Recently in weird Category

On screen, Dick Van Dyke has been rescued from untimely death by flying cars and magical nannies. Off screen, the veteran star of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins had to rely on the help of a pod of porpoises after apparently dozing off aboard his surfboard. "I'm not kidding," he said afterwards.

Van Dyke's ordeal began during an ill-fated trip to his local beach. "I woke up out of sight of land," the 84-year-old actor told reporters. "I started paddling with the swells and I started seeing fins swimming around me and I thought 'I'm dead!'"

Van Dyke was wrong. "They turned out to be porpoises," he said. "And they pushed me all the way to shore." The porpoises were unavailable for comment.

A female boa constrictor snake has given birth to two litters of extraordinary offspring.

Evidence suggests the mother snake has had multiple virgin births, producing 22 baby snakes that have no father.

More than that, the genetic make-up of the baby snakes is unlike any previously recorded among vertebrates, the group which includes almost all animals with a backbone.

The Berners Street Hoax was perpetrated by Theodore Hook in the City of Westminster, London, in 1810.

On 27 November, at five o'clock in the morning, a sweep arrived to sweep the chimneys of 54 Berners Street, the home of Mrs Tottenham. The maid who answered the door informed him that no sweep had been requested, and that his services were not required, and the disappointed tradesman went on his way. A few moments later another sweep presented himself at the door, then another, and another, 12 in all. After the last of the sweeps had been sent away, a fleet of carts carrying large deliveries of coal began to arrive, followed by a series of cakemakers delivering large wedding cakes, then doctors, lawyers, vicars and priests summoned to minister to someone in the house they had been told was dying. Fishmongers, shoemakers, and over a dozen pianos were among the next to appear, along with "six stout men bearing an organ". Dignitaries, including the Governor of the Bank of England, the Duke of York, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Mayor of the City of London also arrived. The narrow streets soon became severely congested with disgruntled tradesmen and onlookers. Deliveries and visits continued until the early evening, bringing a large part of London to a standstill.^[1]

Hook had bet his friend Samuel Beazley that he could transform any house in London into the most talked-about address in a week. To achieve his goal he had sent out 4,000 letters purporting to be Mrs Tottenham, requesting deliveries, visitors, and assistance. Hook had stationed himself in the house directly opposite 54 Berners Street, and he and his friend had spent an amusing day watching the chaos unfold.^[1]

No one noticed that all the plans, promotional literature, etc. had tiny decimal points in all the crucial figures. i.e. 4.0 stories was taken as 40 stories. The project was oversubscribed by quite a bit and the project built to completion, upon which the promoter skipped town.

The investors started trying to sue or arrest him when the swindle became evident during construction, but were unable to since the contract was followed to the letter. They did recover a few dollars from the elevator company (who refused to honor their contract after they discovered the decimal points). Unable to get the crook, the investors funded a team which followed him around the country breaking up any deals he tried to put together.

You can read more here.

An ant mill is a phenomenon where a group of army ants separated from the main foraging party lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle. The ants will eventually die of exhaustion. This has been reproduced in laboratories and the behaviour has also been produced in ant colony simulations. This phenomenon is a side effect of the self-organizing structure of ant colonies. Each ant follows the ant in front of it, and this will work until something goes wrong and an ant mill forms. An ant mill was first described by William Beebe who observed a mill 1,200 feet (365 m) in circumference. It took each ant 2.5 hours to make one revolution. Similar phenomena have been noted in processionary caterpillars and fish.

If someone near you yawns, do you yawn, too? About half of adults yawn after someone else does in a phenomenon called contagious yawning. Now a new study has found that most children aren't susceptible to contagious yawning until they're about 4 years old -- and that children with autism are less likely to yawn contagiously than others.

"Given that contagious yawning may be a sign of empathy, this study suggests that empathy -- and the mimicry that may underlie it -- develops slowly over the first few years of life, and that children with ASD may miss subtle cues that tie them emotionally to others," according to the researchers. This study may provide guidance for approaches to working with children with ASD so that they focus more on such cues.

A family in Worcestershire were trapped inside their house for two hours after a scary, staring badger left them too frightened to leave.

Dad Michael Youngs tried to scare the badger away by banging a spade on the ground, but it didn't move.

Mr Youngs told a newspaper: "The badger was very spooky.

"It was the stare that really gave me the creeps," he added.

Dinner in the Sky is available for a session of 8 hours. It can be divided or personalised according to the client's wishes.

Dinner in the Sky accomodates 22 people around the table at every session with three staff in the middle (chef, waiter, entertainer...). Just to give you an example: this means that, at a rate of 2 sessions per hour, more than 350 people could have access to this exceptional platform, or only 22 if you want an exclusive VIP event.

Dinner in the Sky is an event that can be held anywhere (golf course, public place, race track, castle, vineyard, historical site...) as long as there is a surface of approximately 500 m² that can be secured. Of course, authorisation by the owner is required.

Of course, it's pricey - $289.00 per person in the United States. Other services offered include "Meeting in the Sky," "Showbiz in the Sky," and - my favorite - "Wedding in the Sky."

Adolf Hitler? In most western countries he is viewed as history's most evil man, and almost all are aware of the horrific genocide he was responsible for, with many having had family fight and/or die in the war against Nazi Germany.

However, in Asia, Hitler is a far more distant figure. This distance might be an explanation for the bizarre case of Hitler restaurants and bars that can be found throughout Asia.

Here are some photos of these strange Hitler-themed establishments:

You can view more here.

Ruth Flowers is certainly not your typical grandmother. At 69, Flowers is a real phenomenon and the latest sensation on the European nightclub scene.

69-year-old Ruth Flowers is a big deal on the European nightclub scene.

Wearing large black sunglasses (a fashion statement, there is nothing wrong with her eyesight), flashy clothes, bling jewelry, fake diamond-incrusted DJ headphones on her white hair, the British granny makes crowds go wild, spinning records behind the decks of the most prestigious nightclubs in Paris, Cannes and other European cities.

DJ Ruth Flowers, a.k.a Mamy Rock, began her new career when, four years ago, she attended her grandson's birthday party. "Kids don't play games anymore. They have discos after they eat," she told ABC News.

Ocean currents have collected massive amounts of garbage into a sort of plastic "soup" where countless bits of discarded plastic float intertwined just beneath the surface. Indeed, the human race has really made its mark. One enormous plastic patch is estimated to weigh over 3 million tons altogether and cover an area roughly twice the size of Texas.
[...]

The trash collects in this remote area, known as the North Pacific Gyre, due to a clockwise trade wind that encircles the Pacific Rim. According to Moore the trash accumulates the same way bubbles clump at the center of hot tub.

Ian Kiernan, the Australian founder of Clean Up the World, started his environmental campaign two decades ago after being shocked by the incredible amount of rubbish he saw on an around-the-world solo yacht race. He'll says he'll never be able the wipe the atrocious site from his memory.

"It was just filled with things like furniture, fridges, plastic containers, cigarette lighters, plastic bottles, light globes, televisions and fishing nets," Kiernan says. "It's all so durable it floats. It's just a major problem."