Birds Aren’t Real: The Fake Conspiracy Theory Built to Parody All the Others

ARCHIVE FILE · Theory explainer (satire). Key dates: January 2017, 2019, December 2021, January 2022, May 2022, April 2023. This is not breaking news. It is part of the Redacted Weekly evergreen archive. We explain conspiracy theories; we don’t endorse them, and this one doesn’t want you to.

What happened

Every conspiracy archive needs one theory that’s in on the joke. Birds Aren’t Real claims the U.S. government killed off the nation’s birds and replaced them with surveillance drones. It has billboards, rallies, merchandise and a chant: “If it flies, it spies.” It was invented as a joke, and its creator has said so on national television.

In January 2017, Peter McIndoe saw pro-Trump counter-protesters at the Women’s March in Memphis, Tennessee. According to Wikipedia’s sourced article, he wrote “Birds Aren’t Real” on a poster and improvised a conspiracy theory among the counter-protesters as a “spontaneous joke.” A video of him at the march spread online, and the movement grew from there.

That same year, he posted on Facebook: “I made a satirical movement a few months ago, and people on Instagram seem to like it a lot.” In character, he later disowned the post, saying a staffer who had since been fired wrote it. For years he stayed in character in interviews.

The footage

Two pieces of video carry the story. Neither is embedded here; both are copyrighted and should be watched through their official channels.

• 60 Minutes, “Parodying conspiracy theories with the Birds Aren’t Real movement” (CBS News, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, broadcast 1 May 2022). The CBS transcript shows McIndoe leading a rally of about 200 “bird truthers” in Hollywood, answering questions in character, and then dropping the act on camera.
• “Birds Aren’t Real? How a Conspiracy Takes Flight,” Peter McIndoe at TED2023 (uploaded by TED to YouTube on 13 September 2023; 13 min 51 s; also on TED.com). McIndoe explains why he built the parody and what he learned from the people it attracted.

Timeline

• January 2017: McIndoe improvises the theory at the Women’s March in Memphis.
• 2017: His Facebook post calls it “a satirical movement.” He later blames the post, in character, on a fired staffer.
• 2018: Journalist Rachel Roberts describes the movement as “a joke that thousands of people are in on.”
• 2019: A “Birds Aren’t Real” billboard goes up in Memphis. In a WREG-TV interview that year, McIndoe, in character, says he is offended by the question of whether it is satire.
• 2021: Supporters protest outside Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, demanding it drop its bird logo. MSNBC says the movement has hundreds of thousands of members. McIndoe says he works full-time as its spokesman, funded by merchandise sales.
• 9 December 2021: The New York Times publishes Taylor Lorenz’s profile, “Birds Aren’t Real, or Are They? Inside a Gen Z Conspiracy Theory.” A Washington Post piece follows on 16 December 2021.
• January 2022: A Vice profile carries what Wikipedia calls his first media interview out of character.
• 1 May 2022: 60 Minutes airs its segment.
• April 2023: McIndoe speaks at TED2023; the talk is posted online in September 2023.

What witnesses reported

The “witnesses” here are performers and their audiences, and the record of what they said is public.

At the Hollywood rally filmed by 60 Minutes, the crowd chanted “If it flies, it spies!” and McIndoe accused CNN of being “pro-bird.” Asked by Alfonsi what bird truthers believe, he answered in character: “Every single bird in the sky is a robot.”

Out of character in the same interview, he explained the point: “So it’s taking this concept of misinformation and almost building a little safe space to come together within it and laugh at it, rather than be scared by it.”

Rally participants seen in the coverage are members of the public and are not named here.

What the research found

The theory’s “facts” are invented on purpose. The movement’s lore says the federal government killed all U.S. birds between 1959 and 1971 and replaced them with lookalike drones. It says birds sit on power lines to recharge, that droppings on cars are a liquid tracking method, and that JFK was killed for refusing to kill the birds. Wikipedia notes the specifics “are not always consistent, not unlike other conspiracy theories.” That inconsistency is part of the parody.