newjerseynewsroom.com

What would make thousands of seabirds fly uncontrollably into the sides of homes, the way they did during a freak California coastal event in 1961?

Oceanographic researchers think they’ve found the answer: They were poisoned.

The researchers found toxin-making algae inside the stomachs of seabirds and turtles collected in ’61 in Monterey Bay, where the frightening event took place, and deduced that the birds most likely became crazed after devouring squid and anchovies filled with the toxin, according to Time. The algae caused the birds to suffer amnesia, disorientation and seizures, ABC News reported.

The Monterey Bay event was part of the inspiration the 1963 Alfred Hitchcock classic “The Birds.” Hitchcock lived in nearby Scotts Valley and contacted the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper shortly after the real-life invasion of birds took place to get copies of its reports on the event, according to the Santa Cruz Public Libraries website, santacruzpl.org.

The movie was actually based on the short novel “The Birds” written by English author Daphne du Maurier in 1952.

At the time, the Sentinel reported that “the most learned explanation” for the bird “attack” came from a museum zoologist at the University of California, who blamed it on a “blinding fog.”

He said the birds “probably became confused and lost and headed for the light," and that the “only light available was the street lights and overnight lights in some homes and businesses,” the newspaper reported.

A few days later, the Sentinel reported that “Hitchcock phoned The Sentinel Saturday to let us know he is using last Friday's edition as research material for his latest thriller.”

However, that similar events took place over a 30-year period piqued the curiosity of scientists, who took on the research, ABC News said.

It turns out that one of the researchers, Sibel Bargu of Louisiana State University, had a strong fascination with the Hitchcock thriller.

“When I was a kid, they showed it on TV and my parents didn’t let me watch it,” Bargu told ABC News. “While they were watching in the family room, I was outside, trying to see the movie from the keyhole. What I saw was so scary.”

Bargu became a Hitchcock fan and, she said, “When I started work on harmful algae blooms and their toxins and then learned of this super exciting connection, I felt I had to work on this.”

The team of researchers found that the toxic algae had been the cause of the four deaths and 100 people hospitalized after eating mussels in Canada’s Prince Edward Island in 1987, as well as several stranded animals in 1991. The theorized that the same poisoning caused the birds’ odd behavior in 1961, ABC News reported.

“I am pretty convinced that the birds were poisoned,” Bargu told USA Today.

—JOE GREENE, NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM