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On New Year’s Eve, sometime after 11 p.m., several thousand red-winged blackbirds dropped lifelessly from the darkness onto suburban lawns, roofs, and roads in the small town of Beebe, Arkansas. “I thought the mayor was messing with me when he called me,” Milton McCullar, Beebe Street Dept. Supervisor, the next day with a (nervous?) grin. “He got me up at four o’clock in the morning and told me we had birds falling out of the sky.” “When you first get the call, you think it’s a New Year’s joke,” said the mayor, Mike Robertson, himself. “But it wasn’t a joke.” News outlets quickly picked up the story, and today, it has twittered about. There are no conclusions yet as to why the birds perished—a hailstorm, perhaps, or even stress from nearby fireworks—and no one seems to have much to say about the incident, but for, look here, at this strange, ominous (and yes, Hitchcockian) thing.

Except, that is, for those anonymous folks who linger in the end-of-article comment sections. , was followed by 118 responses (which I duly explored). “It’s Arkansas—they died of boredom,” the first read, setting the tone. “This is the beginning of one good movie!” quipped the fourth. “Massive floods in Australia, snowstorms in Europe and North America, dying birds in Arkansas. … The end is NEAR!” “Dead birds falling from the sky on Friday. … Early this week, expect falling temperatures and a 30% chance of precipitation. … Mid to late week, frogs will fall from the sky, followed by burning hail and a plague of boils.” “We're not told what, if any, industries are in this town. Plume of toxic something-or-other perhaps?”—this one was serious, until it continued—“That or one big mother of a shotgun ...” “As FOX would say... ‘Blame Obama.’” Before long, one commenter, commenting on other comments, wrote, “As usual all the ‘experts’ are all over this story.”

If neither expert nor acceptable, there is something inevitable, and perhaps even helpful, about a dash of humor in light of a slightly frightening situation. (It’s a shame, though, that what fell out of cyberspace in this case wasn’t slightly more original.) When faced with the unsettling, some of us counter with glibness, or comedy, don’t we? It’s just instinct, I guess—a way of distancing ourselves from what the Internet leaves, periodically, on our doormat. Or of dealing with it. (Or, at least, of cutting through the ensuing silence). Environmental campaigns (and writing) have gone this route as well recently, trying to veer away from sheer polemic. (How, for example, do we now deal with the sad facts of our climate change policy? We joke about what a joke our progress is. )

Another commenter caught on: “Its good to have a sense of humour, but theres been a lot of sick posts to this article, has no one any regard for nature anymore?” (All of the above sic.) Most of us do, I think—most of all for the inescapable, unknowable conclusion it has in store for us. Tongue-in-cheek comments aren’t just deplorable; they’re also a measure of our collective breathlessness as we consider an event like birds falling out of the sky. We might laugh it off, make light of it, but only because something is awfully true, even if it’s not understood. In humor, there's a kernel of seriousness. For instance, first and foremost this bizarre event in Arkansas reminded me of how birds are always passing overhead as we sleep, often to and from places with diminishing habitat, where their fate may not be much better. But then those irreverent comments made me think of lots of other things, too: How bird have been shot by the millions out of the sky. How perhaps politics isn't entirely unrelated (Fox News aside). And how the end MAY be near. Just kidding, just kidding.