Victor the Conversational (and Visionary) Budgie

Language Week at the Kircher Society
In 2001, Ryan Reynolds released audio clips of his talking budgerigar parrot Victor to the world. From his web site:
Victor lived from 1997 to March of 2001. He had at least a 1,000 word vocabulary and understood their meanings as well. Victor was the first budgie in the world to prove beyond a doubt that he was talking in context. On top of that, he talked extensively about God and the afterlife. Some people and even the budgies in the group think Victor actually communicated with God. Some also believe he could see the future. He often displayed an amazing ability to anticipate what was going to happen in it.
Listen to the audio (and video, with registration) in which Victor compares a budgie’s life to pearls hanging on someone’s neck, and judge for yourself. It should come as no surprise that Victor has inspired his own religious movement, the Slovenik Church of Jesus Christ, founded by Reynolds himself. Was Budgie a hoax? Alex Boese, author of the Museum of Hoaxes, thinks probably not. He deems Budgie a case of audio pareidolia.
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