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The Ivan T. Sanderson Files: Origin of the Thunderbird Photo

In this excerpt from my upcoming book about the Missing Thunderbird Photo, I delve into the origin of the infamous legend from the files of writer Ivan T. Sanderson and explore his investigation of monster birds in the remote forests of Pennsylvania.

Ivan T. Sanderson (l) and Hiram M. Cranmer

It’s one of Cryptozoology’s most intriguing legends and enduring mysteries—the search for the Missing Thunderbird Photo. Said to be an old newspaper picture of several hunters posing with the body of a gigantic bird, countless people believe they have seen this haunting image, yet no one can ever relocate the original. It might sound like a pseudoscientific urban legend, but there is a truth behind this enigma that stretches back six decades. The result of six years of intensive historical research and interviews, this excerpt from my upcoming book documenting the history of the Thunderbird Photo tells the in-depth story of how the legend began. And it started with two men who couldn’t have been more different, yet shared a powerful attraction to everything anomalous and unexplained—globetrotting biologist and writer Ivan T. Sanderson, and backwoods folklorist and fantasist Hiram M. Cranmer.

Artist's interpretation of the Tombstone Thunderbird, ©2024 thunderbirdphoto.com

Sanderson, the renowned Scottish-born author, naturalist and media personality who traveled the world during the first half of the 20th century, collecting animal specimens for the British Museum, launched a stunning career swerve later in life when he moved to the United States and established the Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained (SITU) in 1967. (SITU evolved from the similar Ivan T. Sanderson Foundation, founded in 1965). Sanderson’s focus on the planet’s array of amazing yet scientifically identified animals switched to groundbreaking examinations of Bigfoot, sea serpents, UFOs and other mysterious phenomena. He is remembered today primarily for these later pursuits and as being one of the forefathers of Cryptozoology, the study of and search for wondrous, often legendary, animals yet unrecognized by science. Sanderson’s home and SITU headquarters was an 11-room house, constructed in 1682, and various outbuildings located on farmland in rural Polkville (near Blairstown) in Warren County, New Jersey.

Sanderson walking his property in rural New Jersey.

Cranmer lived most of his life, from 1891 to his death in a house fire in 1967, in Hammersley Fork, a forested tributary of Kettle Creek in Leidy Township, Pennsylvania. Cranmer served on the front lines in World War I and was weakened by poison gas in the Battle of the Argonne Forest in France during the final months of the war. In civilian life back home, Cranmer held the positions of postmaster and justice of the peace. He had experience as a carpenter and a farmhand, but most fondly recalled his years as a lumberman locally and in camps throughout the United States. Cranmer was an amateur historian and writer, penning histories of Leidy Township and the lumber industry on the West Branch of the Susquehanna. Cranmer possessed a wealth of regional folktales and songs, and was a long-time member and vice-president of the Pennsylvania Folklore Society. He was greatly intrigued by the strange and regularly corresponded with publications covering topics such as UFOs, cryptids and ghosts.

The saga of the Thunderbird Photo would begin, appropriately enough, in the May 1963 issue of Saga magazine. Saga was a “men’s adventure magazine,” part of a testosterone-fueled genre that thrived in the 1950s through the early ‘70s. Many of these magazines enticed readers with luridly illustrated covers that featured square-jawed heroes, scowling villains, ferocious animals and scantily-clad damsels in distress. Phil Stephensen-Payne, who catalogues these titles on his Galactic Central website, wrote, “Sometimes referred to as the ‘postwar pulps'… these magazines specialized in ‘true stories’ of rugged adventure (which often stretched the meaning of the word ‘true’ considerably)…”

An article in the May 1963 Saga called “Monster Bird That Carries Off Human Beings!” by Jack Pearl contains the earliest known reference to the now infamous photograph. Pearl’s article is graced by a two-page opening spread of a man locked in mortal combat with an enormous Thunderbird. Vividly illustrated in color by John McDermott, the jet-black, eagle-like predator clenches an axe in its beak while crimson blood seeps from a wound in it wing. Its ravaged attacker struggles to free himself from the beast’s talons. A bosomy woman kneels in the dry grass below them, protecting a prone child the Thunderbird had attempted to devour. The image perfectly captures an attack which Pearl describes early in the article, an incident he claims occurred on an isolated farm near Ivanpah, California in 1933. Pearl recounted a history of monster birds in North America dating back to the Ice Age, which he asserted were immortalized in Native American mythology as “Thunderbirds.” He described accounts of often violent encounters with these creatures from the days of the American frontier, a hotbed of sightings in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and modern incidents involving aircraft, one fatal. 

The dramatic two-page opening spread of Jack Pearl's "Monster Bird That Carries Off Human Beings!" in Saga magazine, illustrated by John McDermott. This copy is from Ivan T. Sanderson's file on Thunderbirds.

But this paragraph of Pearl’s would launch a legend: “In the year 1886, the Tombstone, Arizona, Epitaph, which helped make Wyatt Earp famous, published a photograph of a huge bird nailed to a wall. The newspaper said it had been shot by two prospectors and hauled into town by wagon. Lined up in front of the bird were six grown men with their arms outstretched, fingertip to fingertip. The creature measured about 36 feet from wingtip to wingtip.” 

Strange Magazine editor Mark Chorvinsky, in his deep investigation into the Thunderbird Photo, identified Cranmer as the source of the tale. That’s because a letter from Cranmer, printed in the September 1963 edition of Fate magazine, contained both his own sightings of giant birds in Pennsylvania along with this extremely similar passage:

“Sometime about the year 1900 two prospectors shot and carried into Tombstone, Ariz., on a burro one of these birds. When nailed against the wall of the Tombstone Epitaph its wingspread measured 36 feet. A picture showed six men, with outstretched arms touching, standing under the bird. Later, a group of actors dressed as professors were photographed under the bird, with one of them saying, “Shucks, there is no such bird, never was, and never will be.”

Chorvinsky suggested that Cranmer, a frequent letter writer, contacted both Saga and Fate. Saga simply got through its mail pile sooner than the smaller-staffed Fate. “While Pearl does not name Cranmer as his source, the clues he gives us and the many details duplicated in the Pearl material and the Cranmer Fate letter demonstrates that it was more accident than design that the first mention of the T-bird Photo in print was in Saga – it could have appeared just as easily in Fate first, but Pearl decided to use it to inspire or perhaps beef up his pulpy article,” Chorvinsky concluded.

Cranmer’s story does indeed have its genesis in the Tombstone Epitaph, in a bizarre article published on April 26, 1890, titled, “Found on the Desert.” The report describes a strange encounter in which two ranchers on horseback shot down a “winged monster” on the desert outside of Tombstone. However, it was most certainly not a giant bird. The creature was described as resembling an alligator with smooth skin, an elongated tail, two feet, and an eight-foot-long head boasting sharp teeth and eyes as large as dinner plates. Its wingspread was an incredible 160 feet—larger than a Boeing 737! While clearly not a bird, this description dovetails with the many recollections of the photo that describe the beast as resembling a Pterosaur. The Epitaph also did not publish a photograph, nor did it mention one. According to Mark Boardman, current editor of the Tombstone Epitaph, the earliest known photograph to appear in the publication was a 1907 ad for an act at the opera house. “Photos were very sporadic through the 1920s, interspersed with drawings and other illustrations,” he said. However, the article’s concluding line stating that “several prominent men... will endeavor to bring the strange creature to this city before it is mutilated” does suggest the professors in Cranmer’s account, and the likelihood that the moment would have been captured on film for posterity.

A contemporary illustration of the "Tombstone Thunderbird," published in The San Francisco Examiner in 1890.

Following Cranmer’s second mention of the Thunderbird Photo in the March 1966 Fate, the Epitaph was bombarded with letters asking about the subject. The mailbag was so overwhelming that it prompted Wayne Winters, then editor of the Epitaph, to send his own letter for publication in the August 1966 Fate, pleading with readers to cease their enquiries. “I am afraid that Mr. Cranmer is pulling your leg when he tells of the famed thunderbird. You may be certain that he’s doing so as to any connection between such a fowl and the Epitaph,” wrote Winters. “Although I have not edited this publication that long, I’ve gone back through our files for the past 65 years and find no mention of this bird or the picture or the actions [to] publicize it that (Mr. Cranmer) attributes to me. Please take the heat off my typewriter and tell your readers that I have no pictures available of this critter! Indeed, I too would like to see a photo of this fowl but I believe that ‘foul’ is more the nature of the yarn.”

The Thunderbird is an important storm entity prevalent in indigenous beliefs across North America. While fearfully powerful, it is also associated with life-bringing rain. The form of the Thunderbird varies depending on the people and the telling, but it can range from an elemental force to an anthropomorphic form to an enormous flesh-and-blood bird that snatches whales in its talons. The Cree, one of Canada’s First Nations, believe these "divine birds cause the lightning by the flashings of their eyes, and with their wings make the noise of thunder. The thunderbolts are the ‘invisible and flaming arrows shot by these birds.’” 

Based on my own research, I believe Cranmer was the first writer to apply the term “Thunderbird” to modern sightings of flesh-and-blood monster birds in various publications, co-opting it from the spiritual and symbolic being of Native American beliefs. Pearl carried over this term, and it stuck, becoming the go-to name for giant birds in modern Cryptozoology.

Pearl’s article in the May 1963 Saga made an impression on Sanderson, although a couple of months later he was uncertain which of the many publications that crossed his desk had printed it. He sat down on July 7 and jotted down a page of notes outlining what he remembered. Sanderson narrowed the source down to Saga, Argosy or True, and its publication to March or April 1963. He recalled Pearl’s assertion that these predatory birds inspired Native American legends and the sightings documented in Pennsylvania, among other details.

However, one line in Sanderson’s notes raises an eyebrow. He wrote that the article in question “Showed a referenced photo of a 36' wingspan Thunderbird in the "TOMBSTONE EPITAPH" 1887 approx. exact data in article.” The emphasis on “showed” is mine. Could this mean that, two months on, Sanderson misremembered the Saga article as having actually included the Thunderbird Photo rather than just having described it? It suggests the unsettling possibility that Sanderson, who was responsible for popularizing the decades-long search for the Thunderbird Photo, might himself have been the victim of a false memory.

One prevalent hypothesis about the Thunderbird Photo is that the mere description of it so evocative as to create a false memory of having actually seen it, and that this has been happening to people for decades. Our memories are highly malleable and often unreliable. Criminal psychologist and memory expert Dr. Julia Shaw described how “post-event information” can influence our memories and come from many possible sources, such as discussing an event with others in person or online, reading articles about the event or related events, or seeing photos taken by ourselves or others. We are also prone to “memory borrowing,” appropriating someone else’s experiences as our own. People unintentionally confabulate disparate fragments of information into meaningful contexts, explaining how some have impossible memories of early childhood that are derived from stories told by parents, old photographs, etc. One 2008 study demonstrated that just showing participants photos of specific locations they had never visited made them more likely to mistakenly report having visited those places a week or two later. “Any source of information has the potential to change our memories post hoc,” wrote Shaw. Why does this happen? As explained by Shaw, memory is made possible by the neuronal plasticity of our brains. Our brain cells—neurons—form networks that connect and store related information, enabling us to learn and adapt. It is an essential survival mechanism. According to scientific theory, wrote Shaw, “every time a memory is recalled it is effectively retrieved, examined, and then recreated from scratch to be stored again.” Therefore, any time an event is remembered, it would be prone to corruption by present stimuli, replacing the original memory with a falsified version.

However, the false memory hypothesis might not be so deflating, after all. There are witnesses who offer convincing and very similar testimony that they saw the Thunderbird Photo in Sanderson’s possession…

In another set of notes—undated but probably written after he managed to acquire a copy of the May 1963 Saga magazine and possibly the September 1963 Fate—Sanderson wrote down his “Impressions of the Thunderbird from Reading All That Stuff”:

A bird with a wingspan of from 15-25 feet, dark in color usually, standing about 7-10 feet tall, of general solitary and largely nocturnal habits (Question: perhaps there is more than one type of T-bird, one nocturnal, one less so.) The bird may or may not have white patches on the front edge of the wings, & on top of the head. The marks, again, may be a sign of maturity.

They eat apparently what the bald eagle eats; i.e. carrion, fish, live game if it is not too large, active and the bird is hungry.

Recurring stories of T-birds carrying or attempting to carry away people, especially children. Question: a bald eagle, wingspread 8 (?) feet, can just barely carry away a rabbit, 5-8 lbs. Would like to see math that says a bird with 3x wingspread can carry 10x load. But if they did it before my eyes I wouldn’t argue. At that point a bumblebee would probably arrive, walking, and drag me away.

(Oddly, very seldom mention of shape of beak. Important.)

Sanderson doodled a series of sketches, including one of a bird with a 25-foot wingspread carrying off a 5-foot, 110 lb. human being. He noted, “Maybe abscond w. a child — certainly a baby — but not full-grown person. Lift 10 ft. — OK. Fly — no believe.”

The next sketch is Sanderson’s quick artistic rendering of the Thunderbird Photo itself. Depending on when he drew it, the existence of this sketch offers some puzzling clues regarding the entire mystery. Was Sanderson just sketching a rendition of the photo as described by Pearl and Cranmer? It very much resembles Cranmer’s description and Pearl's reiteration of it, including men in top hats and the wagon exclusive to the Saga account. Coupled with Sanderson’s curiosity about the photograph in his earlier set of notes, does this suggest that he had not seen a copy of the actual photo prior to that time? That would mean he acquired it no earlier than July 1963, had it in his possession around June 1966, and realized it was missing by January 1971, based on correspondence referenced further below. OR, is this Sanderson’s sketch of the actual photograph? 

Sanderson wasted no time seeking out Cranmer to obtain more information about Thunderbirds once he learned his identity. On Sept. 4 (suggesting that month’s edition of FATE containing Cranmer’s letter was released early or that Sanderson had advance information), Sanderson sent one of his associates out to rural Pennsylvania to locate Cranmer. And that associate was none other than Al Bielek, who would go on to later fame with claims that he was involved in some of the most notorious conspiracy theories regarding secretive U.S. military programs. 

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