It's dinner time in Jatinga, a village in northeastern India.

You sit down to relax, taking in the region's famous scenic hills.

The sun is setting fully behind them, and then out of nowhere, a bird comes hurtling

down towards you, practically falling out of the sky.

The next day, another comes fluttering down, and then another.

It's like the Hitchcock movie, but it's real, and it's happening right over your head.

I'm Dylan Tharest, and this is Atlas Obscura, a guide to the world's strange, incredible

and wondrous places.

Today, we're going to Jatinga, home to one of the world's oldest and greatest ornithological

mysteries, the Jatinga bird suicides.

What is bringing these birds cascading down out of the sky and into this village?

We'll find out after this.

A bunch of birds seemingly forgetting how to fly, just sputtering downward in alarming

numbers.

It's the kind of thing that could have easily remained a mystery.

Sure, most of us might notice when a bunch of birds are acting strangely, but it takes

someone special to really see and understand the bird, to figure out what's really causing

the behavior.

Someone like Dr. Anwaruddin Chaudhary.

My name is Dr. Anwaruddin Chaudhary.

I'm an Italian government official.

I was in civil service, and I was involved in ornithological research as well as research

...