A woman in Lake Carmel, New York called the police when she saw what appeared to be a human leg sticking out of a dryer at her local laundromat. When the cops arrived, they found that the man wasn't dead, merely drunk. He said he was walking home from a nearby bar, and ducked into the laundromat to get warm. Police say there's no law against sleeping in a dryer, so no charges will be filed.
Bre, a UFO expert from New Zealand, says President George Bush launched an attack against Iraq this week to keep Saddam Hussein from using the technology he acquired when an alien spacecraft crashed in Iraq in 1998. He said that normally, the president of the United States would not have a high enough security clearance to have been told about Saddam's secret weapon. "You have to have MK Ultra clearance, before you are given access to such things as reverse engineering alien technology," he said. But former President George Bush Senior was once head of the CIA, and he told his son what he knew about Iraq's alien technology. One of Bre's American correspondents claims that former President Bill Clinton also knew Saddam's secret. She told Bre in an email that Clinton decided against attacking Iraq in 1998, after Saddam expelled the United Nations' weapons inspectors, for fear he would use alien technology against the American military.
The Fred Hartman Bridge and Houston Ship Channel were closed for nearly an hour while authorities inspected a mysterious box. A tugboat operator had called the Coast Guard to report that someone in a small boat had placed the box on one of the bridge supports. The boat was stopped, and the package x-rayed. It turned out to contain a dead cat. The cat's name, and its dates of birth and death, were written on the side of the box. Coast Guard spokesman Rob Wyman praised the operator for reporting the incident. "This is a great example of exactly what we have been asking the maritime community to do. We are very pleased it worked out the way it did," Wyman said.
Police in Minnesota say they may have a bird to thank for obtaining a DNA sample from a suspect in a sexual assault. The unidentified victim described how a man entered her home around 2:30 AM, came into her bedroom, jumped on top of her, and put a pillow over her face. During the ensuing struggle, she was able to push the pillow aside for long enough to see his face and his Minnesota Vikings jacket. Then, she heard her attacker say, "Ouch." Suddenly, he threatened to kill her bird and left the apartment. Police arrived after a neighbor who had heard her screaming called 911. They found blood on the sheets, and also on the bird's beak. "The beak on this bird looks to be pretty sharp. I wouldn't want it biting me," said Stan Johnson, a sheriff's department investigator. The blood will be compared to a sample taken from Kaai.
Police in Belgium have arrested a man they found grazing in a field. Witnesses said they saw Jurgen Tersago crawl out of his car and into the field. When police arrived, Tersago was down on his hands and knees, grunting like a pig and munching grass. A subsequent test revealed that his blood alcohol level was over the legal drink-drive limit. During his drunk driving trial, he told the judge, "I like eating grass, especially when I'm drunk. It tastes like spinach." He was fined £680, about $1000, and had his driving priveleges suspended for 45 days.
A teenager in Winnepeg, Canada was killed in a bizarre game involving a shovel and a stolen car. Fourteen year old Roger Ledger and his friends stole a Chrysler Intrepid, and began to play a game in which someone would throw a shovel through the open window of the car each time the driver brought it around the block. During one round, the shovel hit Ledger in the head, killing him almost instantly. His friends panicked and fled. Police found Ledger's body in the abandoned car the next morning. Criminal charges will likely be filed.
Melinda Kelley, who over the weekend called 911 to report that her car had been stolen with her infant son inside, now faces charges of filing a false report, and of burglary. Kelley has admitted that she broke into a home in Glenville, New York, then forgot where she parked her car. She called the police, claiming that her car had been stolen while she was shopping in nearby Scotia. The car, and the baby, were found a short while later, but Kelley's wallet had been stolen while the unlocked car was parked.
A group of children in Wales are receiving counselling after a headless corpse fell on them from above. The children were playing under a bridge near their suburban homes, when the body of a man in his 50s plummeted from the sky. The man had apparently hanged himself, with a wire noose, from the 40-foot-high bridge; when he dropped, the noose decapitated him. His head was found nearby.
A woman from Westchester, New York is in police custody after a "bizarre" sex game went terribly wrong. Police say that Sheila Davalloo, 33, and her 36-year-old husband, Paul Christos, were playing a game involving handcuffs and a blindfold, when Sheila got a paring knife from the kitchen and stabbed Paul in the chest. Deputy Police Commissioner William Rehm says he isn't certain whether that was part of the game or not. Paul begged his wife to take him to the hospital, and she finally agreed, but stabbed him again when they got to the hospital parking lot. Passersby heard them arguing in the car, and someone called 911. Paul underwent surgery for stab wounds to the chest and back; Sheila fled, but was quickly apprehended. She is being held without bail.
(Newsday)
The tugboat was moored in the Khawr abd Allah River, which separates Kuwait from Iraq. A British team boarded it on the first day of the war, looking for mines or other explosives, but found nothing. An American Coast Guard cutter checked it later in the day, and it came up clean. The next day, two Australian inflatables went out to run one final check. They did something neither the Americans nor the Brits had considered: They asked whether there were explosives on board. According to one of the Australian officers, they asked, "So, mate, have you got any weapons or explosives on board?" The tugboat captain "drew a picture showing how the 45-liter steel drums lined up on the deck had been welded together and then split down the middle to make a hinged shelter for dozens of mines," and said, "Explosive! Explosive!" pointing to the drums and a raft towed behind the tug.
Ships carrying humanitarian aid cannot proceed upriver to the port of Umm Kasar until the channel is cleared of mines. The river is being checked by an Australian warship, six British minesweepers, a Sea Stallion helicopter, a Polish ship and a US coastguard cutter. The port itself is being cleared by divers and two trained dolphins.
(The Age)
A Catholic priest in Italy was receiving the confession of a man who suddenly handed him a bag. "I'd like you to take these as well," he said. Inside, the priest found two handguns, two hand grenades, and 18 bullets. He immediately handed the weapons over to the police. Due to the sacrament of the confession, the priest cannot reveal what, if any, crimes the man may have confessed to, but says that, "I am just happy that he wanted to change his life, return to the Church and that he came to us for help." A police spokesman has said that the weapons have been sent to a ballistics lab for testing.
(Ananova)
A visitor to the Canada Agriculture Museum, in Ottowa, was arrested after museum employees found him receiving oral sex from a cow and her calf. David Sutin, a spokesman for the museum, said, "His, I would characterize it as nervous, behaviour during previous visits had us keep an eye on him and then with what happened yesterday we thought it was prudent to call the police." The incident allegedly occurred in a public barn, but no other museum patrons witnessed it. He has been charged with two counts of bestiality, one count of committing an indecent act and one count of mischief.
(Canoe)
Harry the Hawk, a popular performer from Thorp Perrow Arboretum, in Yorkshire, will not being doing any more live displays. Tom Graham, who owns Harry, cited a string of incidents that culminated in Harry stealing, and attempting to eat, an audience member's toupee. The toupee debacle was the result of a "bunny dummy" stunt, in which a piece of brown fur is thrown into the audience for the hawk to retrieve. Harry landed on a man in the audience, then took off with the man's toupee clutched in his talons. “By the time we got the toupée off Harry, it had a bald patch. The crowd thought it was part of the act but the owner was a bit disgruntled,” Graham said. Previously, Harry had punctured a bouncy castle, and walked through an ice cream vendor's stock. "He just became too mischievous and was doing his own thing," Graham explained. "He was losing his fear of people. But he has been a brilliant bird over the years. He is certainly a character." Harry will now be retired to the Arboretum's breeding program, after 15 years in the spotlight. One presumes he will enjoy his new career.
(The Sun and Ananova)
A man clad only in his underwear has been arrested for causing some £75,000 (almost $120,000) damage to shop fronts along the main streets of Cardiff, Wales. According to the South Wales Police, Andrew Roxberry, an unemployed man with 217 prior offenses, smashed two windows in one shop with a bottle, then, "Having gained the appetite for breaking windows, he picked up a shovel used by workmen and went on to smash 43 windows in total at a further 22 shops." Security cameras recorded his destructive orgy, which ended only when the police arrived. Roxberry has refused to speak since his arrest.
(BBC,
Investigators in Norway believe that the UFO sighted in Lardal recently was most likely a dead cat. A number of peope reported seeing a fireball that exploded in the sky and then drifted to earth. After the sighting, investigators found the charred body of a cat near some electrical lines. It appears that the cat climbed the power pole and touched a live wire, electrocuting itself and creating a sensation in the nearby town.
(Ananova, March)
A snake charmer called to remove two cobras from a home near Dhaka unearthed more than 3,000 of the snakes, plus hundreds of eggs. Dudu Miah discovered the venemous cache under two houses, and said he would continue to look for more snakes. Panicked neighbors fled their homes as the serpents came to light. Cobras often move into houses in Bangladesh, where they feed on rats and other vermin.
(Reuters)
A homeowner in Dusseldorf, Germany was awakened in the middle of the night by the noise her refrigerator makes when the door is open. She wandered out to the kitchen and closed the door, then went back to bed. In the morning, she discovered that her living room window had been forced open, and that three bars of Cadbury chocolate were missing from the 'fridge. An empty wrapper lay nearby. Police believe the burglar was frightened off by the noisy refrigerator.
(Ananova)
A couple in Romania both visited the hospital after an experiment in sex and cooking went awry. The woman was giving her partner oral sex while he made pancakes. He spilled hot oil down her back, and she involuntarily bit down, which caused him to hit her with the frying pan. She was admitted with burns from the oil and a head injury from the pan. He underwent 4 hours of surgery to repair the damage her teeth had done to his penis. It was the second such incident reported in Romania in two years.
(Ananova)
The Royal Sussex County Hospital in Britain had to call firefighters for help after the metal cutters they were using to extract a man from a steel ring that his penis was stuck through. The firefighters used a pair of two-man hydraulic jaws to cut through the ring. According to sub-officer Mick Collins: "He was trying to be very chatty to cover up his embarrassment but he must have walked in to the hospital like John Wayne."
(Ananova)
John Loan, a 41-year-old Manhattanite who styles himself a modern-day Robin Hood, called Justice Micki Scherer "Your Majesty" as he pleaded guilty to embezzlement. He stole millions from his employer, Alliance Capital Management, and used most of the money to set up a recording studio which he allowed penurious musicians to use for free. The rest, he donated to charity or spent on his friends. When asked how he managed to take so much, he said, "I just typed up invoices. At my desk. And sent the invoices in." He faces up to three years in prison.
Ananova
Two police officers from Raleigh, North Carolina lost their guns on their way to teach a gun safety course in Wilson, North Carolina. They arrived at the course location to discover that their two bags, containing an MP-5 submachine gun, capable of firing 800 9MM rounds per minute, and a handgun, were gone. Dozens of officers joined the search; it was called off after local citizens called to say they had found the weapons, lying on the pavement on separate motorways. Raleigh police officials have declined to comment.
(Ananova)
The United States Patent Office has just issued a patent for a method of swinging side-to-side on a swing, rather than front-to-back. The patent description also suggests that a "Tarzan-type yell" be included, to further enhance the experience. The patent application is almost certainly a joke. But the patent itself (No. 6,368,227), apparently, is not.
The US National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, DC is home to John Wilkes Booth's spinal cord (and the bullet still lodged in it), an eggplant-sized hairball taken from the stomach of a teenaged girl, and a variety of other gruesome, fascinating, and just plain odd exhibits. (Contrary to popular belief, however, its collections do not include John Dillinger's penis.)
Founded by a Civil War surgeon, the museum is dedicated to disseminating information it may be difficult to find elsewhere. Its researchers are among the best pathologists in the country, and it claims to have the finest DNA laboratories in the world. There is no charge for admission, but reservations are required.
(Reuters)
The owner of a sex shop in Kent, England says he never really believed in ghosts, until he had to do business with them. His shop, Pillow Talk, stands on the site of a former brothel, and is apparently home to the ghosts of several prostitutes. Every morning, he says, the shop is littered with bras and panties, and French maid outfits are hanging from the backs of chairs. He wouldn't mind so much if they would clean up after themselves, but as it is, he's considering hiring a psychic to deal with the problem.
(Ananova)
A Danish man was having surgery to remove a mole from his backside when he broke wind. The gaseous emission was ignited by a spark from the electric knife the surgeon was using, and the man's genitals, which had been soaked in surgical alcohol, caught fire. He is suing the hospital for pain and suffering, and for the time he has had to take off work while he recuperates. "I've had to be booked off work for longer than expected and, besides the pain, I can't have sex with my wife," he says. The operation was halted immediately after the incident, which the surgeon claims no one could have forseen.
(Ananova)
Paata Tsikurishvili, an actor originally from the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, is directing a silent version of Hamlet at the Stanislavsky Theatre Studio in Washington, DC. He suggests that the audience should read the play before coming to see the production. He stresses that the actors are not mimes, like Marcel Marceau. Rather, they are attempting to "go straight to the core of Shakespeare's language and capture the images within the words."
(Ananova)
Terry and Shirley Meggs, who run the Royal Falcon Hotel, in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, have purchased an insurance policy against their resident poltergeist. The Hotel sits next to an unused graveyard and was once the site of a girls' school. It is haunted by a monk who took his own life after being caught having an affair with either a student or another teacher. Mr. Meggs says, "I never believed in ghosts before... I saw glasses move across the bar and be picked up one night, and thought, what happens if it does something to hurt somebody." He has purchased insurance from a company called Ultraviolet, which charges 500 pounds per year for a policy that pays out 1 million pounds if staff or customers are killed or permanently injured by paranormal activity. Last year, Ultraviolet paid 100,000 pounds to the family of a woman who held their Spooksafe policy. Its investigators determined that a ghost had been responsible for her death, after she was thrown over the banister in her home and killed. (Ananova)
A woman in Japan told the landlord of the building she was moving out of that she had "left some stuff there" for him "to get rid of." He sent in a cleaning crew, expecting the usual discarded household items. What they found instead was the plastic-wrapped remains of six infants.
According to a police source, "[S]ome of the bones had started to go brown with age. At first glance, the bones looked like they belonged to animals."
The 58-year-old woman said that she had given birth to all of the children, and that the last one was born about 12 years ago. Police say that it's likely the statute of limitations has run out, so they will be unable to prosecute her.
One of her friends says, "She's been known for years for living it up and wasting her money... I guess she's given birth to the kids but let them die because she couldn't afford to bring them up. But, being a mother, she still wanted her children near here, so she carried the bodies from place to place wherever she went." (Mainichi Daily News)
A 42-year old man in Wichita, Kansas was shot in the hand by a gun someone had thrown in the trash. According to Sedwick County Sheriff's Captain Mike Oliver, the victim was helping unload garbage when he accidentally hit the trigger of the short-barreled pistol, which was floating loose in the trash and caked with mud.
Investigators say they would be interested to know how the gun came to be in the trash. They do not yet know whether it had been used in a crime.
(ABC)
Three thousand students had to wait for classes to start in at Carlsbad High School in California, thanks to someone gluing the school's doors shut. All of them.
"The locks are so small that all they'd have needed to do was put the point of the tube in and squeeze a little," the principal said. "It doesn't take much to stop you from putting your key in the lock."
The police are confident they'll find the culprit. As Police Lt. Kelly Cain puts it, "Someone's going to tell one of their friends sooner or later."
The custodial staff managed to unstick the lock on one building, freeing up 27 classrooms, but the rest of the students were forced to sit in the gym while their classrooms were unsealed, one at a time.
(Mainichi Daily News)
Adrian Davies, a taxi driver in Hastings, Australia, lost about $300AU when he left his cab to save an unconscious man from a burning car.
Mr. Davies was on duty when he spotted the car, which had ricocheted off a signpost, slammed into a tree and then flipped over. The driver, who had been knocked unconscious, was hanging upside-down, suspended by his seatbelt. Mr. Davies and two other men rushed to assist him, cutting the seatbelt away and dragging the victim out of the wreckage just before the car exploded. Meanwhile, the thief apparently rushed to help him (or her) self to Mr. Davies' money.
Mr. Davies is obviously upset about the loss of his cash, but it's clear he wouldn't have traded another man's life for it. "My parents brought me up that way, to help out each other," he said.
(Herald Sun)
An Italian film production company has been forced to delay the planned Easter release of its film, 7 km from Jerusalem, under threat of legal action from Coca-Cola. The film's main character, an advertising executive who makes a pilgrimage to Jerusalem after losing his wife and his job, meets Jesus there, and offers him a can of Coke. Being an advertising executive, he thinks, "What a testimonial!"
Coca-Cola, apparently, didn't see it that way. According to a note on the film's Web site, the corporation sent a letter demanding that the scene be eliminated. The director, Claudio Malaponti, has indicated that if talks with Coca-Cola fail, he will indeed delete the scene.
(IOL)
When a Yellow Rose Carriage driver was knocked from her seat by a collision with a drunk driver and his van, her horse bolted, and took the carriage, and two passengers, with him.
William Basler, a 19-year-old Indianapolis teenager, saw the carriage careening away and sprang into action. He was chasing after it on foot when a cab driver saw what was happening and called to him to get in. The cab caught up to the carriage, and Basler bailed out, then climbed on board. He got hold of the reins and stopped the horse.
"It was just instinct," he said later. "I was just worried about the people inside of it."
The carriage driver was briefly unconscious, and the two passengers complained of pain and were taken to the hospital. None of the three suffered any major injuries.
The driver of the van has been charged with felony possession of a controlled substance, and misdemeanor counts of driving under the influence, public intoxication and operating a vehicle without a license.
The horse was not injured.
(cNews)
David Hughes doesn't like to pay fines. Or so one might assume, given his recent behavior.
In January, Hughes was convicted of disorderly conduct and ordered to pay a $281.50 fine. He paid $10 of it, and apparently thought that was enough. Beaver County, Pennsylvania District Judge Joseph L. Schafer issued an arrest warrant for Hughes, summoning him to the courthouse to explain why he hadn't paid the rest of the fine. Mr. Hughes offered to retrieve a gun from his van and shoot everyone in the office, then dashed out of the courthouse, jumped in his van, and drove away.
The police caught up with him quickly enough, and he pulled over. But rather than surrendering, he threw the van into reverse and backed into a police cruiser before taking off again. A second police car managed to pull him over a few blocks away, but he backed into that one, too. Finally, he turned onto a dead-end street and abandoned the van. The police chased him down on foot and took him into custody. At the police station, with one hand shackled, Hughes further endeared himself to law enforcement by punching an officer in the mouth with his free hand and trying to take the officer's pistol.
At some point during the chase, Hughes also flipped his middle finger at the pursuing officers. "He could have been killed," said Police Chief Barry Kramer. "He can thank his lucky stars it wasn't something shiny," that he waved at the cops.
Hughes has been charged with four counts of making terroristic threats, two counts of aggravated assault on police officers, and one count each of reckless endangerment, fleeing and eluding police, disarming a law enforcement officer, and careless driving.
And he still owes the county $271.50.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
Johnny Snodgrass won't make that mistake again.
Snodgrass, 21, is a construction worker in Moundsville, West Virginia. Unfortunately for him, he may match the description of a man whose image was captured by security cameras in a store where an 89-year-old woman's purse was stolen, and in a nearby video poker establishment where her wallet was found, minus about $45. When the police arrived at the construction site where Snodgrass was working, he locked himself in the Port-A-Potty and refused to come out.
"A Port-A-Potty," said police Chief James Kudlak, "is not a good place to hide. There's only one way out." Snodgrass must have realized that, because after a short time, he opened the door and came out.
Snodgrass, who insists he is innocent, is being held on a $5,000 bond.
(WRAL-TV)
Walter Reckling, a truck driver from Germany, learned a lesson about food safety when he attempted to cook two sausages while he drove. He keeps a small gas stove in his truck, for roadside use, but he was running late for a delivery and thought he could use the stove in the cab. Of course it toppled over, and of course it set the seat on fire, and of course the fire spread to the rest of the cab.
Reckling was treated for smoke inhalation at a local hospital.
His poor judgment may be explained by his high blood alcohol content — more than three times the legal limit.
(IOL)
John Ferrell, of Clarksville, Tennessee, was badly burned when a hot grill in the bed of his pickup ignited a propane tank, which exploded. The 1978 Chevy was in flames when rescue crews arrived.
A spokesman for the Montgomery County Sheriff's office explained, "Apparently, when [Ferrell] loaded up the grill he still had hot charcoals, which somehow got too close to the propane tank, and it exploded. Obviously, we would urge people not to drive with burning grills in their vehicles."
Ferrell is reported to be in stable condition.
(Richmond Times-Dispatch)
The Oakland, California police department and California Highway Patrol have confirmed the death of an unidentified man who engaged in a struggle with police under an overpass. According to a police spokesman, two blasts of pepper spray and several blows with a wooden baton had no effect on the man, who was running naked down the street in front of Kaiser hospital, climbing poles, yelling to himself, and jumping on cars. Police say they never hit the man in the face, nor put any sort of hold on his neck. Sergeant Lou Cruz said that the man's "activity and demeanor were consistent with someone under the influence of some kind of narcotic."
(Oakland Tribune)
Marlie Coleman, a 6-year-old girl from Cairns, Queensland, has become the youngest person, and the first female, ever to receive the RSPCA Australia's Humane Award, for her bravery in snatching her kitten from the coils of a scrub python. The Humane Award is given to a person who has risked his or her personal safety to rescue an animal. Previous winners have been honored for such feats as dragging a dog from a burning house and being hit by a car while rescuing a koala.
Marlie was outside when a python slithered into the yard and attacked her kitten, Sooty. She grabbed the snake, and it let go of the kitten, but sank its teeth into Marlie's lip. Marlie's mother, Shakira, heard her daughter screaming and rushed outside to find the little girl standing by the barbeque with a snake attached to her face, sobbing, "Snake tried to eat Sooty." Shakira pulled the snake off and rushed Marlie to the hospital. Marlie still bears scars from the attack, but Sooty has recovered completely from her injuries. The snake was unharmed, and fled the scene.
RSPCA Queensland chief executive officer Mark Townend said, "The RSPCA does not want to see children place themselves in danger. However, this little girl, who was only five at the time, showed exceptional bravery. Marlie performed a selfless and courageous act on behalf of her kitten friend and she has captured the spirit of animal welfare."
Scrub pythons are non-venemous, but they can grow to nearly 10 feet, and have long, sharp teeth. They feed upon small, warm-blooded animals, and will bite if they feel threatened.
(news.com.au)
An infinite number of monkeys, given an infinite number number of typewriters, are supposed to be able to produce the works of Shakespeare. Mike Phillips, a media researcher at Plymouth University, has his doubts about that. Phillips and his team gave half a dozen monkeys a computer for a month. "They pressed a lot of S’s," he said Friday. "Obviously, English isn’t their first language."
The crested Sulawesi monkeys, denizens of Paignton Zoo in southwest England, failed to produce any great works of literature, in fact, although their writing skills eventually expanded to include the letters A, J, L and M. This does not mean, though, that they failed to interact with the machine. "The lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of it," Phillips said. "Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard."
Of course, not everything Shakespeare produced was a masterpiece, either.
(MSNBC)
An emergency room near Minneapolis, Minnesota had to be closed while the postal insectors and the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI investigated a suspiciously foul-smelling white envelope at a post office downtown. The hospital was treating a postal employee who was complaining of a "headache and burning sensation," which he believed was related to handling the envelope at work. The envelope, which was addressed to U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), turned out to contain a small slice of rotten potato and a note which read, "Have a french fry." "We assume it is a political statement having to do with the House changing French fries to Freedom Fries" said Postal Service spokesman Jim Ahlgren said. The note was not threatening, and there is no law against mailing rotten food; officials do not, therefore, plan to take any further action.
(Star Tribune)
