Paranormal Phenomena
It was New Year’s Day of 2011 when residents of Beebe, Arkansas, witnessed ashock of their lives. Thousands of blackbirds found dead and no one knows why.All of them suffered from blunt internal trauma, as if they were hit withsomething.
Some people speculated that it could be the weather, with the stormy winterwinds and hail causing the birds to get disoriented. Others believe that itcould be the fireworks that woke the birds from their sleep, disorienting themand eventually hit on some objects. Although both causes are plausible, it ishard to explain why it only happened now when fireworks have been used in everyNew Year’s Eve celebrations in the area, as well as the sheer number ofcasualties.
Since that reported sighting, several cases of massive deaths among birdsand fish appear not only in the United States, but also in Brazil, Haiti,United Kingdom, and even as far as New Zealand. Although birdkills andfishkills are not an unusual sight, the number of incidents happening at ashort span of time worried many people, bringing up the possibility that itcould be “the end of the world.”
Scientists have since slowly pieced together the reasons for the animaldeaths. The cases of dead fish were probably caused by a sudden drop in thewater’s temperatures (or what is called a “cold snap”), which is a usual eventin some parts of the world at this time of the year, or a sudden outbreak ofspecific disease since many of the fish that died belong to the samespecies.
As for the dead blackbirds, wildlife specialists say that it is “a strangecoincidence” for them to die all at once, considering that there have beensimilar cases of massive blackbird deaths over the past 20 years.
