UPDATE- Aflockalypse Now: The Coming of the End of The World As Birds and Fish Die Everywhere

In what Melissa Bell of the Washington Post coins the "Aflockalypse," in her article: "Dead Birds, Dead Fish Turn Up All Over the World: Signs of the Aflockalypse," reports of dead birds falling out of the sky and dead fish washing ashore have come up all over the world. What started with 5,000 red-winged blackbirds in Beebe, Arkansas and 100,000 Drum Fish near Ozark in the Arkansas River, went on to include another 500 birds in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; 2,000,000 dead fish in the Chesapeake Bay the largest estuary in the United States; and now international with reports from Sweden, New Zealand, Brazil, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

But is it the end of the world? Is it truly the coming of the Aflockalypse?

Ms. Bell cautions conspiracy theorists with:

"It seems sudden bird deaths occur more often than one would think. About 500 million to 1 billion birds are killed every year and mass deaths have been noted about 16 times in the past 20 years, the PBS NewsHour reports."

But conspiracy theorists aren't down with the jest of the Aflockalypse. The eBible Fellowship believes in the Apocalypse and states that "on May 21, 2011: Judgment Day will begin and the rapture (the taking up into heaven of God’s elect people) will occur at the end of the 23-year great tribulation. On October 21st, the world will be destroyed by fire."

So what did cause the birds and fish to die? Not the greatest of news to report, but there has been no conclusive evidence pinpointing an exact cause, although several theories about what is happening have surfaced: from conspiracy theories leading us to the end of the world and H.A.A.R.P., to traumatic stress syndrome, cold stress, cannons and fireworks.

The website All About attributes the bird and fish deaths to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill where two million gallons of Corexit was poured into the Gulf of Mexico since April 2010. “Corexit goes through a molecular change when it comes into contact with warm water; it changes from a liquid to a gas and evaporates into clouds,” reports France 24. Additionally, “A report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources warned that the BP oil spill would be the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history, threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent.” Said report warned of years of toxic rain resulting in changes to the ecosystems. The questions then become: “Could nine months of toxic oil rain have somehow concentrated in these two areas, causing the death of the birds, and more than 100,000 fish in the same area at the same time? Could the birds have ingested contaminated prey?”