest apex predators probably succumbed to being ultimately human prey since the fear birds, alongside the remainder of the North, Central and South American megafauna went extinct in pretty quick-smart fashion after humans appeared on the scene. Now humans, if contemporary, probably didn't engage in hand-to-wing combat with these ungodly raptors, but rather found their eggs as a handy-dandy food supplement to their gatherer nuts-and-berries fare. Alas, no baby terror birds hatchling
If there's nearly one thing universal in Native American mythology it's giant birds, monster birds, even the Thunderbird (which has been adopted as a name for several products to not mention the name of a television program with associated spin-off motion pictures). Now aside from the particular observations of those winged monstrosities, there's nothing all that unusual about giant flying creatures in mythology. What sets these 'birds' apart is that they often wish to snack on the natives - as takeaways, not eat in. Is there any natural terrestrial explanation for birds carrying away humans, sort of a crow learning a kernel of corn? Or, might one need to resort to a different, more unnatural and maybe extraterrestrial explanation?
Mythological Monster 'Birds' of America
Dragons: While primarily connected with the Old World (Europe, the Far East, etc.), dragons have some, albeit lesser-known connection within the New World of America, perhaps a touch more within the guise of serpents, that's taking over a serpentine appearance. this is often most notably so concerning that famous feathered serpent (sounds more sort of a bird actually) Quetzalcoatl, a central Aztec deity, but noted also in Mayan culture which other, and mysterious initial Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs.
However, we do have the Piasa Bird which is depicted as a dragon during a Native American Indian mural above the Mississippi near modern Alton, Illinois. It's thought that the originals were done by the Cahokia Indians way before any white settlers arrived in their territory. Their pictographs of animals, birds like the falcon, bird-men, and serpents (monstrous snakes) were common, as was the Thunderbird icon. consistent with an area professor living within the area within the 1830s, John Russell, the Piasa Bird depicted within the mural was a monstrous bird that inhabited the world and attacked and ate the locals that inhabited various Indian villages within the area. Apparently, it got a taste for human flesh after scavenging human carrion (corpses).
Thunderbirds & Related: These beasties are nearly universal in Native American Indian mythology, and what's more they carry many similar features. they have a tendency to be very large birds that are seen because of the personification of thunder (the beating of their wings) and lightning and everyone things stormy; a kind of Zeus or Thor but with wings, talons, a beak, and feathers. The Native Americans believed that the enormous Thunderbird could shoot lightning from its eyes. Say what? Even odder is that the Thunderbird often has teeth in its beak. We've all heard the phrase "rare as hen's teeth" - well that's because modern birds are toothless.
Thunderbirds were also related to the good Spirits so common in Indian lore. They were servants of those deities and apparently acted as messenger-boys (sorry, messenger-birds) - a kind of extra-large homing pigeon - carrying communications between these various Great Spirits. Thunderbirds were related to the weather as we have seen, and also with water. Now a stimulating parallel is that dragons within the Old World are often viewed as go-betweens between the gods and humanity (sort of again like carrier pigeons) and therefore they're having some control over the weather and the waters were a standard feature also.
So, this mythological monster bird is common throughout Indian legends. Actually in one case there was a Thunderbird that resembled an enormous eagle that was large enough, and powerful enough to hold a whale in its claws. Say what again? consistent with the Makah people of the Northwest Coast, a Thunderbird saved a village from famine by snatching up a whale from the Pacific and giving it to the community to feed off of, giving the village food lasting for several weeks. Would this be an American example of a case of manna from Heaven? Now no bird could actually carry even a little whale in its beak or talons, so there must be another explanation.
I've previously related how the Navajos have associated Ship Rock (or Shiprock) in New Mexico with a legend that says they were flown by a 'flying rock' (Ship Rock) provided by their Great Spirit to flee their enemies from up north. The Navajos, in other legends, have associated Ship Rock with the presence of 'Bird Monsters' or cliff monsters that preyed and prey on human Navajo and Zunis flesh. I'm wondering if that would be a garbled tale of UFO abduction.
Related are the tales of the Yaqui from round the Sonora region in NW Mexico. Yaqui legends tell of enormous birds around Skeleton Mountain that carried off men, women, and youngsters.
There's a petroglyph at Puerco Pueblo (or village) located within the Petrified Forest park of a huge bird with a person's suspended within the air by its beak. If we assume the human is of average height, say 5' 6" tall, then the bird, to scale, is roughly 13' 9" tall. That's one very big bird! The petroglyph was carved into stone many, many hundreds upon many years ago by the ancestors of the Hopis, maybe even by the lost Anasazis.
When it involves the Thunderbirds, scholars of mythology strongly suggest that this creature is simply the embellishment of the California condor, eagles, or the extinct teratogens. However, to my way of thinking, one doesn't usually associate birds with thunder and lightning (i.e. - storms). Now you'll see birds riding the thermals which may precede a storm, but you do not tend to ascertain birds out and about in stormy weather - they seek shelter from the weather too. Yet many tribes just like the Lakota Sioux or the Ojibwa of the good Lakes Region make the connection between these Thunderbirds and lightning especially. Perhaps the association with something flying and thunder and lightning suggest something a touch more technological!
I mean something which will function a monster homing pigeon between the gods, lift huge weights, abduct humans (recorded in many Indian legends) and shoot out lightning bolts doesn't sound like biology to me, rather more something artificial. Now perhaps of these legends of abducting and man-eating giant birds are nothing quite a rogue eagle or condor with an excessive amount of testosterone in its system who, feeling threatened, attacked a lone Indian and just like the fish that got away, the bird just grew and got embellished, and grew some more and got even more embellished until it reached ridiculous proportions and skills. Well maybe.
Real Monster 'Birds' of America
Pterosaurs and Pterodactyls: These beasties weren't really birds-of-a-feather, rather just winged and flying (or gliding) reptiles that belonged way back actually to 'The Age of Reptiles' - the Mesozoic. the most important of those discovered (to date) was Quetzalcoatlus, named obviously then Mesoamerican feathered serpent deity. Quetzal-baby had a 36 to 40-foot wingspan and just may need to be been ready to snack on a person's. However, pterosaurs and pterodactyls all went kaput by the top of the Mesozoic - Q-baby made it actually through to the top of the Cretaceous, 65 many years ago. Alas, that was a minimum of 64 million years before anything resembling humans walked the earth as a food source. While Native Americans were probably conscious of the fossils of those flying reptiles, that they had nothing to fear from them in terms of being snack-food.
Terror Birds: Well, these terrors really existed within the Americas and for a short time were thought to be contemporary with the earliest humans within the Americas. Though they survived and thrived in mainly South America, some made it across the Isthmus of Panama land bridge into Central and North America about 3 million years ago. the foremost recent of them is now thought to possess gone extinct about 1.8 million years ago, well before humans arrived on the scene.
But even assuming humans and terror birds were contemporary, why the terror? Well, these crows-on-steroids were up to 10 feet tall and will gallop after you at velocities up to some 37 miles per hour. Relatives of those monsters with equally large beaks and talons are found in Texas and Florida, and presumable bridged the geographical gap in-between. So, should the natives are afraid; very afraid? Well, during this case the highest apex predators probably succumbed to being ultimately human prey since the fear birds, alongside the remainder of the North, Central and South American megafauna went extinct in pretty quick-smart fashion after humans appeared on the scene. Now humans, if contemporary, probably didn't engage in hand-to-wing combat with these ungodly raptors, but rather found their eggs as a handy-dandy food supplement to their gatherer nuts-and-berries fare. Alas, no baby terror birds hatchling
ultimately no terror birds. In any event, terror birds were flightless, just like the emus, cassowaries, the ostrich, and kiwis, to not mention their extinct cousins the moa and dodos. Thus, terror birds don't fit our description of birds that fly and pluck humans off the bottom and feel us to their young.
Giant Condors & Related: The Andean condor at 11 to fifteen kg (24 - 33 pounds) is currently the Guinness Book of Records holder for being the America's largest flying feathered member of the avian clan, a minimum of concerning a roughly 10 to 12-foot wingspan. The California condor at 7 to 14 kg (15 to 31 pounds) comes a really close second with wingspans around ten feet. Then too there were the Pleistocene [Ice Age] teratogens weighing in at 15 kg to 23 kg (33 to 50 pounds), huge raptors resembling eagles with wingspans 12 to 17 feet across.
Overall the Diomedea exulans is on a par with the Andean condor for the title of 'king of the wingspan' (up to 11 feet for the good albatrosses), but it is not a standard sight in North America - then or now. Several North Pacific varieties reach the western coast of North America, but because these are sea birds, feeding on seafood although scavenging carrion when ashore (remote islands) for breeding purposes. the chances that Native American Indians would have noted the albatross as a daily a part of their environment wouldn't are common for aside from those living right the Pacific.
Now the sixty-four cent question is, can anybody or more of the above account for eyewitness accounts of monster birds abducting their comrades in arms? Well, any sane person would eliminate dragons and Thunderbirds - they're mythological and thus don't exist. One cannot witness non-existence. Pterosaurs and pterodactyls were extinct long before humans were thought up in anyone's philosophy. Terror birds couldn't fly and doubtless weren't actually contemporary with humans in any event. Condors, while big, aren't large enough. I mean a mean human should be large enough to punch a condor's lights right out, and positively humans are overlarge to be carried across the condor's threshold.
Condors (Andean or Californian) are literally vultures and thus scavengers, feeding totally on carrion, albeit preferring large carcasses like those of cattle. it's to feed while on the bottom, and sometimes stuffs itself silly when it does encounter an appropriate meal that it can't, for a short time, lift itself off the bottom. this is often a few birds likely to be the source of yank Indian human-abducting mythology, although the bird certainly features in Native American mythology. However, because the condor is a species, the bird had and has far more reason to fear the natives than the opposite way around.
The extinct teratogens, however, were contemporary with humans (Amerindians), but while large enough to cause quite sufficient trouble for a person's infant, there's evidence to suggest that overall, the humans were probably more the hunters than the hunted when the crunch came the crunch.
However, even at a weight of fifty pounds and a wingspan of 17 feet, could a teratorn have actually picked up and overexcited an adult human, with a weight says a minimum of twice or thrice that of the raptor? Fossil evidence suggests that tiny mammals, even fish, and carrion were its usual means of sustenance. Since the Native Americans say it is so - a minimum of consistent with their mythology - you've got to ask yourself whether or not a 50-pound bird, who could obviously carry its own weight and doubtless a touch more through the air, could actually fly with a 100 to 150-pound payload? That's 150 to 200 pounds all up the bird is carrying. Now that's a reasonably big ask.
Has anyone seen an owl or an eagle or other flying raptor carry off prey two to 3 times its own weight? Now it'd be one thing for a really large bird to select you up (especially if you're dead and not struggling) and carry you off while in touch with the bottom, just like the terror birds, a minimum of for a brief way since in any case you are still very heavy compared to the bird. But it's quite another kettle of fish for a bird to select you up and truly fly away with you with none leg and ground support in the least. Flying (flapping wings) is extremely energy-intensive at the simplest of times (we've all seen birds in gliding mode so as to conserve energy), far less trying to lift up and flap wings with twice or thrice its normal we
Giant Condors & Related: The Andean condor at 11 to fifteen kg (24 - 33 pounds) is currently the Guinness Book of Records holder for being the America's largest flying feathered member of the avian clan, a minimum of concerning a roughly 10 to 12-foot wingspan. The California condor at 7 to 14 kg (15 to 31 pounds) comes a really close second with wingspans around ten feet. Then too there were the Pleistocene [Ice Age] teratogens weighing in at 15 kg to 23 kg (33 to 50 pounds), huge raptors resembling eagles with wingspans 12 to 17 feet across.
Overall the Diomedea exulans is on a par with the Andean condor for the title of 'king of the wingspan' (up to 11 feet for the good albatrosses), but it is not a standard sight in North America - then or now. Several North Pacific varieties reach the western coast of North America, but because these are sea birds, feeding on seafood although scavenging carrion when ashore (remote islands) for breeding purposes. the chances that Native American Indians would have noted the albatross as a daily a part of their environment wouldn't are common for aside from those living right the Pacific.
Now the sixty-four cent question is, can anybody or more of the above account for eyewitness accounts of monster birds abducting their comrades in arms? Well, any sane person would eliminate dragons and Thunderbirds - they're mythological and thus don't exist. One cannot witness non-existence. Pterosaurs and pterodactyls were extinct long before humans were thought up in anyone's philosophy. Terror birds couldn't fly and doubtless weren't actually contemporary with humans in any event. Condors, while big, aren't large enough. I mean a mean human should be large enough to punch a condor's lights right out, and positively humans are overlarge to be carried across the condor's threshold.
Condors (Andean or Californian) are literally vultures and thus scavengers, feeding totally on carrion, albeit preferring large carcasses like those of cattle. it's to feed while on the bottom, and sometimes stuffs itself silly when it does encounter an appropriate meal that it can't, for a short time, lift itself off the bottom. this is often a few birds likely to be the source of yank Indian human-abducting mythology, although the bird certainly features in Native American mythology. However, because the condor is a species, the bird had and has far more reason to fear the natives than the opposite way around.
The extinct teratogens, however, were contemporary with humans (Amerindians), but while large enough to cause quite sufficient trouble for a person's infant, there's evidence to suggest that overall, the humans were probably more the hunters than the hunted when the crunch came the crunch.
However, even at a weight of fifty pounds and a wingspan of 17 feet, could a teratorn have actually picked up and overexcited an adult human, with a weight says a minimum of twice or thrice that of the raptor? Fossil evidence suggests that tiny mammals, even fish, and carrion were its usual means of sustenance. Since the Native Americans say it is so - a minimum of consistent with their mythology - you've got to ask yourself whether or not a 50-pound bird, who could obviously carry its own weight and doubtless a touch more through the air, could actually fly with a 100 to 150-pound payload? That's 150 to 200 pounds all up the bird is carrying. Now that's a reasonably big ask.
Has anyone seen an owl or an eagle or other flying raptor carry off prey two to 3 times its own weight? Now it'd be one thing for a really large bird to select you up (especially if you're dead and not struggling) and carry you off while in touch with the bottom, just like the terror birds, a minimum of for a brief way since in any case you are still very heavy compared to the bird. But it's quite another kettle of fish for a bird to select you up and truly fly away with you with none leg and ground support in the least. Flying (flapping wings) is extremely energy-intensive at the simplest of times (we've all seen birds in gliding mode so as to conserve energy), far less trying to lift up and flap wings with twice or thrice its normal we
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