Have you ever awoken to discover you’d slept through something noteworthy overnight? Many of us can sleep through an alarm but some people can sleep through earthquakes or break-ins. Other people are adept at sleeping anywhere and can doze off on buses or planes despite being surrounded by strangers and loud engines. And there are even a few cases of people sleeping through some pretty life-altering events.

10. An Iraqi Man Slept Through the Invasion and Takeover of His Town

You can’t be expected to know what’s going on outside your window 24/7 but there are times when you really need to pay attention to local events. Back in 2014, Mohammed Abu Ali, a clockmaker from Iraq, went to sleep in the town of Mahkmour like any other day. When he woke up, he was the only man left in town. Or the only citizen of the town left, anyway.

Overnight, Kurdish forces had evacuated the town as ISIS forces moved in and took over. With all the citizens gone, Ali was the only resident left having slept through it all. More remarkable was that he didn’t even realize what happened after he awoke.  

For several hours in the morning he puttered around his house. He watched a movie; he fixed his air conditioning and did what he would normally do. It wasn’t until six in the evening when the call to prayer was late that he realized something was wrong. 

When the call did come, he didn’t recognize the voice, so he went outside and found himself held at gunpoint. He had to prove his identity and the fighters eventually allowed him to go home where he stayed safely until the town was retaken.

9. A Snail Woke Up After Spending Years on Display in a Museum

We’re cheating a little on this one because it isn’t a person, but it’s one of the most remarkable tales of sleeping through the impossible ever. In this case it was a snail and he must have been very tired indeed.

In the mid-1800s a collection of snails was donated to the British Museum in London. The snails had been collected in Egypt and were therefore items of interest to the museum crowd. The snails were glued to cards, labeled, and added to the collection.

Four years later a zoologist noticed an unusual coating on one of the shells, something snails do to prevent themselves from dehydrating. 

Suspecting the snail was less dead than four years on a card in a museum would lead one to believe, the snail was removed and plopped into some water. Minute later a head emerged, and the snail came to life. 

Suspecting the snail was less dead than four years on a card in a museum would lead one to believe, the snail was removed and plopped into some water. Minute later a head emerged and the snail came to life. 

The snail was kept alive in the zoologist’s care until it truly died in 1852.

8. A Woman Slept Through the Entire Jonestown Massacre

Jim Jones led a group of followers of his Peoples Temple cult to their death at what became known as the Jonestown Massacre back in 1978. Over 900 members died after drinking a fruit drink laced with cyanide which is where the modern phrase “drink the Kool-Aid” comes from in reference to insinuating someone has gone all in on cult-like beliefs.

The massacre came after the cult was being investigated for holding people against their will. A US congressman had traveled to the compound, located in Guyana after they fled the US, and the cult turned on him as he tried to leave, shooting him and several others in the process.

One cult member, a 76-year-old woman named Hyacinth Thrash, fled to her bedroom to hide after hearing of the violence. She fell asleep there as Jones ordered everyone to take their own lives, killing the children first before the adults joined in. When she awoke, she discovered she was alone and thought everyone had died.

7. Eminem Slept Through His Academy Award Win

For many people, being honored with an award is a big deal. Attending awards ceremonies has always been treated with a degree of reverence which is why the Academy Awards broadcast is still such a big deal every year. However, that’s not always the case for everyone.

In 2003, Eminem’s song Lose Yourself from the movie 8 Mile was nominated for an Academy Award. It ended up winning as well, but the rapper wasn’t present to accept it. He had figured he wasn’t going to win anyway, so he decided to stay home with his daughter and ended up falling asleep before the award was even presented. He wanted to be rested so he could take her to school the next day. 

6. POW Edwin Rose Slept Through The Great Raid 

The Great Raid was one of the most famous POW rescues of the Second World War. It took place at a place called Cabanatuan in the Philippines and saw the liberation of over 500 POWs held by Japan. The raid was conducted by Army Rangers, guerillas, and Alamo Scouts.

One POW who didn’t have quite as successful liberation was Canadian Edwin Rose. Rose had a reputation around the camp for being weird, maybe due to the fact he was already elderly, almost blind, deaf and just quirky to begin with. 

Rose had not been in the military. He was a civilian who had been rounded up, and it was believed he was a mail carrier in Singapore. He’d been imprisoned for years and others believed that had badly affected his mental health.

When rescue came in the night, Rose was confused. Hard of hearing and with bad vision, he wasn’t 100% sure what was going on, but managed to stumble to the latrine. He went back to the barracks having missed the entire liberation and didn’t notice everyone was gone, so he returned to bed, thinking he may have also just passed out on the toilet.

The next morning he realized everyone was gone, so he shaved and walked out of camp. Guerillas later found him on the road.

5. More Than One Diabetic Slept Through Dogs Eating Their Toes

We’ve all heard stories of heroic animals waking their owners to alert them of dangers. How about the opposite? More than one diabetic dog owner has experienced sleeping through their canine companion eating the toes right off their feet. And this is fully eating, not just biting. These people woke up missing an entire toe.

Diabetics frequently suffer from poor circulation issues and problems like peripheral neuropathy can lead to serious damage to a diabetic’s toes and feet which can require amputation. A man in Michigan didn’t realize his toe was infected due to the nerve damage he was suffering. He actually needed an amputation but didn’t realize it. Luckily, his Jack Russell terrier Kiko was an amateur physician and gnawed the man’s toe off in his sleep. 

Tests on the stump revealed the infection had traveled to the bone, so the rest was amputated as well. The dog may have saved his life by forcing him to go to the hospital 

In 2008, a woman in Illinois suffered much the same fate when her dog ate her toe after she suffered an infection from a hangnail. 

4. Dick Van Dyke Fell Asleep on a Surfboard and Got Lost at Sea

This story may need to be taken with a grain of salt or two, but it came right from the source for whatever that’s worth. According to Dick Van Dyke, he once got lost at sea because he fell asleep on a surfboard.

To hear Van Dyke tell it, he was learning to surf, and he’d just got out beyond the breakers when he passed out. He woke up and couldn’t see land anywhere and had no idea which way to go to find land. And then, right out of a Disney movie, a pod of dolphins showed up and pushed him back to land.

He’s told the story more than once and doesn’t seem to be joking about it, so it’s entirely possible we have dolphins to thank for Van Dyke’s whole career.

3. A Woman Fell Asleep on a Plane and Was Stuck There for Hours After it Landed

Some people can konk right out the moment they sit down on a plane. Red Eye flights are set up to help you sleep. They turn the lights down, you can get a pillow and maybe an eye mask, and off you go. If you’re flying for eight hours across an ocean, it may be the perfect chance to catch some shuteye. But even the heartiest sleeper tends to wake up when a plane comes in for a landing, the lights come on and everyone gets up to leave.

Back in 2010, a woman woke up on a plane in Philadelphia, which was where she intended to be. Unfortunately, the plane landed several hours before she woke up and she was alone on an empty, locked plane. 

Fifty passengers had left the plane, along with all the crew, before the plane was locked leaving her on board. She ended up suing the airline for false imprisonment. She says a cleaning crew woke her up, but she was left locked on the plane until law enforcement decided she wasn’t a terrorist. 

2. Ozzy Osbourne Once Fell Asleep During a Driving Test 

Not everyone passes their driver’s road test the first time out. Not everyone has to take it 19 times, either. That was the magic number for Ozzy Osbourne who finally became a legal driver at age 60. So what was the problem with the 18 previous attempts? If you know anything at all about Osbourne, you can probably make an educated guess.

The Prince of Darkness offered up one explanation for a failure during an interview. He claimed he was “so out of it” that he actually fell asleep in the middle of a test. When he woke up, he found a note in the car telling him he’d failed. It wasn’t made clear if he’d actually been driving at the time he fell asleep or not. No one died at least, so it was a failed test but a success at survival if nothing else. 

1. Hitler Slept Through Most of D-Day 

World War Two has been a source of endless speculation for historians, writers, politicians and the average person on the street for decades now. How things could have happened differently, how things did happen and what things happened that we never realized for years afterward. 

There’s no way to change the past, of course, and we can’t always trust new information or theories that people come up with either. But even what we do know can be surprising and helpful in learning about how it all unfolded.

D-Day is the name we’ve given to the Allied invasion of Normandy that marked a major turning point in the war on June 6, 1944. 

The Germans might have had more success in defending against the Allies if Hitler had made one simple change in orders. If he had not asked to not be disturbed then German forces may have rallied and forced the Allies back. But that didn’t happen. He went to sleep on June 5th and ordered that no one bother him. His generals were not allowed to make major decisions without his approval so they could not counter the Allied attack until their leader woke up. 

Word is that Hitler slept until somewhere between 11 and noon. By then it was far too late and he still thought Normandy was a diversion, anyway. Had he set an alarm or let his people wake up, history may have painted a vastly different picture.

Hollywood is known for fiddling with the truth—in their defense, they are famous for telling stories. Be it the number of six-packs and flat butts on the beaches of America, the time it takes a person to work out their inner demons and develop into a good parent, or even the optional laws of physics—it is all relative in Tinseltown.

Ignoring the countless times that keys are left in the ignition or the monstrous mismatch of sounds used for certain motorcycle engines, here are ten of the most impossible motorcycle scenes you will find in films. And yes, I know it’s the movies and not meant to be accurate, but still…

Spoiler alert ahead!

Related: 10 Modern Stunts That Make Evel Knievel’s Look Tame

10 John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum

John Wick, expertly portrayed by Keanu Reeves, has been gallantly slaying his foes since we were forced to sit through the burial of his beloved doggo Daisy. Although it is well known that Reeves is one of the most-liked stars who appear on the silver screen, not too many people know that he is a motorcycle enthusiast, even starting a motorcycle company as a passion project.

It is clear, however, that he left his experience of motorcycles in the hands of CGI stunt coordinators, hoping to thrill rather than nail the literal landing. The chase scene starts off as relatively believable, with John hounded by the world’s assassins. He punches and shoots his way through would-be attackers until his match pulls up next to him.

He then proceeds to stick his sword through the spokes of a speeding bike—an impossible move unless you are Spiderman who can shoot the wings off a fly—causing the bike to flip…backward? Even if it were possible to force a sword between the spokes, there is no logical explanation for the backflip. Almost as impossible as getting over the death of that dog. Why couldn’t it have just been his kid?^[1]

9 The Matrix Reloaded

In the second installment of the trilogy (I guess we should stop calling it a trilogy now?), the Wachowskis got to unleash the power of the One. Neo, the aptly named anagram, unleashes all hell on the agents of the matrix. However, it is the chase scene involving his love, Trinity, that bumps the film onto this list.

In a breathless chase through the streets of the matrix, Trinity attempts to save the Keymaker and keep the prophecy alive. At full tilt, she manages to drive a Ducati 996 off a moving truck with the Keymaker holding on for dear life, landing the bike in front of the moving truck with both driver and passenger safely on board before weaving her way through traffic.

This is impossible for three reasons: (1) Most people would have an anxiety attack and pass out. (2) A superbike would snap in half carrying two people if dropped from that height. And then there is (3)—a police car would never, in all the years of this planet, gain on a superbike on a highway.^[2]

8 Terminator 2: Judgment Day

After winning multiple Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia titles, Arnie went on to terminate the late eighties/early nineties and has not shown signs of letting up.

In one of his earlier renditions of the famed death machine, he chases down a truck in one of the most memorable motorcycle scenes in all of cinema history. It starts out with John Connor’s frustrating inability to lose an eighteen-wheeler on a scrambler. Then, enter the terminator and his Harley Davidson Fatboy. He follows the chase until he joins the fray by flying off the overpass, two stories high, before landing with nothing but a few sparks.

Considering the curb weight of the bike—around 322 kilograms (710 pounds)—and the combined weight of Schwarzenegger and little John, you have yourself one heavy mix of machinery likely to collapse like a poorly built Lego bridge from that height.^[3]

7 The Dark Knight

When Batman does something, he makes it look cool. That should be an excuse to do whatever he damn well pleases, shouldn’t it? We will allow Batman some artistic freedom (side-spinning wheels). However, some of the maneuvers defy Newton’s well-known theories.

Ignoring the thick tires that would make it almost impossible to turn, or the cape likely to be sucked under the wheels like dollar bills into a vending machine, turning Batman into, well, Splatman—the most unfeasible stunt would be the method used to bring the Batcycle to a halt. Driving up the wall, turning the motorcycle mid-air, and then landing it safely. It’s the great-looking, impossible stunt we deserve, not the one we need.^[4]

6 Avengers: Age of Ultron

Apart from James Spader making his Marvel debut as the voice of an all-knowing talking robot—not a far cry from his usual roles—Age of Ultron has gone down as the least successful Avengers movie in terms of box office returns. Yet it still managed a massive $1.4 billion global return.

It features a bike chase through the streets of Sokovia, the fictional European city within the MCU. The Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johannsen, makes an impression as a motorcycle expert, managing to do tricks with the two-wheeler no mortal human could. After being dropped from the sky onto her Project LiveWire Harley, which doesn’t shatter on impact—a superhero landing—she effortlessly glides her electric horse through the streets before dropping onto her side, bike clutched between her legs, skidding under a truck with no effort, no damage to the bike, and no chafed knees.

Shortly after that, she does what is called a “stoppie,” which involves pulling on the front brakes as hard as possible, lifting the back wheel of the bike, and putting it down safely. A stoppie is actually a less effective way of coming to a standstill as the brakes are in the air. It’s possible, but anybody who would know how to slide their motorcycle under a gasoline tanker should know not to show off when the chips are down. The fact that she also drops the clutch on an electric motorcycle might physically hurt some enthusiasts.^[5]

5 Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle

Much like many child stars’ film careers, what starts out as a realistic showpiece turns into somewhat of a cinematic nightmare. A casual motocross race on a purpose-built track, where an array of stuntmen do unnecessary tricks considering they are racing, but heck, it’s all fun and games. Enter the bad man, loaded with a knife boot and gun prowess that would put any redneck to shame.

He launches into what’s called a kiss of death and then does what no sane (or living) person would do—he lets go of the handlebars. There is more. He somehow draws two guns mid-air, shoots, and regains the flying death bike before landing safely. Not happening in real life. Shortly after that, we also see a very soulful Diaz launching off her seat safely onto a stationary bike conveniently held upright and pointing in the right direction for no apparent reason, ready for round two.^[6]

The racers are surprisingly nonchalant about people dying and motorcycles exploding. You know, like it should be with any serious motocross race.

4 Tomorrow Never Dies

As evident in many Bond films, 007 is no slouch when it comes to riding a bike. He is, however, known for pushing the envelope slightly with regard to what is possible. Like many of the films on the list, the scene starts out somewhat believable. However, as evident from the sound engineers that deemed it fit to attach a noise resembling that of a 50cc lawnmower to a BMW R1200C Cruiser, as used in this film, there are many flaws. It kicks off with our heroes’ hands cuffed together, dashing their way through the crowd. Unable to steer, they devise a master plan to allow one to control the clutch and the other to control the throttle and brake—an implausible solution, but not impossible.

The big no-no happens after they manage to dodge hundreds of bullets and avoid hitting any pedestrians. They find themselves on top of a building being chased by a helicopter. They accelerate, bursting through the concrete balustrades and over the spinning death blade of the flying helicopter, only to fall straight through the roof on the opposite side in a still-standing straight-up position. No more forward momentum, no broken bones or shattered skulls, and most importantly, no damage to the bike. Not bad for the second-best Bond of all time.^[7]

3 Knight and Day

Tom Cruise is well known as one of the people in Hollywood who do most, if not all, of their stunts. He has defied death and broken bones, all in the name of realism. And a reputation for being a badass in an industry that isn’t known for churning out real-life badasses.

Knight and Day is a fast-paced film that plays out across the world. It is in Spain during the running of the bulls where our heroes achieve the impossible. On his Ducati, Cruise and Diaz whizz their way between trains, people, and stampeding bulls, until the grand face-off with the master of all bulls in a small alley not meant for bikes or bulls.

They manage to dodge the rampaging bull by turning the bike onto one wheel and spinning it around, only to repeat the move on the back wheel and then, you guessed it, another spin on the front. The football equivalent of what I can only assume is called a triple-lunge 360, all while managing impeccable clutch control and keeping his lass stuck to his back. Marvelous what you can do with CGI—Cruise Going Insane.^[8]

2 Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins

The G.I. Joe who has been mute since 1964 has finally found his voice. In the scene, the one they call Snake Eyes had just angered a bunch of peeps hell-bent on taking him down. A few cars and three bikers chase him down a long straight then through a tunnel for cinematic effect.

He proceeds to do what every good biker should be able to do (*wink wink*), he releases the handlebars, essentially taking his hand off the throttle and brake, then turns in his seat to face backward. Two of the bikers close in on him as he draws his sword, ready to sting, and without breaking a sweat, he does a flip over their attack, landing safely on his bike and slashing his blade through the middle of the third driver’s machine. He quickly accelerates for a few seconds in time to avoid being smashed by the car behind him. Child’s play, right?^[9]

Oh, Snake, what would the Joes do without you?

1 Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

The Rock’s projects are the modern, slightly buffer variation of Touched by an Angel. Only, in his version, everything he touches turns to solid gold. Let’s face it, whether you love the movies or not, a franchise spanning 10 films and still raking in the big bucks need not change its recipe. Nor do they have to apply to realism school.

The scene goes: (1) dispute, (2) typical chase scene involving a few twists and turns, (3) ridiculous wall jump brought on by shooting wheel spokes, (4) driving over cars like they are opossums on their way to council the wise owl, and (5) turn bike into the world’s largest onyx vibrator and slither your way through the slightest of gaps ever seen on film, all the while not even remaining on the bike for the duration of the scene. Now that was exhausting. The most unrealistic form of bike cinema you will ever see, one that would make any motorhead’s motor head spin.^[10]

Now, if I can just get the Rock to touch a few things in and around my apartment, that would be dandy.