Other Flying · Whetstone Mountains, Arizona · 1890
AZ-1890ID case-8c45b0d2ffAdded to map Oct 6, 2026
- Creature
- Other Flying
- When
- Apr 20, 1890to the day
- Where
- Whetstone Mountains, Arizonato approximate level
- Reports
- 7 documents2 independent
The account
Two ranchers report finding and killing a large winged creature resembling an alligator with elongated tail and massive wings on the desert between the Whetstone and Huachuca mountains.
Trace the source trail → every document, in time order, and how they connect
We map claims, not creatures: this is what the sources say, not proof. How a case is built
Details
- Creature
- Other Flying
- Where
- Whetstone Mountains, Cochise County, Arizona, United States
mapped to approximate level · from the report's own words - When
- Apr 20, 1890
- Account
- Not first-hand (retold or reported by someone else)
- Backed by
- 2 independent sources (7 documents; copies and reprints are not confirmations)
- Added to map
- Oct 6, 2026
- Case id
- case-8c45b0d2ff
Place lookups use data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via Nominatim. All credits
Source trail (6)
Down the rabbit hole → 7 documents, and how they connect
Every link goes to where we found the account. The earliest we found is marked; it is the earliest found, not necessarily the original.
- Image 3 of Tombstone epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz.), April 26, 1890
Newspaper · 1890-04-26
Earliest found, not necessarily the original. - Image 5 of St. Paul daily globe (Saint Paul, Minn.), June 2, 1890
Newspaper · 1890-06-02 - Image 7 of Idaho news (Blackfoot, Idaho), October 11, 1890
Newspaper · 1890-10-11
Show 3 more sources
- The lost thunderbird photo 1: A wild west tall story, folktales and a lumberjack, and a collection of large dead birds.
Reddit · 2022-06-15 - The Flying Serpent Who Battled a Train and Other American Dragons
Reddit · 2024-11-14 - The Flying Serpent Who Battled a Train (and Other American Dragons)
Reddit · 2024-11-14
Further reading
- On the Track of Unknown Animals, Bernard Heuvelmans (1959)
The founding work of cryptozoology.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Cryptozoology A to Z, Loren Coleman and Jerome Clark (1999)
Encyclopedia of reported creatures.
Borrow on Internet Archive - Abominable Science!, Daniel Loxton and Donald Prothero (2013)
Skeptical history of the Yeti, Nessie and others.
Borrow on Internet Archive - In Search of Prehistoric Survivors, Karl Shuker (1995)
Borrow on Internet Archive
Books we have not reproduced: borrow them free at archive.org. Listing a book is not an endorsement of its claims.