I know I have seen thunderbird images which are from the correct time or close to it. But, I can’t remember where. I checked the Museum Of Hoaxes and the Museum Of Unnatural Mystery and came up empty. The second does list a few reports of thunderbird sightings from 1960 to 1980.
In that case, I won’t mention that the original image and story were also hoaxes. Should I find a link, I will simply change my poll answer from ‘Yes, but I don’t know if I’ve seen that one.’ to ‘Yes I have’. I won’t be able to post a link to the image you’re looking for however. That would change all subsequent responses to ‘Yes, it was in Doc’s post’ and invalidate the poll.
It would have been more helpful to post links to the hoax photos you were already aware of and said something like “not this one”.
By the way, I’d never heard of this story but the photo that I can see is really cool! Thanks, Scott Plaid.
By the way, Rich Mann, I suppose you’re well informed on how memory can play some wierd tricks on you. You read about something as a kid, then as years go by, you actually remember seeing it. Your mind may have imagined how the photo looked and since you probubly had more important things to think about growing up, you “remember” seeing a photo that you only read about.
I’m looking for an image that never existed in the first place. I have seen hoaxed images purporting to be this image, but that’s not what I’m looking for. If you have seen this image that has never been seen, or imagined this image which has never been imagined, please post a link to it. I am not looking for images that have been hoaxed or hoaxes that have been imagined.
Seriously. I can’t remember what odd site I first read the story and saw the original illustration on. The drawing on the Freaky Links page is obviously based on the original, but there are differences. I remember the original being more outlines and less detail and the lines and shading having more of a zig-zag squiggle quality.
It isn’t in the museum of hoaxes, or the museum of unnatural mystery (www.unmuseum.com) and I can’t remember where it was. I keep wondering what other weirdness the site had that I’ve forgotten. Hmm, it might not have been a website but a role playing book. I can’t remember and it’s driving me nuts.
OK, speaking of wierd photos - WTH is that strange thing behind the T-Bird? It looks like a wrapped pipe of some sort (water?) with a red metal thing sticking up in the air. At first I thought it was some rope tied from the tree, but I don’t think it is. It could be some bizarre '50’s yard ornament, but why would it be in the strip of grass between the road and the sidewalk?
Good guess but no. I’ve only ever seen one Bureau 13 rpg book and that was a decade ago. If it was an RPG, I suspect Chill, one of the White Wolf non core books, or maybe Gurps horror. (Nope, just found my copy of gurps horror, no Thunderbird.)
Rich Mann, in case you didn’t “get it” from several of the above posts, I’ll try a little different way. From the OP:
Unless you believe us to be telepathic, or you post a link to every single photo you believe to be hoaxed saying “Not this one”, there is No Way that we can tell which picture you might consider to be the original that you saw.
FWIW, I have a vague recollection of seeing a photograph similar to what’s described in the OP. It was a thunderbird similar to what was shown in the drawing linked to earlier, and I think it was affixed to a barn wall with some people in front of it. It definitely wasn’t the pterodactyl photo.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what book I saw it in. It would have sometime between the mid-'70s and mid-'80s that I saw it.
I haven’t seen it, you might want to try looking over at Strangemag.com (if you are willing to purchase their on-line magazine).
IIRC, they ran at least a couple of articles on the Thunderbird photograph but I didn’t read them so I don’t know if it contained the actual photo you are looking for.
HTH,
Elee
PS:
As a sidenote and definitely not meant as a hijack, strangemag has a great article (which is free, I believe) called “The Haunted Boy” about the hoax that eventually turned into the Excorcist movie.
