Before Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds aired on Arte last night, take a look at the strange phenomenon that took place in the summer of 1961 and which partly inspired the master of suspense.
“Residents (…) Today at 3 o’clock in the morning, they were woken up by the rain of birds flying into their houses. Dead or stunned seabirds litter the streets and roads in the dawn mist.
These few lines worthy of a horror movie seem to come straight from the script of Alfred Hitchcock’s famous feature The Birds (last night at the Arte), in which Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor face violent and inexplicable bird attacks.
However, it is not on the screen, but in real life – more precisely, on the front page of the California newspapers Santa Cruz Sentinel – that on August 18, 1961, two years before the release of Hitchcock’s film, the residents of the area could read these terrifying words.
Indeed, thousands of seabirds had mysteriously crashed into the city of Santa Cruz the previous day. The mysterious phenomenon, which scientists first linked to weather conditions and fog, which they said disorientated the animals.
What piqued the curiosity of Alfred Hitchcock, who at the time was just preparing to film The Birds, an adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s story. When he heard about this strange story, the filmmaker immediately used it to introduce the visual environment of his upcoming film.
It was only in 2011, some 50 years later, that the mystery of the Santa Cruz bird was finally solved. as an article the worldStudy Natural Geoscience American oceanographers discovered that the strange behavior of thousands of these birds that night was simply due to food poisoning.
Indeed, according to scientists, California birds ingest very specific microscopic algae that release a special toxin that can cause significant confusion among birds.
Would Hitchcock’s terrifying fictional creatures suffer the same fate that would explain their aggressiveness in the feature film? History does not tell us. Therefore, it is up to each viewer to form their own opinion.
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Source: allocine
Emily Jhon is a product and service reviewer at Gossipify, known for her honest evaluations and thorough analysis. With a background in marketing and consumer research, she offers valuable insights to readers. She has been writing for Gossipify for several years and has a degree in Marketing and Consumer Research from the University of Oxford.
