Now that the weekend is upon us, it’s the perfect moment to kick back and dive into ten offbeat stories you may have missed as they slipped past the headlines. Click here to revisit last week’s roundup.
Why These 10 Offbeat Stories Matter
10 Remember The Miracle Mets
The New York Mets found themselves issuing a public apology after a carefully staged reunion turned into an unintended embarrassment, featuring a memorial montage that mistakenly honored two players who were, in fact, still breathing.
These days the Mets are grappling with a season that feels more like a nightmare than a dream, compounded by a pitcher who recently threatened a reporter. Saturday’s event was supposed to be a nostalgic breather, celebrating the half‑century anniversary of the 1969 “Miracle Mets” triumph that brought the franchise its first World Series crown.
What should have been a slam‑dunk for the organization instead stumbled over its own shoelaces. The ceremony at Citi Field paid tribute to the 1969 squad members who had passed away, spotlighting outfielder Jim Gosger and left‑hander Jesse Hudson—only to discover that both men were very much alive.
According to the Mets, the franchise reached out to the two players to apologize for the oversight. Gosger, however, reportedly declined to take the call, leaving the team with a lingering sting of embarrassment.
9 Serial Case In Sheboygan
The Sheboygan “serial toilet clogger” finally faced justice, landing a 150‑day jail term and three years of probation after being convicted on five misdemeanor counts of criminal damage to property.
Thirty‑five‑year‑old Patrick D. Beeman was also ordered to complete 100 hours of community service, abstain from alcohol and drugs, and pay $5,500 in restitution for blocking the women’s restrooms at Deland Park and his workplace. Initially charged with twelve misdemeanors, seven were dropped, leaving five 30‑day sentences. Under the Huber program, Beeman may keep his job so long as he reports to jail each day after work.
The investigation kicked off in March when officers discovered the women’s toilet at the Deland Community Center overflowing after a water bottle was slammed down the bowl. A deeper dive into past complaints revealed ten similar incidents dating back to April 2017. Police zeroed in on Beeman after he was caught replicating the same clogging stunt at his temporary job.
When asked about his motives, Beeman expressed remorse and admitted that he sometimes feels urges to engage in odd, disruptive behavior.
8 One Space Agency’s Trash Is Another Man’s Treasure
A former NASA intern is poised to strike it rich after deciding to auction off three original videotapes that capture the Apollo 11 Moon landing—tapes the space agency once sold off as surplus.
NASA’s own history of blunders includes the baffling loss of the original Moon‑landing footage. Decades after the historic 1969 mission, the agency realized the tapes were missing, concluding they had been inadvertently reused in the 1980s.
Fortunately, three of those priceless recordings survived. They weren’t overwritten; instead, they were sold to an intern who kept them tucked away for years, unaware of their true value.
In 1976, Gary George paid a modest $217 for 65 boxes of assorted tapes at a government surplus auction. Today, Sotheby’s estimates those three Apollo 11 tapes could fetch roughly $2 million. Appraisers describe the footage as “faultless,” noting it offers the sharpest visual record of humanity’s first steps on the lunar surface. George’s decision to retain them, at his father’s urging, proved fortuitous.
7 Magic Mishap In Makhanda
A magician was rushed to the hospital after a crossbow accident sent an arrow striking him in the head during a live performance.
Li Lau—who performs under the moniker “One Crazy China”—was showcasing his act at the 2019 National Arts Festival in Makhanda, South Africa. His assistant, fellow magician Brendon Peel, helped set the stage when a crossbow, meant to be a harmless prop, fired prematurely and lodged itself in Lau’s scalp.
Both performers clarified that the trick was designed so the crossbow could never launch a projectile with lethal force. The bolt merely caused a shallow cut that required stitches. Nevertheless, the festival organizers offered trauma counseling to audience members who witnessed the mishap.
While everyone walked away with only minor injuries, the incident served as a stark reminder that magic can be perilous. Just two weeks earlier, an Indian magician tragically drowned while attempting to replicate one of Houdini’s most famous escapes.
6 Russia’s Got Talent
A group of Russian factory workers from Yaroslavl have found a novel way of protesting the sanctions placed on them by the US government: with a rap song.
Ilya Bondarenko and his colleagues manufacture car engines at a plant belonging to GAZ Group, the largest private automaker in the country. The company became the target of sanctions in April 2018, due to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Now, GAZ is in danger of going bankrupt, leaving many workers fearful for their jobs.
Bondarenko has no interest in getting into the politics of the matter, but he thought that he could use his lifelong love of rap music to show the plight of the ordinary people being affected. He wrote a song to the beat of Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” in the mini‑studio he has at home. His coworkers enjoyed it, so they performed the track with him and even filmed a music video inside the faltering factory.
5 One Stylish Spider
Five new species of spider were identified by arachnologists in Australia. One of them was named after Karl Lagerfeld, as the researchers felt that the arachnid emulated the fashion designer’s signature look.
All of the new species are tiny jumping spiders about the size of a grain of rice. One was found in New South Wales, while all the others come from Queensland. Among them is the newly named Jotus karllagerfeldi. Its namesake died earlier this year after being the creative director of fashion house Chanel for almost four decades.
Arachnologist Danilo Harms said that the spider instantly reminded them of Karl Lagerfeld. It has large, black eyes similar, to the dark sunglasses that Lagerfeld always wore, while its black and white front legs are reminiscent of the “white detachable collar and black tie” combo that the fashion designer was fond of.
The five new species are added to the roughly 3,500 species of spiders already discovered in Australia. And yet Harms and his colleagues from Monash University estimate that there is double that number of spiders still waiting to be identified.
4 Archaeological Sensation In Iraq
The drought in Iraq caused the water levels to drop in a reservoir in the Kurdistan region, exposing the ruins of a 3,400‑year‑old palace.
Unsurprisingly, a team of Kurdish and German researchers have already established an impromptu dig site. Archaeologist Hasan Ahmed Qasim calls it “one of the most important archaeological discoveries in the region in recent decades.” The main reason why scholars are so excited is the fact that the palace, known as Kemune, belonged to the Mittani Empire, one of the least‑researched civilizations in the region.
The main reason why scholars are so excited is the fact that the palace, known as Kemune, belonged to the Mittani Empire, one of the least‑researched civilizations in the region.
It is early, but archaeologists already have a decent idea of what the ancient structure once looked like. It originally stood on an elevated terrace about 20 meters (65 ft) from the river. A wall of mud and bricks was later added to the terrace, which was up to two meters (6.5 ft) thick in some areas.
As for the inside of the palace, some rooms had plastered walls, while others featured wall paintings in shades of red and blue. This is, by itself, an “archaeological sensation,” as this is only the second time we have found surviving wall paintings from the Mittani period.
Researchers recovered ten clay tablets with cuneiform writing and are still waiting on their translation. Kemune was actually first spotted in 2010, but the water levels rose back to normal before anyone could excavate.
3 Poop‑Up Museum
The Unko Museum in Yokohama aims to change the way we think about poop. It is the latest target of Japan’s culture of cute, which can be enjoyed in the country’s latest pop‑up museum, located about 40 kilometers (25 mi) from Tokyo.
Right off the bat, you will not find any real unko (poop) at the museum. Everything is artificial, colorful, and comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. The installations encourage a lot of interaction and are particularly well‑suited for social media posts.
The exhibitions include a wall of fake toilets where visitors can pretend to poop as music plays in the background. They can even collect a “poop” souvenir from inside the toilet bowl afterward. An area called “Unstagenic” is filled with colorful lights, props, and signs that are just begging to serve as backdrops for Instagram photos.
In the main hall, there is a large poop‑shaped sculpture that erupts with tiny foam unko every half hour. Video games available at the museum include projection‑mapped “whack‑a‑poop” and a football penalty shootout where the player kicks a piece of poo instead of a ball. Of course, at the end, there is a gift shop filled with all sorts of unko mementos.
The museum opened in March and attracted over 100,000 visitors in its first month. It was originally slated to close in August, but its popularity pushed the closing until September.
2 Medical Condition: It’s Complicated
It was a somber moment for the family and friends of Mohammad Furqan as they were saying their goodbyes at his funeral. The 20‑year‑old Indian man was declared dead on Monday, and they were getting ready to bury him when they noticed movement in his limbs. He was taken back to the hospital, where doctors declared him still alive and put him on ventilator support.
Back in June, Furqan was injured in an accident, and he was admitted to a private hospital unconscious. Recently, his family informed the facility that they would no longer be able to afford his treatment. Soon after that, the hospital declared him dead.
After his “revival” at the funeral, Furqan’s family took him to a different medical institution. While the young man is still in critical condition, his doctor says that he has a working pulse, reflexes, and blood pressure and is “definitely not brain dead.”
Local officials have launched an investigation into the private health care facility that declared Furqan dead after his family stopped paying his bills.
1 The Coldest Case
According to a study published in PLOS One, researchers have enough evidence to conclude that a well‑preserved 33,000‑year‑old European skull belonged to a murder victim.
Back in the 1940s, Romanian miners found a fossilized skull in a cave. It was dated to the Upper Paleolithic and became known as Cioclovina calvaria. Only recently did researchers study it using modern forensic tools, and they concluded that its owner fell victim to foul play.
The skull belonged to an adult male. It had several fractures: two small ones at the front and a large one on the right side. The forensic investigation showed researchers that both injuries occurred around the time of death because neither one had any signs of healing. The heavy blow on the right side was likely inflicted in a face‑to‑face confrontation by someone swinging a bat‑like object either with their left or with both hands.
The injuries were not inflicted postmortem and were not the result of an accident or a fall. It was murder. The fracture on the right side of the head was, likely, the cause of death, but this cannot be ascertained for sure, since only the skull was found.