Jon Solo Sebastian 07/06/2025:

I’ve been meaning to write an article on the Thunderbird for a while now, but as I’ve gone deeper and deeper into the wormhole of cryptids and mythologies of the world, it’s been passed over by others. One night last week, I was watching an episode of The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, and they were investigating carvings in the rocks of what they call the mesa. They recognized one of the carvings to be of the thunderbird. It was as if the show was reminding me to write me piece on this bird of Native American mythology. If you haven’t watched that series, even though I’m only on season three, I highly recommend watching it; especially if you’re into UFO’s, cryptids, and the paranormal. That ranch has it all!

It’s a Bird, it’s a Plane, it’s a Super Hero, it’s a Car, and…

The thunderbird is a fantastic beast of Native American mythology. As the header states, the name has been used for many things in our culture, but none of them carry the meaning and lore as this creature of mythology does. The legend of the bird has been told by many different tribes, and the folktales have been told in song and in oral teachings throughout Native American history.

In the simplest description, it’s a very large bird. The legends say it was so big that could lift a whale out of the ocean with its talons. The bird is usually described to be either black or a dark blue, but the lower portions of its feathers were bright and colorful. It had a razor sharp beak that was accompanied by razor sharp and super strong talons. The thunderbird’s powerful wings were said to sound like thunder roaring in the sky, and to go even further, some tribes believed it to shoot lightning from its eyes.

Was the bird real, or was there something else at play? Considering it’s described as being a supernatural being, or a spirit that takes the form of the large bird really holds no weight when it comes to determining whether it was real or not. What it tells me is the tribes believed it to be something of a greater power—something that brought rain during droughts, something that defended the people against the spirits of the underworld. I wouldn’t call it a deity, but it’s sort of what it sounds like to me; or at least what they might have thought it to be.

Most cultures told the tale of a large bird that lived high above the clouds in the tallest mountains that would oversee their lands while also defending them against the evils of the underworld. Some believed it to grant people with extraordinary abilities, while other tribes connected sightings of the great bird to a man’s rise to becoming the next chief.

Native Americans to this day still honor the thunderbird in forms of art, jewelry, and other crafts. Some depictions of the thunderbird from the past are still being found—like the carvings I mentioned they discovered in that television show about Skinwalker Ranch.

I was surprised to hear of recent sightings of the thunderbird, but there have been some as recent as January 2025 in Pennsylvania. “We’ve had quite a little surge of Thunderbird sightings this year. Off the top of my head, I can think of eight reports that happened since January. In some cases, these huge flying creatures, even in recent months, have been very low altitude, treetop level, in some cases came down within 20 or so feet of vehicles in recent months around the greater Pittsburgh area,” Gordon added.”

If they’re still out there somewhere, are they still fighting the forces of evil? With the way things are in our world, we could use all the help we can get.