As fans, we tend to forget that athletes have lives outside of sports. It’s just that we don’t often to get to see them when they’re not performing.

But when you do a little digging, you might be surprised to find what their off field interests actually are…

10Iron Mike: Bird Whisperer

What hasn’t Mike Tyson done? He’s been the heavyweight champion of the world, appeared in hit movies, stepped into the ring at WWE matches, and starred in a one-man show on Broadway. He’s even dined on human flesh.

So should we really be surprised to learn that he’s also dabbled in competitive pigeon breeding and racing?

Tyson says that pigeons were the first thing he ever really loved. Ever since he saw them flocking through his Brooklyn neighborhood when he was younger, he’s been fascinated by the feathery city-dwellers. Currently, Tyson oversees a coop in New Jersey that houses over 400 pigeons.

But it wouldn’t be Mike Tyson without a dash of crazy. Tyson made headlines last October, when he claimed the government was conspiring to rid the US of the his beloved rock doves.

9Tim Duncan Prefers The Halls Of Undermountain To The Hall Of Fame

Everything about Tim Duncan is understated: He’s one of the NBA’s most nonchalant players, his game isn’t flashy, he doesn’t have a signature move. He’s nicknamed the “Big Fundamental” for a reason—he’s boring. But after more than 15 years in the NBA, four World Championships, and two MVP awards, he can deal with being labeled dull.

But Duncan does find time to cut loose when he’s playing Dungeons & Dragons. He’s not shy about his hobby either. In fact, he loves any kind of role-playing fantasy game, and he frequently attends Texas Renaissance Fairs. When he got to the Spurs, he even requested that his nickname be “Merlin.”

8The NFL’s Biggest Star Wars Fan

American football fans who came of age in the late 1970s remember Lester Hayes as one of the NFL’s best cornerbacks. His coverage skills, coupled with a hefty dose of stickum, helped the Oakland/Los Angeles Raiders win two Super Bowls in the ’80s.

But Hayes was as much a fan of the Star Wars trilogy as he was of football. He was enamored with the space opera, boasting that he saw it at least 70 times. He loved it so much that he claimed Luke Skywalker would be a cornerback if he played football. Arguably his most endearing quip about the franchise came during the early ’80s, when he declared that he was the league’s “only true Jedi.”

And thanks to Hayes’ legendary exploits on the field, some of his teammates even believed he might genuinely be aligned with the Force.

7The Linebacker With A Soft Spot For Comics

He’s the hero comic book fans need—and the one they deserve.

When Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs isn’t busy obliterating opponents on the football field, he can usually be found quietly browsing the aisle of his local comic book store.

The seven-time NFL Pro Bowler, well-known for delivering brutal hits to opponents, has an affinity for comics that dates back to his childhood. Even at 33, he still spends hours scanning the shelves for the right comic before forking over his cash.

In 2011, he took his love of the medium to the next level, writing his own comic for Top Cow Productions. Entitled Seraph, the comic mixes “faith with action” to tell the story of a tormented hero who winds up with supernatural powers after trying to kill himself. Briggs has also founded a social networking site for fellow enthusiasts and routinely holds comic book drives for disadvantaged youngsters.

6Pro Basketball’s Memory Savant

Jerry Lucas had the story-book career that most basketball players dream of. Following an All-American campaign at Ohio State—where he guided the Buckeyes to three straight Final Fours before winning a national championship in 1960—he carried his prowess over into the pros, where he won an NBA title with the New York Knicks before eventually being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

But Lucas didn’t just have the right stuff when it came to playing hoops, he had a special gift that extended beyond the hardwood. For most of his life, Lucas had an obsession with memory tricks, often memorizing and organizing everyday items. Whether it was alphabetizing the word “chandelier” or learning pages from the New York phone book, Lucas spent years training his memory—with aspirations of becoming a magician when he retired from basketball.

After hanging up his sneakers in 1975, he actually became a memory education expert. His teachings aim to help children improve their memory and he’s written numerous books on the subject.

5MLB Slugger With A Penchant For R&B

On the baseball diamond, Dick Allen was an all-star outfielder. But off the field, he moonlighted as an R&B singer.

One of baseball’s most feared sluggers in the 1960s and ’70s, Allen had his best seasons with the Philadelphia Phillies and Chicago White Sox. While playing for the Sox in 1972, Allen had a career year, belting 37 homers and bringing in 113 runs while hitting .308 to capture AL MVP honors.

But his rugged exterior masked a melodic voice, and he often spent his down time in the recording studio. He also occasionally performed national anthems around Philadelphia, most notably in front of a sold-out Spectrum crowd before a 76ers game.

His hard work in the studio eventually led to a record deal and in 1965 he released an single album with his soul group, The Ebonistics.

4The Mailman Keeps On Truckin’

Karl Malone is cut from a different cloth. A basketball superstar, he never lost touch with his humble beginnings. Born in rural Louisiana, Malone grew up with a firm appreciation for the outdoors. An avid fisherman and hunter, Malone’s love of the rugged lifestyle spilled over into his NBA career, where he was admired for his unyielding work ethic and notorious for his physical play (just ask Isaiah Thomas and David Robinson).

Off the court, Malone balanced his life in the spotlight by frequently slipping away into solitude. The open road was where he found peace of mind. The highway was his sanctuary.

So in the early 1990s, he capitalized on a childhood dream, establishing a truck-driving company. It was called Malone Enterprises Trucking, Inc., and it lasted less than two years. But while Malone may have discovered that the trucking business wasn’t for him, the love of hauling supplies never left him. He frequently hopped in his Big Rig for a few hours to clear his mind during the season.

In 2005, the Mailman proved he could deliver off of the hardwood, when he used his trucking skills to help haul away debris left behind from Hurricane Katrina.

3Linebacker Tangles With Snakes In The Off Season

It’s not unusual for football players to find success in high-profile careers when they’re done with football. Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long found a second life as actors. Others, like Dan Dierdorf and Phil Simms, made it big as play-by-play announcers.

But not many football players turn to herpetology—the study of snakes and other reptiles. Well, except for Chad Brown that is.

Brown’s love for snakes began as a child, but his passion intensified when he was a student athlete at the University of Colorado. During his freshman year in 1991, he bought a boa constrictor to keep in his dorm room. Since then, he’s accumulated thousands of snakes.

Brown continued to dabble in herpetology even after he turned pro. He eventually opened his own exotic reptiles pet store, before tragically losing it to a fire.

2The Football Player Who Tackled The Legal System

In the 1970s, the Minnesota Vikings had one of the NFL’s stingiest defenses. Anchored by their fearsome front line—the Purple People Eaters—the Vikings reached the Super Bowl four times in a single decade.

Defensive tackle Alan Page was an integral part of that success. During his 12-year tenure with the Vikings, he played in all four Super Bowls, went to nine Pro Bowls, and was named an All-Pro nine times. But despite all of his success on the gridiron, Page had loftier aspirations—he saw a life after sports, one that involved practicing law. And his legal career is just as distinguished as his football one ever was.

Page understood he wouldn’t play football forever. So during his stint with the Vikings, he started taking law classes at the University of Minnesota. When he retired from football in 1981, he was hired as an Assistant Attorney General in Minneapolis. He would eventually rise through the ranks to become the state’s first African-American Supreme Court Associate Justice. As of 2014, he’s been on the court for more than 20 years.

1The Defensive End Obsessed With The JFK Assassination

Before a car accident tragically took his life, Derrick Thomas was on his way to a Hall of Fame career with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. A highly-touted defensive end from the University of Alabama, Thomas made an immediate impact for the Chiefs. He notched 10 sacks and made 75 tackles in his first year with the team, earning Defensive Rookie of the Year honors while also being named to the Pro Bowl. Lauded for his efforts with children’s charities, Thomas’ desire to help youngsters emanated from his own troubled youth.

His early years were marred with tragedy. In 1972, when Thomas was only five years old, his father was killed in action in Vietnam. Growing up without a father was rough, and Thomas had a troubled childhood, almost going completely off the rails before his mother and the community stepped in.

One thing Thomas never let go of was his fascination with the US military, primarily with its aviation branch, as well as its endless list of alleged conspiracies. Thomas was deeply fixated on the JFK assassination. He studied thousands of documents, read hundreds of books on the subject, and believed Oliver Stone’s film, JFK, to be “true to life.” He even met with Marina Oswald, the wife of alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, and chatted with eye-witness Jean Hill on a Kansas City radio program.

The more he studied, the more he understood the politics of the conflict in Vietnam. He eventually connected the events that led up to the war to his father’s death, placing specific blame on Kennedy’s killers. The way he saw it, the bullet that killed Kennedy was the same one that killed his father. He surmised that if Kennedy wasn’t killed, then maybe the US wouldn’t have escalated the situation in Vietnam, and maybe his father would have returned home to him.

Sports reporter by day, internet sleuth at night, keep up with Brandon at On Campus Sports, Highlands Today, or on Twitter

Everyone should have a hobby, they say. According to psychological studies, hobbies help us to deal with stress, develop friendships, and build a life-work balance.^[1] Sometimes, hobbies can even make us appear more attractive to others or be used to spice up an otherwise boring CV.

Initially, hobbies tend to be undertaken purely for the enjoyment of the thing itself. But, when people get really good at something, even if that something is pretty darned peculiar, they soon want to compare themselves against other enthusiasts, and before you know it, a world championship is born.

While it may take thousands of hours of training to win a world championship in running, say, or jumping, there are some hobbies which require not so much talent as perseverance. And sometimes, all you need is to be a little weird.

10 Swamp Football

Swamp football is a variation on a traditional soccer match and was probably started by someone who liked to make lemonade whenever life handed him a lemon.

Soccer pitches are normally tended with great care by a whole team of groundsmen, but a swamp football match would never be called off because of a waterlogged pitch. In fact, they don’t need a pitch at all. Games are played in a swamp or bog, though for the world championships, a properly marked out pitch is created from a field which is then deliberately waterlogged.

Traditional soccer rules have also been somewhat modified. The game consists of two halves, each 13 minutes long. Boots are not allowed to be changed during play, and any player who loses a boot in the mud will be sent off.^[2]

The game originated in Finland as a way for cross-country skiers to maintain their fitness out of season but has been taken up around the world, with an estimated 300 teams now playing. The first world cup attracted 13 teams, but these days, the event attracts over 200 sides.

If you are interested in football and like getting dirty, this may be the hobby for you. The sport is open to both men and women, and you can sign up to the Swampions League today.

9 Pancake Tossing

Pancake tossing may not seem at first glance like an actual hobby, and certainly not a championship hobby, but the record books abound with people tossing the largest pancakes or tossing their pancakes faster, higher, further, and more. There have been mass pancake tosses and people tossing their pancakes while running marathons.

Regular pancake tossing competitions are run around the world, with the world championships taking place in the UK. Their motto is, “Toss high and toss well.” Words to live by.

If you are serious about tossing your pancake, however, the place to be is Olney, Buckinghamshire, where people have been tossing pancakes for over 550 years. Men are not allowed to enter the famous Olney Pancake Race. Outsiders are not permitted to enter, either, so if you fancy competing, you will need to live in the town for at least three months prior to the Shrove Tuesday race. Only 25 housewives are allowed to enter, and they must wear the traditional housewife’s uniform of an apron and headscarf. They run 415 yards from the Market Square to the Parish Church and must be sure to flip the pancake as they cross the finish line.

Since 1950, when the Olney housewives were challenged by the housewives of the town of Liberal, Kansas, the race has been run on both sides of the Atlantic.^[3]

8 Competitive Dog Grooming

Dog grooming is normally considered just a necessary chore. The dogs don’t enjoy it, and neither do their owners. However, some people, and hopefully their dogs, too, just can’t get enough of it.

They don’t just limit themselves to the occasional bath and haircut, though. Some pet groomers get creative, turning their pooch into a wide array of children’s characters or creating a fantasy land from their coats. Your Leonberger could become an ensemble from The Jungle Book, your Siberian Husky could double as a dragon, and your miniature poodle could be the spitting image of Yoda.^[4]

The World Dog Grooming Championships take place annually in Hershey, Pennsylvania, attracting competitors from around the world. Judges are looking for “clean cuts, the consistency of the dye, and the creativity of the groomer.”

7 Mobile Phone Throwing

Not recommended by the manufacturer, mobile phone throwing is normally only done in a fit of anger, which rapidly turns to regret when the screen cracks, and you remember how much a replacement costs. Some people, however, are always keen to turn misfortune to their advantage and, instead of taking anger management classes, have turned mobile phone throwing into a legitimate sport.

In Finland, mobile phone throwing has become a national sport. Contestants gather annually in the town of Savonlinna to compete in the championships. Any brand of phone is allowed, though the use of personal phones is forbidden. All competition devices have been donated for the purpose, and competitors are encouraged to “choose the phone that fits best to his/her hand or looks the nicest.” Some competitors prefer heavier phones, while others go with lighter versions. To date, there has been little data gathered on the flight properties of phones, so whatever takes your fancy seems to be the rule.^[5]

The longest throw for a mobile phone? 110.42 meters (362.27 ft), according to Guinness World Records. If you fancy a go, you can compete in the traditional over the shoulder throwing contest or go really wild and enter the freestyle competition, where you can be as “creative” with your throw as you like.

Or, there are always those anger management classes. That could be a hobby, right?

6 Bog Snorkeling On A Bike

For those people who find bog snorkeling just a bit too pedestrian, there’s the new hobby of bog snorkeling on a bicycle.

Bog snorkeling, in case you weren’t aware, is a sport, first introduced in Wales, which involves competitors “swimming” through a 55-meter (180 ft) trench cut out of a peat bog. The water is muddy, visibility is nil, and you are required to not so much swim as flounder your way from one end of the trench to the other. Boring, right?

So, to inject a bit of excitement, someone came up with the idea of doing the whole thing on a bike.^[6] The trench is 2 meters (6.6 ft) deep and filled with muddy water that smells, well, like a bog. The effort required to ride a bike through 2 meters of bog water seems to be considerable. Not only that, but many competitors choose to compete in fancy dress.

If you enjoy cycling, snorkeling, and bogs, this may well be the hobby for you. And, you never know; you may even become a champion. The World Mountain Bike Bog Snorkelling Championship takes place annually in Wales. You will need to prepare, however. Your bike frame should be filled with lead shot, to give it added weight, and the tires filled with water to help them grip the bog bed. You are also advised to fill a saddle bag with lead weights. Riders must wear a wet suit to keep warm and a weight belt to prevent them from floating off the bike. Of course, they shouldn’t forget their snorkel.

And when they get to the end of the trench, they have to turn right around and ride back again.

5 Cheese Rolling

Before the invention of television, people had to make their own entertainment. They were simpler times. Almost anything could be turned into a hobby. Take cheese rolling, for instance. Not a method for making cheese, cheese rolling involves, in essence, chasing a large wheel of cheese down a hill.

The Cooper’s Hill Cheese-Rolling and Wake begins at the top of Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire, England, and it ends at the bottom. The hill is a steep one, with a 1:2 gradient, and competitors must chase a 3.2-to-4.1-kilogram (7–9 lb) Double Gloucester circular cheese 200 yards to the bottom.^[7] The first person to cross the finish line wins. Many competitors fall much of the way, and broken ankles are common, as are broken limbs and dislocated joints. On one occasion, someone suffered a broken neck. In 2013, the cheese was replaced with a lightweight foam replica, but real cheese was used again the next year.

If you are still considering it, you should know that the aim is to try to catch the cheese, but as they roll at speeds up to 112 kilometers per hour (70 mph), almost no one does. Should you survive the run/fall and win, you could be going home with the fabulous prize of (drumroll, please) the cheese!

4 Baby Jumping

Some hobbies are unusual. Some are eccentric. And some are just nuts. We’re pretty sure that baby jumping falls into the last category.

Beginning during the 17th century and continuing annually ever since, the town of Castrillo de Murcia in Spain has held a weeklong festival, during which a man, dressed as a devil and called “El Colacho,” jumps over rows of babies, rather like Evel Knievel but without the bike.

Babies born in the town over the past year are lined up on mattresses in the street. El Colacho then leaps over them, after which they are blessed and showered with rose petals, while the devil runs on.^[8] None of this makes any sense.

If you don’t want to risk jumping over babies, you could take part in the other events at the festival, most of which also involve dressing up as a devil and running through the town, this time hitting the bystanders with switches.

In the 400 or so years that the festival has been running, there have been no reports of injuries to the babies, so if you fancy having a go, the chances are that you probably won’t kill an infant. Has to be worth a try, right?

3 Wife Carrying

Back to Finland again. (In all fairness, they have some really long nights to fill, and what better way to fill them than inventing new hobbies?) If you are fit, strong, and in possession of a “try anything once” sort of wife, you might consider wife carrying as a hobby.

According to legend, wife carrying has its roots in the late 1800s, when a brigand by the name of Rosvo-Ronkainen decided to introduce an entrance exam to those who wished to join his ranks. As stealing women was a routine part of a brigand’s duties while pillaging a village, it made sense (kind of) to test a candidate’s skill at carrying their wives/victims at speed over a set distance.^[9]

Modern wife carrying competitions do not, however, require any pillaging. Teammates (who do not need to be wives but do need to be female), are usually held by the legs while they dangle facedown toward the ground, in what is known as the “Estonian Carry,” while the runner sprints as fast as he can over a roughly 250-meter (820 ft) course. However, wife carriers aren’t an uptight bunch, and you may carry your wife any way you please.

You do not need to live in Finland to participate in the sport, either. There are wife carrying associations all over the world, including the US and Canada, where the North American Wife Carrying Competition is alive and well, with national competitions held in Maine each October.

So, if you are looking for an activity that will bring you and your partner closer together, this may well be the one for you.

2 Bee Wearing

Beekeeping is a fairly normal sort of hobby. Bee wearing, on the other hand, is not.

China, however, has a growing number of bee wearing hobbyists. Take Gao Bingguo, for example. In 2014, he became the world record holder in bee suit wearing after being covered with 326,000 bees and wearing his “suit” for two and a half hours.

Like all athletes, Gao needed to prepare for his record attempt. He was an experienced beekeeper and was therefore familiar with the habits of bees. Before undertaking the record attempt, he showered, since, it seems, bees are more likely to sting smelly people. He put plugs up his nose, because no one wants a bee going up there, and protected his eyes with cling-film. His mouth was left unwrapped so that he could speak, breathe, and smoke the occasional cigarette. Then, while wearing only a pair of shorts, a box of queen bees was opened onto him, followed swiftly by 33 kilograms (73 lb) of worker bees.^[10]

The bees swarmed over Gao, following their queen, and soon, he became a living, breathing hive. At the end of the two and a half hours, and with a world record in his pocket, Gao Bingguo took an ice bath and reportedly pulled out over 2,000 bee stingers which he had received during the challenge. But he did get a nice certificate to hang on his wall. The next year, he broke his own record by wearing even more bees (pictured above).

If you don’t fancy a whole suit of bees, you could just put bees on your face. In India, a man by the name of “Nature” set a record for wearing 60,000 bees on his face for over four hours.

Well, we all have to start somewhere.

1 Hobby Horse Riding

If you live in, er, Finland, you might like to take up hobby horse riding. A hobby horse is, basically, a wooden pole with a horse’s head at the top, usually made from felt or other colorful material. In other words, it is a toy, usually designed for small children around the age of three or four.

However, the Finns are nothing if not inventive. They have developed a whole range of sports around the hobby horse. You can compete in the flat racing competition, show jumping, and even dressage.^[11] Rules of the competitions are strict, and points are awarded for presentation, grooming, tension of reins, length of stride, posture, speed, and (we are not making this up) “horse/rider interaction.”

The horses are often treated as real, being covered with hobby-horse blankets while they sleep, for example. Riders can often be found in Finnish parks taking their hobby horse for a quick canter around the greens. Most hobby horsers are, it seems, teenage girls, though the number of boys interested in the sport is said to be growing.

As hobbies go, this seems to be a pretty harmless one. And cheap, too, with the average horse costing only a few dollars. However, if you decide to go in for the related pastime of hobby horse grooming, the costs might rise. After all, diamante is not cheap.

Many people dream of being a king or queen, but in truth, it is a hard task. While the wealth and power are an obvious boon, monarchs live their whole lives in the public gaze, their every act observed and criticized by thousands of people. Their position at the center of a state often means they have little, if any, control over their personal schedules, and their days are full of political and ceremonial obligations which could cause considerable damage if they don’t go smoothly.

Some people cope with these pressures better than others. History is full of successful, capable rulers, but it is also littered with those who succumbed to the pressure and suffered mental and physical health problems. It is a stressful job, and many of them only survived by dedicating themselves to unusual pursuits. Today, we’re investigating ten kings who had strange hobbies.

10 Edward II—Digging

Although he’s one of the most reviled kings of English history today, in his early reign, Edward II was loved by his people. He was a beautiful specimen: tall and muscular, with long brown hair that fell to his shoulders. When he wanted to be, he could be very charismatic, impressing people with his performances in Parliament. But medieval people had very particular expectations of their monarchs, especially when it came to what they did in their spare time.

As the enlightened representatives of God, they were expected to be interested in art, music, feasting, and politics. Edward, however, was a thoroughly practical man. His interests were swimming, sailing, fishing, architecture, and digging ditches.^[1] At numerous times in his reign, he was vilified by both writers and courtiers for abandoning his political duties to go sailing or fishing with peasants along the River Thames or overseeing the construction of houses. In one particularly hot summer, he even hopped into a ditch beside some peasants to help them dig. While the peasants were no doubt impressed, his courtiers were disgusted that a king would humiliate himself in such a way.

His 20-year reign was dominated by constant conflict with his court and Parliament, and his authority was restricted by the barons on numerous occasions. In the end, he seized his power back in a civil war and ruled with an iron fist until his increasingly dysfunctional government was deposed by an alliance between his wife and an English knight, who invaded and seized the throne.

9 Abdulhamid II—Woodworking

The Ottoman Empire was one of the final powerful states in the world which had a hereditary monarch who played an active role in politics. The final Ottoman sultan to wield absolute power was Abdulhamid II, who was ousted in a coup in 1909. He is a controversial figure today: His early reign was marked by his adherence to progressive politics, but in his later years, he dissolved the new Ottoman Parliament and tried to return the empire to its conservative base, while also overseeing the massacre of Armenians and the use of secret police.

Interestingly, his daughter published a book which granted us a unique insight into the life and personality of an Ottoman ruler. She reveals some fascinating facts about him, including that he used to like to be read to at night because he suffered from insomnia. His worries about his insomnia entered his waking life, to the point that he avoided reading thought-provoking books in case they ended up sticking in his head, preventing him from sleeping. But his favorite pastime was carpentry, which he practiced to relieve his fatigue.^[2] He became prolific, even producing some of the furniture that his family used in private.

He was also a big fan of novels, particularly in the detective genre. While the first Turkish translations of Sherlock Holmes stories were published in 1908, the sultan discovered them years earlier and had them translated by a court scribe, amassing a large collection. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his wife visited Turkey, the sultan actually summoned him and, through his chamberlain, presented Doyle with the Order of the Medjidie in honor of his achievements.

8 Friedrich Wilhelm I—Tall Soldiers

The German state of Prussia was famous for its effective army. In the era leading up to the Napoleonic Wars, Prussian soldiers were the most well-equipped and disciplined in Europe. Prussia developed a martial reputation which survived into World War II and beyond, and it had its roots in the eccentric King Friedrich Wilhelm I—often called the “Soldier King.”

In government, Friedrich was an effective statesman, avoiding war and reforming the state’s finances and bureaucracy. By the end of his reign, Prussia was one of the richest and most stable German states. He also fundamentally reformed the Prussian army, leaving his son and successor, Frederick the Great, the strongest army in Europe.

In his personal life, however, Friedrich was an unusual man with peculiar hobbies. His strangest project was the creation of the “Potsdam Giants,” a military unit made up of the tallest men in the kingdom.^[3] They had the best uniforms and lodgings in the Prussian army, and soldiers were paid based on how tall they were, with the tallest being paid the most. He frequently arranged for unusually tall men to be kidnapped and press-ganged into the unit, and diplomats from other countries sent him tall men as offerings. He became increasingly obsessed with his project: Whenever he was sad, he would have them paraded in front of him, sometimes in his own bedroom when he was ill. He painted portraits of the individual soldiers from memory. In his later years, he indulged in experiments to make taller soldiers, including pairing them with tall women to breed new soldiers and sending some men to the stretching rack to enhance their height.

7 Olaf Tryggvason—Juggling Knives

The Vikings were a highly militaristic people. While they didn’t go raiding as much as they do in modern TV shows and movies, their society did revolve around the pursuit of battle. The games they played in their spare time reflected this: Swimming was often a competition, and it wasn’t unheard-of for an athlete to push his opponent underwater. Wrestling was popular, as were ball games (the rules of which are sadly lost today). When two men disagreed over something, they could even end up settling it with a duel.

To be a successful ruler, a Viking king had to be an accomplished athlete. There are many stories of Viking kings and their sporting achievements, but the saga of the Viking king Olaf Tryggvason is particularly impressive. Olaf had some unusual hobbies: For one, he was a great rock climber, easily scaling the Smalsarhorn in Scandinavia and laying his shield at the top. When one of his followers got stuck halfway up, Olaf is said to have made his way to him and carried him back to the ground under one arm.^[4]

He also indulged in other daring activities that Viking warriors often took part in, including “walking the oars” on a ship while at sea. Most interestingly, he discovered a unique trick that seems to have won him many supporters: He had the ability to “play with three knives so that one was always in the air, and he always caught them by the hilts.” In other words, he could juggle! This dexterity seems to have helped him in other areas of his life, since he could fight with a weapon in each hand and throw two spears at once.

6 Louis XVI—Locksmithing

Louis XVI is well-known today for many things: He was the last French king before the French Revolution, he was the only French monarch to be beheaded, and he supported the American revolutionaries against Britain. He and his wife Marie Antoinette are often stereotyped as disinterested, self-absorbed aristocrats who terrorized France and didn’t care for her people.

In reality, Louis XVI was a rather gentle man. He was well-read and very interested in the sciences, particularly engineering and the mechanical arts. He personally helped to overhaul the French navy and, unlike many other contemporary French kings, never took a mistress. He was also concerned with the plight of France’s poor, ordering the removal of the restriction on bread prices in an effort to make food cheaper for the commoners.

His private passion, however, was locksmithing.^[5] He was enamored by locks and surrounded himself with all different kinds, from simple contraptions to really elaborate, secret ones. He, like some scholars of the day, believed that all men should pursue some form of manual craft. Of course, in the highly public and sophisticated French court, such labor was seen as the work of peasants, not kings. Because of this, the king initially pursued his hobby in private, being educated by the court blacksmith behind closed doors. He had a private workshop installed above his library, complete with anvils, where he could practice his craft. Unfortunately, the secret eventually got out, and Louis was ridiculed in the papers and pamphlets of the day—particularly for the connotations that surrounded a married king fiddling with locks in his spare time.

5 Henry VII—Tennis

Henry VII is a king who is known today for being humorless and austere. A shrewd politician, he overhauled England’s government and made it extremely wealthy by advancing trade and industry and cutting spending. It’s no wonder he is former Chancellor George Osborne’s favorite British monarch. Henry was exceptionally serious, rarely smiled, and spent long hours working at his papers to ensure the prosperity of the realm he’d seized at swordpoint. He could speak many languages and read and write with skill, and he valued justice above all things.

In many ways, he was the total opposite of his son, Henry VIII, who eventually succeeded him. They did share one great passion, though: tennis.^[6] By his son’s day, tennis was a common sport among the English nobility, and since Henry VIII was a great sportsman, it’s no surprise that he enjoyed a game of tennis.

While Henry V was the first English monarch to play, tennis still wasn’t a popular sport in England by Henry VII’s time. This didn’t stop him: He had six tennis courts built across the country over the course of his reign, including one at Westminster, the place where the royal government was based. Because of the king’s interest, it became a widely loved sport in the royal court, a tradition which would continue under his successors. Henry was an avid fan of the game and played regularly. In his later years when he could no longer play, he continued to watch and bet on matches. He lost £20 in bets between 1493 and 1499, more money than the average man or woman would have seen in their lifetime.

4 George III—Agriculture

George III, the king who lost the American colonies, is often called Mad King George today. While he did unfortunately succumb to mental illness in his final years, he was the king of Great Britain for over half a century, and for the most part, he was a thoroughly sane and successful monarch. He was very interested in the day-to-day running of the realm and had a large collection of scientific instruments, many of which are on display today. He was a keen astronomer who funded the construction of the biggest telescope in the world at the time. And contrary to popular belief, George was not a tyrant: He went into the American revolution not hoping to expand his own powers but to defend the right of an elected Parliament to levy taxes on its subjects. Whether or not he was correct in his thinking, his intention was the preservation of Parliament, not his own rule.

The nickname “Mad King George” came about only in the final years of his reign. For much of his time as king, he was both ridiculed and honored with the nickname of “Farmer George.”^[7] This was because he had an extremely keen interest in farming, writing papers on it, annotating books, and commonly corresponding with farmers across the country. Many at the time thought it was odd, but agriculture was the dominant industry in the country, and George’s attention helped to fuel the agricultural revolution that was taking place at the time. During his reign, the rural population soared, laying the ground for the industrial revolution that was already underway by the time of his death.

3 George V—Stamps

The British royal family today has thoroughly normal hobbies: The Queen and Prince William are said to be passionate bingo players, and her royal highness herself enjoys reading mystery novels and looking after her dogs and horses. She likes to watch horse racing, and when she’s at Balmoral, her Scottish residence, she hosts Scottish dances for her staff and neighbors. None of these hobbies can be seen as controversial.

Her grandfather, George V, was similarly average in his interests: His main hobby was stamp collecting.^[8] Starting as a young prince, he continued his collection into his time as a monarch, even through the chaos of World War I. What’s unusual about George’s hobby was how many stamps he collected over his lifetime: His collection is made up of 328 albums of 60 pages each. That’s nearly 20,000 pages of stamps.

His passion earned him the nickname “The King of Philately,” philately being the proper name of stamp collecting. He was elected vice president of the Royal Philatelic Society of London in 1893. In 1905, while he was still a prince, he set a new record for the amount spent on a stamp: £1,450—roughly $220,000 US dollars today. A courtier later asked the prince if he’d heard that “some damned fool had paid as much as £1,400 for one stamp.” The prince replied by saying, “Yes, I was that damned fool!”

2 Farouk—Collecting Everything

King Farouk, the last king of Egypt, was a selfish man: He ate, drank, and gamed to excess, raced his cars around the country’s streets—painting them red so that the police would know not to pull him over—and kept his palace’s lights on while the rest of the city was in blackout during the blitz. He seemingly cared about no one other than himself. His reign was dominated by corruption scandals, his people were impoverished, and his court was brimming with wealth. The Egyptian army eventually intervened, driving him out in 1952. Then the process of clearing out his possessions began.^[9]

Farouk was perhaps one of the most prolific hoarders in history. His personal collection consisted of thousands of silk shirts, an entire fleet of Cadillacs, and 50 diamond-studded golden walking sticks. He collected an absurd amount of French baroque-style furniture, so much that he earned the nickname “Louis-Farouk.” His coin collection was one of the grandest in the world, consisting of over 8,500 coins, some of which—like the 1933 $20 gold double eagle and all five known examples of the 1913 liberty head nickel—would be worth millions today.

What was most shocking to people at the time, however, was his extensive pornography collection. A selection of seminude images were found under his pillow, but once it was all catalogued, his total collection stretched into the hundreds of thousands. This was almost certainly the largest porn collection in the world at the time. When confronted about it, Farouk happily admitted to owning it but was shocked by the lewd accusations, insisting that they were classical works of art.

1 Edward VIII—Flying

Edward VIII was king of the United Kingdom for less than a year. He was one of the few monarchs in British history never to be officially crowned. His short reign was dominated by fears that he would damage or even destroy the monarchy for good. Most famously, he insisted on pursuing the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson. The Church of England at the time forbade remarriage while the divorcee was still alive, and the king was the head of the Church of England. None of this seemed to matter to Edward. He was reckless in other ways: He was disinterested in government procedure and trampled on tradition. And worst of all, he was probably a Nazi sympathizer. He visited Hitler in 1937 and, later in his life, privately confessed that he thought Hitler wasn’t a bad man. Needless to say, after Edward’s abdication, George VI didn’t want him back. In fact, George threatened to cut Edward’s royal allowance entirely if he ever tried to return to Britain.

In his spare time, though, Edward was an avid fan of flying. He was the first member of the royal family to fly himself to a public event and had his own pilot’s license. In typical fashion, he was apparently a reckless flyer, so much so that his father, the aforementioned George V, tried to ban him from flying altogether in case he died. Of course, Edward ignored his request.

In his final days as king, he made an elaborate plan to flee the country by airplane, even going so far as to book a hotel on the continent. It was only by the actions of British government intelligence that the flight was halted on the morning it was supposed to take off. Edward was ultimately made to abdicate before he left the country.^[10]

Get ready to broaden your horizons as we unveil a list of ten unique hobbies that will add a delightful twist to your year. From the thrilling to the unconventional, these activities promise to awaken your senses, ignite your creativity, and leave you with unforgettable experiences.

So fasten your seatbelts and prepare to embark on a captivating quest as we unlock the secret world of unusual hobbies waiting to be embraced in 2023!

Related: 10 Kings With Weird Hobbies

10 Geocaching and Letterboxing

If you’ve always dreamed of finding buried treasure, you should definitely give geocaching a try. This is an outdoor treasure-hunting game where you can use GPS-enabled devices to search for hidden containers called “geocaches.”

But don’t turn up empty-handed! The key element to geocaching is that you take a treasure and leave a treasure behind. Don’t worry, though; it doesn’t have to be a priceless ruby or anything. It could be anything from a penny to a small figurine.

There’s a huge online community for this where adventurers can share their experiences online, including hints for where hidden boxes can be found at different locations.

If you’re interested in something with a few more clues, you might want to look into letterboxing. Similar to geocaching, letterboxing involves searching for hidden boxes containing a unique rubber stamp and logbook, using clues and maps.

9 Soap Carving

The art of sculpting soap bars into intricate designs and figures can be both relaxing and creative.

You only need a few simple tools, like a carving knife, a pencil, and sandpaper, making it an affordable hobby that’s easy to start. Soap carving is relaxing and meditative, giving you a chance to unwind and express your creativity. It’s also a great way to improve hand-eye coordination, dexterity, and patience. Carving intricate designs out of a soft, malleable soap requires precision and attention to detail, and your finished sculptures can be used as decor, gifts, or even functional soap bars.

If you don’t feel like messing around with a bar of Irish Spring, you could also give gourd carving a try. Gourd art is the practice of decorating and carving hard-shell gourds to create unique pieces of art, from functional objects to sculptures.

8 Amateur Radio

Amateur radio, also known as ham radio, is a hobby that revolves around communication using radio frequencies. It’s a global community of enthusiasts who utilize specially allocated radio bands to exchange messages, engage in conversations, and even assist during emergencies.

Pioneers like Hiram Percy Maxim and Marconi paved the way for amateur radio as we know it today. Over the years, amateur radio evolved into a global phenomenon, uniting people across borders and cultures through the sheer power of radio waves.

Amateur radio can also play an important role in public service. When conventional communication fails during a crisis, ham radio operators step up as community heroes. They provide critical communication links during natural disasters, participate in search and rescue missions, and even assist in relaying messages for astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

This is one hobby that involves a learning curve, especially regarding radio regulations and operating procedures, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. And numerous online communities and local radio clubs support aspiring ham radio operators. From studying for the licensing exams to honing practical skills through hands-on experience, the path to becoming an amateur radio operator can be an exciting and rewarding journey.

7 Lock Picking

If you’ve secretly dreamed of living life as a super spy, this is one uncommon hobby you have to try. Lockpicking, also known as lock sport, is the recreational study of locks, lock picking, and the broader field of physical security.

Lockpicking offers a unique challenge that requires skill and knowledge to master. It involves understanding the intricacies of locks and their mechanisms and learning how to manipulate them with specialized tools. It requires patience, dexterity, and problem-solving skills—very mentally stimulating.

This is also a great hobby to try if you need something portable. Since lockpick sets are small and easy to carry, you can practice almost anywhere. Lockpicking also offers a sense of empowerment and independence, and there’s a market for competitions among enthusiasts.

6 Yarn Bombing

Yarn bombing can transform mundane city streets into pure whimsy. Trees wear vibrant coats, lampposts don cozy sweaters, and park benches snuggle up in delightful crocheted creations. With this hobby, knitting needles become paintbrushes, and yarn becomes your medium.

In the early 2000s, yarn bombing, aka yarn graffiti or guerrilla knitting, emerged as a form of street art. This movement rebels against the drabness of urban landscapes and injects a playful spirit into the everyday.

Whether you choose to embellish a bike rack, wrap a statue, or knit a cozy sweater for a fire hydrant, the possibilities are limited only by your imagination. Oh, and you don’t need a formal art education or extensive training to get started with yarn bombing, either. There’s a very enthusiastic knitting community out there ready to welcome you with open skeins.

Begin by familiarizing yourself with knitting or crocheting techniques, and start with small projects, like covering a pole. Yarn bombing is a hobby that encourages experimentation and improvisation, where even mistakes can add character to your creations.

Just make sure you get permission before you start!

5 Bonsai Cultivation

You might not have considered growing a tree to be a riveting hobby, but you’re about to be proven wrong. Bonsai trees are tiny and perfectly proportioned, especially when you’ve contoured their branches and delicately pruned their roots. Bonsai cultivation allows nature to be cradled in the palm of your hand.

Originating in ancient China and refined over centuries in Japan, bonsai is a meticulous practice that entails growing and nurturing trees in miniature form. The word “bonsai” itself translates to “tray planting,” reflecting the essence of this art—creating living landscapes within confined spaces.

Many bonsai hobbyists see this practice as a gateway to serenity, offering a peaceful escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. And you just might experience a profound connection with nature through the careful selection of tree species, pruning techniques, and the arrangement of rocks or moss.

Mastery of bonsai cultivation requires a grasp of horticultural knowledge, including understanding soil composition, pruning techniques, and the unique needs of various tree species. But there is plenty of information available online to make this a hobby you can deep-dive into.

Bonsai cultivation is not just about tending to a plant; it’s a relationship that demands care, observation, and respect.

4 Zentangle

Close your eyes and envision a world where lines intertwine, forming intricate patterns that transport you to a state of tranquility and mindfulness. Zentangle is a mesmerizing hobby that combines meditation, creativity, and simplicity.

Zentangle is an art form that involves drawing structured patterns known as “tangles” within defined spaces. It originated in the early 2000s when Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas, both artists and educators, discovered the therapeutic power of deliberate, focused drawing. They developed a method that allowed anyone, regardless of artistic ability, to find solace and creative expression through deliberate strokes of a pen.

By working within defined spaces and using a limited set of patterns, Zentangle encourages exploration within boundaries. It becomes a playground of creativity to explore countless variations of patterns, shading, and textures. And one of its core principles is that there are no mistakes—only opportunities for unexpected beauty.

This is one hobby that’s incredibly easy to learn. The simplicity of its approach and the step-by-step guidance provided by certified Zentangle teachers make it an ideal art form for beginners.

3 Quilling

Quilling is a delicate dance of paper strips, gracefully twirling and swirling into intricate designs. This art form is a mesmerizing hobby that weaves together patience, precision, and boundless creativity.

Also referred to as paper filigree, it actually originated in ancient Egypt and later flourished during the Renaissance. Today, this hobby offers a therapeutic escape—a chance to feel immersed in the rhythmic and meditative process of rolling, shaping, and gluing paper strips. With each delicate coil, tension melts away, replaced by a profound sense of calm and focus. Quilling becomes a mindful practice, a sanctuary where creativity and inner peace intertwine.

The versatility of quilled paper allows for endless possibilities, from intricate floral arrangements and whimsical animal figures to personalized greeting cards and decorative wall art. With patience and imagination, paper strips transform into three-dimensional masterpieces that showcase the artist’s ingenuity and attention to detail.

Quilling is pretty accessible, making it a hobby that welcomes newcomers with open arms. And you’ll find abundant tutorials, books, and online communities dedicated to the craft.

If you’re interested, start by mastering the basic techniques like creating coils, scrolls, and shapes. As your confidence grows, you can combine different elements to create your own signature style.

2 Urban Exploration

Ready to step off the well-trodden path, leaving behind the familiar to venture into abandoned halls. Urban exploration, an exhilarating hobby, invites you to unlock the secrets of forgotten places and discover hidden treasures in the concrete jungles that surround us.

Also known as urbex, this hobby lets you explore man-made structures, usually abandoned or off-limits, to document their history, architecture, or aesthetics. From factories and forgotten hospitals to derelict amusement parks and decaying mansions, these spaces hold stories waiting to be unraveled.

Over time, urbex has evolved into a passionate subculture driven by the desire to connect with forgotten histories, preserve architectural heritage, and capture the haunting beauty of decay.

For some, exploring is an insatiable curiosity—a longing to uncover the untold stories that lie within neglected walls. It’s a chance to walk in the footsteps of those who came before, to immerse yourself in the atmosphere of bygone eras, and witness the power of nature, reclaiming what was once built by human hands.

While you might need to hit the gym to prepare for this adventure, anyone with a passion for discovering can try urban exploration. You can start at your own pace, looking for accessible locations and gradually venturing into challenging environments. Just make sure you prioritize safety, respect property rights, and follow local laws while you’re adventuring!

1 Kintsugi

Picture a broken ceramic vase, shattered into a thousand fragments, its beauty seemingly lost forever. Now imagine those fragments being pieced back together, with shimmering veins of gold illuminating the cracks. This ancient Japanese art form, known as Kintsugi, breathes new life into the broken, transforming it into a masterpiece.

Originating in the 15th century, Kintsugi, which translates to “golden joinery,” emerged as a response to the fragility of pottery. It was born out of a philosophy that values imperfections and cherishes history. Rather than concealing the cracks, Kintsugi embraces them, turning them into a part of the artwork’s narrative.

Taking up Kintsugi as a hobby isn’t just repairing pottery—it’s elevating it.

As you delicately mend the broken pieces using a special lacquer mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, you become a healer of objects, breathing life back into them and honoring their past.

In a world obsessed with perfection, Kintsugi celebrates the beauty in flaws, teaching us to embrace our own imperfections with grace and resilience. The techniques can be intricate, and the process demands a steady hand, attention to detail, and an understanding of the delicate balance between the broken and the mended. But with patience and guidance, the art of Kintsugi can be mastered by anyone passionate about embarking on this transformative journey.

Careful, online daters: the phrase “I have a hobby” no longer means “I collect Funko Pops.” From playing magic sports to risking death for a selfie, from paying to be waterboarded to following strangers into the woods, “I have a hobby” can now be anything.

Our culture is changing around us more quickly than ever, and some people have reacted to those changes in the weirdest ways. All of a sudden, we have the world at our fingertips, and anyone can be famous if they find the right angle.

The result? Some pretty wild and shocking hobbies. Here are ten of those hobbies which are absolutely strange but becoming more popular by the day.

Related: 10 Strange Hobbies You Could Be A Champion At

10 Chess Boxing

There just isn’t a sport with a more descriptive name than chess boxing. It is literally a fifty-fifty combination of chess and boxing, and it’s surprisingly popular. More than that, it’s surprisingly legitimate.

To qualify for professional chess boxing, competitors have to have at least fifty amateur boxing bouts on their resume, as well as a chess ELO rating of at least 1600 (essentially just one to two ranks shy of master). To top it off, the game is played in speed rounds. And the game forces contestants to switch between physical and mental combat constantly. The end result is a unique multidisciplinary challenge. It’s clear from the first watch of a chess boxing match that participants are on a whole other level when it comes to endurance.

9 Rooftopping

As cities have grown wider and taller, urban exploration has, in turn, reached new heights, both figuratively and literally. No longer just sneaking into old buildings, urban exploration has become an extreme sport—in the case of the rooftoppers and skywalkers who walk atop skyscrapers and cranes without safety harnesses, maybe the most extreme sport of all.

There are many variations of this risky exploration, but most center on climbing to the tallest point possible and capturing a selfie to showcase how precarious the whole situation is. Some even go so far as to hang from ledges hundreds of feet in the air while a partner photographs their utter helplessness. While some of these skywalkers simply sneak into buildings to reach their highest points, others engage in buildering, the challenge of free-climbing a building’s exterior.

8 Robbery Selfies

Just this year, a trend emerged on TikTok known as “devious licks” wherein people, mainly teens, were challenging themselves and others to steal from their schools and show it off online. The basic goal was to steal the biggest, most noticeable item, post it online, and still get away with it, thus earning bragging rights. Except, of course, that announcing your crimes online and proving them with video evidence is wildly stupid.

Naturally, multiple posters were caught red-handed, as they were essentially waving their red hands in front of school administrations’ faces. Eventually, TikTok helped to keep the trend from spiraling out of control by banning videos related to the thefts. However, like every viral teen trend that causes panic among parents and politicians, the trend was never truly that widespread but yet will always recur in some form or another.

7 Quidditch

It’s really odd to say that, by now, the real-life sport of Quidditch is becoming old news. Created back in 2005, the real version of the fictional, magical sport from the Harry Potter series has become a fixture at universities everywhere. And, just like in the books, it’s received its fair share of press. What is surprising, though, is just how huge the sport has become.

The game, a variation on handball in which contestants hold broomsticks between their legs to simulate magic flight, has quickly spread across the globe and become a legitimate sport. Currently, 39 nations are members of the International Quidditch Association and participate in various ranked matches and even cups. There are European Cups and Asian Cups, and even a World Cup.

Strangest of all is that different Quidditch leagues have even begun paying their athletes over the last six years, making Quidditch an actual professional sport. It sounds like there might be more gold in this game than just the snitch.

6 ARGs

ARGs, or alternate reality games, are games that blend their content into the real world to create the effect of a new, alternate reality setting for their game. Often played partially online and partially in person, the games tend to play out in real-time as players solve puzzles and find clues, only to be led to more challenges.

Probably the first modern ARG is Ong’s Hat, a fake conspiracy theory that revealed itself through multiple mediums, both online and off. It presented a fictional narrative about a very real ghost town in New Jersey known as Ong’s Hat, involving occult rituals and interdimensional travel. It encouraged players to pour through old texts and media to discover what really happened to the town’s inhabitants. ARGs like this blur the line between fiction and fact and make for a fun experience—if you have the dedication.

5 Reaction Content

Since the rapid rise of YouTube, millions of people have taken to the site to share their video content. Surprisingly, a large fraction of that content is not actual content. At least, not in the traditional sense.

A very popular genre of YouTube video is the reaction video, in which the creator films themselves watching another video. Usually, the creator will laugh when the video is funny, yell when it is frightening, and comment with their own thoughts in response. It sounds to most people like an absolute lack of entertainment and waste of time, but strangely enough: many of these channels are wildly popular and fun to watch.

4 Recreational Kidnapping

Fans of haunted houses have recently found a new way to terrorize themselves: so-called “extreme haunts,” like those served up at McKamey Manor. This extreme survival horror location requires you to sign a liability waiver. Then it proceeds to terrify and torture its guests until they reach their absolute breaking points…and beyond.

Guests volunteer to be abducted, tied up, thrown in a van, and brought to McKamey Manor, where things get much, much worse. The Manor’s staff put guests through hell, including waterboarding, beatings, and even forcing them to eat their own vomit. These extreme haunts are certainly a strange hobby.

3 DIY Biology

There is a growing trend of amateur scientists conducting biology experiments out of their own homes. Some are former professionals, and some are just hobbyists, but all of them conduct genetic and physiological research in homemade labs, more often than not in the researchers’ garages.

Though many of these DIY biologists pursue legitimate science, others focus on body-hacking and implantation, trying to modify their bodies and move beyond the bounds of humanity. In the most extreme cases, some DIY-ers actually attempt to blend their body with machines and electronics in an attempt to begin the transformation into a cyborg.

2 Geocaching

Geocaching itself is a recent phenomenon, dating back only to 2000. It originally involved someone posting GPS coordinates online and challenging others to find an item or prize hidden at the coordinates. That “digital scavenger hunt” model is still the default for most geocaches, and the practice is still common today, but like any activity that coordinates strangers over the internet, it has spawned some strange variations and led to similar strange happenings.

For one, several geocaches have been set up as deliberate attempts to lure people into harm’s way, like the cache left in a minefield in Bagram, Afghanistan. In addition, thousands of geocaches have been left in restricted and protected lands like national parks and game preserves, requiring by definition trespassing and possible environmental damage. Also, a shocking number of dead bodies have been found at or around geocache sites, suggesting any number of sinister associations.

1 Quantum Adventures

One of the strangest offshoots of geocaching came from the app Randonautica, which describes itself as a “quantumly generated ‘Create Your Own Adventure’ app.” The app generates for its users allegedly random coordinates for the user to explore. The goal is to get people out of their comfort zones and explore parts of their local area that they otherwise wouldn’t.

In reality, however, venturing to random spots across your county without knowing whose property it is or what awaits you there can be a bad idea—especially if the coordinates aren’t exactly random. 

Users have made hundreds of reports of strange occurrences at Randonautica-generated coordinates, raising concerns that the app may have a more sinister hidden purpose or an undisclosed aspect to its algorithm. Of all the many strange encounters that have come from Randonautica, the most famous by far is the 2020 discovery of two corpses stuffed into suitcases at the precise coordinates generated by Randonautica.