Scientific Conspiracy Theories That Will Reveal People's Tin Foil Hats

Birds Aren’t Real

Height of Conspiracy: 2017 to Present

In response to conspiracy theories, a 23-year-old man named Peter McIndoe decided to spread a rumor that “Birds Aren’t Real” back in 2017. McIndoe remained in character when selling this conspiracy for years. Even when he did a December 2021 interview with the New York Times about it. He claimed that birds are not real but rather, all are just surveillance drones made by the United States Government. The Birds Aren’t Real campaign actually has a real-life staff, organizes real protests, and even bought real billboards. They even put their claim on the side of vans over the years.

McIndoe later claimed that this was all a parody of misinformation that Gen-Z finds itself coming across a lot. He says that “Birds Aren’t Real is not a shallow satire of conspiracies from the outside. It is from the deep inside. A lot of people in our generation feel the lunacy in all this, and Birds Aren’t Real has been a way for people to process that.” This campaign was started not only to call attention to bad conspiracies but also to how they are covered too. Local media have reported on this conspiracy as if young people really believed it. This only helps to sell the message organizers are trying to get people to see, that we need to be better about stopping this stuff. McIndoe says that this is “about holding up a mirror to America in the internet age.” Well done, BAR, well done!

Where Do We Find This Stuff? Here Are Our Sources:

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC)

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

World Health Organization (WHO)

United Nations (UN)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

United States Food & Drug Administration (FDA)

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)