We begin tonight, as we often do,
with a story of strange flying objects.
But these aren't saucers, orbs, or Tic Tacs.
They're just regular birds.
Or are they?
It's February 2022 in Chihuahua, Mexico.
Early in the morning, a mounted CCTV camera's
rolling on a quiet residential street
where a large flock of yellow-headed blackbirds
is seen flying overhead at the top of the screen.
Then suddenly, things take a strange and deadly turn.
The security camera catches the shocking moment
the huge black mass of birds appears
to fall like rain from the sky to the pavement below.
As the footage continues to roll,
we see that many of the birds recover and fly off safely.
But the street and sidewalk are now littered
with nearly 100 avian corpses.
Science journalist Amy Teitel says this footage
is quite surprising.
Birds are not known for smashing into the ground.
So what exactly is happening to make them act this way?
Though this strange incident seems once in a lifetime,
it's not the only time small animals
have rained from the sky.
In this video from Virginia Beach, Virginia,
a fish is captured falling and hitting a car.
And footage from December 2021 shows a parking lot
in Texarkana, Texas filled with a dozen dead fish that have
seemingly come out of nowhere.
That turned out to be the result of a weather phenomenon
known as a waterspout.
But the incident in Mexico remains mysterious.
And all this is nothing new.
In the Book of Exodus, God sends down
a rain of frogs on the Egyptians because
of their refusal to free the enslaved Israelites.
But while some wonder if these strange incidents could
be divine punishment, others suggest
they have a more technological source, The alleged culprit--
5G is a relatively new technology
that we're using increasingly for cell phone reception.
One theory is that somehow 5G interfered with the birds'
natural navigation.
Birds create a protein called cryptochromes that
makes them very sensitive to blue light,
and actually helps them see the Earth's magnetic field.
That's how birds know how to fly south
and migrate for the winter.
So, could it be that this increase
of electromagnetic frequency is somehow
interfering with the birds' ability
to see where they're going?
Recent research in the field of magnetoreception
indicates that molecular fragments in the birds' eyes
enable them to see Earth's magnetic field lines
and use that information to chart
a course between their breeding and wintering grounds.
So what went wrong here?
Let's go to the experts for a birds-eye view.
The idea that 5G signals cause bodily harm has been debunked.
But biologist Dr. Floyd Hayes considers
whether some form of electromagnetic interference
could be to blame.
There was a study published on the effects
of electromagnetic radiation on the magnetic compass
of European robins.
And it affected the direction in which they oriented.
But these birds aren't really migrating a long distance.
They're just probably trying to find food.
And they also have back-up compasses,
migrating by the stars at night and the sun by day.
Furthermore, we wouldn't expect all of these birds
to fall suddenly like we're seeing in this video.
So if they're not being affected
by electromagnetic noise, could these birds
have been poisoned by a lethal toxic cloud of pollution?
Wood-burning stoves and agrochemicals
can cause high levels of air pollution in the region.
Meteorologist Juan Hernandez checks
the weather conditions to see if this could be the cause.
If it's mountainous, we're able to have
a thermal inversion, where we have trapped gases or trapped
smoke near the ground.
But if we look at the video, we don't really see much
in the way of smoke chemicals.
Likely, there was something else that occurred.
Hayes agrees pollution is not very likely.
If they were exposed to some sort of a toxin,
we would see individuals gradually becoming
sick at different times, depending
on the amount of the dose that they were exposed to.
So did these small critters rain
down during an anomalous weather event like a microburst?
We're able to see that it had rained earlier.
But by the time that the birds crashed into the ground,
it appeared that it had stopped raining,
ruling out the potential for a microburst or a downburst.
So since Hernandez says the birds weren't blown
into the ground by a sudden downburst of wind and rain,
Hayes believes the real culprit is a deadly presence
we don't see on camera.
I think there is a predatory bird,
such as a peregrine falcon, that rapidly dived onto that flock.
And the birds panicked.
And some of them crashed into the ground.
When a large flock of birds form,
they call it a murmuration.
And it's generally to either provide protection
for each other or to find food.
This is what he's talking about.
Watch how this murmuration of western sandpipers
move suddenly in unison to avoid this swooping peregrine falcon.
This is actually normal behavior
when a predatorial bird attacks flocks of birds.
We're not seeing the predator up above,
but it's probably just out of view.
[music playing]
We're going with Hayes here.
Our verdict is the birds were flying in a murmuration.
So when an unknown predator we can't identify
came upon the flock, they made a sudden, drastic dive
that was too drastic for some.
That's the downside of flocking together.