Coincidence?

Mysterious stinks in New York. Birds dead in the street in Austin, TX. And now a reported massive bird die-off in Australia.

If this were a 1950's style B-movie, we'd be nearing the end of the first reel right now. The hero -- an earnest researcher, perhaps, or an idealistic news reporter, or maybe just an improbably handsome teenager who happened to see a glowing saucer land in the spooky valley behind the Old Jones Place -- would be vainly trying to get someone to act on his critically-important information that links it all together. The Authority Figures would have pooh-poohed him as an alarmist. And it would be just about time for the big catastrophe featured on the movie poster.