A Tennessee homeowner has shared unsettling footage of a committee of vultures gathered on the roof of their neighbor's house.
In a video posted to Reddit under the handle u/kjrjk, a suburban resident living just south of Nashville captured the moment when he spotted up to 20 vultures gathered on top of the property next door.
"It was pretty foreboding, especially since I had never seen so many vultures gathered in one place before," the Redditor, who asked not to be named, told Newsweek.
"What added to the creepy feeling was that it was already a stormy day, which set a bit of a dark mood. Even though I don't believe in bad omens or anything like that, seeing the vultures did make me pause for a second. My mind was racing with the dark reasons they could be there."
Vultures have been associated with death from as far back as Biblical times. In the Bible, Jesus twice uses the phrase "Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather."
According to Paul Wolterbeek, a volunteer program coordinator at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Arizona, vultures are drawn to dead animals because of their keen sense of smell, which is unique to the species.
"They smell the unique sulfurous chemical compounds of decaying meat from high in the sky, then will circle around downwards until they find the aroma's origin," he told Live Science.
Given that reputation, the homeowner in this instance was, perhaps understandably perturbed to see so many of the birds.
"I couldn't help but think about how vultures can smell dead animals, which led to thoughts of a dead animal in the attic or, worst case scenario, my neighbor being dead inside the house," he said.
Concerned at what might be happening inside, he decided to turn to Reddit for an explanation. However, this being the internet, what he was mostly greeted with instead was a weird and not-so-wonderful array of comments and grim theories as to what it might mean.
One user warned: "Vultures swarm around gas leaks because a key ingredient in the odor of carrion is ethyl mercaptan which is a chemical added to natural gas."
Another wrote: "This actually happened to my former boss's neighbor. They noticed a lot of vultures circling the house and later found out that both the neighbor and his dog had passed away inside."
A third commented: "There may be a corpse in that house so please call the police to do a wellness check," with a fourth adding: "Your neighbor is very obviously hoarding a multitude of dead things either on the second floor or in the attic."
"I did not anticipate the flood of comments speculating about my neighbor being dead or a murderer hiding bodies in their attic," he said. "It was honestly overwhelming to have so many people urge me to call the police. I do understand their concern, though, because I jumped to the same conclusion at first."
Thankfully, he reckons he has worked out what they were there for—and it is fairly mundane. "I'm pretty confident that the vultures were just drying off and warming up after the rain," he said. "It's not the most exciting answer, but I'm relieved there's probably nothing happening in that house."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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