Thunderbirds

Thunderbirds 

 

Genesis 1:21

“And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.”  

 

As a child, I was a big fan of the TV show Thunderbirds. The series, featuring puppets, concerned a rescue organization operating five special rescue craft – some of which were like rockets – called Thunderbirds. However, it did not occur to me to ask where they had got the title from. 

 

It turns out that thunderbirds are legendary creatures that feature in stories by Native American people, especially in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Here is part of a story from the Sioux: One day, long long ago, before the white man came to America, a party of Sioux Indian warriors were out hunting. They had left their village far behind. Before they realized it, the group of braves found themselves alone in the bare and rocky badlands of the West. Suddenly the sky darkened…. There was a clap of thunder that shook the earth. Looking up in terror, the Indians thought they saw the shape of a giant bird falling to earth….  

 

Large flying creatures that cast huge shadows on the earth? These do not sound like ordinary birds. Indeed, they are probably not birds at all. First Nation people, from Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada, report battles in the sea between thunderbirds and killer whales. These were clearly fearsome beasts with large wingspans. 

 

If the descriptions are considered in an unbiased way, the creatures described sound rather like pteradons – flying creatures, classified by evolutionists alongside dinosaurs. It seems at least possible that Native American people may have seen pteroadactyls and other extinct flying creatures. This would be consistent with what we read in the Bible. 

 

Prayer: We know, Lord, that we do not understand everything yet in the world around us. Thank You that what we learn about the world, when we check it out, is consistent with what we know from Your word. Amen. 

 

Ref: Johnson, W. (2002), Thunderbirds, < https://answersingenesis.org/dinosaurs/dragon-legends/thunderbirds/ >, accessed 3/31/2018. Image: A thunderbird totem pole from Victoria, BC, Canada. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported.