Humanity: The Cosmic Connection

There are various enigmas that cry out for resolution, like the Fermi Paradox regarding ET, “Where is everybody?” Then there are enigmas surrounding human origins, evolution and characteristics, extinctions, migrations and colonizations, and the rise to civilization. Finally, much that’s in our global mythologies is anomalous. In modern times we have UFOs and alien abductions. It’s time to wrap all this up in one neat little package, tied up with a nice little ribbon and bow. 

Let’s start off briefly with the Fermi Paradox. In essence, it suggests that if you accept that there has to be one or more extraterrestrial highly advanced technological civilizations out there in the galaxy, in interstellar space, with interstellar space travelling capabilities, then the odds are as close to 100% as anyone would care to bet, that Planet Earth has been discovered and visited. The time it takes to explore the galaxy, every nook and cranny, even without resorting to Star Trek type faster-than-light velocities, is but a tiny fraction of the age of the galaxy. The Fermi Paradox is only a paradox if one tries to argue that ET has never visited our humble planetary abode. So, let’s solve the Fermi Paradox and accept that once upon a time, ET paid Planet Earth a visit – at least one.

About eight or so million years ago, Planet Earth witnessed the arrival of a rather loose federation of extraterrestrials (ET) with a quasi social/religious/missionary goal of assisting in the development and spread of intelligent civilizations across the galaxy and the cosmos while simultaneously creating intelligent, civilized beings who will worship them as their superiors, even perhaps as gods. Since there were no such intelligent, civilized beings on Planet Earth eight million years ago, ET had to work what Mother Nature provided them.

Now eight million years ago is very recent relative to the age of Planet Earth, and extremely recent relative to the age of our galaxy and the cosmos at large. Therefore, this may not have been an ET first visit, but the one which finally yielded up a promising candidate from which they could manipulate to achieve their goal.

That most suitable candidate species to work with, or on, would have been the chimpanzee or a close ancestor to the chimp, found in Africa. And so ET set up shop and laboratory in Africa to start the long process of assisting Mother Nature in the development (creation or origin)and spread (migration) of another (soon to be engineered) intelligent civilization.

Over the next eight or so million years – no great rush; lots of time on their hands; these are an extremely long-lived ET – ET bioengineered, genetically engineered, or otherwise artificially bred and selected our initial primate stock into over twenty initial primate-to-ultimate-hominid species, each species slightly more advanced in IQ, dexterity, bipedal gait, speech, abstract reasoning ability (something other than just food, sex, danger), etc. than the one before.

For starters, individual groupings of each species in their own time and turn would be released by ET into the Africa’s wild environment to see how they coped, just like we humans will artificially breed up populations of endangered species and release them into the wild and hope for the best. Of those hominid species released into the wild, most didn’t – cope that is. Back to the drawing board and more genetics and breeding and artificial selection and on to the next advancement.

A few hominid species that did adapt reasonable to the outside backyard of Africa proper would then be transported to non-African locations and a wider variety of terrestrial environments. There were more failures, but some initial successes with out-of-Africa environments. Homo erectus just about fit the bill – just about, but it too ultimately went the way of the Dodo.

Finally, about 200,000 years ago, the latest in this twenty-plus long line of primate-to-hominid creations were created on the slab in the ET lab in Africa – Homo sapiens. They proved successful in adapting to the natural African environment. Further experiments with transporting and transplanting groups of them to various environments around the globe (except Antarctica) for the most part yielded positives in the Middle East, the Americas, Europe, Australia, Asia, etc. If ET transplanted groups of Homo sapiens to Oceania that was a failure as there are no archaeological sites that verify hominids in Oceania until only relatively recent historical (not prehistorically) times.

Once Homo sapiens became established globally, two things happened. Firstly, individual units of ET headed by a Supreme ET were assigned to oversee the various geographical regions that Homo sapiens had adapted to. For example, ET Yahweh and crew were assigned to the eastern coastline and seaboard region of the Mediterranean. Secondly, these units then assisted these nomadic bands of Homo sapiens in each region in the transition from being wandering hunter-gatherers living by their wits into becoming civilized agricultural-based settlements or rural communities that put down roots - assuming the region in question was suitable to settlements, and not all were, like Australia.   

At this point one might expect “and they all lived happy ever after”. Not so; it was not to be.

It is often said that man was created in God’s image, or in more general parlance, in the image of the gods. If that’s the case, it should come as no surprise that the gods have human traits. Translated, anything humans were (or are) skilled at doing, you can bet the family farm equally that the ‘gods’ were skilled ditto, the good, the bad and the ugly. ET was not above squabbling among themselves over ways and means, and there were power grabs and coups and mutinies afoot, like when Yahweh was nearly toppled by Satan. Collectively, our mythologies lump these ancient ‘star wars’ as Wars in ‘Heaven’.

Humans of course also didn’t live long and prosper either. Like father (the gods), like son (Homo sapiens).

There’s one other mythological anomaly that supports the idea that not only was ET highly advanced in interstellar space travel (well they got here didn’t they), but especially highly skilled in genetic and bioengineering. The genetics experiments of ET were not just confined to building a better hominid species, but creating all sorts of genetically engineered ‘monsters’. If there is one universal above nearly all other universals in the mythologies of primitive ‘man’ it’s the reality of hybrids, both animal-animal hybrids (i.e. – Pegasus in Greek Mythology) and animal-human hybrids (i.e. – the Birdmen of Easter Island). 

Whether misinterpreted by primitive humans, or deliberately misled, ET became the ‘gods’ and interactions between the two became the basis of our global mythologies, which is to a greater or lesser extent really a collection of religiously-themed mythologies since primitive ‘man’ thought ‘he’ was dealing with supernatural deities. Deities of course are there to be worshiped, probably encouraged by ET. Why might ET wish to be worshiped? ET might want to be ‘worshiped’ probably as “thanks” for bringing Homo sapiens into the world and bestowing the gifts of civilization on Homo sapiens.  Every parent expects a “thank you” from their child for special gifts bestowed. ET might have encouraged this misinterpretation as being ‘gods’; it would have been a lot less awkward that explaining astrobiology to them.

Having completed at long last their objective – one more race primed to join the Galactic Club, ET left, albeit leaving behind a token observational team – UFOs – which are still undertaking some genetic modifications with respect to Homo sapiens – alien abductions, apparently an attempt to engineer yet another hybrid – a human-alien.

Now make of this what you will, but the scenario does fit the facts as we know them about human origins, evolution, extinctions, migrations, and ultimately civilization. It also jives with our mythologies, and, IMHO, behind every mountain of mythology resides a molehill of fact.

Origins of Agriculture

We’re aware that once upon a time our ancient ancestors lived day-to-day as nomadic hunters and gatherers. Then, roughly 10,000 years ago, in various locations around the globe, we ceased our wanderings, put down roots as rural agricultural-based settlements, and became civilized. Anthropologists cannot tell us why. Mythology does tell us why – the gift of agriculture was from the gods. What to those cultures were gods, we can interpret as ‘ancient astronauts’. 

One of the bigger mysteries in modern anthropology is the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to agricultural-based settlements. This is known as the “Agricultural Revolution”. There are as many ideas and theories for the independent and relatively sudden transition from hunter-gatherer to settlements dependent of farming, as there are anthropologists who have pondered the issue. There are proposals for external factors vs. internal (social, cultural, economic) factors; global conditions vs. local conditions; climate related vs. population related; or a combination of circumstances: maybe even just the “it’s time” factor. The issue is the transition all happening at roughly the same time – about 10,000 years ago, give or take, in Europe, Mesoamerica, the Andean cultures, Egypt, the Middle East, Asia, etc. especially in the Fertile Crescent, N.E. China and Central America. Only North America (with the exception of the eastern half of what would become the United States), Australia and the far northern regions, like Siberia, retained for the most part a nomadic lifestyle.

But the really anomalous thing is that ever since our ancestors came down out of the trees and started walking upright, for all those millions of years, until roughly 10,000 years ago, we were hunter-gatherers or nomads. Then all of a sudden, wham, we settle down and raise crops and become ‘civilized’ just about universally across the social, cultural and geographical board. No one really has solid evidence to explain why.

The only idea NOT given or advanced is in fact the very one which human culture’s themselves give – in their global mythologies. Agriculture (including the domestication of various species of wildlife – cattle, sheep, goats, horses, etc.) was a gift from their gods. Human mythologies presumably written down and/or orally passed from one human generation to the next human generation, gives no credit to humans for the transition. Humans rarely pass up an opportunity to pat themselves of the back, but this is an exception to that generality. 

Humans have certain basic needs: air, water, sleep, certain temperature range and food. We’re instant experts at breathing (air) and sleeping. We don’t need to seek out, grow or harvest these. We have some control over temperature, and water supplies are usually pretty constant – rivers, springs, lakes, ponds, etc. Food is the dicey item.

The hunter-gatherer method of finding food takes less effort than agricultural tilling-the-fields settlements, so why settlements and why the shift from hunter-gatherer to agriculture is relatively short time frames in diverse parts of the world. Well, what the gods want, the gods get. And if the gods give you a gift, by the gods you’d better make use of it!

These gods (a sampling) oversaw and gave the gift of agriculture to humans thus explaining our transition from hunter-gatherers to settlements and civilization.

* Ninurta was the god of agriculture in the ancient Near East who taught all about crop production.

* Kumarbi: The Hittites had Kumarbi, the father of the gods and a grain deity.

* Osiris (Ancient Egypt): Before being bumped off and dismembered by his brother Seth (Set), and reassembled and resurrected by his sister-wife Isis, and promoted to god of the underworld, he was the god of agriculture who taught men (and women) how to raise corn and vines. That’s why ancient Egyptians depicted him with green skin. 

* Ceres was the Roman goddess of grain and agricultural fertility (from which we get the term cereal).

* Demeter was the Greek goddess and counterpart to Ceres; she was the goddess of corn, crops and fruit groves as well as fertility of the fields who taught humans agriculture.

* Triptolemus, under the direction and guidance of Demeter, brought people the gift of wheat and who spread the benefits of agriculture around the world.

* Chaac was the Mayan god of rain, hence a patron of agriculture like maize and vegetables and hence fertility.

* Xipe Totec was the Aztec god of maize and vegetation.

* Viracocha was a top Inca god who walked among humans, and, among other subjects, instructed students on agriculture. Further, Viracocha fathered two deities, Inti and Mama Quilla, who in turn had an offspring Manco Capac, the first Inca ruler, who also taught agriculture to his human subjects. The odd thing about Viracocha, the highest god in the Inca pantheon, was that he was depicted as pale, bearded with Caucasian features and with green eyes. This is quite akin to the Aztec deity Quetzalcoatl (Kakalcan to the Mayan and otherwise known throughout Mesoamerica under various aliases). They both, Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl departed their respective regions to head over and across the sea with an “I’ll be back” promise. That the Aztecs mistook the Spaniard Cortes for the return of Quetzalcoatl# speaks volumes about what Quetzalcoatl looked like – white, bearded, with Caucasian features. Alas, the enigma here is that there never was any cultural contact between Mesoamerica and the Incas, so why the similarity between Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl? Some New Agers view these white bearded deities of the Americas, who mysteriously vanish, as Jesus in the flesh. That aside, the important point is that Viracocha was a travelling professor of agriculture.

* Shennong: In Chinese mythology there’s Shennong, the farmer god who invented the plough and taught people how to farm.

* Inari was in Shinto Japanese mythology a rice and fertility god.

* Bulul was a Philippines rice god who looked over seeds and the harvest.

* Nummo or Nommo (hybrid creatures) of the African Dogon culture of Mali were teachers (from the star Sirius according to some) who taught farming to mankind.

Of course what our ancient ancestors viewed as supernatural gods and goddesses, we think of them today more akin to flesh-and-blood extraterrestrials (‘ancient astronauts’) who came to Earth long ago with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal humans of that era. The ‘gods’ would have conducted their worldwide agricultural tutorials at roughly the same time, say about 10,000 years ago. Being practical, they ignored regions impractical for low-tech sustainable agriculture like vast deserts, the tundra, tropical rain forests, etc.

Now the obvious question is why would the ‘gods’ want to give us the gift of agriculture in the first place? That can probably be summed up by the Biblical phrase “be fruitful and multiply”. In a hunter-gatherer society, babies are a burden. They contribute no labour, consume resources, and divert time and energy required for their care away from the daily survival tasks at hand. Since you have to carry your newborn brat around, being a nomadic troop, it hinders your hunting-gathering, so it is best to keep your brats well spaced – every four or five years apart minimum, so one brat can start to contribute a bit to the greater good before your next one pops out into the world.

But once in a settlement scenario, with a reliable food supply, you can start dropping your little bundles of joy nearly every year. There will be the establishment of a sort of child care centre or facility where one person, unable for health or elderly reasons to work the fields can look after all the little darlings, leaving mum free to toil away in the rice paddies or whatever. Though infant mortality will take its toll in either a hunter-gatherer society or in a settlement community, the more frequently bundles are dropped, the faster the population will increase; more workers to produce new and widen fields already under cultivation; build buildings, etc. And of importance too, once you take up a settlement way of life, then you have a need to defend that territory since a lot of sweat and toil went into staking out the community’s land claim and making it productive. A rapid population increase makes defending your turf easier.

But what’s in it for the ‘gods’? Two things - first mythologies around the world are full of references that the ‘gods’ created humans to do the hard work, just like the CEO and Board of Directors of a mining company hires the great unwashed to actually do the hard work – go down into the mines with picks and shovels, etc. while the CEO and company watches from on high: more population – more workers. That’s probably the real reason Adam and Eve got booted out of Eden and directed to start the daily grind and toil of farming (Genesis 3:23). It was probably all a setup from the get-go.

Secondly, what do ‘gods’ want? Well, to be worshiped. Do you get a greater buzz out of a hundred people bowing and scraping down and building small monuments to you, or a thousand or a million doing the same and building great big monuments to your glory? No dictator ever wants to appear in public and not have anyone turn out to render a worshiping salute. 

Having achieved their objective, well it’s on to the next inhabited planet for another challenge in civilizing the great unwashed.

And so, thanks to the ‘gods’, or ‘ancient astronauts’, most of us no longer have to wander the lands in search of our daily bread!

# In all fairness, not all scholars believe there actually was a connection.

My Top Human Anomalies: A List

It’s been said and cited again and again that the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it’s stranger than we can imagine. Whether or not that’s true, the universe, and all it contains, like us, is surely strange indeed. 

EXTINCT ANCESTORS: Modern humans (Homo sapiens) evolved from other primates, most probably from chimpanzee stock in Africa when DNA relationships are analyzed. We have a 98% compatibility with chimpanzee DNA. However, there was a long chain of in-between hominoid species twixt chimpanzees and modern humans. Modern humans didn’t evolve willy-nilly in one jump from chimps. The interesting thing is that while all the numerous in-betweens have gone extinct, our ancestral primate chimpanzee stock didn’t. The anomaly is, why should ALL of our in-between ancestral species have gone extinct? We’re not talking one or two or three here, but dozens. It’s stretching credibility to the breaking point that one ancestral species should survive and thrive just long enough for the next in line ancestral species to evolve, and in turn survive and thrive, before going the way of the Dodo, and that this scenario was repeated again and again. There’s no real logical reason why some of our ancestral species couldn’t have survived to ultimately end up coexisting alongside modern humans to this very day.

HUMAN CULTURE & CIVILIZATION: There are two relatively unexplained turning points in the evolution of modern man when contrasted with our more primate-like ancestors. One is the acquisition of what we call culture. Culture (like art appreciation and abstract ideas like an afterlife) happened within a fairly narrow timeframe, roughly 50,000 years ago, wherever nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers gathered. Why the sudden transition? The second great leap forward, again, within a narrow timeframe, some 9000 years ago, was the transition from nomadic lifestyles to settlements – farming crops and herding now domesticated wildlife. Settlements rapidly became villages became towns became cities. While some nomadic hunter-gatherers still roamed the plains, like the Australian aboriginal, what was once that nomadic rule now became that exception to that rule. In both cases, culture and civilization, the observational evidence is rock-solid; theory can’t really explain the transition, or at least the relatively rapid transition, around the world, from the tried-and-true before-the-fact pre-cultural nomadic lifestyle to the unknown leap of an untested experiment with culture and settlements. 

CREATION, THE CONCEPT OF: One of the biggest mysteries to me is why anyone in their stark raving right mind would assume anything and everything had been created from scratch. You cannot make that assumption from first principles based on personal observations and human history. The anomaly is between what our ancient ancestors couldn’t have been expected to know, logically, with what they knew. Their knowledge, often expressed in their mythologies and religions, that there were in fact creations – the universe, stars, solar systems, life, and the human species - therefore must be based on information passed down from those with way more insight or knowledge than they could have possessed. Who passed that information on down the line?

GIFT OF FIRE: In mythologies around the world, one common tale is that some junior deity nicked off with fire belonging to the senior gods, a hot technology that the senior gods had decreed humans shouldn’t have. These junior deities, Prometheus being the best known, in defiance of their superiors give the stolen fire to humans as a gift, usually at quite some considerable peril to their own life and limb. The anomaly here is exactly why presumably humans would come up with such a tall tale in the first place, not once but often and independently in cultures around the globe. The anomaly is because humans don’t need to receive fire as a gift from the gods; fire is a natural part of the human environment. It’s as logical as saying that the gods gave the gift of animals and plants for food, or air and water to humans and prior to that the human species didn’t eat or breathe or drink. At the time humans from many cultures invented the tale of fire from the gods, they had been using fire for tens of thousands of years! Perhaps the gift of “fire” wasn’t really “fire” at all but something more dangerous that the senior gods in their wisdom knew we shouldn’t have, like a parent knows better than to let their very young child play with matches. 

HUMAN UNIQUENESS: The anomaly here is that we humans are not just a different species to all others past and present, but vastly, vastly different. Four vastly different differences in particular strike me as odd.

We alone of all the mammals are bipedal. We alone of all the primates are ‘furless’ – the “Naked Ape” as Desmond Morris described us.  We alone of all species that are and have ever been, are top of the pops in IQ; king of the hill by an extraordinary wide margin in intelligence or the ability to figure things out, call it what you will, plus the use of tools and technology way above that of any other species. Lastly, humans have very distinct facial features – it’s usually how we recognize the identity of another human we’ve seen before. With all other animal species, you’re hard pressed to tell one individual from another based on facial features. You see one sheep’s face, you’ve seen them all. You tend to recognize individuals of other species by size, color and colored patterns, some sort of deformity or abnormality, not by their distinctive facial features which don’t really exist.

If it suits all the other mammals to adopt a four-legged gait and be quadrupeds; if it suited our nearly 200 other primate cousins to retain their fur; if all other species can exist, survive, even thrive without screwdrivers, the automobile, plastics, central heating, the dishwasher, the Internet and the atomic bomb then we have an anomaly here. Every animal species is different from every other animal species, obviously, but there are differences and then there are DIFFERENCES! The human species is so far out in left field as to be nearly out of the biodiversity ballpark.

MORE NAKED APE: Humans of all mammals are the species that sweat the most. The retrograde step of temperature control via sweating instead of fur imposed two additional restrictions on us. 1) We were forced to stay close to reliable sources of freshwater. 2) It also makes us way more dependent on supplies of salt since salt is excreted from the body via sweat. Salt supplies in the natural environment are rare – so rare that once upon a time salt was so extremely valuable and you got paid in salt. It’s where we get our word, salary from. It would appear that in this case, Mother Nature goofed! Not only did this backwards evolutionary step make us more highly dependent on freshwater and salt than would otherwise have been the case, but since we lost our hairy covering in order to sweat, we’ve been forced to replace that hairy covering with artificial coverings – clothes. If only we’d kept our fur, but then clothing manufacturers and the fashion industry wouldn’t have ever existed!

INTELLIGENT DESIGN: THE EYES HAVE IT: Presumably, in the wild, animals that are active in the daytime need as close to perfect eyesight as makes no odds. They need near perfect vision to find prey, to avoid predators, to navigate, especially those animals who navigate in all three dimensions like flying birds and other creatures (like monkeys) that have an up-and-down as well as a front-back and a left-right lifestyle.

I’m not aware that any of the great apes, and that includes chimpanzees (our closest living ancestral species), are often in need of corrective lenses – they exist perfectly well without glasses, or at least that would be the case with the vast majority. Yet the reverse seems to be the case with humans, their descendents. A very large percentage of the human species have problems with their vision yet require (if they want to read, drive a car, watch TV, sew or play video games) acute vision made possible by glasses, contact lenses, surgery, etc. Presumably, before the invention of corrective lenses, people employed for certain tasks had to undergo an eye exam – like those transcribing by hand onto parchment, say the Bible; an archer in medieval times; a chariot driver in pharaoh’s army. And if you were part of the Mayan emperor’s ball team and couldn’t see very well, well you wouldn’t live to have bad vision for long. 

So, why do many humans have less than 20/20 vision, yet wildlife, even domesticated animals, seem to be able to see with visual acuity for whatever passes for their 20/20?

SPONTANEOUS HUMAN COMBUSTION: The anomaly here is that, albeit very rare, the human body can spontaneously burst into flame, killing the victim and turning the body into ash. It’s anomalous in that 1) the human body is composed mainly of water which you don’t tend to associate with fire or spontaneous combustion; 2) the body’s temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is hardly scorching heat; 3) this anomaly isn’t noticed in animals; 4) the fire is localized to just the body and immediate surroundings despite the intense heat needed to consume a human body, and obvious sources of external fire, say a burning candle, are usually lacking. The closest theory is that perhaps the victim’s body was saturated with alcohol from excessive drinking, and alcohol of course can burn, but that rarely fitted the lifestyle of the victim and it would take one hell of a drinking binge to saturate bodily tissues with alcohol in high enough concentrations to cause the body to combust. Since animals don’t spontaneously combust, that tends to rule out body fat as a fuel source.  

Tse Bit’a’i: The Rock with Wings

Mythologies are full of events that could be interpreted, if they happened instead within the last six plus decades, as a UFO event. The ‘Star of Bethlehem’ or ‘Wheel of Ezekiel” are cases in point from our Biblical mythology. Many of the mythological ‘gods’ or characters rode around in aerial or fiery chariots, but what about flying rocks or big birds transporting people around? A UFO chariot by any other name is still a UFO chariot.

Chariots seem to be associated with the ‘gods’ because of the popularity of Erich von Daniken’s book title (when translated into English) “Chariots of the Gods”. But there’s no actual index entry for “chariots” in that book. So, did the ‘gods’ and maybe their passengers ride in aerial chariots or equivalent? A quick scan of the mythological literature says “yes”! A partial list of the Greek ‘gods’ or demigods (or demi goddesses) who rode in (UFO) chariots (or equivalent) include Zeus, Hercules, Helios, Apollo,  Hades, Triptolemus, and Medea. From Norse mythology, we have Thor and Freyja riding along in their chariots. Aerial chariots figure prominently in Indo-Iranian mythology, and they also play an important part in Hindu and Persian mythology as well, with most of the gods of their pantheon portrayed as riding in them. In ancient times what were aerial chariots pulled by various beasties with the ‘gods’ as pilots or passengers, are, in modern times, UFOs with their extraterrestrial pilots and crew. The American Indian culture, the Navajos may not have a UFO chariot per say, but they do have a UFO “rock with wings”. 

Ship Rock (or Shiprock, also called in native Navajo ‘Tse Bit’a’i’ or the ‘Rock with Wings’ aka ‘winged rock’) is a 12 million year old standalone monolithic mountain, an eroded volcanic plume, situated in New Mexico close to the four corners area where NW New Mexico, NE Arizona, SE Utah, and SW Colorado touch. While it’s nearly 7,200 feet above sea level (peak elevation), from the ground up (standing on a high desert plain), it’s nearly 1,600 feet high. It’s situated on Native American Navajo land, situated in the bullseye of the ancient Pueblo peoples that prehistoric Native American culture are often referred to as the Anasazi. The Navajo’s have high historical and religious reverence for the mountain. It features prominently in their traditional religious and mythological culture, and as a sacred site, the natives have, since 1970, closed the mountain off to the public which used to be popular with rock climbers, etc.

The main belief of the Navajos centring around Ship Rock (and it looks a bit like an old Clipper sailing ship of yore but sailing in a sea of sand) is that it’s what’s left, the remains, of their ‘great bird of deliverance’.  According to their legends, once upon a time, a long time ago, their ancestors were facing a hostile tribe further north, and not wishing to go head-to-head with these warmongers, their high priest(s), or shaman(s), asked their Great Spirit in the sky for assistance. The Great Spirit sent down this great bird which took them southwards to what Americans today call Ship Rock. The Navajos were saved from their enemies, and they lived long and prospered – well prospered as well as any Native American tribe could be expected under the thumb of the European invaders.

Now if the Navajo were forced to flee and migrate southwards from hostile forces, you’d think their mythology would be something akin to the ancient Greek’s “Odyssey” or the quest for the Golden Fleece – a tale of a long journey, elusive goals, many dangers and hardships, and eventual success – not flying through the air without a care in the world. Or, if they didn’t have any migration south at all, then there’s no need for such a ‘winged rock’ tale, rather some other ‘how did we get to Ship Rock’ origin myth, like the Great Spirit breathing life into some of the rocks or moulding cacti or tumbleweeds into human beings – the Navajo. But if your Great Spirit is a ‘god’ that’s really an extraterrestrial; and your ‘rock with wings’ what we’d call today a UFO, or in ancient astronaut terminology a ‘flying chariot’, then the myth, as related, has some logical foundation in reality. And if you are a rather unsophisticated Native American when it comes to extraterrestrial technology, what else are you going to call a UFO but a ‘flying rock’ or a ‘rock with wings’ or a ‘winged rock’ or a ‘big bird’? The Navajos, in other legends, have associated Ship Rock with the presence of ‘Bird Monsters’ that feed on human flesh. I wonder if that could be a garbled tale of UFO abduction.

Now presumably this travelogue tale isn’t the fabrication of one person, shaman or otherwise, since there were many native Navajos who must have been alleged participants in the journey who could contradict the myth – if it was a myth of course. That fact that the Navajo consider Ship Rock a sacred site, off-limits to rock climbers and tourists, well they clearly consider this part of their mythology to be a Big Deal. In fact the mountain is a place of pilgrimage for their peoples, especially young men on quests for solitary ‘visions’ that’s part of their traditional culture.

The Mythology of the Cat: Part Two

I’ve previously had a go at trying to figure out how a wild animal with minimal contact with humans might view their world, especially when humans are a part of it even if the animal doesn’t know it. I concluded that no matter what, the animal; in my previous essay the case of a possum, while having a worldview would never get the particulars correct. But what about a domestic animal who interacts with us day-in-and-day-out? What’s their worldview and is it any better than that of a wild animal?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

I’ve never gotten the impression that a cat ponders anything at anytime but practical matters that have a direct bearing on it in the here and right now. An obvious example is that any cat always finds itself on the wrong side of a door, and you are expected to correct that state of affairs as often as is necessary – which is very often indeed. No wonder people install cat flaps! Anyway, things like philosophy and religion and the arts and mathematics and anything abstract not only isn’t considered and immediately dismissed, the cat probably can’t even conceive of such things in order for them to be dismissed as of no relevance to the cat’s worldview. There’s no creativity in their little grey cells whatever. I very much doubt whether any cat has pondered whether or not it has free will. My cats don’t respond to cat art, like the pictures of cats on calendars. Music sooths the savage beast but with one minor exception all my cats have been oblivious to whatever type of music CD I’m playing, be it classical or jazz, country & western or film scores; vocal or instrumental. That one exception is that I once had a cat that would react to whistling within a song that emanated from the speakers. Still, cats probably therefore never have to endure that annoying experience of having an irritating song play endlessly, over and over and over again inside their head! 

If the cats were of a human frame of mind, they might conceive of something like: In the beginning the great cat deity, lets name it Bastet (also spelled Bast, Baast, Ubasti and Baset) after the ancient Egyptian cat goddess, created not only the domestic feline, but all that’s part and parcel of their world. In the beginning Bastet created the ever pristine litter box; the ever full food and water bowls, and lots of birds and mice for felines to chase, catch and snack on. That’s of course according to the mythology of the cat, if the cat had a human’s imagination.  Well actually, not. No cat has imagined any self-contained mythology about the origin and evolution of cats.  If cats have a worldview mythology outside of the concepts of self and now, then it probably centres on what strange companions humans are. And I’m 99% sure that while such human activities might be fascinating, they are equally incomprehensible.

Translated, whatever mythology our domestic feline companions come up with that explains to their satisfaction their worldview, it will bear little resemblance to actual human activities on behalf of the animal, like the concept of money to pay for the goods and services it receives. The cats have no conception of livestock (slaughtered as pet food), of biological evolution (that provided the birds and mice and the abilities of the cat to chase, catch and snack on them), of the infrastructure that gets them their fresh water (and other goodies) that ends up as the end product in their water bowls, etc.

So while I have no idea what worldview mythology my cats have (and they probably aren’t the exact same – each cat’s worldview will be in part unique) it’s wrong.

However, we can speculate; take scenarios that are part and parcel of their world, natural or otherwise, and try to figure out how they see and interpret things through their eyes.

So what goes through a cat’s mind when it’s not immediately concerned with me; now – when it’s not in immediate need of catering to various biological requirements and functions? The cat is just sitting, wide awake, alert, observing, but what is it thinking? Does it have to be deep in thought at all? Probably not I suspect. In fact, it’s more likely as not they are observing just for the sake of observing – always on the lookout for something to chase and eat (that’s probably just hardwired into their brain), or for something that might chase and eat them.

I mean my cats are interested in birds; I’m interested in birds too – but for totally different reasons. On the other hand, my cats are interested in a clean litter box, but what goes through their minds when every time they go to the litter box it’s pristine, even though it wasn’t in that condition a little while back for obvious reasons? Do they associate that ‘it wasn’t then but now it is pristine’ phenomenon with a cat deity or with me or neither?  Cat food appears on demand in bowls they eat out of, yet they have no comprehension of the chain of events between manufacture, distribution, the need for money to purchase, transport, open and pour into those bowls that food. So how do they account for the food that somehow magically appears before them? Do they have a food bowl mythology? Or, perhaps it is a phenomena that just is, and they think no more about it than a fish ponders the nature of the water it swims in. For some reason I find it very hard to picture my cats deep in thought wondering about all those whys and wherefores associated with the food they consume.

Well we have some idea what a cat’s worldview mythology is (me; now), and isn’t (nothing that’s abstract) but you, the owner, aren’t an abstraction. How do you fit in to your animal’s mythology?

Cats must have a field day with respect to inventing a mythology that accounts for the strange habits of those creatures they share their environment with – humans. For example, my cats see me getting dressed every morning – I’m putting on the fur. Since cats don’t need to dress, this behaviour must be really weird to them. Ditto making the bed or washing the dishes. The cats must be totally freaked out by my habit of deliberately getting wet via a daily shower or bath. What activity could repulse a cat more than that? Yuck! How do cats explain the dwelling they reside in along with all the stuff it contains? I know where it all comes from, but how do they account for it all? Do they even bother to try to account for it? Part of that all is my personal computer (PC). They see me typing away on this PC but I’m sure they have no comprehension of what this PC device is or why I’m pecking away on it instead of paying attention to them. When I go out of the house, shopping say or off to the club for a few cold beers, do they wonder where and why? Do they worry that I might not come back, because if I don’t they will find themselves in a pretty pickle. Or, is the fact I’m away of no interest and no consequence and causes no speculation? Since they don’t seem agitated when I leave, I suspect they have no comprehension of the possibility that I might not return, being hit by the proverbial bus instead.

So, do my cats develop a point of view, a worldview mythology to account for birds (a natural part of their environment), litter boxes (not so natural), and PC’s (totally unnatural)?  I suspect they don’t. These things just are and don’t require any mythological interpretation to otherwise explain them.

Cats like to lie and stretch out in and soak up the warmth of the Sun. How do they account for sunshine and this warmth since presumably they know nothing of stellar astrophysics, nuclear fusion, photons, etc.? Might it be, if it be at all, that our cats conclude that in the beginning that great cat deity Bastet created the Sun to give pleasure and warmth to them, but, Bastet hides the Sun at regular intervals (at night) so as not to totally spoil us cats? Probably not I suspect. The warmth of the Sun probably just is (like the water is to the fish) – in fact they might not even make the connection between the Sun, sunshine, and the warmth that gives them. 

Conclusions & Summary: So what is a domestic cat’s worldview mythology? Well, if the cat could speak, it might say something like this: “It’s all about me; it’s all about now; everything else just is and if it doesn’t affect me now, it’s not relevant.” The more I think about it, the more I draw a parallel between a cat being an eternal toddler (me; now; everything else just is, albeit interesting and worthy of exploring), but at least without the temper tantrums!

The Mythology of the Cat: Part One

I’ve previously had a go at trying to figure out how a wild animal with minimal contact with humans might view their world, especially when humans are a part of it even if the animal doesn’t know it. I concluded that no matter what, the animal; in my previous essay the case of a possum, while having a worldview would never get the particulars correct. But what about a domestic animal who interacts with us day-in-and-day-out? What’s their worldview and is it any better than that of a wild animal?

Most of the lesser complex animals, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, and reptiles probably have a worldview along the lines of ‘it just is’ and accept whatever comes along – go with the flow. But once you consider the relatively higher and more complex animals, like birds and mammals, then brain complexity becomes such that to a greater or lesser degree, intelligence and the ability to think and figure things out has to be taken into consideration.

For those of you who have companion animals, or even those of you who have just watched animals at a distance, you may have wondered how those animals view and perhaps even think about life, the universe and everything. That is, each animal must have some sort of personal worldview; a perspective or point of view probably forever beyond our understanding – usually but not always.

I’m picking on cats in this particular case because I’ve owned cats nearly all my life. This essay could just as easily have been dogs or horses or some other domesticated mammal.

So what are cats? Can we identify with them? Can they identify with us? Well, domesticated cats are playful; curious; adaptable; selfish; they dream; they like variety though they can also be creatures of habit; they can ‘think’ things through and make decisions; they have a vocal language and a body language; they display emotions; they have memory and therefore somewhat a sense of history; they have the same sensory apparatus as we have; they have their own likes and dislikes whether it be food; a place to sleep, where they want or don’t want to be scratched or rubbed or petted; and, in short each cat has their own very unique personality. Cats are certainly very self-centred, perhaps a bit more so than typical adult humans, but certainly akin to human infants and toddlers whose worldview is very self-centred with a near 24/7 gimmie, gimmie, gimmie; I want, I want, I want. Cats, at least those intersecting with humans have a gimmie/I want aspect to them, and like infants/toddlers the ‘pester’ factor can often reach extremes. In short, cats really seem to be mini albeit furry versions of humans, especially infants/toddlers. But, how close might that version really be?   

For starters, and perhaps like all animals, the cat probably has a worldview something akin to it being the centre of things – the be-all-and-end-all – and that the entire environment the cat finds itself in is there to provide for all the cat’s requirements. From the domestic cat’s point of view, the world owes it a living! How else could the cat view things? One’s self perceptions tend to revolve around ‘I am the centre of the universe’ because you are most intimately bound up in your worldview with yourself and not as intimately with anything else. Therefore, anything else, in a self-centred worldview must be subservient. Of course the cat often finds out the hard way that parts of that external reality have differing opinions. That never seems to shift the cat’s worldview however that it is ‘top dog’* and deserves all the best that comes its way – which might not be all the ‘best’ that nature could provide but the cat doesn’t know that.  

Cats certainly have no comprehension, perhaps like toddlers, of being in the way, underfoot, in danger of being trodden on or sat upon, while helping themselves to whatever piece of household geography suits their fancy. One could conclude from their selfish (from our point of view) behaviour, their worldview must be one of ‘supreme being’ and ‘rank has its privileges’, and such a worldview will persist at least until such time as their tail gets stepped on or they get tossed out of the easy chair! They still probably see themselves as supreme beings – it’s their worldview of you that’s now somewhat changed. 

The average head of the household and cat owner is probably somewhat of the opinion or has the rationale that ‘I pay the bills, therefore I call the shots and what I say goes’! Cats can probably understand ‘head of the household’ in that in cat society, as in all animal societies, all cats are not equal – there is a hierarchy and one cat alone will be ‘top dog’ as it were. But there’s nothing in a cat’s worldview that corresponds to money or bills or economics or finance. Everything is a free lunch, be it sunshine or the electric/gas/wood heater you, the owner, pay for. Even if the cat goes outside and catches and eats a mouse, it’s still as free a lunch as far as the cat is concerned as the food you put in its food bowl. So that bit about ‘I’m the boss because I pay the bills’ has no meaning or significance to the cat since the concept of ‘bills’ is foreign.

Cats have no mythology about shopping. The post Xmas sales and weekly specials at the supermarket are alien concepts. So is that nearly supreme abstraction to humans – time. Birthdays are a non-event with no realization when they occur and with no relevance in any event. Ditto all those other special points in time like holidays we humans are obsessed with. Cats don’t make a habit of staying up late on New Years Eve. It’s of no consequence. Weekends are no different than weekdays.

Equally the cat has apparently no worldview of tomorrow or of the future (though it has a memory of the past). It doesn’t save for a rainy day. I’ve never observed a cat hide away a few of its dry cat food pellets for a future emergency or a midnight snack. A cat is very ‘now’ oriented. A cat probably has no concept of death, far less an afterlife. I’ve always tended to have two cats at a time on the theoretical grounds they have companionship when I’m not around. As such, one cat will finally get to go to that great ‘litter box in the sky’ and as such the surviving cat (for a while at least) will be without its companion feline ‘friend’. I’ve never noticed however any real change in the behaviour of the surviving cat. The demise and removal of the other animal has apparently all the relevance of my tossing an empty can into the recycling bin. Now if I tossed out the cat’s favourite easy chair that would probably cause more of a reaction!

It’s difficult to teach a cat anything that isn’t already hardwired into its little grey cells. I mean you don’t tend to have guard cats, seeing-eye cats, or cats that sit up, stop on command at the corner, beg, and play fetch, etc. when their human owners say so. The cat’s worldview is quite foreign to such concepts, though there’s little difference between a cat’s IQ and a dog’s IQ. Maybe that’s why the saying ‘dogs have masters; cats have slaves’!

So those are several significant differences between the worldview mythologies of the cat relative to humans (or even dogs, who, are well known to ‘grieve’ upon the death of a fellow companion dog or of their owner. If I died, my cat’s loyalty would shift quick-smart to the next human who fed it). 

I noted above that cats dream and why not. I judge this because often when they are sound asleep I frequently notice their paws and mouths twitching as if in response to something going on inside their head. I assume it’s not some abstraction that occupies this assumed dream state. It’s probably related to visions of chasing and eating fat mice and plump flightless birds! There’s no way of telling for sure, but that’s what I suspect. If they dream, they dream practical cat-related things.

To be continued…

*The standing observation or joke is that a dog thinks to itself that ‘my human feeds me and plays with me and looks after me, therefore he must be a god’. The cat thinks to itself that ‘my human feeds me and plays with me and looks after me, therefore I must be a god!’ There’s an awful lot of relevance in that observation IMHO.

The Mythology of the Possum

For those of you who have companion animals, or even those of you who have just watched animals at a distance, you may have wondered how those animals view and perhaps even think about life, the universe and everything. That is, each animal, if they have any intelligence at all, must have some sort of personal worldview mythology; a perspective or point of view (POV) probably, even usually, but not always forever beyond our understanding since we can try to walk a mile in their paws by using our intelligence as a guide.

Most of the lesser complex animals, invertebrates, fish, amphibians, and reptiles probably have a worldview along the lines of ‘it just is’ and accept whatever comes along – go with the flow. But once you consider the relatively higher and more complex animals, like birds and mammals, then brain complexity becomes such that to a greater or lesser degree, intelligence and the ability to think and figure things out has to be taken into consideration.

Humans maybe top of the pops when it comes to smarts and figuring things out, but that doesn’t mean that every non-human life form has the IQ of a microbe. I strongly suspect that birds and mammals develop a personal worldview mythology that explains to their satisfaction all that they see and experience daily.

Further, for all such animals that develop a direct or indirect relationship with humans they must additionally evolve a personal mythology that’s understandable within their larger worldview that puts us in their Big Picture. That mythology, their POV is going to be grossly incorrect of course, but they don’t know that. They, in all honesty can not comprehend the sum total of those experiences they share directly with human activity and so to some degree or other they develop a mythological worldview that somehow explains what humans do within their own context. However, sometimes humans feature only indirectly and so their POV doesn’t actually involve humans in any shape, manner or form.

So the purpose of this little essay is to illustrate those animals (i.e. – birds and mammals) that interact directly or indirectly with humans (in a good, indifferent, bad or god-awful way) have a somewhat human-centred mythology even if they aren’t aware of it. Taking one specific animal as an example, consider the following tale of the possum.

I have a possum that visits my back courtyard overnight. I know that because I often see its poo; actually I once saw it silhouetted against the backdrop of a lighted window of a house opposite mine. Presumably the possum hasn’t spotted me; it being a creature of the night and I being a creature of the day. Now presumably the possum hunts around at night, foraging for food. It’s been an usually long and bitterly cold Australian winter here in the nation’s capital, Canberra, so, in empathy for a fellow life-form who has a far tougher life than I, I took to leaving out for it in the early evening an apple. In the morning following, it was gone – the apple that is. Now I, as an intelligent human, know all the facts of the matter. I buy an apple; I leave out the apple; the possum finds the apple and eats it. However, I can’t help but wonder, from the perspective of the possum, what does it make of this nightly gift of an apple, an apple that appears where there is no apple tree for miles around?  

Some assumptions are in order. I assume the possum has some intelligence, an IQ, an ability to think and wonder and ponder. When something out of the ordinary occurs, it makes an impression. Translated, the sun comes up and the sun sets – nothing out of the ordinary. I doubt if the possum much ponders this fact of life. The tree it lives in exists day in and day out – nothing much to think about there. It’s warm in the summer; cold in the winter; some days it rains; most days it doesn’t rain. But that daily apple hasn’t been part and parcel of its worldview mythology – until now.

So, something new, beneficial but unexpected comes into play. Does the possum put it down to good luck, good fortune, clean living, being in the right place at the right time, or does it think deeper than that?

Now an apple appears for the first time on the ground it forages over – unusual but strange things happen. An apple appears on that same spot of ground every evening – the same spot without benefit of an apple tree. That’s not in keeping with the ordinary expectations and experiences of our possum. Because this is not something natural and ordinary within the possum’s worldview, then this has to be something extraordinary; this is something magical; this is something paranormal; this is something supernatural. Perhaps there is a supernatural Possum Deity that looks after possums in times of need, like in the wintertime when food in general and apples in particular are few and far between.

And so our possum perhaps develops this idea of something bigger than the natural world it’s used to. The possum perhaps develops a possum mythology of a Possum Deity that looks after all possums, like itself. It has to be ‘all possums’ since I’ll assume our possum has no comprehension of good possums vs. bad possums with only the former getting rewarded with an unaccounted for apple (possum manna from heaven).

But perhaps it’s seen me from the seclusion of its tree put down the apple, in which case maybe I’m the Great Possum Deity. If it sees other humans are they deities too, even if not possum deities?

Since this regularly occurring apple appears in roughly the same geographical spot night after night, might our hungry possum attribute something extraordinary to this patch of (my) backyard, (its) courtyard turf? Might that patch of ground in fact, in our possum’s worldview mythology, become our possum’s Sacred Site?  

Now the possum’s perspective won’t be one based around language and it won’t be able to communicate its worldview mythology to other possums. Rather its perceptions will be based on its five senses, most prominently vision in all likelihood. It could imagine, visualise in its mind, some super-sized (Santa Claus type deity) possum delivering apples without having words for ‘apple’ or ‘possum’ or ‘deity’ or ‘gift giver’ or even ‘human’. It wouldn’t have words for ground or ‘Sacred Site’, rather a mental image that this patch of ground is extra-special. Such an image, as opposed to the words we would use, wouldn’t be out of the question. I’m sure our possum could visualize another possum (even without knowing the word ‘possum’) even if there was no other actual possum in visual range or otherwise present in the vicinity.

Okay, you know and I know there’s no Possum Deity, nothing mysterious or supernatural is going on, there is no Sacred Site. I know what’s going on – some farmer, hundreds of miles away sells their crop of apples to some company who hires a distributor who trucks them to Canberra and they end up in that company’s local supermarkets. You know that, and I know that, but we can’t expect the possum to know that. If this possum communicates with fellow possums (not that it can), it is not going to relate a story of a compassionate human buying an apple a day and leaving it out to be devoured by possums, far less have knowledge of that far away farmer, company, distributor, truck, supermarket, and all the infrastructure that implies, etc.

It would be fascinating to converse with that possum and find out exactly what its current worldview mythology is, even though that’s beyond our means. But, I’d bet that whatever it is, it’s wrong! Still, let’s walk a mile in its paws and try to view things like it would. That much we can do. I’ve tried to do so, but the odds are I’m wrong oo. There’s no real meeting of the minds here. Even if I came face-to-face with the possum, I couldn’t converse with it; I couldn’t convince it that its POV was wrong.

However, just like each possum has their own unique worldview mythology, so too does each and every human have a unique perspective on life, the universe and everything. The difference is that in most cases we can communicate that perspective to others of our species.

The point now is if our companion mammals have a flawed POV of their worldview mythology, one that we know is wrong, but they don’t, one that may or may not incorporate humans; do we humans have in turn a flawed POV when it comes to our worldview mythologies? The parallels between mammals (like our possum) and humans and those collective worldview mythologies we all have might suggest that we too have some flawed perceptions about life, the universe and everything that need further and continued exploration and elaboration. In that broader context, perhaps we can also have empathy with possums inasmuch as we too might have flawed worldview mythologies in the eyes of entities superior to us.

Monster Birds of the Americas: Part Two

There are myths and legends that tell of human beings abducted as a food source by flying beasties. Confining ourselves to the Americas, especially the indigenous natives of North America, the question is, is there anything verified by science that’s birdlike or that flies that could snack on a fully grown human? If not, something’s screwy somewhere and other explanations are required.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Real Monster ‘Birds’ of the Americas

Pterosaurs and Pterodactyls: These beasties weren’t really birds-of-a-feather, rather just winged and flying (or gliding) reptiles that belonged way back in fact to ‘The Age of Reptiles’ – the Mesozoic Era. The largest of these discovered (to date) was Quetzalcoatlus, named obviously after that Mesoamerican feathered serpent deity. Quetza-baby had a 36 to 40 foot wingspan, and just might have been able to snack on a human. However, pterosaurs and pterodactyls all went kaput by the end of the Mesozoic – Q-baby made it in fact through to the end of the Cretaceous period, 65 millions of years ago. Alas, that was at least 64 million years before anything resembling humans walked the planet as a food source. While Native Americans were probably aware of the fossils of these flying reptiles, they had nothing to fear from them in terms of being snack-food. 

Terror Birds: Well, these terrors really existed in the Americas and for a while were thought to be contemporary with the earliest humans in the Americas. Though they survived and thrived in mainly South America, some made it across the Isthmus of Panama land bridge into Central and North America about 3 million years ago. The most recent of them is now thought to have gone extinct about 1.8 million years ago, well before humans arrived on the scene.

But even assuming humans and terror birds were contemporary, why the terror? Well, these crows-on-steroids were up to ten feet tall and could gallop after you at velocities up to some 37 miles per hour. Relatives of these monsters with equally large beaks and talons have been found in Texas and Florida, and presumable bridged the geographical gap in-between. So, should the natives have been afraid; very afraid? Well, in this case the top apex predators probably succumbed to being ultimately human prey since the terror birds, along with the rest of the North, Central and South American mega-fauna went extinct in pretty quick-smart fashion after humans appeared on the scene. Now humans, if contemporary, probably didn’t engage in hand-to-wing combat with these ungodly raptors, but rather found their eggs as a handy-dandy breakfast food supplement to their gatherer nuts-and-berries fare. Alas, no baby terror birds hatchlings; ultimately no terror birds. In any event, terror birds were flightless, like the emus, cassowaries, the ostrich and kiwis, not to mention their extinct cousins the moa and dodos. Thus, terror birds don’t fit our description of birds that fly and pluck humans off the ground and feel us to their young.

Giant Condors & Related:  The Andean condor at 11 to 15 kg (24 – 33 pounds) is currently the Guinness Book of Records holder for being the America’s largest flying feathered member of the avian clan, at least with respect to a roughly 10 to 12 foot wingspan. The California condor at 7 to 14 kg (15 to 31 pounds) comes a very close second with wingspans around ten feet. Then too there was the Pleistocene [Ice Age] teratorns weighing in at 15 kg to 23 kg (33 to 50 pounds), huge raptors resembling eagles with wingspans 12 to 17 feet across.

Overall the wandering albatross is on a par with the Andean condor for title of ‘king of the wingspan’ (up to 11 feet for the great albatrosses), but it isn’t a common sight in North America – then or now. There are several North Pacific varieties which reach the western coast of North America, but because these are sea birds, feeding on seafood although scavenging carrion when on land (remote islands) for breeding purposes. The odds that Native American Indians would have noted the albatross as a regular part of their environment wouldn’t have been common for other than those living right on the Pacific Ocean.

Now the sixty-four cent question is, can any one or more of the above account for eyewitness accounts of monster birds abducting their comrades in arms? Well any sane person would eliminate dragons and Thunderbirds – they are mythological and therefore don’t exist. One cannot witness non-existence. Pterosaurs and pterodactyls were extinct long before humans were thought up in anyone’s philosophy. Terror birds couldn’t fly and probably weren’t actually contemporary with humans in any event. Condors, while big, aren’t big enough. I mean an average human should be large enough to punch a condor’s lights right out, and certainly humans are too large to be carried across the condor’s threshold.

Condors (Andean or Californian) are actually vultures and thus scavengers, feeding primarily on carrion, even though preferring large carcases like those of cattle. It has to feed while on the ground, and often stuffs itself silly when it does come across a suitable meal that it can’t, for a while, lift itself off the ground. This is hardly a bird likely to be the source of American Indian human-abducting mythology, although the bird certainly features in Native American mythology. However, as the condor is an endangered species, the bird had and has way more reason to fear the natives than the other way around.

The extinct teratorns however were contemporary with humans (Amerindians), but while large enough to cause more than sufficient trouble for a human infant, there’s evidence to suggest that overall, the humans were probably more the hunters than the hunted when crunch came crunch.

However, even at a weight of fifty pounds and a wingspan of 17 feet, could a teratorn have actually picked up and carried away an adult human, with a weight say at least twice or thrice that of the raptor? Fossil evidence suggests that small mammals, even fish, and carrion were its usual means of sustenance. Since the Native Americans say it’s so – at least according to their mythology – you have to ask yourself whether or not a 50 pound bird, who could obviously carry its own weight and probably a bit more through the air, could actually fly with a 100 to 150 pound payload? That’s 150 to 200 pounds all up the bird is carrying. Now that’s a pretty big ask.

Has anyone seen an owl or an eagle or other flying raptor carry off prey two to three times its own weight?  Now it might be one thing for a very large bird to pick you up (especially if you’re dead and not struggling) and carry you off while in contact with the ground, like the terror birds, at least for a short way since after all you’re still very heavy compared to the bird. But it’s quite other kettle of fish for a bird to pick you up and actually fly away with you without any leg and ground support at all. Flying (flapping wings) is very energy intensive at the best of times (we’ve all seen birds in gliding mode in order to conserve energy), far less trying to lift up and flap wings with twice or thrice its normal body weight to struggle with.

Now we’ve all seen wildlife documentaries showing a large carnivorous bird swooping low over the water and then grabbing an unsuspecting fish out of the water with its talons. Now that fish may even be as large and heavy as the bird itself, but the prey can’t be that much larger and certainly not twice as large and heavy as the predator. The bird, so close to the water, can not afford to be dragged down by extra unmanageable weight into the water – then it’s bye-bye birdie. 

Moving back to the land, raptor birds can and do attack prey much larger than themselves. The bones of these large prey animals have been found in the raptor’s nests or lairs. An eagle might attack a deer or fawn. The deer can’t really defend itself very well out in the open. But that’s not to say that the eagle can actually carry off the deer carcass whole, rather it’s going to tear out chunks at a time and carry them take-away style back to the nest. If not feeding young, it just might dine in on the spot, only flapping away if threatened by the appearance of larger scavengers.

In human terms, a normal average fit human may be able to life twice its body weight but can’t hardly be expected to run an obstacle course carrying it. Half a human’s body weight maybe, but not twice far less thrice.

Now in more ‘modern’ times, there have been a few sightings of giant and other unknown birds – critters that fall within the realm of study called cryptozoology. Having looked over the ‘modern’ (1850 to date) cryptozoological literature, most sightings prove to be ordinary birds though perhaps viewed out of their normal territory and thus somewhat unfamiliar to the viewer. Most unexplained avian species remain unverified and usually too small to be the sort of critter we’ve been looking for. Sightings of monster birds, while they exist, have never yielded up the sort of data that would have confirmed their reality. No dung, no feathers, no carcass, no bones. Unknown monster birds, if they do still exist, are running out of habitat to hide in; in fact they probably have run out of viable environmental living space. If they haven’t been confirmed by now they probably won’t ever be. Besides, any unknown North American birds, monster or otherwise, would have long since been shot out of the sky by trigger-happy Americans.  

Conclusions: No flying bird that is or was contemporary with humans (like the America Indian) was capable of lifting up and carrying off anything other than perhaps a small infant; certainly not adults. Flying birds are lightweights – they have to be in order to lift themselves up into the air. The largest of the predatory flightless birds (terror birds) were probably capable of running down, capturing, and lifting up human adults, but that’s not what the legends describe. But to a technologically unsophisticated Native American, living hundreds to thousands of years ago, a UFO abduction event might only have made natural sense to them in a Thunderbird related scenario. 

Further Readings about Monster Birds

Allan, Tony; “Beasts of the air” (in); The Mythic Bestiary: The Illustrated Guide to the World’s Most Fantastical Creatures; Duncan Baird Publishers, London; 2008; pages 14-53.

Bord, Colin & Bord, Janet; “Giant birds and birdmen” (in); Alien Animals: A Worldwide Investigation; Panther Books, London; Revised Edition 1985; pages 109-135. 

Clark, Jerome & Coleman, Loren; “Things with wings” (in); Creatures of the Outer Edge; Warner Books, New York; 1978; pages 165-194.

Mackal, Roy P.; “’Alice in Wonderland’ birds” (in); Searching for Hidden Animals: An Inquiry Into Zoological Mysteries; Doubleday & Company, New York; 1980; pages 99-128.

Mayor, Adrienne; Fossil Legends of the First Americans; Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey; 2005.

Monster Birds of the Americas: Part One

There are myths and legends that tell of human beings abducted as a food source by flying beasties. Confining ourselves to the Americas, especially the indigenous natives of North America, the question is, is there anything verified by science that’s birdlike or that flies that could snack on a fully grown human? If not, something’s screwy somewhere and other explanations are required.

For most of modern human’s existence, say over the past 50,000 to 100,000 years, if we saw something fly under its own power, it was a bird, a bat or an insect – maybe a ‘flying’ fish or ‘flying’ fox if you want to stretch things a bit. Relatively few of these feature prominently in any culture’s mythology. Bats might have an association with vampires, but your average run-of-the-mill garden variety bird is usually taken for granted – unless they are monstrous in size and like humans for dinner.

If there’s nearly one thing universal in Native American mythology it’s giant birds, monster birds, even the Thunderbird (which has been adopted as a brand name for many products not to mention the name of a TV show with associated spin-off motion pictures). Now apart from the actual observations of these winged monstrosities, there’s nothing all that unusual about giant flying creatures in mythology. What sets these ‘birds’ apart is that they often like to snack on the natives – as takeaways, not dine in. Is there any natural terrestrial explanation for birds carrying away humans, like a crow picking up a kernel of corn? Or, might one have to resort to another, more unnatural and perhaps extraterrestrial explanation?

Mythological Monster ‘Birds’ of the Americas

Dragons: While primarily connected with the Old World (Europe, the Far East, etc.), dragons have some, albeit lesser well known connection in the New World of the Americas, perhaps a bit more in the guise of serpents, that is taking on a serpentine appearance. This is most notably so with respect to that famous feathered serpent (sounds more like a bird actually) Quetzalcoatl, a central Aztec deity, but noted as well in Mayan culture and that other, and mysterious initial Mesoamerican civilization, the Olmecs.

However, we do have the Piasa Bird which is depicted as a dragon in a Native American Indian mural above the Mississippi River near modern day Alton, Illinois. It’s thought that the originals were done by the Cahokia Indians way before any white settlers arrived in their territory. Their pictographs of animals, birds such as the falcon, bird-men and serpents (monstrous snakes) were common, as was the Thunderbird icon. According to a local professor living in the area in the 1830’s, John Russell, the Piasa Bird depicted in the mural was a monstrous bird that inhabited the area and attacked and ate the locals that inhabited various Indian villages in the area. Apparently it got a taste for human flesh after scavenging human carrion (corpses).

Thunderbirds & Related: These beasties are nearly universal in Native American Indian mythology, and what’s more they carry many similar features. They tend to be very large birds that are seen as the personification of thunder (the beating of their wings) and lightning and all things stormy; a sort of Zeus or Thor but with wings, talons, a beak and feathers. The Native Americans believed that the giant Thunderbird could shoot lightning from its eyes. Say what? Even odder is that the Thunderbird often has teeth in its beak. We’ve all heard the phrase “rare as hen’s teeth” – well that’s because modern birds are toothless.

Thunderbirds were also associated with the Great Spirits so common in Indian lore. They were servants of these deities and apparently acted as messenger-boys (sorry, messenger-birds) – a sort of extra-large carrier pigeon – carrying communications between these various Great Spirits. Thunderbirds were associated with the weather as we’ve seen, and also with water. Now an interesting parallel is that dragons in the Old World are often viewed as go-betweens between the gods and humanity (sort of again like carrier pigeons) and their having some control over the weather and the waters was a common feature as well.

So, this mythological monster bird is common throughout Indian legends. Actually in one case there was a Thunderbird that resembled a giant eagle that was large enough, and powerful enough to carry a whale in its claws. Say what again? According to the Makah people of the Northwest Coast, a Thunderbird saved a village from famine by snatching up a whale from the Pacific Ocean and giving it to the community to feed off of, giving the village food lasting for many weeks. Would this be an American example of a case of manna from Heaven? Now no bird could actually carry even a small whale in its beak or talons, so there must be another explanation.

I’ve previously related how the Navajos have associated Ship Rock (or Shiprock) in New Mexico with a legend that says they were flown by a ‘flying rock’ (Ship Rock) provided by their Great Spirit to escape their enemies from up north. The Navajos, in other legends, have associated Ship Rock with the presence of ‘Bird Monsters’ or cliff monsters that preyed and feed on human Navajo and Zunis flesh. I wonder if that could be a garbled tale of UFO abduction.

Related are the tales of the Yaqui from around the Sonora region in NW Mexico. Yaqui legends tell of enormous birds around Skeleton Mountain that carried off men, women and children.

There’s a petroglyph at Puerco Pueblo (or village) located in the Petrified Forest National Park of an enormous bird with a human suspended in the air by its beak. If we assume the human is of average height, say 5’ 6” tall, then the bird, to scale, is roughly 13’ 9” tall. That’s one very big bird! The petroglyph was carved into stone many, many hundreds upon hundreds of years ago by the ancestors of the Hopis, maybe even by the lost Anasazis.

When it comes to the Thunderbirds, scholars of mythology strongly suggest that this creature is just the embellishment of the California condor, eagles, or the extinct teratorns. However, to my way of thinking, one doesn’t usually associate birds with thunder and lightning (i.e. – storms). Now you may see birds riding the thermals that might precede a storm, but you don’t tend to see birds out and about in stormy weather – they seek shelter from the elements too. Yet many tribes like the Lakota Sioux or the Ojibwa of the Great Lakes Region make the connection between these Thunderbirds and lightning in particular. Perhaps the association with something flying and thunder and lightning suggests something a bit more technological!

I mean something that can serve as a monster carrier pigeon between the gods, lift huge weights, abduct humans (recorded in many Indian legends) and shoot out lightning bolts doesn’t sound like biology to me, rather more something artificial. Now perhaps all these legends of abducting and man-eating giant birds are nothing more than a rogue eagle or condor with too much testosterone in its system who, feeling threatened, attacked a lone Indian and like the fish that got away, the bird just grew and got embellished, and grew some more and got even more embellished until it reached ridiculous proportions and abilities. Well maybe. 

To be continued…