strange stuff

From strange crimes to strange celebrity deaths, read all of the latest weird and strange stuff news stories on Newser.com

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Big Problem in California: Massive Whale Carcass

Officials aren't sure how to handle dead whale on San Onofre beach

(Newser) - The massive carcass of a whale was rotting Tuesday at a popular California surfing spot while authorities were deciding whether to tow it out to sea or cut it into pieces and load them on trucks, the AP reports. Meanwhile, crowds braved the overpowering stench to pose for photos in...

School Name Proposal: Schoolie McSchoolface, Of Course

Who knows how long this trend will last

(Newser) - People have apparently been inspired by the "Boaty McBoatface" fervor : A racehorse was recently named Horsey McHorseface , and now Schoolie McSchoolface has been proposed as the new name of an elementary school in Austin, Texas. The school district voted in March to rename Robert E. Lee Elementary based on...

Alaska Town Freaks as Creek Turns Green

But it was just a harmless prank, and cops are taking it in stride

(Newser) - Alaska authorities can apparently take a joke: They say the green water flowing in the Ketchikan Creek that caused some panic and drew a response from multiple agencies was the result of a prank. Officials have determined that the dye dumped into the water on Wednesday is non-toxic. Ketchikan police...

Irate Beaver 'Takes Man Hostage'

Cops thought his call for help was a prank

(Newser) - A rogue beaver struck terror into the heart of a man making his way home late at night in the Latvian city of Daugavpils, according to a local newspaper report picked up by Latvian Public Broadcasting . The man, identified only as Sergei, says the beaver ran out of some bushes...

Tiger Roamed Texas Streets, Wearing Collar and Leash

Animal control officers captured her after calls from concerned citizens

(Newser) - Animal control officers have captured an apparently domesticated tiger that was spotted roaming a residential neighborhood in a South Texas city, the AP reports. The Conroe Police Department says it received several phone calls Thursday from residents who saw the young female tiger wandering around the city. Animal control officers...

Month-Long Film Gets a 7-Hour Trailer

It shows a continuous shot of a beach in Sweden

(Newser) - Swedish artist Anders Weberg says he has made 300 films, but his final "moving image" project, experimental film Ambiancé, promises to be his longest. The running time: 720 hours, or 30 days. As befitting a movie of that length, Weberg has just released a second promotional video for the...

It's Official: 'Boaty McBoatface' Wins

Joke got 4 times as many votes as runner-up

(Newser) - The UK has confirmed that we cannot have serious online polls dedicated to the serious task of obtaining the public's for-real opinion on the name of its serious new research vessel: Yes, Internet darling "Boaty McBoatface" has overwhelmingly won the Natural Environment Research Council's online poll, which...

Cruz's Post-Honeymoon Splurge: 100 Cans of Soup

It was Campbell's Chunky, Heidi Cruz revealed at CNN town hall

(Newser) - Ted Cruz showed up Wednesday for a CNN town hall—or what Gawker frames as "another glimpse into the waking hell that is Heidi Cruz’s daily life"—with his wife and two young daughters in tow, and Heidi offered up a personal, if bizarre, nugget of life...

Canada Is Seeing Lots of UFOs These Days

Quebec resident reported seeing tiny 'humanoids'

(Newser) - Perhaps aliens have taken a liking to the Great White North. The annual Canadian UFO Survey by Winnipeg-based Ufology Research shows "the second highest level of sightings that we've recorded since we started doing the survey back in the 1980s," with 1,267 across Canada in 2015,...

Ignoring Cobra Bite, Pop Star Sings to Her Death
 Ignoring Cobra Bite, 
 Pop Star Sings 
 to Her Death 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Ignoring Cobra Bite, Pop Star Sings to Her Death

Irma Bule sang for 45 minutes after deadly snakebite

(Newser) - An Indonesian pop star known for dancing with snakes was bitten by a king cobra during a concert on Sunday and kept on singing until she collapsed and later died. Irma Bule, 29—famous in the Dangdut genre of Indonesian folk music, per Mashable —often included pythons, cobras, and...

Huge Search for 'Missing' Hikers Ends in Unlikely Spot

They 'didn't have a clue,' officer says

(Newser) - A huge search was launched in North Carolina after Tesla Rackley, 20, and boyfriend Anthony Logan, 25, got separated from the people they were hiking with in the Pisgah National Forest Saturday and were reported missing, NBC News reports. But after at least 200 people got involved in an expensive...

Flight Attendant Deploys Slide, Exits Plane on Her Own

United has suspended her

(Newser) - Maybe she had some place to be? A flight attendant's unique exit from a plane at a Houston airport is all the buzz Tuesday. As video posted by Click2Houston shows, the unidentified woman deployed the emergency slide, tossed a bag to the tarmac, and then expertly slid down the...

Enjoy This Chihuahua Police Chase

The dog is fine

(Newser) - A Chihuahua, the San Francisco Bay Bridge, and the California Highway Patrol: It all adds up to one of the more entertaining police chases in a while. As the Los Angeles Times reports, one officer in a car and another on a motorcycle managed to catch the runaway dog on...

Man Drives 65 Miles With Landmine Buckled Into Passenger Seat

He thought it was a cannonball

(Newser) - Police in Hot Springs, Arkansas, evacuated about 20 homes after a man mistook a Civil War-era landmine for a cannonball and took it home this week. The US Air Force Bomb Squad has safely detonated the landmine, the AP reports. Matt Bell says he was doing excavation work when he...

Royal Caribbean Asks 'Boaty McBoatface' Guy to Help Name Ship

He's offered a cruise as publicity stunt

(Newser) - Royal Caribbean has crowdsourced the public before to help it name its cruise ships, but it's tapping into a rather unusual source this time around: the guy who came up with "Boaty McBoatface." The company invited British bloke James Hand—whose "whimsical moniker," as a...

It's Never Hit 70 in Alaska in March— Until Now

71 degrees, actually, thanks to a high-pressure air mass coming through

(Newser) - Alaska has experienced some unusual natural phenomena lately—including a burping volcano and a desperate need for snow —and it just took another turn into some more weather-related weirdness. Per the Alaska Dispatch News , the mercury at an airport in Southeast Alaska registered at 71 degrees on Thursday, which...

Rumor Mill: Rupert Murdoch’s Ex Dating Putin

Wendi Deng said to be 'serious' about Russian leader, per very loose rumor

(Newser) - It's maybe not the "who's dating who" news any of us expected this week, but it certainly is the most … interesting. Per Us Weekly , whispers are circulating that Wendi Deng, the ex-wife of News Corporation founder Rupert Murdoch, has a new beau who enjoys shirtless horseback...

Woman's 911 Emergency: Half-Hamburger Pizza

Needless to say, dispatcher did not consider it an emergency

(Newser) - It's probably happened to you: You open up your food delivery, hungry and excited to chow down, only to find out you were given the wrong order. But a Connecticut woman took things a bit farther than most of us would with her response: She called 911, Fox 61...

Squirrel Hunters Cause Lockdown at Ark. School

Teacher saw men with guns

(Newser) - A report of armed men near an Arkansas elementary school led to a campus lockdown before police confirmed the three were actually pest control employees chasing squirrels. A teacher at Gardner STEM Magnet School in Hot Springs saw the men about 8am Wednesday and notified administrators. According to a statement...

Man Drove 6 Miles With Wife on SUV's Roof: Cops

Why, yes, it happened in Florida

(Newser) - Take my wife, please—off the roof of my car. Cops say a Florida man drove 6 miles with his spouse clinging to the top of his SUV, the Smoking Gun reports. Per a police report , Officer Christopher Ruediger was pulling up to an intersection in Stuart shortly after midnight...

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