‘Birds Aren’t Real’ Founder Proves People Will Believe Anything

Birds Aren’t Real is what it sounds like as a conspiracy movement: the concept that birds aren’t real and have been replaced by robotic replicas installed by the “deep state”. But founder Peter McIndoe, 24, broke character on CBS 60 Minutes on May 1 to explain that his conspiracy theory is simply a parody and his movement is more of a social experiment — and it works like a charm.

“Bird Aren’t Real” slogans and images appear on billboards, bumper stickers, and even at venues such as an NCAA men’s basketball championship game. The site is selling Truther Gear like crazy. Birds Aren’t Real now has over 1 million loyal followers and over 400,000 followers on Instagram.

“Our original goal was to stop the genocide of real birds,” the organization explains on its website. “Unfortunately, this was unsuccessful and the government has since replaced every live bird with robotic replicas. It is now the prerogative of our movement to make everyone aware of this fact.”

The organization provides a faux history of the alleged launch in 1973 after learning of a secret CIA operation to wipe out birds that dates back to the 1950s.

Despite the absurdity, the movement attracted genuine supporters who believe birds are not real. On April 14, McIndoe, in a profile in The Guardian, said that “the absurdity is growing in intensity.” McIndoe realized his own movement had become greater than he could control. “I remember seeing videos of people chanting, ‘There are no birds’ at high school football games; and graffiti of “birds aren’t real”. At first I was like, ‘This is crazy,’ but then I was like, ‘What makes this resonate with people?’”

Sometimes he would join in the fun himself and fan the flames. “If it flies? It spies! when it flies It’s spying!” McIndoe sang at a Birds Are’t Really rally in Hollywood, California. “When it flies, it spy!” they chanted back.

“Birds aren’t real!” McIndoe yelled. About 200 protesters joined McIndoe at that rally, but he admitted some of the protesters were part of the plan.

Keeping a straight face is part of the game. “I wake up every morning, just like you. I brush my teeth; I wash my car and I have an avid disbelief in bird creatures,” McIndoe said with a straight face on WREG’s Live At 9 in 2019.

To 60 minutes

Sharon Alfonsi of the CBS news program 60 Minutes interviewed the founder of Birds Aren’t Real and introduced McIndoe and his bizarrely successful social experiment. McIndoe broke character again after doing the same in a December 2021 interview with The New York Times.

A clip of the interview generated 1.1 million views and counting on YouTube.

After Donald Trump’s election, McIndoe noted that events at Trump’s Women’s March protests would randomly attract counter-protesters for different movements. The world felt so unstable to him that he thought he was going to join in the fun. McIndoe and some friends went to a protest in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2017 and thought it would be funny to randomly shout absurd slogans like “Birds don’t exist!!”. Friends Claire Chronis, Cameron Kasky and Connor Gaydos are now part of the movement.

“So it’s about taking that concept of misinformation and creating almost a little safe space to come together and laugh about it instead of being afraid of it,” McIndoe said. “And accept the madness of everything and be a bird keeper for a moment when everything is so crazy.”

weed conspiracies

Misinformation affects us all, which is why High Times in 2020 highlighted “Eight of the Craziest Weed Conspiracies That Could Be True.”

One of the most common conspiracy theories about cannabis is that it can shorten penis length by an inch or lower sperm count. Still, there are peer-reviewed studies that both say cannabis can negatively affect sperm count and a Harvard-led study that shows cannabis is linked to higher sperm counts.

But the biggest cannabis conspiracy of all is the racial misinformation campaign spearheaded by the likes of Harry J. Anslinger. However, Angslinger’s plot had real and dangerous repercussions, leading to people being targeted.

Today, the rise of conspiracies is fueled by “digital cults” like QAnon, with people convinced that satanic cannibal politicians are indeed real, that celebrities are secretly taking adrenochrome harvested from children, or that Bill Gates orchestrated COVID.

Is Birds Aren’t Real more absurd than these conspiracy theories?