It sounds like pages from the pages of Exodus, but thousands of dead birds rained down in Esperance, Australia.

And on two streets in Austin Texas. Both up to 8 January 2007.

Coincidences happen, but what could have been the cause?

The Australian event (latitude 34 degrees south) took place over several weeks in Esperance, a coastal town. The end came when no birds were left. The birds showed no common injury, detectable toxins, or cause of death. 24 degrees longitude away, the Texan event (latitude 30 degrees north) took place in Austin, and appears to have been more localised and sudden. Again, autopsies of dead birds revealed no cause.

Speculation has abounded and been related on blogs and news forums, focusing on the bizarre and the unlikely. Let’s just consider the possibilities more methodically, based on the fact that these are birds dying in flight, across several species, as highly localised events not trends:

1.                  the birds died elsewhere but were deposited by freak weather conditions

2.                  they flew into highly localised severe weather conditions (turbulence, downdraught)

3.                  they flew into some form of toxic cloud

4.                  the birds ingested toxins

5.                  the birds has some kind of virus or bacterial infection

6.                  they encountered aircraft they could not avoid.

This seems to be a different class of event from attested showers of frogs or fish that would appear to result from tornadoes or weather incidents. There have not been weather reports to support the first two points, and the birds were local and were not bedraggled.

On the third point, if an airborne toxin was involved (poison gas cloud), how was it confined by weather conditions in sufficient concentration for sustained slaughter in a small area? If death is slower with dispersed toxin, then there should be a very wide spread of fewer deaths considerably further afield. Also, presumably the toxin would be detectable, but has failed to show up.

The question that should be asked for the fourth possibility, is why multiple species of birds, why a confined location, and why not also larger insects too, or terrestrial animals that may feed on the carrion (the Esperance event was over several days). Have foxes or cats died eating a dead bird? If a food toxin is supposed, do all these species share the same diet? No toxin has been identified after autopsies in either location. Finally, if true, a large number of birds would also begin to be too unwell to fly, and deaths on the ground near roosts would be apparent.

Is disease a clue? Bird flu has been ruled out, but could several species become simultaneously infected, display a very close response to it, be able to fly and then suddenly die together on the wing? These events are also dissimilar to mass deaths of waterfowl, where periods of death can be related to infection or water contamination.

The sixth point has no real significance in terms of collision, or the birds would be severely injured, and aircraft damaged.

Another possibility?

Is there any other possibility? Perhaps: there could be short-lived electromagnetic concentrations at certain locations and altitudes, resulting (for example) from military experiments, where high energies (eg the HAARP series of transmitters) or experimental vectored intersections, interfere with avian bioelectromagnetics such as nervous or cardiac regulatory systems. Let’s not stray into conspiracy theories (plenty of opther sites do that!). However, we do know that powerful electromagnetic disturbances are caused by military equipment, and there is plenty of evidence that long-range effects from EM beams and energies are not only of strategic interest, but in various stages of development around the world.

When two streets are involved, and ground-level effects are not exhibited (affecting anaimals, ground birds and people), this is not an environmental toxin indicator, but a temporal- and spatial-specific impact on life systems at altitude.

Perhaps this indicates either a ‘useful experiment’ or an accident.
 

What else do we know about birds and electromagnetic fields?

(We will leave you to find out about HAARP and scalar waves and weapons.)

Investigations on birds and man-made EM fields centre mainly around bird navigation, but anecdotal evidence is strong that birds, while they may perch on power lines and mobile phone masts, dislike these environments for roosting and rearing.

Homing pigeons have in recent years become lost en masse, birds have fled and gardens become silent as mobile phone masts and TETRA have been installed (especially songbirds), gulls have left longstanding nest sites, and the decline of sparrows in cities has been associated with the spread of mobile communications.

Climate change has coincided to some degree with losses of sparrows and songbirds, but people sensitive to EM fields, who themselves physically feel mobile phone masts or power lines, have observed adverse bird behaviour at times of change (new installations etc.).

It may appear inconclusive: is natural geomagnetic navigation by birds being interfered with (either the natural fields, or the birds’ magnetic sensors)? Are lights on masts at night disorienting? Are air ions around masts disturbed, making birds uncomfortable?

Whatever the case, birds are sensitive to EM fields, and we have changed the natural EM environment beyond comparison with ‘weak’ transmissions, as well as strong (eg HAARP). Here the parallel of powerful extreme low frequency (ELF) submarine sonar and cetaceans might be made:

·                     Ocean Mammal Institute

·                     Navy transmissions and beached whales

·                     The development and impact of low frequency active sonar