I have it from my grandfather that, far above, where the sky meets space, there live strange giants. Not the fe-fi-fo type, he had said with a crinkled nose. Things more related to whales. He called them Air Beasts. They flew, or not flew, soared, mastered the far reaches of the atmosphere. And why not, he asked. The depths of our oceans teem with unknown alien beings; our skies are no different. He would look to the heavens: the biggest frontier that earth has to offer, and our puny planes & balloons & helicopters haven’t yet been able to penetrate it.

He harrumphed when I told him of the dense clouds of satellites that crawl over every inch of our orbit space. Those wind-up toys are for spewing out cell-phone signals and taking pictures in the wrong direction, he told me. How can they capture—much less get to know—those huge and complex beings if they’re watching other galaxies? His voice grew quiet.

The Indians knew about them, he said. Somewhat, anyway. You see, the Air Beast newborns fly lower than the adults; it’s easier to learn how to soar in thicker air. Those younglings were known as Thunderbirds.

The Lakota were clever; they recognized the power, the other-worldliness of the beasts, just not what they were exactly. I asked, where are they now, why don’t we see them? He always said they were still up there. None have died and come crashing down, after all. He said they probably smelled the smoke of chaos below, felt the air growing toxic, heard the rumblings of factories and war. Even Air Beasts can migrate, he said to me. Just where to, he didn’t know.