Once long ago when I was young, I saw an old photo in a book. The book was about strange and unusual creatures and this photo was about Thunderbirds.

The picture was of a giant pterodactyl type of flying creature that had been nailed to the wall of a barn. In front of the creature, six men dressed in western style garb stood next to each other with their arms outstretched and their fingers touching.

This photo was one of the many which fanned the flames of the weird, strange and paranormal and got me well and truly hooked on the subject.

Do you remember this photo?

If you do, then you are not the only one. Many people remember this photo in detail. Some people even remember the exact book or magazine that featured the photo. And even a few have actually owned a copy!

Eminent Fortean researcher Ivan T.Sanderson remembered seeing the photo and claimed to have once had a photocopy of it. He subsequently loaned the copy to two associates, who then lost it.
The editors of Fate Magazine even came to believe that they may have published the photo in an earlier issue (the magazine started in 1948) but a search through back issues failed to find it.

This is the mystery. No-one can actually find a copy of the picture today, despite looking in the old remembered books and magazines for it. The photo, and all evidence that it existed has vanished.

So a mystery has been born about a mystery.

How do we explain this weird phenomena of a photograph that so many remember seeing and yet no one can seem to find?

Trick of the mind

Could it be that the description of the photo creates such a vivid image in the mind that many people who have an interest in weird things begin to think the photo is familiar?

Could it literally be creating a “shared memory” of something that does not exist?

We think we have seen it, but we actually have not. The mind has played a trick on us.

Cover-up

Some people have speculated that there is some kind of cover-up. Someone, or some agency may have gone and purposefully removed all evidence of the photo.

Why would anyone do so over something like this?

Time Changes

This theory is one of the most fascinating. Some people have speculated that somehow the timeline has been altered. This could be in one of two ways.

Somehow between the 80′s and today, we somehow jumped into an alternate timeline. In this new timeline, the photo had never been taken and therefore never existed. We are just remembering the photo from the original timeline.

Another ‘time theory’ is that someone from a future time where they have the ability to time travel, traveled back in time and changed time so that either the photo was never taken, or was removed from history in some way. This partly links to the first time theory.

The answer to the missing photo is not going to be easy to solve, at least not unless the photo is somehow unearthed from some dusty archive. Until then we are left intrigued and mystified.

What follows are a few drawings based on memories of people who have seen the photo:

The Smith drawing is the closest to the pic I remember):

Transcript of text from actual article (which contained no picture):

Tombstone Epitaph
April 26, 1890

FOUND IN THE DESERT
A STRANGE WINGED MONSTER DISCOVERED AND KILLED ON THE HUACHUCA DESERT
A winged monster, resembling a huge alligator with an extremely elongated tail and an immense pair of wings, was found on the desert between the Whetsone and Huachuca mountains last Sunday by two ranchers who were returning home from the Huachucas. The creature was evidently greatly exhausted by a long flight and when discovered was able to fly but a short distance at a time. After the first shock of wild amazement had passed, the two men, who were on horseback and armed with Winchester rifles, regained sufficient courage to pursue the monster and after an exciting chase of several miles succeeded in getting near enough to open fire with their rifles and wounding it.

The creature then turned on the men, but owing to its exhausted condition they were able to keep out of its way and after a few well directed shots the monster partly rolled over and remained motionless. The men cautiously approached, their horses snorting with terror, and found that the creature was dead. They then proceeded to make an examination and found that it measured about ninety-two feet in length and the greatest diameter was about fifty inches. The monster had only two feet, these being situated a short distance in front of where the wings were joined to the body.

The head, as near as they could judge, was about eight feet long, the jaws being thickly set with strong, sharp teeth. Its eyes were as large as a dinner plate and protruded about half way from the head. They had some difficulty in measuring the wings as they were partly folded under the body, but finally got one straightened out sufficiently to get a measurement of seventy-eight feet, making the total length from tip to tip about 160 feet. The wings were composed of a thick and nearly transparent membrane and were devoid of feathers or hair, as was the entire body. The skin of the body was comparatively smooth and easily penetrated by a bullet.

The men cut off a small portion of the tip of one wing and took it home with them. Late last night one of them arrived in this city for supplies and to make the necessary preparations to skin the creature, when the hide will be sent east for examination by the eminent scientists of the day. The finder returned early this morning accompanied by several prominent men who will endeavor to bring the strange creature to this city before it is mutilated.