A Weird Conspiracy Theory is True?
A silly fake conspiracy has suddenly taken on an element of truth.
In 2017 when billboards started popping up in major cities proclaiming: Birds Aren’t Real. People were mystified, and they soon learned about a new conspiracy theory, it seems the government had been killing all the birds and replacing them with drones to spy on people.
The founder of the movement, Peter McIndoe, at that time a college psychology major dropout, sincerely explained that as a birdwatcher he had discovered that all real birds had disappeared and were replaced by drones. It was all part of a secret government plan to use the easy access birds had to our lives to monitor our behavior. There were protests, a YouTube channel, and national tv appearances.
Eventually, McIndoe admitted that it had been a prank to parody all the lunatic conspiracy theories going around. At the height of the Covid pandemic, he had become frustrated with the multitude of unhinged conspiracy theories going around he decided to counter with a ridiculous one of his own.
When he saw a demonstration outside his window, he made up a nonsense slogan on the spot and went outside to hold up a sign that said: “Birds Aren’t Real.” He told the Guardian in an interview “I just thought: I should write something that has nothing to do with what’s going on. An absurdist statement to bring to the equation.” Someone put a video of him on Facebook and soon the cause became a faux movement eventually leading to a million followers.
You may have heard this story before, It’s all very silly. You might assume it has run its course, a lot of Z-generation kids have had some fun and it’s done.
But wait…. it’s come out in the news recently that someone actually has been creating drones with taxidermied bird bodies for the purpose of spying.
You heard right- IT’S TRUE! SOMEONE’S BEEN REPLACING REAL BIRDS WITH TAXIDERMIED DEAD BIRDS TO SPY ON PEOPLE!
Here’s the real story, It actually is completely disconnected from the Birds Aren’t Real movement. According to a story in The Washington Post The zombie bird drones are made by scientists at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and are made from parts of real birds and mechanical parts. They actually flap their wings like real birds. The idea is they can be used to spy on living birds non intrusively, or even on humans in situations like war zones.
The engineer working on the project, Mostafa Hassanalian told The Post “We want to fly them and flap them similar to birds to understand the physics.” He began his engineering in Iran before moving to New Mexico to pursue a PhD. Hassanalian told The Post he tested wings from various dead birds on a flapping simulator for their ability to fly.
The Post story notes engineers have previously used bird drones as a form of surveillance. It says in the past the CIA built bird-like drones to try to spy on the Soviet Union and that China has used drones that look like doves to monitor citizens. Hassanalian said some people might want to use his drones for surveillance once they’re perfected.
Realistic bird drones have other purposes as well. Traditional drones are too disruptive to wildlife and the realistic-looking bird- drones would be less intrusive for some purposes. Realistic drones, similar to real birds have been used to scare away real birds from airport runways to prevent them from getting caught in engines.
So, a ridiculous parody conspiracy has taken on an element of truth. Birds Aren’t Real is real, well kind of….
