State officials in Arkansas believe they discovered what killed thousands of red-winged blackbirds on New Year’s Eve: a booming noise, potentially from fireworks. But Anderson Cooper wasn’t satisfied with that answer. He wasn’t going to believe there was no connection between the mass bird death and the mass fish kill 125 miles away. And he knew just who to ask about what was really going on: noted star of Growing Pains, Kirk Cameron. In what we’re going to go ahead and call the most portentous celebrity intro ever, Anderson explained why this guest in particular was the best man to explain the biggest wildlife mystery currently perplexing the nation.



The Internet, of course, is now buzzing with other theories. [Ed. note: That is so like you, Internet.] Some people are even saying that these mass deaths are a sign that the end times are near, some have cited The Left Behind series of books, so we thought we’d talk to actor Kirk Cameron. He’s a born-again Christian. He’s written a lot about his faith. He’s also starred in the Left Behind series of films. I spoke to him earlier.

Well, there was that time that Cameron helped prove the existence of god using bananas. But isn’t that sort of like calling in Mel Gibson to talk about why Jesus sometimes does bad things to good people?

Regardless, the person most dubious about Cooper’s choice of interviewee was actually … Kirk Cameron, who has aged remarkably well, like so well we considered whether G-d really did “place a tab at the top” of bananas just to piss off atheists. Cameron looks first quizzical and then amused when Cooper finally throws him the mike.



Yes, Kirk Cameron. Yes. This is ridiculous. With you getting so, um, zealous about your faith. We didn’t think it would be you to bring some logic to this whole business, but thank you, sir. He goes on to explain the appeal of apocalypse conspiracies: “I think people love to find codes and signs of future events and see if they can decipher them before anyone else.” Totally, Dan Brown, etc. “But birds falling from the sky?” We know, right? “That has to do more with pagan mythology; the direction that the birds flew told some of the followers of some of those legends that the gods were either pleased or displeased with them.” Oh no, not you too, Kirk. Well, now that we’ve clarified that it’s not the Rapture, maybe Manderson can get a celebrity pagan on to explain why birds just fell from the sky in Louisiana too. Do you think our Intel bunker will get CNN reception? We’ll be blogging from there till the world ends or 2013, whichever comes first.



Anderson Cooper Talks To Kirk Cameron About All Those Birds And Fish That Died, Obviously [Videogum]

Loud Noise Likely Caused Birds’ Deaths in Arkansas [WSJ]

Related: Thousands of Blackbirds Dropped Dead From the Sky in Arkansas This Weekend