Weekly Weird News for 23 June 2023

Hi everyone. Welcome to another whirlwind week of wacky news.

There is wild weather and some conspiracies about recent news items. But I’ll start out with an update to the orca story I blurbed in the 26 May 2023 edition of WWN.

Dangerous orca behavior spreading

Killer whales were deliberately targeting watercraft along the Iberian coast in Europe. Scientists have been monitoring the events for a long time. The Atlantic Orca Working group told The New York Times that since 2020, orcas were documented swimming at or reacting to vessels about 500 times in the seas around Morocco, Portugal, and Spain. They caused physical damage to the watercraft in about a fifth of those incidents. (PopSci). It’s not yet clear why they are doing this but what is clear is that it’s a learned behavior. This week, a report came from the North Sea that an orca had repeatedly hit a boat. That’s 2000 miles away from the epicenter of these events and the first report this far north. Researchers speculate that the behavior may be spreading through mobile whale pods. This certainly does make the issue even more serious. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/21/orca-rams-yacht-off-shetland-first-such-incident-northern-waters

Plague of Mormon crickets

The town of Elko, Nevada is experiencing a swarm of Mormon crickets, insects that move en masse across roads and fields eating everything in their path and causing a smelly mess. The squished critters create a red slick on roads. They also leave excrement on houses and overall stink everywhere they go. The insect is not a true cricket but a shield-backed katydid. The common name derives from this pest's invasion of the crops of Mormon settlers in Utah. Warning: Do not click on this link if you have an aversion to crawling bugs. I don’t but even this got to me. It’s NASTY. https://apnews.com/article/mormon-crickets-invasion-infestation-elko-nevada-3563fbe67c7ff25960e8c66a90ad3885

Don’t eat Watermelon snow

Snow remains in some areas of Utah. In the spring, the snow turns pink and orange due to algae growth. The algae can stain shoes and clothes. The red coloration causes the snow to melt faster. https://www.abc4.com/news/northern-utah/out-of-this-world-watermelon-snow-turns-utah-mountains-red/

Green lightning on Jupiter

NASA’s June probe captured the glow from lightning near Jupiter’s north pole. The ammonia-water clouds produce the green-colored lightning. The picture was from December of 2020 but was just released this week. There’s nothing mysterious about that, it probably just took that long to process it. https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/nasa-s-juno-mission-captures-lightning-on-jupiter

Great balls of hail

A serious hailstorm disrupted a concert at Red Rocks near Denver last week. Almost 100 concertgoers were injured as golf-ball sized hail pelted them as they rain for shelter. The balls of ice caused lumps and bumps and possible broken fingers. People had difficulty leaving due to the flooding of the stairways.

It’s tornado season in the U.S. Tornadoes and softball-sized hail caused several injuries and 4 deaths in Texas. The strong storm was called “a rare combination of high-end wind shear and storms of extreme instability”. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/22/texas-tornadoes-hail-deaths

Large hail is not unusual for North Texas but it usually comes in April and May. The late hail storm is being attributed to a “strong jet stream overhead for this time of the year, and the air is colder aloft” that is creating the instability that feeds the storms. https://www.fox4news.com/news/june-large-hail-north-texas

A reallly cool cross-section showing how hail forms in layers. Photo from Karli Finch in Tyler, Texas from a storm on June 13.

Submersible conspiracy

Everyone was following the search and rescue effort for the missing OceanGate tourist submersible Titan this week. Some big-mouthed know-nothings could not help but prattle on about how “weird” it was that rich people went missing in what we later discovered was a flawed and poorly constructed vehicle that imploded, instantly killing everyone inside. But before that was known, world-famous ignoramus Don Trump, Jr. suggested it was some sort of conspiracy. Because, if he can’t figure it out, it must be a mystery. Add to that, a former NFL player with a YouTube show speculating that the people on board faked their death to avoid taxes. https://www.dailyo.in/news/missing-titanic-sub-running-out-of-oxygen-fanning-wild-conspiracy-theories-on-internet-40245

Meanwhile, Snopes was responsible for promoting as “true” the idea that Elon Musk was to blame, saying that the Starlink system was used for GPS navigation. There are so many things wrong with that logic, it’s hard to know where to start. But here’s an unpacking of the untrue claim. https://interestingengineering.com/culture/no-connection-musk-starlink-titan

What was hidden for days is that the US Navy recorded what was probably the sound of the vehicle’s destruction. The Navy immediately relayed that information to those leading the search effort where it was used to narrow the search area. The Navy officials noted the acoustic signature was suggestive of an implosion but not definitive. It’s understandable why this information was not released until the fate of the occupants was confirmed. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/22/us/submersible-titanic-oceangate-search-thursday/index.html

Crow calls attention to a possible murder

Authorities in Istanbul, Turkiye are crediting the actions of a crow to a potential murder investigation. A crow reportedly appeared to a security guard at a fuel station and dropped a human finger it was carrying. Unfortunately, the details of this incident are sketchy since the only article I can find is not the main news outlet and the translation isn’t great. It could be embellished. Often, these stories get picked up by a larger news outlet in a week and additional investigation provides better information. https://www.dailysabah.com/turkiye/crow-drops-mystery-clue-propelling-murder-probe-in-istanbul/news

Hobby Lobby is a victim of AI

I don’t think I can contain my amusement at this story. AI-generated pictures circulated on social media showed the interior of a Hobby Lobby store selling depictions of Baphomet and demons. One TikToker noted “Apparently Hobby Lobby has a crapton of Baphomet and demon-like statues just on the shelves right now.” Hilarious. Some people didn’t fall for it but some sensitive types are more easily outraged. The heads of the very Christian-branded Hobby Lobby craft store openly advocate conservative beliefs and have generated controversy including accusations of antisemitism, homophobia, LGBTQ discrimination, attempts to evangelize public schools, attempts to deny access to contraceptives for employees, illegally smuggled artifacts into the country, and endangering employees during the coronavirus pandemic. It’s not a company I would like to see flourish. https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkaawm/ai-artist-creates-satanic-panic-about-hobby-lobby

Finally, it’s not news that I left Twitter back in November and set up shop on Mastodon. I don’t regret it. If you are still on Twitter, the taint is worsening. I’d suggest you reconsider alternate plans. The Fediverse has also set up an alternative to Reddit called Kbin. I started a “magazine” (like a subreddit) that serves as a post board for Strange Times stories. https://kbin.social/m/StrangeTimes

If you wish to participate, you’ll need a Kbin account. Or, if you have a Mastodon account, you can follow https://kbin.social/u/idoubtit

Thanks for reading!