A popular conspiracy that theorists contemplate is the reality of birds, whether or not they have been replaced by drones and controlled by the government. The idea of birds being fake came from a college student named Peter Mcindoe “on a whim” in January

2017. This claim gained popularity over the explanation of the possibility that birds are actually drones operated by the government to spy on citizens. Part of the theory claims that all birds in the United States were once real, but eventually all were killed between the years 1959 and 1971 and replaced by government drones. There are also sub-theories such as the idea that birds sit on power lines to recharge themselves, or that they excrement on cars as a tracking device, and even that president JFK, elected in 1960, was assassinated because of his refusal to kill all the birds in the country and support the robot surveillance bird repopulation. 

            While the theories of this argument seem to make sense, the entirety of the “Birds aren’t real” campaign wasn’t created to be a true theory, but to parody the nonsense of conspiracy theorists. Peter Macindoe wanted to emphasize the occasional insanity of theorists and create his own conspiracy. He described the movement as, “fighting lunacy with lunacy”. After publicly playing along with his own outrageous conspiracy for years, Peter finally admitted that the entire idea was made up to feed into the fact that young people often believe anything circulating on the internet. The ‘Birds Aren’t Real’ movement has gained much fame on social media, especially on their Tik Tok and Instagram pages. His Instagram page has over 400,000 followers, his TikTok has almost 900,000 followers. Fans of this movement frequently have rallies to raise awareness for Macindoe’s theory.

           Although the creator of this crazy conspiracy admitted to making it all up, there were some solid points as to why this theory could make sense. Do you think birds are real?

“The History.” Birds Aren’t Real, https://birdsarentreal.com/pages/the-history. 

Lederer, Dr. Roger. “Are Birds Real?” Ornithology, 7 Nov. 2022, https://ornithology.com/are-birds-real/.