Good morning, John. I'm a little bit freaked out by all the dying birds. And now that thousands of birds have fallen prey to this bizarre and seemingly unprecedented event, I have found several entirely insane theories about what happened to them. Most of them have to do with secret government weapons programs, whether it be acoustical or uh or, like, very specified biological weapons delivery, and I really just have to say, those are almost the most boring conspiracy theories I have ever heard.

I’m not even going to tell you the details of these conspiracy theories, 'cause they’ve got no chutzpah! They take no pleasure in their own absurdity!

So John, I’ve put together a list of the--

[Toby] TOP 5 MOST RIDICULOUS CONSPIRACY THEORIES OF ALL TIME. *weird bleh noise*

[Hank] -- conspiracy theories that should make these lame bird conspiracy theories feel ashamed of themselves.

Number one: The Phantom Time Hypothesis, which postulates that the years between 614 and 900-something AD never happened. A group of people made those years up, along with everything that ever happened during those years, and all of the artifacts that date back to those years. Charlemagne, for example, is of course a fictional character. You thought this was the year 2011? Turns out, it’s, uh, it’s 1714. Makes you feel young again.

Number two: Nazi UFOs. I love this one because you take UFOs, already a conspiracy theory, and you say that, that’s not enough. Because it turns out that Nazis had UFOs as early as 1930, and before the end of World War II, they took all their UFOs, and they put them on a secret base in Antarctica. And ever since then, those UFOs have been rummaging around the earth, bothering country folk in their nightgowns. Brilliant! I wish I could think of crazy crap like that!

Number three: Kentucky Fried Chicken Causes Sterility, But Only in Black Men. This prize-winner dates back to the 1950s, back when the KKK was still powerful. Colonel Sanders, rumored to have been a Klansman himself, created a secret recipe of seven herbs and spices and a fertility agent that only sterilized black men, while leaving white men as virile as the horn of an African rhino.

Number four: Microsoft’s Secret Wingdings of Terror. So Microsoft has this font. It’s called Wingdings. It’s basically an easy way to get clip art out of a font. You type and symbols come up. For example, if you type a capital NYC, you get this -- [image on screen of skull and crossbones, Star of David, and thumbs up symbols] -- which implies of course that killing Jews is A-OK. It was actually a big enough deal that when Microsoft later released Webdings, they actually did embed a secret message into it. With Webdings, if you type in NYC, you get eye, heart, and a city skyline.

And number five: The Reptilianoids. The winner of the most frickin' stupid crazy conspiracy of all time goes to the guy who came up with the shape-shifting, blood-drinking humanoid reptile aliens that have been ruling the human race since the time of the pharaohs. Dave Ick, or Icky—icky icky icky ptang zoop boing—former professional soccer player and morning show sportscaster, has many followers, including the father of balloon boy Falcon Heene, who believe that many of the most powerful people in human history are, in fact, shape-shifting, blood-drinking reptilians from the constellation Draco. The British royal family, most of America’s presidents, and of course, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, all reptilians. They feed on human guilt, fear, and aggression, and in order to maintain their humanoid shape, they must drink lots and lots of human blood. Here’s a direct quote from his website: "Al Gore, vice president to Clinton, Illuminati, Satanist, serious blood-drinker, and reptilian shape-shifter."

Those are my top five most ridiculous conspiracy theories of all time. If, by chance, you thought that some of those theories did not seem far-fetched, I would request that you go see a therapist. John, I’ll see you on Wednesday.

End screen time! Thank you to my friend Jesslyn Shields for helping me write and research this. There’s a link to her blog in the doobly-doo, and thank you to Toby of Tobuscus Fame for the epic Toby voice in the intro. Also one of my favorite books of the year, Ship Breaker, just won the Printz Award, which I’m very excited about. Congratulations to Paolo Bacigalupi, and there are other things around me that you should go check out. Thank you to nerdfighters for always being awesome.