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A conspiracy theory about how the government is using birds for spying purposes has been going around for a while now. Those who believe in the conspiracy are spreading it in group chats and social platforms like Reddit and X. I stumbled on a news that suggests the possibility of this.
In actuality scientists have been placing parts of drones inside of the bodies of preserved birds.
An engineer has been doing this work not as a joke but rather to figure out how birds can fly. When I first saw this, I was amazed and the conspiracy is starting to look very legit.
I felt less amazed when describing this to a colleague after the fact. These drones are designed to fly within the animal kingdom without causing any disturbance or distress to its inhabitants. I cannot even tell how much research we have done which is relating to the negative impact of human technology on animals but I can tell that it's a lot. We're really hurting the animals in an attempt to build cool gadgets.
If there’s one thing that I can’t seem to understand is the fact that satire continues to produce this result. By satirizing privacy issues, scientists basically ended up creating a situation that validated the satire.
I can't say I know for sure but birds do not spy for the government when you phones and digital gadgets can do that easily. But it doesn't rule out the possibility. They have the potential to be used as drones, they're already drones in a lab environment.
Site where I read about the experiment
Screenshot also from site sourced above