“Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a —.”

You had it right the first time. Why did you continue guessing?

For those of you not living under a rock — which, it turns out, is the only safe place to live nowadays — thousands of birds have died from yet-to-be-determined causes over the last couple weeks.

First, 5,000 red-winged blackbirds were found dead throughout Beebe, Ark., giving this small southern town as many dead birds as residents. A few days later, another 500 birds reached a similar fate just a few hundred miles away in Louisiana.

For those fearing that the U.S. is again a target of another terrorist attack or finally paying the price for being too stubborn to seriously combat climate change, this is happening elsewhere, too. Thousands of turtle doves crashed from the sky in Italy on Friday — apparently their hard shells and propensity for peace couldn’t save them. Another 50 birds were found dead in the streets of Sweden last Wednesday.

Experts initially laid the blame on fireworks, but not all of these fowl fatalities occurred on New Years Eve. Some suggested the deaths were caused by hail storms, but you would think birds are used to severe weather by now. My theory is that people were trying to bring the Angry Birds game to life. None of these explanations, however, explain why fish have also been dying mysteriously.

Millions of dead fish, it’s been reported, have washed upon the shores of Maryland, Brazil and New Zealand. Scientists are citing “natural causes,” but they’re yet to say definitively that it wasn’t just bitter fishers using poisonous bait.

This may sound like something out of a movie, but — hey, wait a minute…

‘The Sky Really Is Falling’

It starts with a group of children playing in a park. One girl strays from the group to chase a butterfly. She starts screaming. A mother runs frantically toward the piercing noise to discover her daughter staring, mouth agape, at a pile of dead birds.

The next scene shows teenagers on their way to the beach. Decked out in bathing suits and suntan lotion, the teens are filled with visions of riding a few waves and catching some rays. The fun ends before it even gets to begin, however, when they pull up to discover the shore covered with dead fish.

News reports relay several such incidents happening throughout the world. Birds falling from the sky. Fish floating to shore. Names evoking the apocalypse or using “gate” as a suffix are splashed across TV and the Internet, and conspiracy theorists become regular guest panelists on cable news shows.

Environmentalists are up in arms, demanding strict regulations to fight global warming. Al Gore makes a comeback ala Rocky.

People are instructed to stay indoors and to only leave home when absolutely necessary. NASA receives a massive influx of money as the U.S. prepares to colonize the moon.

Of course, no movie is complete without a love interest. Experts say these mass die-offs are commonplace, but one young man knows better. He sets out to discover the truth and, in the process, discovers some truths about himself and falls in love with a female lab assistant.

I won’t give away the ending here, but let’s just say there will likely be a sequel.

Granted, similar movies have been made before. But how many of them are “based on a true story?”

Meanwhile, back on Earth…

Back in the real world, scientists continue to postulate over what’s causing mass quantities of animals to die at random.

Maybe the birds were late in migrating for the winter — held up by TSA agents, no doubt — and the sudden warmth was too much for them to handle and the fish, perhaps, were driven out of the ocean by fishstick-craving pirates.

Or maybe Senior Editor Dan Fenner was right to fear that the end of the world is nearer than the Mayans told us it is.

The world may never know.

Regardless, these incidents are a clear indication that both the skies and the seas are no longer safe to inhabit. Only land appears to be safe — for now.

If you need me, I’ll be under a rock, fearing for my life.