MYSTERY SOLVED Along the Iroise coast in Brittany, France, residents have been puzzled by a mysterious phenomenon for more than 30 years. Broken pieces of orange plastic landline phones in the shape of the cartoon character Garfield have been washing up on the beach. BBC News reports the mystery has now been solved: A local […]
News of the Weird: Stay away from that cemetery, a new use for t-shirt guns, and day drinking goes wrong
PEOPLE DIFFERENT FROM US Researchers at St. Mary’s Hospital in London had been stumped how 10 British men had contracted a rare virus called human T-cell leukemia virus type 1. The men weren’t intravenous drug users and hadn’t had transfusions; none of them displayed any symptoms, but doctors had identified the virus through bloodwork. Dr. […]
News of the Weird: A side-of-the-road deal goes wrong, “naturism” will get you convicted, and it’s an Oakland thing
RELIGIOUS INTERPRETATION Brewery worker Del Hall of Newtown, Ohio, is taking an unusual approach to fasting for Lent this year. Hall, who works at the Fifty West brewery in Dayton, is going on an all-beer-only-beer diet until Easter. He told WKRC-TV that monks from the 1600s inspired him. “(T)hey would take a popular style of […]
News of the Weird: Farts could get you fired, protect your kneecaps, and a handbag of horror
RELIGIOUS RASCALITY Pastor Alph Lukau of Alleluia International Ministries in Johannesburg, South Africa, is facing lawsuits after a stunt in which he appeared to resurrect a dead man on Feb. 24. Sowetan News reported that a video of the incident shows Lukau placing his hands on the man’s stomach as he lay in the coffin, […]
News of the Weird: Don’t mess with hangry people, the neighbor’s secrets, and women rebel against ‘obligation chocolates’
AWESOME! Zen TV painter Bob Ross has been gone for 24 years, but his inspiration lives on – at least at Madison Middle School in Abilene, Texas, where on Feb. 7, students in Brady Sloane’s art class donned curly brown wigs, blue shirts, and paint palettes for a “Flash Bob Flash Mob.” Sloane’s pre-Advanced Placement […]
News of the Weird: Lost at sea(l), boiling water challenge (predictably) goes wrong, a mannequin sparks hate, and more
WAIT, WHAT? In Mumbai, India, 27-year-old Raphael Samuel, an apparent follower of antinatalism, is suing his parents (both attorneys) for giving him life. Samuel says he was conceived without his consent, so his parents should pay him for his life. “I love my parents, and we have a great relationship, but they had me for […]
News of the Weird: Police officer Rob Banks makes news, the karate thief strikes, and don’t touch that guy’s toys
Hair of the Dog In a whole new twist on stomach pumping, doctors in Quang Tri, Vietnam, saved 48-year-old Nguyen Van Nhat’s life in January by transfusing 15 cans of beer INTO his stomach. As Dr. Le Van Lam explained to the Daily Mail, alcohol contains both methanol and ethanol, and the liver breaks down […]
News of the Weird: A shopper with a bone to pick, drunk off vanilla extract, and the latest in incompetent criminals
WAIT, WHAT? Vaev, a Los Angeles-based internet startup, is offering consumers the “luxury to choose” when to become sick with a cold, gushes 34-year-old Oliver Niessen, the company’s founder. For $79.99, Vaev will send you a box containing a petri dish, which houses a facial tissue used by a sick person. Niessen explained to Time […]
News of the Weird: The internet of things is terrifying, gross self-medication, and I still wouldn’t let her near me with a straight razor
FASHION FOIBLES Just when you thought there was nothing new under the blue jeans sun: A Ukrainian designer is asking $377 for a pair of jeans that have one fitted leg and one flared leg. Ksenia Schnaider, who calls her design the Asymmetric Jean, told DazedDigital.com: “It’s good to get people talking, and they’re definitely […]
News of the Weird: What’s the worst thing you’ve seen at a McDonald’s, love at first arrest, and more
FIRST-WORLD SOLUTION When Victoria Amith, 18, headed to college last fall, she couldn’t take along her beloved cats, Tina and Louise. And her dad, Troy Good, 43, couldn’t keep them at his new apartment in San Jose, California. So rather than abandon them, Good did what any doting daddy would do: He rented them an […]
News of the Weird: Robber’s remorse, internet dating goes wrong, and more
PEOPLE WITH ISSUES KION TV reported on Jan. 7 that a Salinas, California, family’s Ring doorbell camera captured video of a man licking the doorbell for more than three hours. The homeowners were out of town during the encounter, which took place around 5am, but their children were inside. Sylvia Dungan, who was alerted to […]
News of the Weird: Telling the future with asparagus, strange things in strange orifices, and more
REGIFTED? Rakhi Desai of Houston didn’t think much at first of the gift she brought home from a white elephant party in mid-December – a brown stuffed bear with a stitched-on heart. As she looked it over later, Desai noticed the words “Neptune Society” stitched on its foot “and then I started to feel, and […]
Whale count proceeds despite government shutdown
The shutdown of the federal government isn’t stopping Hawai‘i from counting its whales. The Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary’s annual Ocean Count will take place as scheduled on January 26, shutdown or no shutdown. This year, the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation, the national nonprofit partner for the National Marine Sanctuary System, will coordinate […]