(Photo by Sarah Ventre - KJZZ)

A variety of atlatls await the range and target at the Pueblo Grande Museum.

Let's suspend our sense of disbelief for a moment. You're walking through downtown Tempe, and a wild animal of the kind you've only seen stuffed in a natural history museum, like a saber-toothed tiger, leaps out from behind the ATM.

So what do you do? If it's handy, grab an atlatl.

In honor of World Atlatl day, we went to the Pueblo Grande Museum and learned to use a device historically used to throw a spear farther.