Aflockalypse how?

I saw generations of birds, watched them break their shells, flutter into life, mate, weaken, falter and die. Wings grew only to crumble; bodies were sleek and then, in a flash, bled and shriveled; and death struck everywhere at every second. — J.B. Priestly, Rain Upon Godshill

Everything means something, I guess. — Dialogue from the movie, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

MANILA, Philippines - Between New Year’s Eve and January 4, 2011, massive avian deaths (and fish kill — but that’s another story, or is it?) have been reported in the southern USA, Sweden, Brazil, Australia, and even Asia. Everyone has a ready scientific explanation or conspiracy theory to explain the phenomenon, from the mundane (weather, fireworks, sonic boom, “natural selection”) to the bizarre (secret government projects, the Book of Revelations, chemtrail, aliens, the end of the world). But in spite of all these, no one can explain why with any certainty.

All they know is that most of the birds died from blunt force trauma — in midair. It’s been suggested that power lines killed them. I have observed many a bird perched calmly on power lines but have never seen a significant amount of dead birds around power lines. Fireworks? Then birds should be littering the ground every Fourth of July, Chinese New Year, and New Year. Bad weather? Come on.

Ornithologists say these things happen all the time. Apparently, massive bird death is a more common occurrence than we think. It’s just media-induced pareidolia, they claim. But I am not buying this flippancy. If it were so common, why did the media — the nosiest people on the planet — sniff this out only now? (Unless of course there’s really no news to speak of.) But telling us that it’s “more common than we think” still doesn’t provide us any convincing explanation.

That’s why we then turn to the cranks. My favorite conspiracy theory is the one that implicates the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program, also known as simply as “HAARP,” which, according to AOL News, is a project investigating the upper atmosphere’s ionosphere, in hopes that improved communications and surveillance tools can be developed. Sounds sinister already, doesn’t it? According to the same online news article, the program has “long ruffled the feathers of conspiracy theorists, who think that the program’s research involves experiments with dire consequences for the world, including “death rays” and “weather manipulation.” And, even more damning, it was even comprehensively tackled on an episode of TruTV’s Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura. (Hey, he wasn’t just a wrestler who somehow got elected into office in the United States of Whatever. That should count for something. No?) Their take is pretty similar to the scenario in Michael Crichton’s 2004 novel, State of Fear, that involves eco-terrorists undertaking extreme measures to further their agenda. Somehow that just makes sense if not entertaining.

Of course, the most fun explanation I’ve heard is this: God has downloaded Angry Birds on his iPad.

It’s 2011, and we are used to getting answers at the click of a button, so why do aren’t we getting any? Are they hiding something? Worse, are they hiding nothing?

Seriously though, not knowing what we’re potentially up against terrifies me sleepless. In lieu of sheep jumping over a fence, my nights are an apocalypse of dead birds hitting the ground. In the quote above, novelist and dramatist J.B. Priestly recounted his dream in his autobiography and felt “sick at heart” but later modified it into a vision of transcendence, of wisdom beyond our worldly concerns. Of course, the character who says that second quote concerning the intrinsic meaning of things in Tobe Hooper’s seminal horror movie based on the real-life atrocities of serial killer Ed Gein is also the first victim of Leatherface.