In California Town, the Birds Are 'Exploding'

There's a mystery in a Northern California town involving dozens of birds dropping from the sky, and signs point to a nefarious cause. Residents of Richmond say they've even seen some feathered friends "exploding," with security footage showing one bird plummeting to its death off a power line after a loud pop was heard, per ABC News. Locals say they've spotted at least 50 dead birds since February "from a specific stretch of power line" along Bernhard Avenue, reports USA Today. "It's very traumatic," resident Max Bolling tells KGO, which notes that some neighbors describe the pop that was heard as sounding like a firecracker or BB gun.

Theories for the birds' deaths range from a "phantom serial bird killer" to electrocution on power lines, per ABC, but local utility company PG&E insists the latter isn't happening. Meanwhile, the state's Department of Fish and Wildlife, which is investigating the phenomenon, performed necropsies on two of the dead birds—a mourning dove and a European starling—and suggested foul play, finding that "the birds show no evidence of electrocution, and that their deaths were caused by trauma, potentially from a pellet or BB gun or a slingshot," PG&E says in a statement, per KGO.

The state DFW, meanwhile, issued its own statement, noting that photos of other dead birds in Richmond "showed injuries consistent with trauma. The exact cause of the trauma to all of these birds could not be determined." Locals aren't convinced, however, that the birds aren't getting zapped, with some speculating that the moisture that gathers on the power lines has something to do with the recent incidents, per USA Today. "My dad's been seeing them ... appear to be fried on the wire themselves," Jeremy Hoehner Haele tells CBS News. "That particular wire does sizzle and arc at times," another local, Sharon Anderson, tells KGO. (More birds stories.)