The Thunderbird photograph: a picture millions remember and nobody has
A photograph of men standing beside an enormous winged creature nailed to a barn. Large numbers of people describe seeing it in print. It has never been found, and that is the interesting part.
The photograph is remembered in detail by many people and has never been located in any archive.
Ask about the thunderbird and you will often be told about the photograph: cowboys or soldiers standing in a line with their arms outstretched, in front of a huge dead bird with a wingspan several times their height, pinned to the wall of a barn.
Very many people remember seeing it. It has never been produced.
What is documented
Thunderbird traditions are real and widespread among Native American peoples, and they are religious and cultural rather than cryptozoological. That deserves saying first, because the cryptid framing tends to strip it out.
There is also a documented newspaper item: in April 1890 the Tombstone Epitaph in Arizona ran a story about two ranchers killing an enormous winged creature in the desert. The article exists and can be read.
The article does not mention a photograph.
The search
Researchers have looked for it seriously and for decades. Archives of the relevant papers have been searched. Appeals have been made repeatedly, including by people who would very much have liked to find it.
What has emerged instead is a set of recreations and modern composites, and photographs of other things — including a well-known image of hunters with a large but ordinary bird — that circulate as candidates.
Why so many people remember it
This is the genuinely interesting part, and it is a documented phenomenon.
False memories of this kind arise readily from vivid description. Someone reads or hears a detailed account of a photograph — men in a line, arms out, the barn wall — and the mental image formed is later recalled as a visual memory of having seen it.
The effect strengthens with retelling and with confirmation from others who also remember. Within a community where the image is discussed, remembering it becomes normal.
Why it belongs on this site
Because it is the cleanest available demonstration that a large number of people confidently remembering something is not evidence that it happened.
That is not a comfortable conclusion and it applies well beyond thunderbirds. Every case on this site that rests on many witnesses recalling a shared detail has to reckon with it.
Join the discussion
Still open on this one:
- 01
Does any period photograph exist that could be the source?
Several ordinary images have been proposed as the seed. Identifying the actual origin of the memory would be a genuine contribution and remains open.
Be the first to comment
Sources
Open them and check for yourself. Where a record is public, it is linked.
Chronicling America: historic American newspapers
Library of Congress
Natural History Museum collections
Natural History Museum, London
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