A conspiracy theory is the belief that an established fact actually has an alternative explanation, one that’s being covered up for some insidious reason or another. Conspiracy theories are nothing new, but in a year like 2020,  it makes sense that they would run rampant. 

So what nefarious theories are being spread in hushed tones through the halls of Powell High School?

“I mean, [the birds] work for the bourgeoisie,” PHS senior Sawyer O’Rourke said. “I think it was 1987 or something when all the birds died because Reagan killed them and replaced them with drones.” 

Indeed, many students appear to subscribe to this theory, known in some circles as ‘Birds Aren’t Real,’ and many other theories seem to be related to it somehow. 

“The birds don’t exist,” sophomore Kalin Hicswa said. “The chemtrails get into your heads so then you don’t realize the birds don’t exist, right? So that’s how the government watches you is through the birds, but you don’t know the birds don’t exist because of the chemtrails.” 

Theorists also seem to have cracked how the “birds” are charged. 

“Why do you think the birds are always sitting on power lines?” senior Kaelin Crichton said. “The birds are sitting on power lines because on the bottom of their little fake feet is two metal nodes, and when those hit the power line, they recharge themselves.”

When it comes down to it, the Birds Aren’t Real theory is really about the public’s fear of government control and surveillance. 

“I just think it’s really terrifying,” O’Rourke said. “We can’t go anywhere now, like the government is just always watching. Like can we really be safe anymore?” 

Birds aren’t the only controversial topic PHS conspiracy theorists deny the existence of though.

“[Covid] is not real,” Crichton said. “The governments of large countries, specifically America, China and Russia, are using it to control the population by instilling fear into them, and they are doing this to undermine our own economies so that eventually, as the world is being weakened, they can sweep in with their little, you know, vaccines or whatever, and just be the saviors of everybody. Then bam, everybody likes the government again, and there’s no more riots and stuff.” 

Crichton has an explanation for the deaths caused by “Covid” as well. 

“[The government kills] them,” Crichton said. “They simply walk into a hotel room after the randomized Covid test, you know, gives them a false positive, and smother them with a pillow, and then say they died from anaphylaxis or lung-based problems.”

And if that wasn’t enough, the omnipresent birds have their talons in this theory too. 

“[The birds] were the reason this Covid thing was started,” Crichton said, “because they saw all the distrust and unrest in the citizens of their own countries, and so after getting that report, then [the governments] decided to invent this whole Covid scam.”

Conspiracy theories come from the deep-seated skepticism citizens have of their governments, and in an increasingly politically charged culture, conspiracies are becoming increasingly popular. 

“Never trust anything,” O’Rourke said. “Just don’t.”