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Peter Mackendou is the leader of a group called Birds Aren't Real. He says that between 1959 and 2001, the US government killed all the real birds and replaced them with bird-shaped surveillance drones to spy on the American people. After years of bird-truthing, Peter is finally talking as the real him,. not the character that he played in that van. We're going to talk about what he learned on the road and how that changed the way he thinks about approaching people with fringe beliefs.

There was a time when Peter McIndoe might see you on the street and ask: have you ever seen a baby pigeon? If you said no, he’d probably grin and say, of course you haven’t, because birds are actually spy drones created by the US government – and they emerge “fully adult” from “the factory.” Peter McIndoe peddled a crazy idea – that all birds are drones created and monitored by the U.S. government. As ridiculous (and hilarious) as this sounds, Peter’s conspiracy theory that “Birds Aren’t Real” gained a huge following. In this episode, Peter discusses why he’s used the framework of a conspiracy theory to explore the "us-versus-them" mentality that is so pervasive in us humans. He also shares what he witnessed as he took his performance across the globe, and why he finds it more important than ever that we talk to each other with empathy even in the most absurd situations. For the full text transcript, visit go.ted.com/BHTranscripts