Weekly Weird News for 10 March 2023
Weirdness, come on down!
Hi, everyone. Welcome to another weekly weird roundup. In this edition, we have several stories of unusual “stuff” covering the earth, odd things arriving on our shores and at our doors, and some other goodies (or baddies, depending on your POV).
Worm rain idiocy
Did worms fall from the sky in China? Absolutely not. There is a video going around showing cars covered in squiggly things. But they are not worms. Sometimes I despair that the average person cannot tell the difference between an animal and a water-logged seed pod. The squiggly things are catkins from trees. The wind from the rain storm blew the pods off the trees where they stuck to the cars. Note there is no close up of the individual objects. They are lightweight, unlike “worms” of this size which would have been splattered all over the place if worms like this actually existed. This story is wrong every which way. Sure, it’s the Daily Star, a tabloid, but the story is circulated widely on social media and scientifically clueless people will jump on things like this and accept it because they know nothing about it. https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/residents-china-told-use-umbrellas-29403844
Allergy season arrives
The last two week’s WWN included stories about mysterious “dust” or ash found on cars in the eastern US. This week, the powdery substance is still around and has been identified. It’s pollen. An investigation of the samples taken from West Virginia were determined to be pollen. Originally it was assumed it was dust from the Midwest. People also feared it was ash from the Ohio train derailment. https://apnews.com/article/dust-complaints-investigation-pollen-west-virginia-d73c5cb16506a42b74fc7aa69e3112da
Pollen counts were crazy high in South Carolina last week with the ocean surface and alligators turning yellow with pine tree pollen. The pollen first appeared in January, two months earlier than normal. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/sc-alligator-covered-in-pollen-gives-us-an-idea-of-how-this-early-pollen-season-is-going/ar-AA183lcz and https://www.wyff4.com/article/myrtle-beach-ocean-covered-in-pollen/43162974
Several people recirculated a joke photo posted by the local meteorologist showing a yellow cloud over the Grand Strand in Myrtle Beach. But they assumed it was real. The pollen was so heavy that it did coat everything in a yellow dust.
See seaweed down by the sea shore
Sargassum is a type of sea weed that is so ubiquitous, that it has it’s own area of the ocean named after it. Or maybe it’s the other way around. See Sargasso Sea. Anyway, we are seeing sargassum, a brown seaweed, exploding in volume in the Atlantic. The blooms are likely due to runoff of nutrients from agriculture. The seaweed washes up on beaches, ruining the beach experience, disrupts fishing, and stinks when it decomposes. While it would be useful to use the organic material for fuel or fertilizer, it contains high amounts of metals making it unsuitable. It is, however, a carbon sink. Researchers are investigating ways to place and trap the material under deep water. But that is expensive. Meanwhile, enjoy the number of interesting animal that raft along with the slimy stinky brown seaweed. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/07/great-atlantic-sargassum-belt-seaweed-visible-from-space
Message in a bottle
A man walking a beach in the Bahamas found a message in a bottle. It originated in Nova Scotia in 2016. It’s common to find such bottles. The gulf stream carried the bottle around the North Atlantic Gyre to deposit it on the islands. Maybe don’t ever do this. It’s littering. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-message-in-a-bottle-manjack-cay-bahamas-1.6761789
Bob the cat thought this bed was juuuust right
When an Arizona homeowner returned from work one day last week, they found a bobcat resting in their dog’s bed inside the house. It looked very comfy. The bobcat was allowed to escape before wildlife officials arrived but not before pics were taken. What was missing from the story is what happened to the dog who was booted from the bed? Well, the small dog, named Squeakers was missing after the incident and was later found injured. But he’s OK and received medical attention. The bobcat entered the house via an unlocked doggy door. It’s a real good idea to lock these when leaving the house or at night. https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/homeowner-found-bobcat-relaxing-dog-bed-arizona/4TRLLIADUVAVVL4UIPQXVC22VE/ and https://twitter.com/azgfdTucson
Candygram? Landshark.
A Florida man answering his front door was faced with a 9-ft alligator that bit him on the leg. It sounds like the gator was scratching at the door and fell inside when the door opened. The man is lucky things weren’t worse. He was able to get medical attention quickly. https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/florida-man-attacked-by-alligator-after-hearing-noise-opening-front-door/ Also in the Daytona area, an alligator attacked a dog this week and an 11-ft animal busted through a fence to get into a family pool. Officials say alligators are very active this time of year because of the arrival of mating season. https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/11-foot-alligator-found-florida-pool-broke-through-screen-like-kool-aid-man/HRS6QBPBQ5G5TFF2D2ZEJRKKAM/
Goldfish invasion
Goldfish are thriving in British Columbia. That’s not good. The released pets are growing to enormous size. The female can even clone themselves and release thousands of eggs. People have spotted goldfish living in many lake areas where they compete with native fish and spread disease. The pet trade is being encouraged to allow people to return unwanted fish to avoid their release into waters. The better answer is to actually stop selling them. They don’t make good pets. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/goldfish-invasion-1.6768195
Dear Peter Parker:
In the Spider-Man comic series, very close watchers can discern an address of Peter Parker’s house in Queens, New York. People have sent letters to the actual address for decades. But that’s not the weird part. The residents who have lived there are actually named “Parker”. Because the Parkers have been residents since 1974, it’s suspected that the writers may have looked up an address in the phone book under this name. The letters and messages are now on display in the City Reliquary Museum. https://abc7ny.com/spiderman-forest-hills-queens-peter-parker/12928770/
Amityville Revisited
Here’s some unwanted news, at least for people in this neighborhood: there is a new documentary series about the Amityville Horror slated for release on the MGM+ channel in April. I’ll be honest - it does not spark my interest. Most everything has been said about this exaggerated “haunting”. What is left to say except to dramatize and capitalize on the paranormal interest? Well, the new series promises never before seen images and accounts. It would be great if it was the deep dive that exposes the contemporary legend of Amityville that is ingrained as the quintessential American haunted house. But, I won’t get my hopes up. Will they reveal that the real horror was the financial nightmare of home ownership? We’ll see. https://www.fangoria.com/original/amityville-an-origin-story-will-take-you-inside-horrors-most-frequently-visited-house/
WTF was that?!
I really loved this video of some British guys who captured a sonic boom that was heard across a wide swath of England including Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. Mysterious booms are everywhere these days. This event was caused by a military jet that was flying at supersonic speeds. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/04/large-explosion-sound-heard-leicester-oxford-northampton
What’s in your bag, dude? Oh, just my mummy, I mean, girlfriend
Weird. A 26-yr old man was carrying around mummified human remains in a bag in Peru. The remains are likely at least 600 years old. Plundering of ancient remains is common here. The police confiscated the remains when a group of men were drinking in a park. The man called the mummy his “spiritual girlfriend”. The remains, of an adult male, were sent to the cultural ministry. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/28/americas/peru-mummy-puno-delivery-man-intl-latam
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Reading this, one would think that people are getting dumber by the week. I think what we are doing is just not giving a crap about what’s really going on around us and just going for easy (even if immensely stupid) explanations. Because we have no desire to read beyond a headline or watch a 30-second clip, regardless of the source.
It’s depressing.
But thank you for curating the weirdness yet again! I appreciate it.