Here’s something conspiracy theorists, particularly from the ‘birds aren’t real’ school of thought, have got right – partially at least. New Mexico scientists, in their own scientific ways, have been reanimating dead birds preserved through taxidermy as drones.

Responsible for the nightmare of ‘Stephen King meets Alfred Hitchcock’ proportions is a team of scientists at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology in Socorro.

In his team’s pursuit of studying flight and wildlife in general, lead engineer Dr Mostafa Hassanalian, found that artificial, mechanical birds did not yield the desired results.

“We came up with this idea that we can use dead birds and make them (into) a drone. Everything is there…we do reverse engineering,” he argued.

The affectionately named ‘taxidermy bird drones’ are currently being tested in a purpose-built cage, not to strike fear into the hearts of New Mexico’s ornothophobics – rather to better understand the formation and flight patterns of flocks.

“That in turn can be applied to the aviation industry,” Dr Hassanalian. “If we learn how these birds manage energy between themselves, we can apply (that) into the future aviation industry to save more energy and save more fuel.”

Worthy intentions considering inflation and a planet navigating itself towards net zero emissions.

Taking the innovation up a notch, Ph.D. student Brenden Herkenhoff is studying the relationship between a bird’s colouration and its flight efficiency.

“We’ve done experiments and determined that for our fixed-wing aircraft, applying a certain colour can change the flight efficiency. And the same is true for birds, we believe,” he said.

Currently, it would take a human 20 minutes of running to outlast a drone if being chased by one. Lucky for the drones, the next stage of the study is meant to extend their flight times and ‘conduct tests in the wild’ as it was put.

So, somewhere in the near future, if someone asks ‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane?’, the answer is likely ‘dead bird drone’.

Past performance is not a reliable indicator of future performance.