Hey, guys.

How’s it going?

Hoot, hoot.

Welcome.

We got a struggling Colleen here today.

She’s a little hung of the over.

She just got back from the beach.

She got back from Seacrets.

Partying with a bunch of middle-aged people.

Secrets, if you know, you know.

I think the youngest age was 62.

I don’t know Seacrets, I know.

It’s crazy, there’s so many rooms.

It’s like a big, massive beach club in Ocean City.

It was so much fun.

It grosses me out during the day because there’s like, you can be in the ocean, but they have like eye tops at the ocean.

And everybody’s just pissing.

They had, it’s like Twisted Tea, but it’s a different brand.

Hoop Tea on tap.

That’s like the preferred drink.

But, and then when I was there, there was a reggae band, which made me laugh.

And then…

Reggae.

That was one stage.

And then there was a whole other stage, and that was like a rock band stage.

And there were so many bars.

Hoop Tea is made with vodka, black tea, raspberry, lemon, and it’s made in Ocean City.

It’s made in the Ocean City sunshine.

So I guess it’s like a…

It definitely was sweeter, so that makes sense with the berry.

I swore that it was bubbly, and Jordan said it wasn’t bubbly.

And I was ready to really fight her on that.

I was like, I can feel the bubbles on my tongue.

Maybe if it’s made in the sun, it has a little fermentation.

I don’t know.

So you get that like…

Colleen, it’s just because it came from the tap.

Is it really made in the sun?

I can’t believe that they’re really doing vats of sun tea.

I know, and I don’t know where it would have been.

Kombucha is fermented tea, and that’s where it gets its bubbles.

Yeah, and I swear to God, it tasted bubbly to me.

But Jordan was like, no, it’s not.

And I was like, you’re not feeling my tongue.

Well, we have a fun episode today.

I feel like it’s a hoot.

It is a hoot.

I told, I just saw Drew and Jamie, who have been shouted at so many times on this podcast.

But I was telling Drew that I was meeting up with you guys to record about birds.

Birds.

And he was dying.

I was like, it’s really been a Drew month because we talked about cheese.

Oh yeah.

Talking about birds.

And we talked about planes.

He loves to talk about automobiles.

And one day Jamie said, Drew, enough about the automobiles.

We don’t care.

And then he started talking about the planes he was seeing.

And we were like, Drew, planes are just automobiles of the sky.

Stop talking about them.

So we talked about cheese a couple weeks ago.

We did Boeing airplanes last week, and this week we’re doing birds, and Drew was a big bird watcher.

Oh.

If Jamie is moping for all.

What’s Drew?

Bird man.

Bird man.

Bird man.

I like bird man.

Bird man.

Bird man’s fun.

It kind of rolls off the tongue.

It sounds like Mothman.

Oh, Mothman.

We’re going to do that one day.

Guys, we watched Mountain Monsters.

That’s definitely a recommendation.

I was so involved.

I like was like.

Guys.

Guys, it is such a funny show.

Watch it.

It’s just a group of Appalachian men thinking they’re hunting monsters.

But we’re going to cover, like I told you before that Lindsay, my friend who grew up hunting Sasquatch, she’s going to.

Right.

Tune in with us from Vegas.

To do a Sasquatch episode.

Hopefully we’ll get her mom on because her mom has had multiple experiences.

And yeah, Mothman.

I think they.

That’s for West Virginia.

Yeah, we’ll do that at some point as well.

Just a reminder, guys, don’t forget to check out our Facebook and Instagram pages at 3SchemeQueens, the number 3SchemeQueens, all one word.

If you want to check out our website, go to 3schemequeens.com, and you can find links to our social media accounts, our BuzzRoute page, all of our episodes, additional content and our contact page.

Let us know how we’re doing and what you want to hear next.

There’s also opportunities to financially support us.

There are links to buy us a cup of coffee, links to our merch store and Amazon affiliate links.

And as always, if you choose not to financially support us, we appreciate the follows, the downloads, the listens, the likes, and be sure to check us out on Reddit as well.

Kait, what should the people do?

Yeah, scroll on down, leave us a five-star review, leave us a comment, share the pod with your friends and family, share us on the Instagrams, write us an email.

Colleen will read it in a funny accent.

Oh yeah.

And yeah.

If you request a certain accent, I’ll try my best.

So is it time for our drink check?

Yeah, drink check.

I’m gonna let the.

What you guys drinking?

Oy, mates.

I’ve got me a smashing beaker of a drink.

Really flapping, gatorade.

I was waiting for like, what is she gonna do?

It’s like the sugar water that you would put in your hummingbird feeder.

But it’s got electrolytes to bring you back to life.

Kait, what are you drinking?

I am drinking a little J-Lore Chardonnay.

We like J-Lore.

We do like J-Lore.

Have we, we may have had J-Lore out in the past.

Yeah, we’ve had J, well, we’ve had J-Lore together, but I don’t know if we.

Yeah, but I don’t know if it’s made an appearance on the podcast.

Oh yeah, I don’t know.

I just appreciate any time Kait will drink white wine with me.

My mom really likes J-Lore cab.

It’s good.

Yeah.

Oh, you don’t like the cab?

I love red wine.

Remember that one Christmas party that Kait was dancing and drinking red wine, and I was just going behind her.

She kept spilling it.

Yeah, I was just going behind her with the paper towels on the hardwood floors.

What a good friend.

What a friend.

And then I kept telling her Kaitlyn.

Kaitlyn, three syllables.

Guys, today, should we get into it?

Yeah.

What are we talking about, Megan?

We are talking about birds.

All the little birds on J Bird Street love to hear Colleen go tweet, tweet, tweet.

Yes.

Have you ever had a bird poop on your car?

What if I told you that birds were really drones that the US government was using to spy on us, and that those birds lined up on a power line were just recharging?

What if I told you that birds defecating were really a way for the government to track them?

Oh, I believe that.

What?

Theorists claim that Harry Truman implemented the Bird Drone Initiative in an effort to prevent another world war.

Wait, I’m immediately believing this.

The federal government exterminated 12 billion birds between 1959 and 1971, and then replaced them with drones.

Another 4 billion have been exterminated since then.

In fact, some theorists believe that JFK’s assassination was actually a result of him refusing to kill more birds.

Oh my gosh.

Why didn’t he just go along with the birds?

You know, birds freak me out for many reasons, okay?

First of all, why can they fly?

You know what I mean?

Physics?

They’re not mammals, but what are they?

Birds?

They have their own category.

And also, why are they the direct cousin of a dinosaur?

They, okay, I was on the phone with Colleen the other day, and there was this…

Oh, the monster creature.

Yes, it was like, it looked like a miniature raptor.

It’s a turkey vulture.

And he was running so fast.

It was so scary.

It was terrifying.

Did we look up turkey vultures?

No, we didn’t.

I didn’t think they could run.

I just watched them run.

And also, are penguins birds?

Penguins are birds.

They don’t fly.

Don’t penguins mate for life?

Yes, it’s so sweet.

Not all birds fly though.

Swans also mate for life.

Yeah.

Well, you know about the swans at my parents’ lake house, right?

I know.

There were a couple women and one man, and the women got into a fight over the man, and one of the women didn’t make it.

The swans?

Yeah.

Oh, I thought you meant like actual women.

Well, the females.

Good team.

Yeah, so yeah, don’t trust birds.

There’s too many of them for them not to be eyes.

But before we even get into the nitty gritty of what you have to tell us, my immediately thought process is that it’s only certain birds.

That’s my media thought process.

Like pigeons.

Pigeons?

Yeah.

You know, I’m going to be honest.

This is not a conspiracy theory, I believe.

I’m obviously shocked or more with Kait.

I don’t really buy into this.

I do think…

I don’t think they’re drones.

They’re birds.

I think there are a couple of…

Like a three-eyed raven.

I think that there might be a couple of drones out there that look like birds, but in general, I think birds are birds.

Well, because that’s smart to do that.

So let me tell you this story, okay?

Peter MacIndow is the public information officer for The Birds Aren’t Real Movement.

He claims that the group started in 1976 when animal rights activists and anti-surveillance activists learned about the government plot to replace all of the birds with drones to spy on citizens.

He alleges that the government dropped poisonous toxins from airplanes, chemtrails, anyone?

Mm-hmm.

With the intent to murder all of the birds.

I mean, have you ever seen a baby pigeon?

No, actually.

We don’t see baby pigeons.

Oh my God.

Because the drones are all adults.

They’re all adult pigeons.

They just come out as adults.

Wait.

I’ve never seen a baby pigeon.

This is what MacIndow claims, okay?

I’ve never seen a baby pigeon.

I’m racking my brain right now thinking about baby pigeons.

I’ve never seen one.

But I’m going to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby pigeon.

But what if they don’t flew the nest?

Flew the nest?

Never even seen a teenage pigeon though.

Fly the nest?

I thought it was flew.

Flew’s past tense.

Flock the nest?

Well, flock would be a lot of birds.

Fly the nest?

Yeah, it could be fly the nest.

Oh, I thought it was called flew.

I don’t know.

Anyway.

Well, you say like he flew the nest, meaning like he left.

Oh, maybe that’s what I’m thinking of.

Well, maybe they don’t leave the nest.

Maybe one flew over the nest.

One flew over the…

They’re dependent on their parents until they’re big enough.

Yeah, like maybe they mature until they’re in an adult body.

I mean, how many baby birds do you really see anyway?

Yeah, just the ones that are, when you find like a fun little bird.

Yeah, I love the bird nests.

So over the years, this group, The Birds Aren’t Real Movement, has protested at CNN for their coverage of the movement, as well as Twitter for their logo.

In 2022, 3,000 people gathered in Washington Square to bring publicity to the movement.

And guess what?

There were pigeons everywhere.

Of course there were.

Where was it?

In New York City.

Yeah, there’s pigeons everywhere to begin with.

In an interview about the gathering, he told NPR, I’m hoping, you know, my grandchildren will be living in a world where being a bird truther is the norm.

Where it’s weird if you believe in birds.

So that’s the world I’m working to.

Bird truther.

I love that.

All right, guess what, guys?

What?

This is all an elaborate piece of performance art.

What?

Peter McIndow was in Memphis, Tennessee in 2016.

I think he said, like, his girlfriend had just broken up with him, and he was like a hot mess.

And this was like when we had the women’s marches.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

So he came across this women’s march, and he said he was watching this chaos as these protesters encountered protesters, just like shouting nonsense at each other.

And he told New York Times, I thought about how funny a skit would be if someone had a sign at a rally that had nothing to do with the rally, thinking of an archetype of a character that would be just as energetically representing his beliefs, but they just meant nothing.

Like it just meant just pointing to something absurd.

And so I ended up finding a poster on a wall for an event that had already passed, and the back of the poster was just white.

So I took the poster off the wall and just wrote the three most random words I could think of, which were, birds aren’t real.

They didn’t mean anything at the time.

This is the start of the bird.

Yeah, birds aren’t real.

This is so funny.

They didn’t mean anything at the time.

It was just three random words.

Then I picked up the sign and started marching around with the people.

So when he’s doing this, this woman films him and posts a clip on social media with him.

And he’s chanting, there’s a bird-demic happening.

Birds are a myth.

They’re an illusion.

They’re a lie.

Wake up America.

And so she posts this on social media and it just like blows up.

I’m woke.

I’m woke.

So he creates a social media account and starts selling merchandise with sayings like bird watching goes both ways, or if it flies, it lies.

He was actually a college student when this happened.

And in 2018, he dropped out of college to devote all of his time to this movement.

Oh my God.

He held rallies, like I mentioned, put up billboards and sent media fake evidence.

Like he had this actor who claimed he was ex-CIA and he was like, I saw what was happening.

They sent hundreds of fake emails from the Pentagon discussing quote poultry gate.

Oh my God.

And the movement was publicized on the news.

So MacIndow says he’s like sitting on his couch watching the news and they’re covering this movement like it’s real.

And so he decided it was time to reveal that the whole thing was a farce.

So in 2021, he did this front page interview with New York Times and he admitted to the whole thing.

So previously he’d been interviewed, but he just always stayed in character.

Oh, yeah.

And so he says that, like, while this initially started to sort of like break up the tension that was happening, that then it kind of became an experiment in like how we get news now, right?

Like, what’s the deal with fake news or whatever?

Yeah.

And like fake news and how like someone posts something on social media and they immediately take it as truth.

Yeah.

So the bird conspiracy started on Vine.

I swear I heard about it before I was in college.

So a little background on the founder.

He grew up in Arkansas in a hyper conservative religious community in Arkansas because his parents believed that the school system was brainwashing children.

He grew up in this oppressive environment before going to the University of Arkansas Fayetteville, where he got to kind of expand his horizons.

So he said that growing up in this environment, he has this like sense of empathy for a lot of the conspiracy driven communities online.

And you can see how it’s like if you’re just looking for a sense of community, you can find your people, and then you like feed into it.

Right.

Flat Earther’s website was very well.

I was about to say, it’s giving Flat Earth.

Like somebody said, like, I’m just waiting for the for the Flerthers to be like, this is all an elaborate hoax.

So he, and he said he sees that with this movement that like students on college campuses started creating chapters of like, you know, birds aren’t real.

And again, not that any of them actually believe birds aren’t real, but he thinks it was just like this, like, it’s a community.

And it’s like, if that’s what you’re looking for, here’s a community.

That’s what our podcast should have been called.

Birds aren’t real.

It’s probably trademarked or something, though.

Yeah, that’s true.

And he said that it’s kind of become a tool for counter protesting.

Like, he said there was one college that had, there was like a protest going on.

It was like pro lifers, and they had these like really graphic images protesting.

And then the school’s group of birds aren’t real.

So people just showed up and started like protesting about birds not being real.

And the whole thing just like dispersed.

So it’s like a peaceful counter protest.

He’s a type nine.

Instead of like raging against each other.

Yeah, instead of arguing, I’m just going to bring up another random topic that distracts you.

He says that when he started this movement, he was not trying to make fun of conspiracy theorists per se, but looking at like the absurdist beliefs that all people have.

And he said that like, he said, for the most part, people seem to get this was a joke, but some people would walk up to him, approach him in public and kind of like go off on him.

And that that like, he’s like, when people would talk to me with like disdain, I felt more like that character I was playing, like I would become angry.

And I was like emboldened.

And even though I don’t even believe this, like having someone come and attack my belief, beliefs, you know, quote, belief would like anger me and like, yeah.

And so he’s like, so I can see how if you’re a conspiracy, maybe a flirther and people are coming up and just like screaming at you about how you’re wrong, it could make you like more of a flirther.

Yeah.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Or if you’re just a very stubborn person, baseline, you tell me you could take it.

You could take that to anything.

Anybody you go up to someone and say, like, you’re not what you, you know, believe and people are just going to and they fight you.

I mean, like, they’re yeah, he and I are friends for life.

But we if we disagree, right, we’re just like, until Colleen keeps the peace, right?

Like we’re both like neither one of us is going to back down.

No.

Yeah.

I would like to say, I think I back down before you do.

But you don’t really back down.

You do like, OK, OK, Megan, I’m backing down.

But I also think that this whole thing, like tracks with, again, our current political climate in general, like we’re just screaming at each other, and it’s just like making people double down.

Nobody’s listening.

Right.

Just getting stubborn.

Yeah.

It just perpetuates the cycle.

Yeah.

He told NPR, what if by talking to conspiracy theorists like they’re ignorant and stupid, we’re actually pushing them further away from the truth that we want them to see?

Because what happens when someone tells you that you’re stupid, you’re all wrong, you’re the problem.

You’ll feel judged and dismissed.

And most importantly, you’ll feel othered, which may lead you to look for safety in those who are like minded.

And so that’s going to affirm yourself, could give you a sense of identity and belonging by like joining these groups.

So just like he’s like, this is basic human desires and basic human motivation.

And I love that this was all just like a big social experiment.

He says that birds aren’t real is not a shallow satire of conspiracy from the outside.

It is from the deep inside.

A lot of people in our generation feel the lunacy in all of this, and birds aren’t real has been a way for people to express that.

The movement hopes the joke will become a force for good by exposing all the ways misinformation thrives.

Yes, we have been intentionally spreading misinformation in the past four years, but it’s with a purpose.

It’s about holding up a mirror to America in the Internet age.

But interestingly, he recently did a follow up with NPR.

And he’s like, the times have sort of grown around this idea.

So as the years passed, birds aren’t real fits more and more with things that are actually happening.

So when he started this, he was like, what’s the most absurd thing I could think of?

Birds aren’t real.

Yeah.

He’s like, but now here we are.

It’s only like seven years later.

And like, maybe it’s not outside of the realm of possibility.

Yeah.

So rather than being this of Internet memes, there are actually engineers who are reverse engineering how birds fly to take what they learn and create bird like drones.

Oh, my gosh.

So let me tell you about a couple of the projects.

And then I really want to hear what you guys think, especially Colleen, because I know she’s got a lot of opinions about birds.

I’m trying to find the birds, the vine that I know birds.

So let’s start with Project Aquiline.

The CIA recently declassified documents describing this project that occurred during the Cold War.

The goal was to have 12 bird shaped drones that would be powered by nuclear energy and would stay aloft for up to a month.

And they would just spy on the enemy and then like send that transmission back.

Allegedly, they claim that like they investigated this.

They tried to do this.

It never came to fruition.

This was a CIA project.

Do we believe it didn’t happen?

Not really.

I believe it probably happened.

We’ll find out in 50 years.

In 50 years, will all this be declassified?

Yeah.

She knows.

She knows.

And then I think we talked about the pigeons and how like how you said you think Colleen thinks that pigeons are like the most likely.

Yeah, easily, because they pigeons also have like the history of being used for spying and messaging.

Exactly.

So I would not be shocked if they, you know, did a little Hunger Games mutation action on this.

Oh, my gosh.

The CIA is not pigeons with secret cameras to gather intelligence during the Cold War.

The camera was so tiny and lightweight that a pigeon could carry it.

And the pitch, the camera was strapped to the bird’s chest with a little harness.

The bird would be released over a secret area in a foreign country that we want to know more about.

And then again, they would come back and we’d have all this footage.

So these projects we know happened only partially declassified.

We don’t have all the facts yet.

But we do know that there was a role for pigeons in like spying.

Birds of a feather, a murder of birds together.

That’s what they’re called, a murder of birds.

Oh, yeah.

And then the New Mexico Institute of Mining Technology has been working with, you can go online and find this.

And I think this is the closest thing to what we’re probably envisioning.

Like, they’re using taxidermy dead birds to re-engineer them as drones.

Oh, they’re like zombies.

Yeah.

So they’re pretty much like building drones, but then they’re using like the taxidermy carcass and they’re trying to make them like fly, like research, like the flying.

Zombie birds.

No, they’re making in fairy birds.

Yeah.

Zombie birds.

You know what in fairy are?

No, no.

Harry Potter.

OK, no.

You know what in fairy are?

Harry Potter.

Come on.

Reanimated dead bodies with dark magic.

What book did that have?

That happened in Book 6 when Harry.

Oh, in the lake.

I blocked that book.

So they so this institute, the New Mexico Institute of Mining Technology, they’re claiming like their whole purpose is to study wildlife, like they want these taxidermy birds to be fly.

But they’re like, but that doesn’t mean that at some point this won’t be used for national security.

No, that’s what they’re saying.

Yeah, exactly.

You also think if they create this, that the CIA is not going to come in and be like, CIA will mess everything up to counter argument that I feel like if the CIA was like thought it was suspicious and useful in any way, they would have already taken control of it by now.

You know what I mean?

If they thought it was actually useful.

Yeah, we talked before about how if there’s like something that you want to patent that could impact, like could be helpful or not, that you won’t get the patent and it can be used by the government.

OK, and then so two other little things.

We do know that China has a they call it like the Little Falcon, and it’s a bird drone.

Of course, it’s done a recent test or they did a demonstration in the capital city of China and the National News Outlet described it as the most agile, lifelike bird, like drone anywhere in the world.

No, well, it will likely lead to research in the field for years to come.

I don’t like that.

And then what are the Chinese using that for?

That’s my question.

And then finally, I have, I think, kind of what you mentioned, the US.

Navy Marine Mammal Program, which was established in the 1960s, utilized penguins.

I just let me just take this back to the dolphins again.

Oh, they utilize dolphins, dolphins and sea lions for various tasks, including surveillance, mind detection and object recovery, specifically the dolphins, because they have that sonar capability.

So during Vietnam and the Gulf War, they really utilize the dolphins to locate underwater mines and to protect ships.

Their, again, unique biological sonar systems are part, are particular interest in superior capabilities compared to human made technology.

That was from Chad GP.

I go locate.

How can you trade a dolphin to do that?

I know I’m interested in that, too.

I mean, maybe I keep telling you guys that we aren’t going to cover dolphins because it’s not a conspiracy theory, but maybe we will have to talk about that during the season.

We may just have to talk about how weird dolphins are.

Yeah, I just think we should talk about dolphins.

Add it to the season list.

Guys, Joey did a dolphin impression on a previous podcast.

That was so good.

But when we went to edit it, it was stuck.

It was too high pitch.

She literally sounded like a dolphin.

It was so good that the recording couldn’t pick it up.

It was so…

And it was just out of the blue.

It’s too perfect to even be registered on our…

The sound waves…

.

Raj band that we used to record on.

All right.

That is what my research taught me about birds.

That’s really interesting.

While you were talking, I did the research about the vine that I was referring to.

I’ve combined two different videos.

As per my MO, my memory failed me.

But it did start on TikTok.

Not vine.

Was it this birds aren’t real?

Yeah, and it was this guy.

It was 2019.

I’m going to play the audio, because every time I say the birds work for the bourgeoisie, this is what I’m quoting.

And it happened while I was in college.

All of the birds died in 1986 due to Reagan killing them and replacing them with spies that are now watching us.

The birds work for the bourgeoisie.

The birds work for the bourgeoisie.

I’m sure you’ve heard me say that.

I have.

I will say I tagged the birds aren’t real on Instagram in one of our stories, but they have a pretty good merch store.

But actually, I’ve been on it twice this week, and it’s been updated.

Within that time.

And I think that that’s how this guy supports himself now.

His merch.

Just like birds aren’t real.

Yeah, I was going to say, just me looking up this TikTok, I saw some of his t-shirts and something about bird shirts.

I’m just really into it.

You know who likes bird shirts?

Who?

Winnie the Bish.

I love watching the birds.

I love, we have like blue J’s that are mean.

I understand they’re mean.

But they do come around and they are pretty.

My sister is only 23, and she loves bird watching.

She bird watches all the time.

Well, also millennials are like, this is nothing to do with birds, but millennials are being compared to the generation that went through the Great Depression, because I guess the Great Depression started after the pandemic, right?

Yeah, the Great Depression was in 1929, and what, the Spanish Influenza?

Yeah, so there’s people that compare millennials to that same generation, because millennials are starting to adapt the things that those…

It’s true, bird watching, gardening, we’re growing our own food, we’re learning how to make breads.

We also grew up…

Well, again, we are the era, right?

Yeah, we’ve talked about this.

We remember, it was Kait and I, remember life before the internet and after the internet, and I think we have seen the social media devastation.

And I think that we’re all…

You guys want to talk about a pandemic.

Social media is a pandemic.

So we’re like, do we want to sit in our phones and be depressed about the world, or do we want to go plant some tomatoes and lunch the birds?

And also talk to people in real life.

I don’t necessarily need to talk to people.

You talk to me.

I mean, I talk to people I like.

Yeah, you talk to people you like, but we have conversations with people outside of…

The internet.

The internet.

So, yeah.

I can’t remember the last time I called somebody.

Yeah, I call you.

I pick up.

I call you.

You guys don’t call me as much as I call you.

Well, you call because you have a long commute and you want to talk.

I also call when I go on my four walks.

Hey, Colleen, do you have anything else to say about the birds?

I don’t necessarily think all the birds are drones, but I do think bird science is related to research for drones.

Yeah, no, I think 100% there’s probably engineers out there who are looking…

Like you said, how do birds fly?

When we started, you guys were like, how do they do it?

Well, actually, I know how they do it because I used to go to the science museum a lot, and there was a whole exhibit on bird flight.

And the way their arms shape the direction…

You guys can’t see, but Colleen’s currently doing a reenactment for us.

It would go backwards, under, backwards, under, so it twists, so it gets thrust with the wind.

So yeah, I’m sure that some engineer somewhere has studied that and been like, we should use this in our technology.

And if we disguise them with taxidermied birds, that is disturbing.

Maybe people will recognize that they’re drones.

World War Z is coming.

I’m telling you what, we cannot trust robots.

The Terminator has happened, people.

AI is terrifying.

AI is terrifying.

They can feel emotions.

They’re talking about robots feeling emotions.

You mean that robot Rachel?

Yeah.

I don’t like her.

No.

Anyway, birds aren’t real is one of the first things that Colleen said to me in passing.

Like when you met her?

Yeah.

And I was like, what?

I have no idea what the bourgeoisie is.

But also, I’m sorry.

I just want to clarify, Colleen, I have heard her say many times, birds aren’t real.

And are you telling me now that all of that stems from this vine you saw, which was this guy who was faking it?

Yeah.

OK.

Is that not?

No, just because he’s like, he’s like, he’s like everyone initially who got on board with this knew it was fake.

I didn’t know it was fake.

But I thought it was a crazy conspiracy guy.

But does that not check out for who I am?

Yes.

That’s what I’m saying.

Like, it’s one of my first memories.

It’s probably one of my first memories of Colleen saying birds aren’t real.

They work for the bourgeoisie.

And the second one was like, what do you think about mothers?

Do you think we’ve got like, like Earth is our mother?

Yeah, like a movie.

Yeah, that’s what she meant.

I truly relate to that.

Yeah.

And Kait probably was like, I could get on board with this.

Yeah.

If you ask me about what my religion is, it’s something like that.

Like, I knew it was a crazy conspiracy guy.

Like, I just figured it was like…

You thought he was a dick, but he was just a crazy guy.

It was her being funny.

Understood.

Okay, totally misunderstood.

And I thought, yeah, I got into it.

And I was like, what’s wrong with you?

I’m the curmudgeon on the front stoop who’s like, no, it’s like the flat earth.

Like, I know the earth’s not flat, but I thought the bird conspiracy was led by a guy like the flat earthers.

I didn’t realize he actually didn’t believe it.

Which is funny.

Yeah, no, Colleen was always like, yeah, birds aren’t real.

And I’d be like, what?

And she’s like, look it up.

Do your research.

And I will say, though, there are things that I believe without researching thoroughly.

Like, I’m gullible, yeah.

Yeah.

Also, I like how whenever we start, whenever I start an episode, I’m like, so what do you guys think?

And you both, with like one sentence, are like…

I’m in.

I’m in.

You can hook me with one thing.

I’m like, wait a second.

You almost had me when you were like, we’ve never seen baby pigeons.

I was like, you should have actually both their faces.

They both should just stop and like think about it.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a baby pigeon.

Have I seen a baby?

I think I’ve only seen baby robins.

Where do pigeons like, pigeons congregate in the city?

Because where are pigeons originally from?

They’re like city birds.

But before there were cities.

Maybe like townies.

I want all the woodland creatures to come to me.

You want to be like a Disney Cinderella.

But then birds and ducks and swans and geese, you don’t want them in your land because you wouldn’t be able to let the kids out because they will bite.

Oh, they get vicious.

Well, they’re only vicious with their own.

They’re territorial, though.

Right.

And so if the kids are part of their territory, then let me let me live my life.

OK, but these like feral pigeons we have now are like a cross breed from like escaped domestic birds and these and these pigeons that have been around for thousands and thousands of years.

Yeah, but where do they come from in general?

Had to have been domesticated first.

OK, you just asked me about OK.

Listen, I’m on blog dot nature dot org.

Like what came first, the chicken or there are between 260.

I think the chicken came first.

Chickens evolved from old chickens evolved from dinosaurs.

Yes.

So like a chicken’s cousin.

You know what I mean?

Like how chimps are our cousins.

I don’t know if I believe in evolution.

I don’t.

You truly don’t believe in evolution.

I don’t because I think if you have to believe, if you believe in evolution, then you believe that the Big Bang was was what created the universe.

And I don’t believe that.

Nowhere in history has a chemical reaction just happened without a compulsion.

So that is that is the biggest flaw of that theory.

You have to have something to create a chemical reaction.

And there is nothing that creates a chemical reaction in the Big Bang theory.

It just happened.

I think it takes a lot of faith to believe that just something happened just as much as faith to believe that God spoke the universe into existence.

It does.

I mean, people people choose to say they don’t have faith, but you just have faith in something else.

I think I’m very confident in that.

I don’t know.

Yeah.

Okay, guys, back to the original question.

Pigeons came from Southern Europe, North Africa and Western Asia.

But the reason there’s such city birds now is because they started these like domesticating.

Yeah, these domestic birds that would like flee would would like flee domestic birds that would like get out of the house or whatever would reproduce with these pigeons.

And they just became like feral birds.

So anyway, now we have hundreds of millions of pigeons in the world.

So that’s crazy.

That is crazy.

We’re mating like pigeons.

All right.

Any final thoughts, guys?

The birds work for the bourgeoisie.

I I still want my chickens.

Yeah, they’re birds.

The chickens are birds.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just think because birds are such different creatures than like humans, they freak me out.

They are like, I mean, they they are dinosaurs.

They really are.

And again, we’ve said it before, but this these eyes on the side of their head really freak me out.

Yeah.

Because they look at you from their profile because that’s how they see you.

And that’s really creepy.

360 degree.

You know, they don’t pee.

Oh, they don’t make urine.

It’s like all white is poop.

Like they don’t pee.

Oh, they excrete all in the same.

Yeah, it’s all one track.

And it all comes and the egg comes from the same.

I think so long is like how tiny a hummingbird’s heart is.

Oh, so tiny.

You look like you’re going to cry.

They’re so small.

And that’s weird.

Think about an earthworm.

So tiny.

So final thoughts.

You guys believe birds are real?

Oh, birds are real.

Oh, yeah, birds are real.

I mean, I do like…

Birds are real, but probably science is involved in making them useful.

Yeah, science is.

I think there probably are a couple of spies up there that disguise as birds, but I do not think that someone killed off.

There’s no way.

Also, where would they put all the dead bodies?

There you go.

Unless they’re taxidermying them to be used as…

I mean, I think that they’re using taxidermy.

We did not kill billions of birds.

I think for the most part, birds are birds.

But what if a turkey drone just came running at you?

I really want to know what that animal was that you saw.

Yeah, we definitely got to get the mountain men on this.

Mountain monsters?

Yeah, mountain monsters.

Well, unfortunately, the main guy passed.

Oh.

But maybe we can call Jacob.

Jacob.

Jacob from Mountain Monsters.

Was he the younger one or the one in the hat?

Security or trap men?

The one who rolled down the hill.

Okay, guys.

So I guess that’s it.

Sounds like we’re all still believing in the birds.

Yeah.

I love birds.

Yeah, I still do freak out after I…

Have you guys watched the birds?

Did you know cardinals also mate for life and they stay in the same spot?

Oh, no.

Yeah, isn’t that so sweet?

Virginia state bird.

North Carolina state bird.

Chickadee-dee-dee, chickadee-dee-dee, chickadee-dee-dee.

Have you guys seen the birds by Alfred Hitchcock?

Yes.

Okay, I still freak out whenever I see the birds line up on a power line.

You know what bird I actually enjoy?

What?

I do enjoy crows.

Flamingos?

And how they give you gifts.

Crows?

You know, yeah, like if a crow visits your yard and you put shiny things out, like quarters, pennies, tin foil, the crow will take that and then bring you gifts.

They will?

Yeah.

It’s actually quite adorable.

And there’s a crow that taunts Benny every day outside my window, and I’m like, I’m going to leave them a shiny thing.

Yeah, leave them a penny.

Yeah.

See a penny, pick it up.

Oh, and you mentioned flamingos, right?

You got to know where flamingos get their color.

The shrimp they eat.

Yeah.

That’s right.

Until you become parents, and then the babies suck all the pink out of them, right?

That’s right.

Get your pink back.

Oh, shout out Jillian.

Yeah, shout out Jillian.

Yeah.

All right, Kait, what should the people do?

The people should scroll on down.

Leave us a five-star review.

Let us know if you like the birds, if you believe that they’re bird drones, if you believe birds aren’t real.

We want to know.

Send us an audio clipping of your favorite bird sound.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

I’ll make that into a thing.

Go ahead and do that.

Bird of the week.

You guys ever heard about a mockingbird?

One of my dogs got dived on by mockingbirds in the backyard.

She had to hide underneath the hammock in our backyard when I was growing up.

She was dive bombed by mockingbirds, and she was just cowering.

I thought it was kind of funny.

Mock.

Yeah.

I thought mockingbirds were fake.

Bird.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, guys.

Thanks for joining.

See you next Tuesday.