here’s an interesting chain of events to ponder.
1) Earliest recorded history has tales of “dragons”.
Reptillian creatures of immense size with thick hides and scales that were gradually wiped out by heros. Some Dragons could even fly! Can you believe that?
2) Science proves these Reptillian monsters of large size don’t exist. How could something that large fly? After all, we explored the world, and there are no dragons.
3) 1000 years pass. We find bones of large obviously reptillian creatures
We call them “Dinosaurs”. We find out that some weighing up to a ton or two could actually FLY!
4) We are told that absolutely, under no circumstances could man have ever existed during the time of the dinosaurs.
5) We still have legends, tales, drawings, paintings, and in some cases etchings in caves of dinosaur like animals.
But it’s just circumstance that imagination conjured up a mythical beast that really DID EXIST.
Mere Coincidence?
We saw a silly Imax movie about sea monsters last Fall at the Smithsonian. The scientists found several intact 35 foot long reptile specimens with whole fish in their bellies. What was said in the movie was the reptile choked on its dinner and died, rather than the reptile swallowed the fish whole, then both died suddenly before the digestive juices had a chance to work. The evidence of sudden death was all over the place, but those making the film were blind to it.
Are you making the assumption that we were the first people to ever find any of them?
Did people ever make up stories to explain things they found they had never seen before?