Scientists turn dead birds into drones, making 'Birds Aren't Real' conspiracy into reality

Scientists at New Mexico Tech in Socorro, New Mexico have made "taxidermy bird drones," out of the corpses of dead birds, and Bird's Aren't Real, a group who have promoted the idea that the US government had replaced millions of birds with drones to spy on the civilian population, took to Twitter to write, "and they called us conspiracy theorists."

On Saturday, Bird's Aren't Real tweeted "you all called us crazy and we will never forget," and posted a video from Reuters reporting on the work at New Mexico Tech. In the video, the text scroll reads, "Are you sure the birds you see in the sky aren't drones? In the near future, that may be the case"

Mostafa Hassanalian, a medical engineering professor at the college, said, "This idea that we can use a reengineered birds and dead birds and make them as a drone and the only thing that we need to provide them to make them alive is to basically design an actuation mechanism put in their body and everything is there."

"So we do reverse engineering, we will calculate what has been the weight of the bird while it  was alive. What has been his flapping frequency, what flapping angle they have, and just create something similar," the professor added.

According to the New York Times, the Birds Aren't Real movement was created by Peter McIndoe, who said "The idea is meant to be so preposterous, but we make sure nothing we’re saying is too realistic. That’s a consideration with coming out of character." He created the movement in 2017 and did not confess until 2021 that the movement was parody.

In a Vice report  McIndoe said that while in character he was a "bird truther."

A  Birds Aren’t Real organizer, Claire Chronis, said, "My favorite way to describe the organization is fighting lunacy with lunacy."

The real bird drones were reported as a development towards an "Unconventional approach to wildlife monitoring" and showed how the drone could blend in with a flock of birds.

Brenden Herkenoff, a PhD Student at New Mexico Tech, added that the research also was a study in to "how the coloration of bird wings and how the color patterns affect the potential flight efficiency."

Hassanalian added that their research would help "save more energy and save more fuel" in the aviation industry.