Actors have to say the lines that are written for them in scripts. Sounds like a pretty simple and uninteresting sentence, right? That’s the number one job of an actor! Whether on stage or on screen, actors have lines they must read, stage directions they must follow, and marks they must hit to make a production go smoothly as planned and led by a director.

But actors don’t always say the lines in their scripts just as the writers intended. In fact, sometimes, actors refuse to say their lines at all! The reasons behind those refusals can be wacky at some times and weirdly inspirational at others. And in this post today, we’ll take a look at ten of the most legendary of those instances.

In this list, we’ll explore the real stories behind ten infamous times when actors refused to say the lines in their scripts. Writers wrote these lines intending for the actor to deliver them as expected. But when it came time for the director to call “action,” these actors surprisingly backed off!

Related: 10 Actors Who Turned Down Movie Roles and Regretted It

10 Patrick Warburton

One episode of Family Guy was so unbelievably offensive that actor Patrick Warburton flat-out refused to say any of the lines. Of course, Warburton was the one who voiced Joe, who was Peter Griffin’s wheelchair-bound friend on the show. And it’s not exactly a secret that Family Guy is filled with all kinds of off-color jokes and highly offensive humor. But sometimes, things can go too far, even for the actors who signed on to do the show and agreed to portray the raunchy characters. And for Warburton, that’s exactly what happened.

While the world doesn’t know exactly which episode the offending lines came in (the episode itself was completely scrapped rather than going through a rewrite), Warburton has talked candidly about why it was so bad. And it had something to do with religion—and Jesus Christ himself. “The episode was so offensive that I can’t repeat it now,” the voice actor said in an interview after the controversy died down. “It had to do with Christ on the cross, but there was no humor in it, and it was just so, so horribly offensive.”

Warburton continued, explaining that it wasn’t one of Joe’s lines that set him off but rather the entire thrust of the episode that failed to hit the mark on telling jokes and moved straight into the territory of being brutally offensive. “It wasn’t a Joe line,” Warburton explained, “but I said, ‘Guys, I can’t participate in this episode if that line is in it. It’s a personal thing.’ I know what I signed up for. I signed up for a really offensive show, and it is satire, and there are different rules that govern satire… because of what they’ve gotten away with.” Ultimately, it didn’t matter, as the producers eventually admitted the joke would have never gotten approved anyway, so they killed the entire thing.^[1]

9 Robert Downey Jr.

At the end of The Avengers, Robert Downey Jr.’s iconic character Tony Stark is shown to be unconscious—until he suddenly wakes up. In the script, as he awoke, he was supposed to say, “What’s next?” RDJ didn’t really care for that line as it was written, though. He felt it wasn’t right for his character.

So he brainstormed with the screenwriters to put down a few other options on paper. Several new ideas came to the forefront, including Stark coming out of his unconscious period by saying, “Please tell me nobody tried to kiss me.” Which is very funny! But it wasn’t the iconic (and altered!) line that everybody really remembers.

Of course, the line we’re referring to is, “And then shawarma after?” RDJ felt like that goofy line was more on brand for Tony Stark, so he delivered it in his patented way. And it delighted theatergoers! In fact, fans loved the line so much that an end credits scene was later added to the movie in which the group of “Avengers” characters is shown grabbing food together after their big-screen adventure. Gotta go get that shawarma after a hard day’s work, ya know?^[2]

8 Crispin Glover

Crispin Glover originally turned down the role of the Thin Man in Charlie’s Angels after he was offered it by producers. He felt that the character’s dialogue was absolutely terrible and not believable, so he didn’t want to be a part of the movie. In his opinion, the dialogue was far too expositional, for one. But he did have ideas to improve the film—and the villain. Luckily, the movie’s producers took the time to listen to him. And they eventually cast him in the role… after Crispin wiped out ALL the character’s lines! Every single one!

Of course, if you’ve seen Charlie’s Angels, you know Glover’s character was written as a mute. That was his idea—to go that far with the character and make him come off in an unsettling way. And the director went along with it! So Crispin accepted the role by being allowed to play the character without saying a word.

Recalling the phenomenon after the hit movie’s success, Glover explained his decision to change (really, eliminate) all of his dialogue. “In the case of Charlie’s Angels, it was a very active character that had to do with a lot of physicality. When I read the screenplay, it was quite expositional; it didn’t need to be said. So it made it much stronger for the character not to say anything.”^[3]

7 Joyce Dewitt

One episode of the sitcom Three’s Company called for people to mistake Chrissy (played by Suzanne Somers) for a prostitute because she had a friend on the show who was a prostitute, and they looked similar. In the episode, that friend was supposed to call Chrissy “priceless.” And in response, Janet (played by Joyce Dewitt) was supposed to deliver a line about how “she’s going to stay that way.” But the real-life Dewitt hated the line, hated that it seemed as though it was devaluing women who are forced into sex work for lack of other options, and flat-out refused to say it.

Things got so contentious during a table read that fellow co-star John Ritter actually offered to have his character say the line instead. However, screenwriters refused to change the script to accommodate that! They REALLY wanted Dewitt’s character Janet to deliver that line. And Dewitt kept refusing. When it was time for the cast, producers, and writers to hold their table read in preparation for that controversial episode, Dewitt blew up at a producer named Mickey over the prostitute line.

Recalling the fight about the script years later, Dewitt said, “I leaned back in my chair and took the deepest breath. And instead of answering his idiotic question [about saying the line], I said, ‘Mickey, I’ll tell you what the deal is with this line. You can come out with a gun during the five-thirty show and hold it to my head, and I still won’t say that line for you. Is that clear enough?’ That’s what it took.” And indeed, the line was removed from the script and Dewitt got her way. Good for her!^[4]

6 Robert Reed

When Robert Reed played Mike Brady on The Brady Bunch, he was notorious among producers and screenwriters on the sitcom for fastidiously fact-checking all of his scripts. The most notable case in which Reed fact-checked a script and demanded a line change came during an episode where his TV co-stars Carol and Alice were cooking with strawberry preserves. The script called for Mike (played by Reed) to enter the room and say that the house smelled like “strawberry heaven.” There was just one problem with that line: Strawberries don’t have a smell when they are being cooked.

Reed was skeptical that anything could smell like “strawberry heaven,” so he did his research. And sure enough, he confirmed that strawberries smell like nothing while being cooked into dishes! So he decided he couldn’t say the line since it wouldn’t be true and accurate. He told screenwriters that he wouldn’t say that line since it wasn’t actually true, and he didn’t want to pass along misinformation. In an era like the modern one where fake news seems to be rampant, it sure is a breath of fresh air to hear of an actor so committed to telling the truth in every one of his lines!^[5]

5 Matthew Perry

Forget about just changing one or two lines in a script—sitcom star Matthew Perry once got an entire episode of Friends nixed! The episode was all about Perry’s character, Chandler Bing, going to a male strip club. The premise of the ep was that Chandler would go to the male strip club and even become a regular there because he liked the sandwiches—and not the men dancing on stage. However, the real-life Perry didn’t think that was a very wise episode for the long-running hit show to churn out. So he used his influence to kill the episode.

Perry read the script after it was first put in front of him for a table read. While the screenwriters were hopeful it would be a hit, he balked at it right from the start. Years later, Perry recalled how he killed the episode in an interview with Andy Cohen. And at the time, the legendary sitcom star needed just one line to do it! Perry told Cohen how he telephoned the executive producers with his simple demand: “And I called up [the producers], and I said, ‘Let’s not do this one.’” And that was that! The premise was rejected, and the male strip club plotline never came up in any future Friends episodes.^[6]

4 Ian Wright

Famous soccer player Ian Wright had the thrill of a lifetime when he appeared in the hit television series Ted Lasso with a minor cameo. However, Wright’s small but memorable appearance hit a major snag when he was asked to say something nice about the professional soccer club Tottenham! He had spent his entire career on the pitch playing against Tottenham (most notably as part of both Crystal Palace and Arsenal). So he simply couldn’t muster up the desire to say something nice about a club he had opposed so aggressively during his time in the game!

As it was originally intended, the line was supposed to be Wright saying in his guest-starring shot, “You know, it’s gonna be a tough game for Richmond because Tottenham are a great side.” But when it came down to it, he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t even act like he was saying anything good about Tottenham because he wouldn’t have meant it! Ted Lasso star Phil Dunster recalled what happened when Wright was handed the line in a script: “He was really lovely. He was just like, ‘You’re going to have to change it because I can’t say that.’” And they changed it! The line was removed altogether.^[7]

3 Meryl Streep

The line was supposed to be, “Everybody wants to be me.” But in the end, Meryl Streep made a game-time decision to change it to “Everybody wants to be us.” And when an actress as talented as Meryl Streep makes a call like that, well, what are you going to do? Tell her NOT to change the line? I don’t think so!

We’re talking here about the film The Devil Wears Prada, of course. Streep’s character, Miranda, was the aggressive and intimidating boss of the fashion empire in the flick. In the very last line of the film, screenwriters set it up so that her character could sum up her overly confident attitude by claiming that everybody wanted to be like her, sitting atop the fashion world in New York City. But during the table read for the movie, Streep didn’t like the vibe of that line as it was. So, she altered the “me” to “us” and gave the world an equally memorable final delivery of her own accord!

Actress Anne Hathaway looked back on that table read and the subsequent change in the movie itself years later. During her nostalgic analysis of Streep’s off-the-cuff change, Hathaway reasoned, “I think we all had an idea of what Miranda would sound like. It was a strident, bossy, barking voice. So when Meryl opened her mouth and basically whispered, everybody in the room drew a collective gasp. It was so unexpected and brilliant.”^[8]

2 Jane Fonda

Later in her career, Jane Fonda starred in the sitcom Grace and Frankie. During her run on the show, the legend was held in obvious high regard. In fact, she was so highly thought of that when she balked at delivering a line that the script had called for based on her religious beliefs, writers quickly took out the offending line at her request!

The context was an episode in which Grace, Fonda’s character, had to say, “Jesus Christ” at one point as an exclamation of shock. Fonda quickly informed show creator Marta Kauffman that she wasn’t comfortable with saying those words due to her strong Christian faith. Kaufmann relented and quickly made the change.

Speaking later about the incident and Fonda’s steadfast faith, the show creator explained, “These four actors are the most professional, glorious people I’ve ever worked with. I love them. So when they have an issue, it’s not that they’re being divas. It’s not that they’re being self-important. They have a real issue.”^[9]

1 Harrison Ford

In the original Star Wars script, Harrison Ford’s character Han Solo was supposed to say, “I love you, too,” after Princess Leia, played by Carrie Fisher, delivered her memorable “I love you” line. But when it came time to do the scene, Harrison went off-road with the improvisation and changed the line completely! Instead of saying, “I love you, too,” when Fisher dropped the monumental admission, Ford’s Han Solo replied, “I know.” And the whole thing was completely off the cuff!

Years later, Star Wars fans came to learn that Harrison hadn’t told anyone about his intention to change the line at the last minute. In fact, he didn’t really know that it would play out like that until he did it on the spot. He felt like “I know” fit Han Solo’s cocky personality much better than dropping an “I love you, too” on Princess Leia.

So he went with his gut and delivered the unscripted line. Thankfully for Ford, filmmaker George Lucas loved the ad-lib and kept it in the movie. It quickly became one of the most memorable lines of the whole damn thing, too. Turns out Ford had some pretty good instincts working in his favor on that one!^[10]

We tend to think of history as important people making important decisions, but far too often, we forget the human part of “human history.” Humans get sick, and humans make history. Every once in a while, those two overlap.

10 Gone With The Wind Was Written To Kill Time While Healing An Ankle Injury

Now considered one of the greatest books and movies of all time, Gone with the Wind is an American classic. Historians believe that it has literally changed how we view antebellum history.

However, it would not exist if Margaret Mitchell had never developed arthritis in her ankle. Unable to move, she became an insatiable reader. Her husband had to drag all of her library requests home every day.

He eventually got sick of continually bringing her books, so he brought her a typewriter. He wanted her to entertain herself by writing a book. Jokingly, he said, “Peggy, if you want another book, why don’t you write your own?” That manuscript became Gone with the Wind.

Margaret Mitchell had never wanted to write a book. When friends came by, she would hide the manuscript as pillows or put it under the rug. By 1929, her ankle had healed and the book was finished. She had no intention of publishing it.

In fact, it wasn’t until 10 years later that the book was published. She got the push after a friend laughed at the idea of Margaret Mitchell ever writing a book, saying “Imagine, anyone as silly as Peggy writing a book!”

9 Farts Drove Hitler Crazy

Adolf Hitler suffered from meteorism, a fancy way of saying that he farted a lot. To solve it, Hitler saw a lot of doctors who tried different diets, but none worked. In 1936, Theodor Morell successfully cured his farting. His prescriptions were helpful but led to Hitler’s demise.

To treat his flatulence, Dr. Morell prescribed “Dr. Koester’s Anti-Gas Pills” and weekly injections of amphetamines. These did help to make Hitler’s farts less stinky, but the pills contained extracts of strychnine and atropine.

The key ingredients of those pills were belladonna and strychnine. Belladonna is a poison that causes excitement, confusion, and hallucinations. Strychnine causes agitation, apprehension, fear, and restlessness.

Starting in 1940, Hitler took 20 of those pills every day. He also took daily injections of amphetamines and cocaine. The effects on his nervous system are incalculable. Common symptoms include delirium, violent outburst, paranoia, and hallucinations.

While high on meth, Hitler berated Mussolini at their last meeting in 1943. This meeting severed an already strained alliance. As the war progressed, Hitler became increasingly insane and aggravated.

By April 1945, Hitler was trapped in the bunker and was a raving meth head. In his last few hours, he took another dose of meth. Aggravation, paranoia, and violent tendencies came to a boil with his suicide.

8 Hong Xiuquan Got Sick, Thought He Was Jesus’s Brother, And 20 Million People Died

Hong Xiuquan is not well-known in the US, but he started a civil war that killed more people than the American version. In fact, both of them happened at the same time—except the Chinese version lasted three times as long and took 20 times as many lives. It also was important in bringing down the Qin dynasty.

All of this started because a disgruntled civil servant had a fever. Hong Xiuquan was fascinated by the Protestant missionaries in China. While reading their teachings, he was suddenly struck by sickness and was unconscious for about four days.

While in a coma, he had a vision that he was the younger brother of Jesus and had been taken up to Heaven to see Him. Hong also saw a bearded man who told him to slay all the demons.

As the other son of God, his cult gained a lot of traction. The teachings of the “Heavenly Kingdom” were also inspired by the fever to kill demons. In fact, the word “demon” became someone who doubted Hong’s teachings. This crazy man got a hot head, and the Taiping Rebellion tore apart an empire.

7 Communism Started As A Skin Rash

Karl Marx’s Das Kapital is one of the most important collection of words in human history. This book directly outlined how communism could work and be implemented. Karl Marx believed that there was a mass conspiracy among the wealthy to suppress the poor.

According to a theory by Professor Sam Shuster in the British Journal of Dermatology, this paranoia was caused by a rare skin condition called hidradenitis suppurativa. Besides boils and pus, hidradenitis suppurativa produces feelings of exploitation and alienation.

Marx associated his physical suffering with the suffering of the poor. The personal turmoil, physical and mental, helped foster a state of mind that conceived of communism.

6 A White Woman Lost Her Voice, And Thousands Of Black People Gained Theirs

As a genre, the blues was influenced by the suffering of the Jim Crow–era South. To best capture this, record companies hired white women to cover the songs. But all of that changed when Mamie Smith recorded “Crazy Blues.”

Mamie Smith holds the distinction of being the first African American to be recorded singing the blues. She was only allowed to do this when white singer Sophie Tucker became ill and backed out of a recording session.

Songwriter Perry Bradford convinced the recording studio that audiences could handle hearing a black person sing a genre that they had created. The song has become a classic, but its real legacy was the boom in African-American recording artists.

For the first time, African-American blues and jazz musicians recorded in mass numbers. This launched an era of music known as classic female blues. Legendary acts like Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey were heard for the first time.

In a decade that saw the rise of Louis Armstrong, Robert Johnson, and Duke Ellington, it is wonderful that Sophie Tucker got sick when she did. Who knows how many wonderful songs and artists we were denied before Sophie became ill and how many more we would have missed if this racist policy had continued much longer?

5 A Torn Groin Killed JFK

In September 1963, President John F. Kennedy’s womanizing proved to be excessive. After a particularly thorough session, he tore his groin muscle. To prevent further damage, he was ordered by his doctors to wear a stiff canvas shoulder-to-groin back brace.

This locked his body in an upright position. With the combination of an old back brace that he always wore, Kennedy was unable to bend over. For any other person, that would cause an awkward gait. But for Kennedy, it proved to be deadly.

When Kennedy was struck by the first bullet in his assassination, he did not lean forward like Governor John Connally. Instead, he remained upright. His rigid posture allowed Lee Harvey Oswald to get three shots in before Kennedy could duck. Both doctors on duty at Parkland Hospital, Dr. Charles Carrico and Dr. Malcolm Perry, testified at the Warren Commission that Kennedy could have survived the wounds from the first bullet if he had not been wearing his brace.

4 Martin Luther Pooped Out A New Religion

The Protestant Reformation began with the writings of Martin Luther. But he actually started this international movement because he was having trouble starting a movement in the bathroom.

Suffering from chronic constipation, Martin Luther spent many hours in solitary contemplation on the toilet. That alone time was where he came up with many of his theological thoughts. It was upon the throne that he first wrote down his “95 Theses,” the document that instigated the reformation.

More importantly, his interpretation of Sola fide was also written on the toilet. The idea of “faith alone” was the first theological difference between Catholicism and Lutheranism.

There are many fecal references throughout his writings, including “shitting on the Devil” and “breaking wind at the Pope.” Aware of the role that poop had played in his life, Luther credits his insights to the “knowledge the Holy Spirit gave [him] on the privy in the tower.”

3 Napoleon Got Hemorrhoids And Lost His Empire

Tragically remembered for the massive death toll that also inspired an ABBA song, Waterloo is one of the most iconic losses in history. The battle becomes even more tragic when you learn that it could have been a victory for Napoleon if he had not had hemorrhoids.

Due to a particularly painful bout, Napoleon could not lead his soldiers on horseback. Even when he was able to communicate with his troops, he gave illogical directions. No longer able to lead, he delegated to the inept Marshal Michel Ney.

A few days before the battle, Napoleon had tried to treat his hemorrhoids. But his doctors had accidentally prescribed an overdose of laudanum, and he was still feeling the effects. He was drowsy and actually fell asleep during the battle.

This forced him to reschedule the battle from 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM and then to 12:00 noon. The delay allowed the Prussians to join the British forces. Wellington himself credits the new army with turning the tide.

2 The First Time That A Door Defeated Nixon

You may already know that a piece of duct tape on a door at the Watergate Hotel brought down Nixon in 1972. Twelve years earlier, another door cost Nixon his first election. Begging the question, what do doors know?

During the first televised debate in presidential history, Nixon’s sweatiness made him look untrustworthy and is generally considered an important factor in the outcome of the election. But the reason for Nixon’s haggard look was a bang on the knee.

Before the debate, Nixon had just been released from the hospital. There, he had spent 12 days on his back after hitting his knee on a car door as he got out of his car. He developed an infection from which it took weeks to recover.

Nixon was still drained of energy when he took the stage. He had lost weight and looked gaunt. Running a fever of 102 during the debate, Nixon sweated in one of the most iconic moments of political imagery. In those beads of sweat, Nixon’s chances of becoming president were wiped away.

1 The Throat That Caused A World War

Under Frederick III’s leadership, the politically volatile German Empire was improving. As many European states were becoming more nationalistic, tense, and imperialistic, Frederick favored constitutional reform, accountability, a more democratic Germany with a strong parliament, and the reluctance to use military force.

However, all of that ended after 99 days. Unfortunately for Frederick and the rest of the world, Frederick died from a treatable cancer of the larynx. The disease was misdiagnosed by Frederick’s doctor three times. Each time, he believed that the lump was benign. If the doctor had treated Frederick correctly, the path to World War I would have been quite different or maybe nonexistent.

When the bombastic Wilhelm took over, he pushed for aggressive diplomacy and territorial expansion through strengthening the navy. He also antagonized Britain by supporting rebels throughout their empire and calling their king “Satan.”

The tense situation in Europe could have been resolved if Frederick had lived just a little bit longer. France and Germany were mending their relationship. Frederick III was one of the few Germans who was respected in France. If Germany had become a constitutional monarchy, Parliament would have restrained Wilhelm and his plans for domination.

When Nate is not licking flagpoles to try to change history, he is a freelance writer. You can send your comments or any chicken noodle soup recipes to his email at [email protected] or other websites he writes for.

It may seem like there’s a ton of money to be made in the film industry, but that’s actually not the case. Not always, at least. In many instances, actors stick their necks out to do a movie they are very passionate about or are very inspired to produce, and they come away broke! Forget the multi-million dollar salaries, the huge box office totals, and the massive marketing budgets. Some movies just suck money out of the room. Even for the stars who sign on to do them, hoping it’ll propel their A-list profiles to even higher heights!

In this list, we’ll take a closer look at ten Hollywood movie stars who actually lost money producing hit movies seen by millions of people. From marketing costs stretching the budget thin to paltry low salaries after agreeing to get on set, these ten stories prove that the movie biz isn’t all sunshine and rainbows!

Related: Top 10 Tremendous Wastes Of Money

10 Dwayne Johnson

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was incredibly hopeful that moviegoers would love to see Black Adam (2022). The brains behind the DC Comics Extended Universe were hopeful that audiences would connect with the character, too. After all, the franchise was sputtering at the time, and they desperately needed to turn over a new leaf. So they signed Johnson on in large part because all of his movies have always been massive hits. Well, until this one! The superhero story about an Egyptian slave from 2600 BC who was granted great power by the ancient Gods simply failed to connect with audiences in the biggest and worst way.

For one, the film’s production was marred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, when it came time to release it, Johnson himself put his money where his mouth was and stepped up as both a producer and a promotional mouthpiece. Sadly, it didn’t work. Despite all of Johnson’s other films raking in dough, this one lost tons and tons of money for both him and Warner Brothers. According to reports, the film’s funders lost as much as $100 million after fans failed to show interest in the story and its off-shoot title character. Oops!^[1]

9 George Clooney

George Clooney believed so much in his 2008 sports comedy film Leatherheads (2008) that he invested a lot of his own money to make it work. But while the production got off without a hitch, and the film did live long enough to see theaters and be sold to moviegoers, the public mostly panned the flick. Sure, George may have written the film, starred in it, directed it, and even produced it by taking in the bigger picture with marketing and funding. However, he forgot the most important part: to make a movie the public wanted to see.

Ultimately, the film came to life on a budget of $58 million, which was put up by George’s own production company, Smokehouse Productions. Unfortunately for the ER alum and his Smokehouse brethren, they didn’t come anywhere close to making back their money. According to film industry watchdog reports, the film only brought in just a shade over $41 million in box office receipts. So it left George about $17 million in the hole. Ouch!^[2]

8 Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner isn’t afraid of investing his own money into his films. There’s just one problem with that strategy, though: When he misses, he misses REALLY big. Take The Postman (1997) as the perfect example of this. Costner himself helped fund the flick, but unfortunately, audiences didn’t go see it nearly enough to earn the star his money back. The film’s budget topped $80 million, according to reports, but it only turned around and brought in $17.6 million in ticket receipts. Worse yet, it didn’t even get an international release, preventing Costner from scoring big on foreign money after its disappointing American run.

But is Costner upset with losing so much money on the movie? Nope! Speaking to HuffPost about it after the film bombed, Kevin called The Postman a “really good movie.” Defending his decision to fund and produce it, he added: “If you revisit the movie, that’s a good thing to do. You can go back and revisit some movies that made well over $100 million and you might not care anything about them. And you can go back and maybe review a movie like that—you know, it was a pretty big, epic movie.” Hey, as long as he’s proud of it and okay with it losing so much money, who are we to criticize?^[3]

7 Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt felt so strongly about his 2007 movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford that he put up his own money to get it off the ground and out in theaters. The issue came when he found out how fans didn’t feel nearly as passionately about the movie. Pitt and his production team spent more than $30 million on the film—much of which came out of the A-list star’s own deep pockets. But the movie only returned about half of that total in gate receipts, making it a complete failure on every financial level.

Don’t count on Pitt regretting the process, though. “The way producers get us actors on is if it’s something we love and have to do, we do it for a price and get the movie made,” Pitt explained to Variety five years after the movie came out, in 2012. “It actually cost me money in the end. I paid to work on that one, and I think the film still lost money, but it was one of my favorites and one of the most rewarding to me.” Of course, there isn’t a price to be put on emotional satisfaction. Still, the thought of losing tens of millions of dollars is a tough pill to swallow!^[4]

6 John Travolta

John Travolta took a big risk when he decided to take Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s book Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 to the big screen. He had trouble nearly from the very beginning, too. Most notably, Travolta couldn’t find funding for the 2000 movie! So he had to fund it himself if he wanted to see it get made—and that’s exactly what he did.

The A-lister put in millions of his own dollars to fund the film and even agreed to forfeit the majority of his normal paycheck to make it. In turn, he hoped to see a major return on his investment with a popular showing at the box office. But he didn’t! Not even close. The film’s budget ended up soaring higher than $73 million in the end. And as for how much it brought in? Well, it didn’t even clear $30 million in returns. Ouch!

Still, even though he took a $43 million haircut, Travolta has no regrets about it. Speaking to the Daily Beast about losing so much money on Hubbard’s book-turned-film, Travolta argued: “Why would I ever regret that? I had the power to do whatever I wanted, and I chose to do a book that I thought was worthy of making into a movie. It’s a beautiful film. It’s a good movie.”^[5]

5 Sharon Stone

Sharon Stone had one of the most iconic film roles of all time with her work in Basic Instinct (1992). But it might surprise you to learn that she didn’t make any money on the film! Her co-star, Michael Douglas, may have commanded millions of dollars with his role in the flick, and he came away as a clear financial winner. But Sharon didn’t make that kind of money for her role, which catapulted her into true superstardom. Then, to make matters worse, she had to do the awards show run because the film was so successful—and so she lost money spending big on dresses, makeup, and stylists!

Between promoting the movie as it hit theaters and then doing the Oscars dance after it started to gain traction, Stone ended up bottoming out in the red. After looking back on her Basic Instinct experience in a chat years later with the CBC, Stone reminisced. “I didn’t get paid [well] to do Basic Instinct. I made a little bit of money. Michael made $14 million and has points. I made not enough money to buy my dress to go to the Oscars the next year. I was in this weird limbo where I was suddenly famous, but didn’t have any money.”^[6]

4 Jack Black

Jack Black thought so highly of Tenacious D that he used up all his willpower and goodwill with producers and Hollywood movers and shakers to bring it to the big screen in 2006. The result was the funny and bizarre movie Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny. While he may have loved that the film was even greenlit and produced at all, his adoration for his band didn’t translate into a financial windfall. In fact, it went completely in the other direction! Things got so bad that Black even had to forgo his usual $12 million per movie salary that he had been accustomed to drawing in other productions.

In the end, the movie was made on a $20 million budget. That’s not huge compared to the costs of some films nowadays. However, the issue was that Jack’s passion project only made back $13.9 million in theaters. So that’s quite a significant loss compared to what he and Tenacious D co-creator Kyle Gass had been hoping to get. Oh, yeah, and that’s the other thing: being partners on the musical side of things, Gass and Black had agreed to split their movie money evenly in the end. So each one ended up netting about $500,000 on a movie that cost $20 million of their own money and privately raised investor funds to make. Yikes!^[7]

3 Will Smith

Will Smith and his production company Overbrook Entertainment took a big chance in 2013 when they took the sci-fi flick After Earth to theaters. The film wasn’t cheap at all to make. In fact, they spent $150 million to produce the film—and then another $100 million to market it. Those numbers are massive in any context! And they are even more massive when you consider how much the film didn’t make! In the end, After Earth only brought back $234 million during its theatrical release. A big number out of context, obviously, but when you spend north of $250 million to get it out there, falling $17 million short doesn’t feel good. Smith himself later called it “the most painful failure in my career.”

“What I learned from that failure is how you win,” Smith told Esquire after the movie bombed so badly, and he took some time to reflect on its losses. “I got reinvigorated after the failure of ‘After Earth.’ I stopped working for a year and a half. I had to dive into why it was so important for me to have number-one movies. And I never would have looked at myself in that way.”

And he continued: “That Monday started the new phase of my life, a new concept: Only love is going to fill that hole. You can’t win enough, you can’t have enough money, you can’t succeed enough. There is not enough. The only thing that will ever satiate that existential thirst is love. And I just remember that day I made the shift from wanting to be a winner to wanting to have the most powerful, deep, and beautiful relationships I could possibly have.”^[8]

2 Patricia Arquette

Patricia Arquette was paid so little to be in Boyhood that the movie nearly wasn’t worth it to do. Financially, she came away with just a few thousand dollars for her trouble. Which, when you factor in time spent on set, time preparing and learning lines and blocking, and the costs of having assistants and helpers keep up her home and pets when she was gone to film, it just wasn’t worth it! Well, that is until she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Acctress for her role in it.

“It’s important to me as an actor to be able to make a living, but I’m going to tell you something,” Arquette revealed after the movie hit theaters and turned into a massive critical and award-show success. “I paid more money to my babysitter and my dog walker than I made on ‘Boyhood,’ and to be in Boyhood.” That seems kind of backward to us, considering popular movies make bank. But again, she won an Oscar for her role, so we have a feeling that she’s not too upset by the outcome.^[9]

1 Rebel Wilson

Rebel Wilson revealed in her memoir that the early career-defining role she had in Bridesmaids netted her just $3,500 in salary. That’s a remarkably small salary for a movie that turned out to be so popular and well-known. Not only that, but Rebel actually had to wait more than a year before the check cleared and was sent to her! We hope she wasn’t counting on paying rent or anything with the proceeds. She did use the money to join the Screen Actors Guild, at least, so that’s a nice move to make. But she ended up in the red on it overall because she had to dish out dollars for dresses and beauty bills when it came time to premiere and promote the film!

“I basically made no money,” Rebel wrote about the financial reality behind Bridesmaids in her memoir. “I lost money because I had to pay to go to the premiere, like to buy my dress and everything. That was a really skint year where I was living on $60 a week in L.A. once I’d paid my rent and my car hire. I wasn’t partying or living this [movie star] life. It was basically having that focus, trying to write for myself, like going to auditions.”^[10]

We’ve heard about governments taking people to court. But what about the government taking nonliving things to court? As it turns out, the United States has done just that—and more than a few times.

It is hilarious and sounds weird, since, obviously, nonliving things cannot commit crimes or run afoul of the law. Nevertheless, some inanimate objects have ended up as defendants in court, as the following ten courtroom farces illustrate.

10 United States v. 434 Main Street, Tewksbury, Massachusetts

United States v. 434 Main Street, Tewksbury, Massachusetts was a joint litigation in 2012 by the Tewksbury Police Department and the US Department of Justice against a motel owned by Russ Caswell. The motel was built by Caswell’s father in 1955 and is located at the address stated in the lawsuit.

The Tewksbury Police Department and the Justice Department were working together to seize the property under a civil forfeiture law that allows the government to seize properties that have been used for crime. The government has often abused the law in what is said to be synonymous with daylight robbery.

The reasons for abusing the law boil down to money. In this case, the Justice Department hoped to sell the motel for about $1.5 million, out of which the Tewksbury Police Department would have received 80 percent. The police department ganged up with the Justice Department to seize the property because the state of Massachusetts was unlikely to allow them to do so.

In court, the plaintiffs argued that drug dealers often used the motel. This is even though the number of drug deals that happened in the motel was insignificant, a whopping 15 between 1994 and 2008.

A Massachusetts district court later ruled that the US government could not seize the property, since there is no evidence that Caswell and his wife were involved in any of the drug deals that happened in the motel. Besides, the government and police never made any attempt to stop drug dealers from using the motel and never warned the Caswells of any consequences should the drug deals continue.^[1]

9 United States v. One Package Of Japanese Pessaries

In 1873, the US Congress passed the Comstock Act, which forbade the sale and distribution of sexual materials, including books and contraceptives. The act was controversial among women’s right activists who promoted the use contraceptives for birth control. The US government followed the act up with the Tariff Act of 1930 that empowered the US Customs to seize any contraceptive shipped into the country.

In January 1933, the US Customs seized a package containing some contraceptives. The package was intended for Hannah Stone, a physician working with the Birth Control Clinical Research Bureau in New York. The bureau was owned by Margaret Sanger, a birth control activist, and was founded to distribute contraceptives to women. However, Sander fronted it as a research institution with interests in birth control.

Customs took the package to court instead of Stone. They claimed they did not need to charge Stone, since she had not received the package before it was intercepted. Sanger got two attorneys to defend the package in court. They argued that contraceptives were necessary to prevent diseases.

On December 10, 1935, a US district court ruled that Customs could not seize the package, since the Tariff Act did not apply to it. Customs took the case to the Court of Appeals, which, on December 7, 1936, ruled that physicians were exempted from the Tariff Act. The case was a landmark one, as it paved the way for physicians to sell contraceptives for birth control, unlike in the past, where they could only sell it to prevent or treat diseases.

8 United States v. Approximately 64,695 Pounds Of Shark Fins

In 2002, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) seized a US vessel transporting shark fins to Guatemala. The vessel, King Diamond II, had been contracted by Hong Kong-based Tai Loong Hong Marine Products, Ltd (TLH) to pick up some shark fins from fishing vessels on the high seas and ship them to Guatemala, where they were to be sold.

In court, the USCG argued that the ship violated the Shark Finning Prohibition Act, which forbade the sale of shark fins. The government initially named the ship as the defendant but later switched to naming the shark fins. The government argued that the King Diamond II qualified as a fishing vessel since it had aided another fishing vessel at sea. That made sense with the district court, which ruled that TLH forfeited the fins to the government.

TLH appealed the decision. It argued that the ship was not a fishing vessel, since it never assisted any fishing boat. Rather, it purchased shark fins from a fishing vessel. In 2008, the Court of Appeals sided with TLH, stating that the Magnuson Act that covered the Shark Finning Prohibition Act did not clearly explain what constituted a fishing vessel. And since the act never forbade the buying of shark fins, TLH had done nothing wrong.^[3]

7 United States v. One Solid Gold Object In The Form Of A Rooster

In July 1960, the US government issued an arrest warrant for a rooster—not a living one but a 6.4-kilogram (14 lb) rooster made of 18-carat gold. The rooster was exhibited in a glass display case at Nugget Casino, Sparks, Nevada. It had been sculpted in 1958 at the behest of the casino owner, Richard L. Graves, to advertise a fried chicken restaurant inside the casino.

The sculpture happened to have been commissioned at a time when the US needed more gold. Years earlier, the federal government had passed the Gold Reserve Act of 1934, which required Americans to surrender their gold to the Department of the Treasury. Secret Service agents met with Graves to inform him that he had violated the Gold Reserve Act but left him alone after confirming he’d received permission from the San Francisco Mint.

Things took a turn in July 1960, when federal agents arrested the rooster and sent it to a bank vault in California. The rooster appeared before a jury in July 1962, and Graves and the Treasury Department argued over whether it was an art or a tool of commerce.

The Treasury Department argued that the rooster was a tool of commerce since it was used for advertisement. Paul Laxalt, Graves’s attorney and future lieutenant governor, governor, and senator, argued that it was art. Laxalt won, and Graves got his golden rooster back. Had Laxalt lost, the rooster would have been melted down and added to the Federal Reserve.^[4]

6 United States v. One Tyrannosaurus Bataar Skeleton

In 2012, Heritage Auctions in Dallas was preparing to auction the bones of a Tyrannosaurus bataar (aka Tarbosaurus bataar) when the auction was suspended by a court order. The order was filed on behalf of the Mongolian government, which suspected the 70-million-year-old fossil had been illegally excavated from the country and shipped to the US. Under Mongolian law, the state owned all fossils dug from the country.

The US government arrested the dinosaur and took it to court. The primary suspect, Eric Prokopi, was not charged because there was no evidence to indicate he had illegally obtained the fossil. However, investigations revealed that Prokopi had illegally excavated the fossil from the Gobi Desert in Mongolia and exported it to the US.

On October 17, 2012, Homeland Security agents searched Prokopi’s home, where they found another Tyrannosaurus bataar skeleton. A delivery truck even arrived at Prokopi’s home with more fossils while the agents were still there. The US government charged Prokopi in another case named The United States of America v. Eric Prokopi.

Besides illegally excavating the fossils, Prokopi faced other charges for customs fraud, since he had lied to US Customs about the content of the package containing the dinosaur remains.^[5] He was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. He could have received as many as 17 years, but the judge was lenient with him because he cooperated with investigators.

5 United States v. Forty Barrels & Twenty Kegs Of Coca-Cola

On October 20, 1909, US federal agents enforcing the Pure Food and Drug Act seized 40 barrels and 20 kegs of Coca-cola syrup as it was being transported from Atlanta, Georgia, to Chattanooga, Tennessee. The act had been passed to prevent anyone from selling dangerous foods to the public. Coca-Cola contained caffeine, a stimulant that the Department of Agriculture claimed was dangerous to the body.

The Coca-Cola Company and the government met in court in 1911. On the side of the government was Harvey Washington Wiley of the Department of Agriculture. Wiley argued that caffeine was poisonous. Wiley targeted Coca-Cola instead of tea or coffee, which contained more caffeine, because caffeine was not a natural ingredient of Coca-Cola and because the Coca-Cola Company marketed the drink to children.

The Coca-Cola Company contracted Harry Hollingworth to launch a study into the effects of caffeine on the body. Harry concluded that while Coca-Cola was a mild stimulant, it was not dangerous to the body. The US government lost the case after the judge determined that caffeine was a necessary ingredient in Coca-Cola. The US government appealed the decision and lost but later found victory in the Supreme Court in 1916. This made Coca-Cola reduce the caffeine content of its drink.^[6]

4 United States v. Thirty-Seven Photographs

In 1971, the US government took legal action against 37 obscene photographs that were brought into the country by Milton Luros on October 24, 1969. US Customs seized the photographs since they ran afoul of the law banning the importation of pornographic material.

Luros argued that the pictures were not pornographic material. While they could be classified as obscene, he only planned on adding them into a book detailing different sex positions. The court determined that the law banning the importation of obscene materials was unconstitutional and ruled that Customs return the photographs to Luros.^[7]

3 United States v. $124,700 In U.S. Currency

On May 28, 2003, Emiliano Gomez Gonzolez was driving along Interstate 80 in Nebraska when he was stopped for speeding. During questioning, the trooper realized that Gonzolez’s name was not the same as on the rental contract. A sniffer dog also barked at the vehicle. This culminated in the trooper searching the vehicle and finding $124,700 hidden inside a cooler. He promptly seized the money.

In 2006, Gonzolez’s business partners denied all charges of drug dealing in court. They claimed they had all contributed the money to buy a refrigerated truck they needed for a new business. Gonzalez had flown to Chicago to get the truck, but it had already been sold.

He could not return by air because he had purchased a one-way ticket, thinking he would drive the truck back. He did not use his name to rent the vehicle, either, but depended on someone else to rent it for him since he had no credit card.

The court determined that the money had nothing to do with drugs and ordered it returned to Gonzolez. An appeals court overturned this judgment, ruling that the police had the right to seize such huge amount from anyone.^[8]

2 United States v. Eight Thousand Eight Hundred And Fifty Dollars In United States Currency

On September 10, 1975, US Customs seized $8,850 from Mary Josephine Vasquez as she arrived from Canada at the Los Angeles airport. US law requires that anyone with more than $5,000 worth of currency on them declare it upon entering the US. Vasquez never did. When a Customs agent asked, she said she had less than $5,000 on her.

The Customs officer later discovered she had $8,850 on her and seized it. Customs initially thought Vasquez was involved in drugs but still held onto the money even after investigations revealed that she had nothing to do with drugs. They argued that she had deliberately lied to a Customs officer. In March 1977, the US Customs took legal action to make Vasquez forfeit the money to the government.

Vasquez tried making the court throw the lawsuit out on grounds that the 18 months that had lapsed between the time the money was seized and the lawsuit was filed violated due process. A district court stated that the time was normal considering the circumstances and ruled that the government could take the money. An appeals court reversed this decision.^[9]

1 United States v. One Lucite Ball Containing Lunar Material (One Moon Rock) And One Ten Inch By Fourteen Inch Wooden Plaque

On March 24, 2003, a US District court in Florida decided a case between the US government and 1.1 grams of Moon rock attached to a wooden plaque. The rock and plaque had been gifted to Honduras by President Nixon in 1973. The plaque was kept at Honduras’s presidential palace, where it went missing before reappearing in the US.

The plaque was in the possession of Alan Rosen, who had purchased it from retired Honduras colonel Roberto Argurcia Ugarte for $50,000. The colonel initially wanted $1 million but later settled for $50,000. This was even though specks of lunar dust had sold for ten times that amount around that time. The colonel stated that the rock and plaque were gifted to him after a coup in 1973.

Rosen paid $10,000 in cash, gave the colonel a refrigerated truck worth $15,000, and gave him another $10,000 in two $5,000 installments. He still owed the colonel $15,000 but did not pay, since he later lost the rock to the US government.

NASA had heard of the rock and launched an undercover operation to retrieve it. An agent posted an ad in a newspaper requesting for someone who wanted to sell Moon rocks. Rosen responded to the ad and proposed selling his rock for $5–10 million but settled for $5 million.

US Customs got involved in the sting operation, which culminated in a May 4, 1999, request by the Honduras government for the return of the plaque and rock. It was determined that the plaque and rock had been stolen between 1990 and 1994. The US government sued to retrieve the rock from Rosen and won.^[10]

Are we alone in the universe? Ever since humankind discovered the existence of other planets and solar systems, we have been wondering if we might be contacted by another intelligent species one day. International SETI science projects and amateur backyard astronomers alike have directed their telescopes to deep space to find transmissions that might have been sent by alien civilizations. The quest to find evidence of extraterrestrial life is so profoundly ingrained into our minds that it has sparked countless supposed eyewitness stories about unidentified flying objects and other weird phenomena.

There have been multiple occasions when scientists believed they might have discovered signs of extraterrestrial intelligence, only to notice that the findings were something else, ranging from a pulsar to a leaking microwave. Some electromagnetic wave transmissions and weird sightings have never gotten a definitive explanation. From actual scientific hypotheses to the most famous weird UFO theories, here are ten signs of extraterrestrial life that either turned out to be false alarms or still have no official explanation.

10 Martian Canals

One of the big astronomical misconceptions of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was the idea that canals existed on the surface of Mars.^[1] Some astronomers concluded that the only explanation for these canals was that they were built by an intelligent species for irrigation. American astronomer Percival Lowell published a trilogy of books explaining his theory about the intelligent design of the canals, and the press circulated the idea into public knowledge.

Debate about the existence of the structures and Martian life raged on until the early 20th century, when advancing technology proved the whole concept of the canals to be false. The canals were merely an optical illusion caused by the blurry telescopes of the time and the mind’s tendency to connect dots into lines.

9 The HD 164595 Signal

HD 164595, a star very similar to our Sun, rose to the headlines in 2016 when it came to knowledge that in 2015, a possible alien signal had been broadcast from its direction.^[2] The star is orbited by one planet that cannot sustain life, but it was hypothesized that the star might have more undetected planets orbiting it. The signal lasted for two seconds and was caught only once. Since it was so brief, its source was hard to pinpoint.

Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) investigated the signal to evaluate its possible alien origin. SETI concluded that it was probably caused by terrestrial interference, since it was only caught by one telescope. Its exact origin was never found out, but it most likely came from a satellite.

8 Kenneth Arnold

The world is full of unreliable eyewitness stories about flying saucers, but aviator and businessman Kenneth Arnolds’s UFO story was the first one to be widely reported in the media. In 1947, Arnold claimed that he had seen nine weird flying objects while he had been flying over Washington state. He described them moving like a saucer skipping on the surface of water, and the press quickly came up with the terms “flying saucer” and “flying disc,” as they misunderstood Arnold’s words and thought the flying objects were shaped like saucers.

The Air Force stated that Arnold had seen a mirage,^[3] but many people, including Arnold himself, were unsatisfied with this explanation and never let go of the idea that he had witnessed alien spacecraft. Later, Arnold claimed to see more flying saucers and wrote a book about his experiences, becoming almost a legendary figure among ufologists.

7 Perytons

For decades, the Bleien Radio Observatory in Switzerland and the Parkes radio telescope in Australia had been catching bursts of short signals that nobody could explain. They were named perytons after the mythological hybrid creature Peryton. Their frequency and habit of appearing in clusters resembled the behavior of fast radio bursts (FRBs), which are extragalactic signals of unknown origin. Fast radio bursts had been theorized to be artificial messages sent by extraterrestrial intelligence, so the perytons also created some speculation. It turned out the signals were coming from near Earth, which debunked the alien theory, but their exact origin was still a mystery for years.

The enigma was finally solved in 2015, when scientists at the Parkes telescope discovered the rather mundane origin of the signals: their leaking kitchen microwave. Every time the microwave door was opened prematurely, it released a radio pulse that resembled FRBs. Sometimes, great mysteries have underwhelming explanations.^[4]

6 Fast Radio Bursts Coming From Alien Starships

The unexplained fast radio bursts caught by telescopes around the world have been theorized to be messages from extraterrestrial species, but in 2017, a pair of scientists proposed they could have another kind of alien origin. Manasvi Lingam and Abraham Loeb hypothesized that the radio bursts could be used to propel highly advanced alien spaceships forward in the vastness of outer space.^[5] In this theory, the FRBs we have detected are not messages to us but a byproduct of the spaceships needing to be powered by something more powerful than regular fuel.

Lingam and Loeb have done the mathematics to support their idea, but recent findings of FRBs that repeat themselves and come from a certain place in the sky make this theory seem less plausible. The bursts might actually be caused by neutron stars or be related to black holes.

5 Crop Circles

Crop circles, also known as crop formations, are large patterns created on crop fields by pressing down the plants. In the last four decades, more and more of these formations have been appearing, even though the idea itself is nothing new. Their overnight appearance and huge scale make them seem mysterious, and some people investigating the patterns have claimed that there is no way they have been created by humans.

The theory of aliens creating the circles as messages was never supported by scientists but was brought to public consciousness after the phenomenon got wide media coverage. In reality, crop circles are man-made. Some are artwork; others are just pranks meant to confuse the public.^[6] Nevertheless, the theory of UFOs having created the crop formations still lives on in some pseudoscientific belief systems despite having been refuted.

4 Alien Megastructures Around Tabby’s Star

The now-retired Kepler space observatory is famous for its search for Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. In 2015, citizen scientists going through the data collected by Kepler noticed something unusual about one star. Tabby’s star, formally known as KIC 8462852, had some very unusual changes in its brightness. The star seemed to have irregular light fluctuations, dimming substantially.

There have been various theories about the origin of the phenomenon. Some astronomers proposed there could be alien megastructures around the star.^[7] Energy-harvesting megastructures encompassing an entire star, such as Dyson swarms, were originally introduced in sci-fi but made their way to actual scientific thought experiments. Tabby’s star was of great interest to SETI, but recent studies say the dimming is most likely caused by dust and not any opaque object, intelligently designed or natural.

3 Roswell UFO Incident

The Roswell incident is probably the most famous UFO tale ever, with the US military and politicians having had to comment on the incident multiple times even decades later. In the summer of 1947, a United States Army Air Forces balloon crashed at a ranch located in New Mexico. A man named William Brazel found the debris, and having heard stories about flying saucers, he told the local sheriff he might have found the remains of one. The sheriff called the local Air Force base, which issued a press release about the event.^[8] It got a lot of interest until a new press statement was made to explain the terrestrial origin of the balloon.

Decades later, the incident got new attention when UFO researches started interviewing the supposed witnesses and going through documents. The new theory was that alien bodies had been removed from the crash site, and the US government had covered up the truth about the Roswell events. This might sound far-fetched, but in a 2013 US poll, a fifth of the respondents still believed the Roswell incident really was an UFO crash, making it one of the most widely believed alien theories.

2 The Little Green Men Signal

In 1967, graduate student Jocelyn Bell detected a curious signal at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory in the UK. The signal was so consistent and fast that it seemed artificial, but it was not man-made. Bell and her advisor Antony Hewish famously dubbed it LGM-1 for “Little Green Men.”^[9] Extraterrestrial messaging was not the scientists’ main suspect, but they had to consider the possibility and how they would announce it to the public in case it turned out to be aliens. When they discovered a similar signal, they ruled out the possibility of extraterrestrials, since it was unlikely that two separate alien species would be trying to communicate with them simultaneously.

In reality, Bell and Hewish had discovered pulsars, rotating neutron stars that that emit beams of electromagnetic radiation. The beams from such rotating stars are pointed toward Earth at regular intervals, making them seem like intelligently designed transmissions. Even though it was a false alarm in terms of aliens, the discovery of pulsars was a very useful finding for astronomers.

1 Wow! Signal

In 1977, SETI astronomer Jerry R. Ehman was reviewing data collected the previous day by Ohio State University’s “Big Ear” telescope. He noticed the telescope had picked up 72 seconds of a noteworthy, strong signal. What made the signal so notable was its frequency. The frequency range of the signal is protected, meaning nobody on Earth can broadcast on it, so the signal did not come from Earth.

At the same time, that specific frequency could very plausibly be used for communication. It would make sense for an intelligent species to pick a “channel” that is easy to listen to, as opposed to the frequencies of Big Bang background radiation or quantum noise. It also closely mimicked the electromagnetic wavelength of hydrogen, the most common and easily recognizable element in the universe.

The signal was named “Wow!” after the excited comment Ehman wrote on the computer printout. The source of Wow! has never been determined,^[10] making it the strongest candidate for alien messaging ever discovered.

A meteor is the fireball that occurs when a space rock (called a meteoroid) burns during its entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.^[1] For this reason, every space rock that falls naturally to Earth inevitably becomes a meteor, be it of greater or lesser intensity. This concept serves as a starting point for the following list.

But it happens that sometimes an alien rock falls to Earth, becomes a meteor, and then, for some reason, decides to leave our atmosphere to continue its journey through space. Below, we will see ten examples of meteors that exhibited this behavior, some of which even became awe-inspiring spectacles.

10 Japan Earth-Grazer
2006

As stated in the introduction, meteors generally occur when space rocks burn and disintegrate upon entering the Earth’s atmosphere. But on some occasions, such meteoroids fall to Earth in a trajectory almost parallel to its surface and “bounce” in the upper atmosphere. So after becoming bright meteors for a moment, these rocks just keep going and return to outer space. We call these meteors “Earth-grazers.”

An Earth-grazer event occurred in Japan on March 29, 2006. A bright fireball crossed the sky over several Japanese cities, allowing several stations to accurately measure its trajectory and characteristics. The cause of the fireball was a meteoroid of approximately 100 kilograms (220 lb) that entered the atmosphere at a height of 87 kilometers (54 mi). From there, the meteor traveled about 1,000 kilometers (621 mi) over Japan, lasting 35 seconds before leaving Earth.^[2]

This was the third Earth-grazing meteor scientifically observed and measured accurately. Photographs, recordings by TV cameras, telescopic observations, and a special software were used to determine its characteristics. Even with all this equipment available, there are very few documented cases of Earth-grazers around the world, although most of the items on this list fit the category.

9 Fast-Moving Fireball
1990

On October 13, 1990, two astronomical stations detected the passage of an Earth-grazer meteor over Czechoslovakia and Poland. Three other independent observers in Czechoslovakia and a fourth person in Denmark also confirmed the sighting. The fireball was caused by a 44-kilogram (97 lb) meteoroid, which descended into the Earth’s atmosphere to a minimum height of 98 kilometers (61 mi). It was moving at a speed of around 42 kilometers per second (26 miles per second), about 20 times faster than the fastest manned aircraft in the world.

For the nearly ten seconds it was visible in the night sky, the Earth-grazer traveled a distance of 409 kilometers (254 mi).^[3] After that, the meteor left the atmosphere and returned to space, now with a reduced speed. Its mass was also reduced; after burning a little in the atmosphere, it lost 350 grams (0.77 lb) of material. To verify the object’s trajectory, NASA ran computer simulations, whose results were similar to direct observations and confirmed that the meteor left the Earth. A Czech camera station that is part of the “European Fireball Network” program photographed the Earth-grazer in mid-flight. The image shows the bright object moving across the visible sky near its highest point.

8 The Great Meteor
1860

On some occasions, an Earth-grazer meteor can fall low enough into the atmosphere to end up breaking into pieces. When that happens, the Earth-grazer becomes multiple, smaller fireballs that travel horizontally across the sky in the same direction. Some fragments disintegrate in the atmosphere, while others return to space. Because the lights move in a seemingly organized way and at a lower speed, this phenomenon is known as a “meteor procession.” This type of Earth-grazer is even stranger, with only four known cases to date.

One of these cases occurred on July 20, 1860. It was 9:49 PM when the American painter Frederic Church and his wife (who were on their honeymoon in Catskill, New York) saw a row of bright orange meteors that crossed the entire sky. Not far from there, the famous writer Walt Whitman also saw the same lights. In his poem “Year of Meteors (1859–60),” he described them as “the strange huge meteor-procession dazzling and clear shooting over our heads.” Hundreds of people across the United States witnessed the fireballs, and numerous newspapers of the time also described the event.

What all these people saw was a rare meteor procession involving several meteors that crossed the North American sky from west to east.^[4] The fragmented Earth-grazer descended on the Great Lakes between the United States and Canada, reached its minimum height above the Hudson River in New York, and continued moving toward the Atlantic Ocean. After a journey of more than 1,600 kilometers (994 mi), the meteors escaped the atmosphere and left Earth behind.

7 Cometary Fragment
2012

20,000 years ago, a large comet in our solar system shattered and gave birth to Comet Encke (officially called 2P/Encke), famous for approaching Earth frequently. On June 10, 2012, a meteoroid from this comet came to visit our planet and then resumed its journey through space. The rock weighed 16 kilograms (35 lb) and entered our atmosphere about 100 kilometers (62 mi) above the east of Spain.

The Earth-grazer moved at an astounding speed of 105,000 kilometers per hour (65,244 mph) while advancing toward the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula. After descending to around 98 kilometers (61 mi) above sea level, the meteor began to regain altitude. While still being over Spain and 32 kilometers (20 mi) away from the Atlantic Ocean, the fireball said goodbye to us and went into space again, with only a minimal change of speed. However, our planet did leave marks on it. The scorched meteoroid lost 260 grams (0.57 lb) in the atmosphere and returned to its orbit with a fusion crust, the external layer of melted rock typical of meteorites.

In total, the fireball traveled 510 kilometers (317 mi) in the atmosphere for 17 seconds. This former meteor has several particular characteristics that differentiate it from the rest. On the one hand, it is the faintest Earth-grazer meteor scientifically observed, with a brightness similar to that of the planet Venus. And in addition, it is the first of such events that comes from a meteor shower. It came specifically from the Zeta Perseid meteor shower that occurs in June each year, which, in turn, comes from the same space debris field as Comet Encke.^[5]

6 Christmas Eve Meteor
2014

On the night of December 24, 2014, while everyone was busy on Christmas Eve, a meteor decided to come to Earth to observe us. Then, for some reason, it left. A total of 13 observation stations in Spain and Portugal detected an Earth-grazing fireball moving slowly—for a meteor—from southeast to northwest over Europe. The object was a rock of 100 kilograms (220 lb) and 1 meter (3.3 ft) in diameter, flying at a speed of 68,400 kilometers per hour (42,500 mph).

The meteor entered the atmosphere over North Africa, beginning to glow 105 kilometers (65 mi) high. Then, the Earth-grazer continued to move and descend down to a height of 75 kilometers (47 mi) over Spain. There, the fireball was moving so slowly that some drivers had time to park to get out and see it pass. The meteor continued its journey, now over Portugal, as it began to ascend again. Finally, the Earth-grazer reached the Atlantic Ocean, and about 100 kilometers (62 mi) away from the coast of Galicia (Spain), it returned to space.

The meteoroid, whose code name is SPMN241214, is a rock that came from the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. After its close encounter with the Earth, the rock had its trajectory modified, although it still orbits around the Sun as before. Footage from the University of Huelva shows that the object was very bright, leaving a short and thin trail behind. Another recording from the Spanish province of Guadalajara (shown above) reaffirms the slowness of the meteor. Although in this video, the light lasts about half a minute before leaving the camera’s field of view, the total duration of the fireball was one minute.^[6]

5 Zagami Meteorite
1996

Not all shooting stars return to space on their own. Some rocks that were once meteors have flown back into outer space thanks to human intervention. In October 1962, a farmer was working in his fields in Zagami, Nigeria, when he suddenly heard a loud explosion. When he looked up at the sky, he saw a meteor fall and hit the ground only 3 meters (10 ft) away from him. The farmer noticed that now there was a crater 0.6 meters (2 ft) deep, with a black rock inside. This rock was nothing less than an 18-kilogram (40 lb) meteorite from Mars. The rock was ejected from the Martian surface after a comet impact 2.5 million years ago.

In November 1996, NASA began its first successful mission to the Red Planet after two decades—the Mars Global Surveyor. This mission consisted of launching a spacecraft destined to orbit Mars and photograph its surface for several years. But it turns out that the space probe did not fly alone: Inside, it was carrying a small piece of the Zagami meteorite, covered by a resin bubble. In September 1997, the NASA spacecraft began its orbit around Mars, thus returning the Zagami meteorite to where it belongs. That’s right, the rock left Mars millions of years ago, fell to us like a shooting star almost 60 years ago, and then finally returned to its home planet. Although Mars Global Surveyor is currently inactive, it is still orbiting our neighboring planet and is expected to collide with the Martian surface in the future.^[7] So the Zagami meteorite will become a meteor for the second time, now in its own world.

4 Unconfirmed Earth-Grazers
1996/2012

Meteors are so brief and unpredictable that it is difficult to determine where the next one will occur. And it is even more difficult to know if some particular sightings really were meteors that fell and returned to space. On October 3, 1996, an unusual shooting star crossed the night sky of New Mexico, after which it vanished. But 100 minutes later, the same fireball flew over California and exploded. It is believed that the meteor was a rock that bounced in the atmosphere and almost completed a full orbit before falling back over Southern California. However, the reports remain unconfirmed.

Meanwhile, at 11:00 PM on September 21, 2012, thousands of people across England, Scotland, and Ireland witnessed a fireball (shown above) flying through the skies. The light moved slowly and lasted about 40 seconds before disappearing. Two and a half hours later, another shooting star with the same characteristics crossed the sky over Canada and the United States.^[8] In several countries, the emergency lines were saturated with hundreds of phone calls from people frightened by the fireball they had just seen.

Soon, mathematician Esko Lyytinen, a member of the Ursa Astronomical Association (Finland), entered the scene and stated that the meteors of September 21 were related. Both were the result of a single space rock that began to burn in the sky over Ireland at a height of 53 kilometers (33 mi) but had enough speed to fly back into space. However, that entry into the atmosphere caused the rock to lose speed. So, 155 minutes and a full orbit around the Earth later, the remnants of the meteoroid reentered the atmosphere over North America and ended their crazy flight there. With limited information about the speed and angle of the meteors, some experts doubted this claim, but the possibility of a new Earth-grazer is still there.

3 Rare Aten Asteroid
2007

Information about the following Earth-grazer meteor, called EN070807, is scarce. All available references to it come from a single public access article from the Ondrejov Observatory, which is part of the European Fireball Network in the Czech Republic. Since the European Fireball Network names meteoric events with an abbreviation of the date they occurred, the code name of this Earth-grazer indicates that it visited Earth on August 7, 2007.

EN070807 is actually an Aten-type asteroid. Aten asteroids are rocky fragments that orbit the Sun at short distances, and it is believed that most of them come from the main asteroid belt. Many Aten asteroids occasionally intersect Earth’s orbit, which makes them a possible danger to our planet. In the case of EN070807, although its initial orbit was of the Aten type, its encounter with the Earth could have changed its trajectory.

While EN070807 was descending over the European sky, several stations in the Czech Republic photographed the event. This allowed the European Fireball Network to include the Earth-grazer in the aforementioned biannual report, along with 44 other conventional fireballs.^[9] Like the other meteors on this list, EN070807 lost material during its brief passage through the Earth’s atmosphere, but the rest of its body is still floating out there.

2 Campo Del Cielo Meteorite
2014

The Zagami meteorite is not the only alien rock that humans have sent back to space. For 4.5 billion years, a large iron body roamed outer space until it collided with Earth 4,000 years ago. The meteorite fell in Argentina, and locals call the impact zone “Campo del Cielo” (Field of the Sky).

In 2012, Scottish artist Katie Paterson acquired a small meteorite from Campo del Cielo, melted it at 1,700 degrees Celsius (3,092 °F), and reshaped it to its original form. The old-new meteorite, weighing 680 grams (1.5 lb), was then transferred to a European Space Agency facility in the Netherlands. And in July 2014, it was launched to the International Space Station, aboard the spacecraft Georges Lemaitre.

The meteorite was unpacked and prepared for its return to Earth in the same spacecraft that took it up there. Finally, in February 2015, the meteorite had a destructive reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.^[10] So it differs from the Zagami meteorite in at least two things. First, the Campo del Cielo meteorite was a meteor twice. And second, it was a meteor twice in our own atmosphere. This is why Paterson’s work was internationally recognized, and it proved that a meteor which falls to Earth does not have to do it only once.

1 The Great Daylight Fireball
1972

While all the other Earth-grazing meteors we have seen on this list occurred at night or under poorly studied conditions, the following case occurred in broad daylight and in front of thousands of people. For this reason, it is the best-known Earth-grazer, and it is widely remembered as the Great Daylight Fireball. It was 2:30 PM on August 10, 1972, when a space rock entered the atmosphere above the state of Utah. And for more than a minute and a half, it crossed the sky in a northward direction. The meteor ended up leaving Earth over Alberta (Canada).

The Earth-grazer generated enough heat during its passage through the atmosphere for a US Air Force satellite to be able to detect it, obtaining data on its speed and trajectory. After several investigations, it was determined that the object entered our planet at a speed of approximately 54,100 kilometers per hour (33,616 mph). The meteoroid would have had a maximum mass of 570 tons and a length of 14 meters (46 ft)—roughly the size of a truck (but much heavier). When the object escaped the atmosphere at a height of approximately 102 kilometers (63 mi), its size became 10 meters (33 ft) at the most.

Its closest approach to the Earth’s surface occurred 58 kilometers (36 mi) above Montana. Due to its low altitude, people near the site could hear sonic booms coming from the meteor in the sky. There are multiple recordings of the fireball, such as a 20-second video showing its path or a photograph in which the Earth-grazer flies over the Teton Mountains in the state of Wyoming. Now, we all know the outcome of this story, but it is estimated that if the object had impacted the Earth, it would have had the destructive force of an atomic bomb.^[11] So we can thank the meteor for being in a good mood that day.

Economy student, passionate about Graphic Design, an avid enthusiast of the art of writing.

Most people view snails and slugs as pests. But these slimy streakers are far removed from one-dimensional garden destroyers. They amaze scientists with their abilities, and certain individuals have become the darlings of mass media.

The slow creatures can also get a little creepy. They hide inside humans and, thanks to the military, have evolved into things that include cyborg spy snails.

10 Strange Survival Mystery

Hahajima Island of Japan is home to a fragile snail. All right, “fragile” in the sense that it is really tiny—around 0.25 centimeters (0.1 in). A thumb can easily crush Tornatellides boeningi.

When researchers recently collected bird feces on the island, they found that it contained snail shells. Oddly, some of the snails appeared to be alive. Curious, the team fed over 100 mollusks to a captive population of the two bird species known to snack on the snails.

Remarkably, around 15 percent were expelled unharmed. One snail even gave birth shortly after being pooped out. The digestive system is not a Disney ride. The snails endure a harsh journey lasting 30 minutes to two hours. Why such a good percentage appear to suffer no ill effect is a mystery.^[1]

The best theories at this point?

Small equals survival. Tinier shells might be less prone to cracks and digestive juices seeping in. Tornatellides could also seal themselves away behind a mucous film that safeguards the shell’s opening.

9 Why Snail Sex Is Slow

One might be forgiven for thinking, “It is slow, because they are snails.” As garden snails are hermaphrodites, they can technically reproduce by themselves. However, they seem to prefer a partner. Each snail has eggs and sperm, seeking to both fertilize another and get fertilized at the same time.

The real reason why snails mate for up to three hours, which looks more like a cautious game than a passionate embrace, could be for their health. Researchers feel that snails do not really mind off-loading sperm but are careful about the quality of sperm they receive. Thus, they investigate the situation carefully.

If the partner is not desirable, the other might attempt to impregnate it while avoiding the unhealthy snail’s own attempts to do so. The whole dance is wrought with concentration and frustration. The complexities of snail courtship take precedence over everything, even safety. This is why mating snails are often out in the open and oblivious to their own vulnerability.^[2]

8 Snails Inside People

In 2018, an 11-year-old boy played inside a tide pool in California. During this time, he scraped his elbow. His parents made sure that the injury was disinfected and cleaned. However, a week after their trip to the beach, the wound still festered. They took their son to the doctor and explained that there was a tenacious blister that kept growing. The child was otherwise normal and healthy.

The medical staff decided to drain the blister, which was red and full of pus. After the abscess was opened, it sprang a tiny surprise on everyone—a minute sea snail. The checkered periwinkle was still alive despite being covered in human flesh and wound ooze for over a week.

Luckily, it never nibbled on the boy. Periwinkles are herbivores, and this one survived thanks to its usual habitat. They browse shoreline rocks, and since air is not always good for sea snails, the species can seal off its shell with thick mucus. This prevented the periwinkle from suffocating inside the wound.^[3]

7 Stepfather Snails

During a 2012 study, researchers found another great dad in the animal kingdom. The male marine whelk cares for his offspring, while the female leaves after mating and gluing egg sacks to his back. Each capsule contains about 250 eggs. The male must carry dozens of these bags for about a month, during which he loses a lot of weight.

However, the whelk is a dedicated dad. The species slithers about in California’s mudflats making sure that the eggs stay hydrated and cool. As if being a single dad is not hard enough, his kids are violent. Upon hatching, the baby snails massacre each other. The few siblings that survive are well-fed.

Worse, DNA analysis showed that, on average, a male cares for a mere 24 percent of his own progeny. The rest are fathered by up to 25 other males with which the mother was involved. Researchers believe that the dads accept the burden to show females that they are good parents and thus to earn more mating rights.^[4]

6 Mutant Love Drama

The common garden snail is a familiar sight. Normally, their shells swirl only to the right. A rare genetic mutation must occur for the sides to switch. In 2016, one was found in London and named Jeremy.

A year later, scientists wanted to learn more about “lefty” genetics and decided they wanted to have his babies. Since his condition prevented him from a successful mating with normal snails, they had to find another mutant.

In 2017, the call went out to find Jeremy a wife-husband. (They are hermaphrodites.) The world’s largest broadcasting organization decided to help. The BBC made the lonely snail’s plight public, and two mates were found. Enter Lefty, donated by a snail enthusiast from Ipswich, and Tomeu, who was spared after a BBC-watching restaurant owner from Catalan noticed one appetizer was a match.

With the whole world watching, Jeremy was rejected. The other two got together and made 170 baby snails. At least, shortly before Jeremy died that same year, he managed a fling with Tomeu that produced 56 babies.^[5]

5 They Get Kidnapped

Antarctic pteropods are tiny, glass-like snails. As they are delicate and live in the vast, dangerous ocean, pteropods have evolved to be highly toxic. This survival strategy comes with an unusual risk of getting kidnapped.

At one point, crustaceans called amphipods realized that the snails are so poisonous that predators avoid them. Not only are the amphipods immune to the mollusks’ deadly zap but they also abduct the pteropods to use as shields.

The crustaceans use two pairs of legs to keep the snails hostage, wearing the unlucky victims like backpacks. It takes a few snails to build the living armor, but they can cover up to half of the host’s back. This criminal behavior suits the amphipods well because it convinces predators to go look for lunch elsewhere.^[6]

The snails get a raw deal. Once kidnapped, they cannot feed and eventually starve to death. To add insult to injury, their corpses are often kept by the amphipods that abducted them.

4 Lonely George

There was once a Hawaiian tree snail that lived an unusual life. Never did this slimy creature sail up a tree in the wilderness because Lonely George was born and raised in the laboratory.

His ancestors—the last 10 Achatinella apexfulva—were captured for a breeding program in 1997. The attempt at snail romance was a disaster. For unknown reasons, all the babies died except for one. George lived for 14 years at the University of Hawaii, becoming a local celebrity and doing tours to educate schoolchildren about the environment.

George was the last of his kind. The mysterious maladies that wiped out his peers also killed off the original 10 adult snails. Hawaiian tree snails were once so plentiful that 19th-century records describe how Europeans collected 10,000 a day.

This harvest was half of the problem that ended up killing the species. At one point, the rosy wolfsnail was brought to Hawaii. The idea was to use this foreign species to eat another invasive snail, the African land snail. Except the rosy wildly feasted on native species, too. George died in 2019.^[7]

3 The Pink Slug

Australia is home to some of the strangest species on Earth. This fact echoed in the recent discovery of a new slug. The species (Triboniophorus aff. graeffei) is big and neon pink.

Measuring 20 centimeters (8 in) long, it crawls along a single mountaintop. For a long time, scientists knew the creatures were on Mount Kaputar but thought they belonged to the red triangle variety. The latter is a common sight along Australia’s east coast. A new study identified the separate species as one that evolved on Kaputar.

The slugs often live among red eucalyptus leaves, a clue as to why they turn hot pink. But camouflage does not explain why the slugs spend a lot of time out in the open. Their unusual shade might be an evolutionary quirk.

Mount Kaputar was an isolated oasis in a desert for millions of years, and such havens can produce odd creatures. Apart from giant pink slugs, the mountain also spawned unique species like the Kaputar cannibal snail and the Kaputar hairy snail.^[8]

2 Solar-Powered Slugs

As the name suggests, Elysia chlorotica is stuffed with chloroplasts. This allows the sea slugs to do something amazing—they photosynthesize like plants. Similar to plants, the slugs are green and leaf-shaped.

Found off the United States’ East Coast, this ability does not come naturally. They poach the chloroplasts from algae. After absorbing enough, they do not eat for more than nine months. They merely bask in the sun and make their own sustenance.

It remains unclear how the chloroplasts live so long and remain unharmed by the slug’s gut or immune system. In turn, the slug mysteriously survives deadly amounts of free oxygen radicals produced by photosynthesis.^[9]

How do the plant parts and the animal parts even interact?

Only a thorough analysis could clarify the symbiosis. Unfortunately, this unique animal-plant hybrid is almost impossible to find in the wild and does not live long in the laboratory.

1 Future Spies

Snails do not care for human politics. But the intelligence community cares about snails. The research arm of the United States military (DARPA) wants mollusks as batteries and listening devices.

In 2012, a project successfully turned a snail into a living battery. The experiment used the animal’s blood sugar to recharge a battery-like implant, which generated a sustainable amount of energy for months.

Although the snail equals just below the charge of an AAA battery, researchers have big dreams. They plan on tweaking the technology-biology link until snails can generate enough power to run microelectronics. This would allow the creatures to slide up and down enemy walls as living sensors and detectors. They could even get saddled with miniature cameras.^[10]

Although turning snails into cyborgs sounds weird and hurtful, the mollusks live close to normal lives. The success of their energy capacity depends on resting and eating during which glucose levels recharge the battery.

Hollywood is a competitively unoriginal business. Studios constantly recycle the same stories, repackage them as new products, and ponder how to sell them better than their rivals. That pattern inevitably leads to battles at the box office. However, it’s also given way to a strange coincidence.

Sometimes, two studios may release twin movies within the same time frame. These films might boast similar narratives, or they could share a setting. Either way, they target the same market. This unlikely event raises the stakes as the flicks compete for viewers. It turns weekend matinees into close-quarters combat. That outcome may not be the filmmakers’ intent, but that’s how it works out. Seeing which project comes out on top is worth the price of admission.

Related: 10 Movies That Were Meant To Have Sequels But Never Got Them

10 Tombstone & Wyatt Earp

Few Old West figures are more famous than Wyatt Earp. Tombstone (1993) stars Kurt Russell as the gunslinger as he and his brothers serve as lawmen in the Arizona town. They soon run afoul of a cutthroat band, sparking a war that ravages the Earp family and propels the whole region into lawlessness. The tale has been told countless times. In fact, one of those attempts came six months later.
The aptly titled Wyatt Earp (1994) is more of a loving biopic. For one thing, it stars Kevin Costner, who is known for slow, reverent westerns. For another, it goes into greater depth regarding Wyatt’s life. The story covers the hero’s boyhood adventures, his early days working odd jobs, and his turbulent love life. Only after those events does he finally reach Tombstone and kick off the infamous feud with the Cowboys. As you’d expect, this treatment led to a much longer runtime and a less concise pace. That’s partly why it hasn’t resonated with audiences like its rival.^[1]

9 Braveheart & Rob Roy

Just as famous as western gunslingers were the Scottish Highlanders. Their struggles against the occupying British forces turned them into folk heroes. A beloved depiction of that conflict was Braveheart (1995). Mel Gibson directs and stars in this biopic about William Wallace. After losing his love and witnessing the tyranny of the foreign oppressors, the highland warrior unites the various clans in a bloody fight for freedom. The film caught some flak for historical inaccuracy, but its rousing emotionality earned it a special place in filmgoers’ hearts. That success, unfortunately, overshadowed another exceptional film.

In contrast, Rob Roy (1995) was a much smaller Highlander tale. Liam Neeson plays the roguish Robert Roy MacGregor. Although he initially tries to do business with the British, his family and friends soon come under threat from a psychotic aristocrat. Not only do these attacks devastate MacGregor and his stalwart sense of honor, but the ensuing violence makes him an outlaw in his own land. His journey felt more personal than Wallace’s, but it had a fraction of the fame.^[2]

8 Olympus Has Fallen & White House Down

The Die Hard format has spawned numerous imitations. Olympus Has Fallen (2013) takes that formula to the White House. The popcorn flick features Gerard Butler as a former Secret Service agent. When terrorists storm the capitol and take the president hostage, he must outwit the crooks. The long night sees him eliminate the villains in an increasingly brutal fashion. The resulting film was an entertaining successor to the hard-hitting action flicks of old. The same couldn’t be said of its own successor.

A few months later saw the release of White House Down (2013). This time, Channing Tatum takes the lead as a Secret Service applicant opposite Jamie Foxx as the president. The tale is more of an explosive buddy flick, but it still portrays the White House falling to terrorists. It was also reasonable fun. Sadly, this PG-13 attempt didn’t have the same punch as its R-rated competitor. That’s why Olympus Has Fallen turned into a franchise while White House Down faded into relative obscurity.^[3]

7 The Jungle Book & Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

It’s amazing how the same story can inspire radically different takes. Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book is a testament to that. After initially adapting it in 1966 as a lighthearted cartoon, Disney remade this treasured tale in 2016 as a live-action feature. At its core, it’s about a young boy raised by animals in the wilds of India. That said, the film takes most of its cues from the animation, leading to a whimsical adventure with familiar songs. People ate up that serving of nostalgia despite deviating from the original book.

By contrast, actor/director Andy Serkis gets closer to the source with Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle. Though in production at the same time as Disney’s version, this smaller take didn’t come out until 2018. It also portrays an orphaned child maturing in the jungle, but the tone, themes, and plotting are more in line with Kipling’s vision. Of course, those efforts also made it less digestible to a wider audience, leading to a niche response.^[4]

6 Mirror, Mirror & Snow White and the Huntsman

Also an enduring tale, Grimms’ “Snow White” has inspired even more renditions than The Jungle Book. 2012 saw two of them, the first being Mirror, Mirror (2012). It has the familiar framework: Lily Collins as the princess is hunted by Julia Roberts as the evil queen for being the “fairest of them all.” The twist is that it’s an upbeat comedy with flamboyant costumes and dance numbers. The following film couldn’t be more different in that respect.

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) reinterprets the tale as a dark fantasy spectacle. The film stars Kristen Stewart as a traumatized heroine. Recruiting loyal allies from across the realm, she leads an army against Charlize Theron’s mystical queen. This approach emphasizes perilous action, seeming like a poor man’s Lord of the Rings at points. Neither of these attempts was a classic, but the latter was at least profitable enough to get a sequel.^[5]

5 Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice & Captain America: Civil War

2016 was a year of superhero crossover clashes. The first major brawl occurred at DC with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Fed up with the Man of Steel’s collateral damage, the Dark Knight wages a one-man war on the alien. Meanwhile, Superman can’t abide Batman’s brutal tactics and strives to shut him down. Their differences escalate to a grudge match spurred on by the villainous Lex Luthor. The scenario was a thinly veiled publicity stunt, one which Marvel pulled shortly after.

Captain America: Civil War fractures the Avengers. After the superheroes’ repeated destruction, the U.S. government proposes they sign over their services and only act under orders. Iron Man supports this oversight, while Captain America rejects it. Not only does this issue divide these two icons, but it splits the Avengers down the middle. Both these flicks suffer from messy plotting and poor characterization, but Civil War at least has more competent structuring and a less pretentious presentation.^[6]

4 Evil Dead & Cabin in the Woods

A classic horror setup involves a group of unsuspecting people in a remote cabin. Cabin in the Woods obviously adheres to that foundation. In this 2012 movie, a handful of college kids visit a woodland house for a creepy vacation. Upon staying there, they find themselves the targets of animalistic zombies. It turns out these creatures come from a shadowy organization that engineers the scenario as part of a sick experiment. In that, Cabin in the Woods subverts its own formula. Its competitor, on the other hand, plays it straight.

The Evil Dead helped popularize this premise, so the 2013 remake sticks to it. This flick once again strands a band of buddies in a cabin. One of them finds a hellish book amidst the refuse. Reading its passages brings forth an invasion of demons, who proceed to slaughter the party with sadistic glee. The story doesn’t hold as many surprises as its peer, but the more accomplished filmmaking and terrific presentation perfectly capture the series’ trademark dark humor. It’s possibly for that reason that Evil Dead has enjoyed more enduring love from genre fans.^[7]

3 The Great Race & Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines

One of the odder trends in Hollywood focused on globe-trotting races. The film largely responsible was The Great Race (1965). This comedy centers on the dashing Great Leslie and dastardly Professor Fate. To determine who is the best, these rival stuntmen propose a race from New York to Paris. This worldly contest draws drivers from all walks of life, leading to an epic journey of screwball antics. It wasn’t the only one, though.

Just a few days before came Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965). This farcical flick features another worldwide race, this time from London to Paris. Of course, that minor change doesn’t stop the event from attracting drivers of various nationalities. What differentiates the tale is the greater time spent on setup. The actual race doesn’t start until halfway through, making it feel like less of an exciting adventure compared to its competitor. Perhaps that’s why it’s less well-known. Then again, it got a sequel, while The Great Race didn’t. It’s funny how things work out.^[8]

2 Antz & A Bug’s Life

In the early days of computer-animated movies, it seemed like anything was possible. Why, then, were two of the biggest examples of the time about bugs? A Bug’s Life (1998) takes place in an ant colony. The timid insects suffer under a roving grasshopper gang, so misfit inventor Flik sets out to find warriors willing to fight the invaders. That proves tricky when the “warriors” turn out to be circus performers. The plot is predictable from there, which isn’t what you’d expect from Pixar’s second feature.

Oddly enough, DreamWorks narrowly beat its rival to the punch with Antz (1998). This story also deals with the little guys subverting the social hierarchy. Granted, the oppressor here is one of their own, but it still falls to an unassuming worker ant conjuring creative solutions to save his colony. Despite that general similarity, Antz uses novel twists for a more mature tone. Which miniature movie was better depended mainly on your preference, as both became mild success stories.^[9]

1 Robin Hood & Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves

The Robin Hood legend is an endearing folktale about the common man rising up against his oppressors. Thus, countless adaptations have adapted this familiar story, but two 1991 attempts couldn’t be more different. The first was simply titled Robin Hood, starring Patrick Bergin. This low-budget project is fittingly understated. It frames the iconic narrative within the Saxon-Norman conflict. As a result, it’s more of a historical drama than a high-flying adventure. Audiences wanting the latter had to wait a month.

Soon after came Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Despite the odd choice to put Kevin Costner in the title role, this film is a more traditional take. It also has a gritty aesthetic and historical backdrop, but it mixes in the swashbuckling fun that fans know and love, creating an intriguing marriage of old and new. Both takes are adept at what they set out to do, but Prince of Thieves is more widely accessible. That’s probably why it scored a theatrical release while its competition opted for TV.^[10]

Musicians are just as corruptible as the rest of us. It is commonplace now to see your favorite musicians in trouble with authorities for drug charges or drunken stupors. Drug- and alcohol-related arrests have become something of a staple of the music industry.

However, in rare circumstances, musicians get into trouble for the unlikeliest of transgressions. These strange criminal blunders are undoubtedly rare among musicians, but they are so puzzling and hilarious that they deserve a light shining on them.

10 Paul McCartney

In 1960, former Beatle Paul McCartney was arrested in Hamburg, Germany, for attempted arson. McCartney and then–Beatles’ drummer Pete Best pinned a condom to the wall of the Bambi Kino, their accommodations while playing in Hamburg, and set the condom on fire.

After living in filthy conditions during the early string of shows, Paul’s arson was a boyish act of protest against the Bambi Kino owner Bruno Koschmider. Renowned for beating customers with a chair leg, Koschmider had put up the Beatles in the back of his porno cinema while they tirelessly played for him in his run-down strip club known as the Indra.

As George Harrison, then 17, was already being deported from Germany for flouting Hamburg’s curfew laws for minors, the Beatles were ready to go home—but not before McCartney and Best set the condom alight.

Koschmider subsequently rang the police, who arrested and detained Best and McCartney before deporting them.^[1]

9 Barry White

Before he had a music career and was nicknamed the “Walrus of Love,” Barry White was something of a criminal in his teens (by his own admission). However, White was hardly a master criminal as evinced by his arrest in 1960 for the theft of car tires which led to subsequent jail time.

As a teenager, White often got into trouble with his brother, Darryl. Barry stated that they were a “two-man gang, respected and feared [who] ran and ruled the streets of our neighborhood.” However, the theft of $30,000 worth of Cadillac tires landed him in prison.

Barry White served four months in prison in 1960. While he was incarcerated, the seeds of the Walrus of Love were sown because White vowed to do away with his minor criminal past and focus on music.^[2]

8 D’arcy Wretzky

D’arcy Wretzky, former bassist for the Smashing Pumpkins, was arrested and eventually imprisoned in 2011 due to her horses escaping her home. Wretzky’s neighbors contacted the police after her horses were left to wander from her farm onto their land. Although she was notified of the offense in 2009, it took until 2011 before her antics led to prison time.

Michigan has an “animals running at large” law that Wretzky breached. However, the law is only a minor offense. It was Wretzky’s repeated absence from four consecutive court dates related to the incident that eventually landed her in jail.

Otherwise, Wretzky would have only had to pay a fine. Nevertheless, she was sentenced to six days imprisonment.^[3]

7 Gary Numan

New wave singer and songwriter Gary Numan found himself on the wrong side of Indian police in 1981 when he was arrested on suspicion of smuggling and spying. As an air display pilot as well as a musician, Numan was flying with a friend over India. After the plane’s engine gave out, they were forced to land.

The pair sought help in a local Indian village but instead were arrested on suspicion of smuggling and spying. As the two men were wearing two watches each, the police thought they were smuggling. Worse still, the pair had cameras on them which gave the police grounds to believe that they were spying.

Little did Numan know, there was actually a Russian submarine base 32 kilometers (20 mi) from where they had landed. Therefore, the Indian police thought that they were taking photographs of that base.

Both Numan and his friend were arrested and detained for four days. Eventually, the pair contacted the Home Office, and they were duly released.^[4]

6 Vanilla Ice

Rapper (sort of) Vanilla Ice got in trouble with authorities in 2004, albeit for something far less sinister than his arrest for burglary in 2015. In fact, it was animal control officials that landed Vanilla Ice in difficulty.

Vanilla Ice’s pet wallaroo, Bucky Buckaroo, and his pet goat, Pancho, decided one day to escape Vanilla Ice’s domicile in Florida. Pancho managed to headbutt open the latch of the gate of their enclosure, and the two went for a ramble in Florida.

The rebellious animals actually scratched one woman and kicked her car after she tried to feed them. Animal control officials eventually captured the two, and their days on the lam were cut short.

Animal control officials caught Vanilla Ice with an expired permit and duly fined him $220. Pancho and Bucky were eventually reunited with their owner.^[5]

5 Peter Buck

REM’s guitarist Peter Buck was arrested for an air rage incident in 2001, but the story was far sillier than it sounds. After allegedly making the mistake of mixing a sleeping pill with alcohol, Buck went on a drunken rampage, much to the chagrin of his fellow passengers.

After being refused any more alcohol, Buck in his already-drunk, loutish state overturned a flight attendant’s trolley and demanded to leave the airplane mid-flight. He had to be pulled away from an exit door. As a pilot attempted to calm the situation, Buck responded that “he was just a f—king pilot and [Buck] was REM.” Even stranger, Buck sprayed flight attendants with yogurt and tried to steal cutlery from the plane.

The guitarist was later cleared of all charges, and he did help to clean up the yogurt mess while on the plane.^[6]

4 Bob Dylan

New Jersey police detained poor old Bob Dylan in 2009 over a simple case of mistaken identity. The icon of folk music was set to headline a concert alongside Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp. But it nearly didn’t happen thanks to New Jersey police officer Kristie Buble, who believed that Dylan was a mad pensioner who had escaped from a hospital.

Dylan went for a stroll around the Long Branch area on his own in the pouring rain when a concerned citizen rang the police about the suspicious-looking character. When Buble arrived to determine what was going on, Dylan told her that he was indeed Bob Dylan. But for the police officer, that just confirmed her suspicions of a madman on the loose.

Apparently forgetting that people age, Buble expected Dylan to look like her memories of him from his younger years. As a result, Buble believed that the man in front of her was a rambling lunatic and not Bob Dylan.^[7]

Detained by the police, the musician was taken to his nearby tour bus to confirm his identity. When they reached Dylan’s manager, he showed Dylan’s identification to the now-embarrassed police officer. In her defense, it was a little strange that Dylan was wandering around in the rain, but he’s never been one for conventional behavior.

3 Mick Jagger, Bill Wyman, And Brian Jones
The Rolling Stones

Although two of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, were infamously arrested and charged with drug offenses in 1967, it was public urination that saw three of the Rolling Stones—Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, and Brian Jones—arrested in 1965.

After being refused access to a petrol station lavatory in London, three of the Rolling Stones took it upon themselves to relieve their full bladders by urinating on the petrol station itself. The unsympathetic station owner had denied Bill Wyman the key initially. However, Jagger and Jones also took offense at this.

All three began chanting “we’ll p—s anywhere, man” to the station owner and a nearby mechanic who had witnessed the scene and was merely attempting to move them on. When the owner wouldn’t concede, Jagger, Wyman, and Jones urinated on the wall of the petrol station while still chanting.

After the trio was arrested, they were charged with public indecency and subsequently fined £5 each.^[8]

2 Frank Zappa

In the early years of Frank Zappa’s career, he was not too discerning about where his much-needed money came from. This became painfully apparent in 1962 when Zappa was duped into making porn for an undercover San Bernardino police detective in California.

After creating several scores for low-budget films, Zappa was offered work by a supposed used car salesman to produce a porn film. As the “used car salesman” knew of Zappa’s amateur film credentials, he turned to Zappa for help.

Though Zappa refused to outright make a porn film for the man, Zappa did offer to record audio-only porn with his friend Lorraine Belcher in a studio owned by Zappa. The recording was essentially a mock-up of a couple having sex.

After Zappa made the recording, the “salesman” refused to pay him. Instead, the police raided the studio and seized the tapes. Of course, the “used car salesman” was simply an undercover detective hoping to entrap an unwitting “criminal.”

Zappa was charged with conspiracy to make pornography and given a 10-day prison sentence. This made Zappa a lifelong cynic toward authority.^[9]

1 Ozzy Osbourne

Yet more public urination from a beloved rock star. Throughout his lengthy career, Ozzy Osbourne has been a staple of the typical rock and roll antics that define the genre’s more reckless practitioners.

Ozzy is the epitome of the drunken, drug-induced wild behavior of rock stars. Some of his most outrageous behavior included biting the head off a bat and snorting a line of ants. But in 1982, a drunken Ozzy was arrested for urinating on a historic landmark.

In a drunken stupor, Ozzy stumbled around San Antonio, Texas, looking for a place to relieve himself. Unfortunately, he chose the city’s Cenotaph dedicated to the fallen soldiers in the Battle of the Alamo.

To make this story even stranger, Ozzy was wearing the clothes of his wife, Sharon, the whole time because she had denied him access to his own so that he could not go out and drink. Obviously, it didn’t work. The police arrested Ozzy for public intoxication. He was freed on $40 bond the same day.^[10]

Edward is a writer and musician.

Recently, there was a GoFundMe scam, which raised $400,000 to assist a homeless man who had allegedly given his last $20 to a damsel in distress on the side of the highway to refill her gas tank. This story was completely made up. Then there’s the Manchester attack’s homeless “hero,” who may have pulled nails from the arms and faces of children after a terrorist bomb killed 22 people, but then he robbed the victims. Judge David Hernandez, who sentenced him to four years and three months in prison, even said, “You presented yourself as a hero. Sadly you were not the hero that you pretended to be. You were just a common thief.”^[1]

Society seems to eat up these stories that fuel their distaste for the homeless, but there are plenty of cases of true heroism that should be remembered and honored. The purpose of this list is to highlight the moments when those who have lost everything in life act as heroes despite societal expectations. In the wake of these “homeless heroes turned rotten” stories, we need to be reminded of some real heroes. There are so many cases when homeless individuals have thrown themselves into a situation, even putting their own life on the line, to help another in need.

10 No Pulse, No Hope

In 2017, a Boston man named George Dakin was strolling down the sidewalk to meet his wife when a heart attack hit him, and he fell to his knees. It was called a “widowmaker” heart attack because 100 percent of his LAD artery was blocked. He lost his pulse for a full 28 minutes. Luckily, he happened to be in front of a group home for people seeking transitional housing. Most people pull out the picket signs when a group home tries to move into their neighborhood, but it saved Dakin’s life.

Austin Davis was staying at the group home at the time, and he raced to Dakin’s side. He performed CPR that kept Dakin alive until the ambulance arrived. It turns out that Davis had performed CPR four times in the past. Each time, he saved a person’s life. Davis said, “All I did was pump and pray, you know. I just hoped he’d make it.”^[2]

Dakin’s family was so grateful that they set up a GoFundMe for Davis. They bought him a used car and set him up in an apartment with the funds. They even helped to secure him a full-time position working at a Holiday Inn. Dakin’s daughter, Jodi, said, “Odds of escaping homelessness are about as bleak as walking away from a heart attack.” As of February 2018, $13,000 had been raised for Davis to help him transition into a new life.

9 A Chilling Splash

At around 2:00 AM on July 28, 2018, Shane Drossard (left above) was resting on the bank of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis when he heard a splash. A woman had jumped off a bridge to kill herself but survived the fall. Now, she was struggling against the current. Drossard reached his hand toward her from the riverbank, but the woman lost the strength (or the will) to hold on. She let go of his hand. Drossard said, “Help’s coming!” and jumped into the dark water.

He struggled to hold onto her against the current. She wanted to give up. Still, he fought to keep their heads above water while reassuring her that she was beautiful and had a full life ahead of her. Someone else heard her screams and called 911. Finally, both were pulled from the river and saved. Can someone please give this guy a medal? And why not a roof over his head while we’re at it?

In November 2010, another damsel in distress needed a knight in shining armor, but again, it probably wasn’t what she expected. Adan Abobaker (right above) was beside the River Thames when a woman attempted to plunge to her death from Blackfriars Bridge. Not only did he get hypothermia from the freezing water, but all of his precious possessions left onshore were stolen. Afterward, he said, “I took a long time to get over it . . . I still dream about it. I remember the waves coming over my head and swimming down towards her.” At least this guy did receive a medal.^[3]

8 Move Over, Flames

Anival Angulo is a young man with a hardened face and neck tattoos who lives in Las Vegas. He may not be what you imagine a hero looks like or even someone you want lurking in your neighborhood. He was doing just that, however, when he noticed smoke billowing from an apartment in 2017. Then, Angulo heard children screaming.

The gate was locked, so he jumped over it into the yard. He went to the door and saw a three-year-old girl. A 10-month-old infant was also inside. There was a steel deadbolt security bar on the door. He pulled until it bent upward and unlatched. Seriously, this is the kind of guy you want on your team when the apocalypse breaks out.

Las Vegas Fire and Rescue wrote on their Facebook page that the three-year-old “ran to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He could see through the smoke the leg of an infant on the floor. He reached down and pulled the infant out.”^[4] So, it turns out that neck tattoos aren’t something to be afraid of, after all.

7 Baby Abduction

They say abuse happens closest to home. That was the case in Minden, Louisiana, in August 2017, when a family friend stole a two-month-old baby boy when the parent left the room to get a bottle from the fridge. He walked for miles with the infant before abandoning the boy under an overpass on Interstate 20. He then hitched a ride to a casino, where he confessed his crime to a complete stranger.

The kidnapper may have seemed a nutjob to some (especially since he claimed, “God made me do it,”) but the stranger who he confessed to wasn’t willing to take that risk. Even though the police have never endeared themselves to the homeless, this homeless man called them immediately. Police arrested the kidnapper and found the baby wrapped in a blanket, fast asleep. Chief Steve Cropper said, “The scariest thing about it—if [the baby] were able to roll off that ledge, he would have hit that concrete retaining ledge and probably would have rolled right out into the interstate.”^[5] So, another homeless gentleman acts fast and saves the day. Not all heroes wear capes!

6 ‘Trolley Man’ Fights Terrorist

What do you do when you see a knife-wielding man attempting to stab police officers? Run in the opposite direction, perhaps? Well, one man, lovingly dubbed “Trolley Man” online, had a different guttural reaction that was pure awesome sauce. At this point, mind you, the attacker, Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, had already killed a cafe owner and injured two others in his rampage on November 9, 2018, in Melbourne. Also, he had just set fire to a car full of gas cylinders near a busy street. So, the scene was literally red-hot. The terrorist was attempting to stab two policemen when Trolley Man lunged the shopping cart he was holding straight into Ali several times, helping to fend him off. (Ali was ultimately shot dead by police.)

Well, it turns out that living on the street leads to acts of desperation. Go figure. Sadly, the day before his heroic act, Trolley Man had broke into a CBD cafe and stole $500 from the register. He had also reportedly stolen a bicycle. So naturally, police wanted to have a chat about the burglaries after he had made his YouTube debut. Despite years of avoiding police at every turn, Trolley Man had an incentive to turn himself in. He was so beloved in the public eye that $155,000 had been raised on his behalf to get him off the streets. The community wanted to give him a second chance when they raised that life-changing sum of money for him. Now, Trolley Man, or Michael Rogers, is in a closely monitored support program where he can get the help and counseling he needs.^[6] Hopefully, harmless acts of burglary don’t disqualify hero status? There’s always redemption.

5 Defender Of The Elderly

Early during the morning of Mother’s Day 2018 in Brooklyn, an elderly woman in her seventies pulls her shopping cart while the woman beside her walks on a cane. They are minding their own business when a peculiar man approaches, mumbling to himself. He violently attacks them out of the blue, but another man quickly appears from the shadows to save the day. People stop and stare from the sidelines as the situation escalates. One of the women is bleeding profusely from her head. Both women are in a daze. The assailant tries to run away, but the Good Samaritan wrestles him to the ground and holds him down until police show up.^[7]

Perhaps this anonymous, homeless hero still wanders the city streets, Batman-style, keeping his eyes peeled for any funny business.

4 Accident Leaves Mother And Son Helpless

One moment, a mother and son are safely inside their car, and in the next instant, the car loses traction and slides off the highway. It was completely submerged underwater when the paramedics arrived. It January 2016 in Salinas, California, and a mother and her eight-year-old son had landed in a creek that was flooded from a recent downpour. It quickly swept them away. They traveled the length of five football fields as they battled the raging current. They were even sucked under the highway at one point and spit out on the other side.

A man named Rick Biddle was camping along the embankment when he heard his dog start barking. The dog alerted the man to the flailing woman in the murky water below. It was a close call, but Biddle managed to rescue both mother and son, who were utterly exhausted. It’s a good thing that the drainage ditch ran through Biddle’s camp, or they may not have been so lucky.^[8]

3 Puppy Love

It takes a real lowlife scumbag to hit-and-run in any situation, but somehow it’s even worse when the victim is a dog that can’t even call for help. There’s no excuse not to stop for a defenseless animal except, oh yeah, heartlessness. Thankfully, a homeless gentleman in Jackson, Mississippi, saw a dog get hit in November 2018 and scooped him up in his arms. He walked for miles with the wounded pooch until he found a vet. Despite some injuries, the dog (pictured above) was saved.

In another instance of puppy love, a Salt Lake City man named Ron Howell was panhandling on the side of the highway in 2018 when a woman dropped off a baby chihuahua in his lap. He knew he couldn’t take care of the tiny puppy, but now he didn’t have a choice. He met a woman who offered him a cigarette one day, and she listened to his story about the abandoned pup. She took some cutesy pictures, posted them on Facebook, and voila! The puppy found an owner, and $500 was raised for the chivalrous man who took the puppy in when no one else would.^[9]

2 Burglary Bungled

Jesse Green lived in a tent by a Shell gas station in San Franciso. He would often walk down there to wash windshields for some spare change. One day in January 2018, he happened to glance inside the mini-mart, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw a man trying to rob the clerk. The attacker had the young woman pinned to the floor in a choke hold. Jesse yelled for help as he rushed inside and leaped onto the attacker to pry off his strangling grasp. Two other men followed suit, and they all worked to pull the robber off the clerk.

The attacker made a run for it, but police found him lingering in a stairwell close by, where they arrested him for aggravated assault and burglary. When told that he was a hero, Green said casually, “Aren’t we all, naturally, I mean we got to help each other when we see stuff like that, right? I mean, it made me start crying. It’s not something to get happy on, you know?”^[10] Spoken like a true hero.

1 A Bag Containing $17,000

What would you do if you found a plastic grocery bag stuffed with $20 bills? Okay, now be honest. By the way, the money totals $17,000. Well, Kevin Booth of Sumner, Washington, is a man who’s about as honest as they come. As an adult with special needs who had a brain tumor removed in high school, Booth was at a severe disadvantage in life straight out of the gate. After living on the streets for over seven years, he remains drug-free despite daily struggles.

A surveillance video shows Booth discovering the money at the door of the Sumner Food Bank in 2018. “I kind of looked at the bag a little bit, put it on the trash can here . . . that’s when I pulled out a twenty, sniffed it to make sure it was real, which it was real.” Kevin said. “It is a lot of money. It was hard to turn it in, at first. I’m going, ‘Do I do this? Do I turn it in?’ ” He waited for the first person to arrive at the food bank and turned it in.

After 90 days without anybody claiming the money, the food bank claimed it. Booth said, “This story here . . . this has been, I’d say, the most terrific story ever in my life. This is a story to talk about for years to come.” The pride that he feels in doing the right thing is priceless. It props him to “hero” status for sure.^[11]

+ Rags To Riches: A Hollywood Story

Rock bottom has to be sleeping with your toddler in your arms on the floor of a public toilet at a railway station because you have run out of options. This happened to Chris Gardner when he was 27 years old. The odds were stacked against him from the very beginning. He was raised in poverty. His stepfather was an abusive alcoholic who eventually pushed his mother to attempt murder. Then Gardner was placed in the foster system, where so many children flounder. It didn’t seem that his life would work out so well, and it didn’t right away. He was homeless for a year in San Francisco before he eventually became a multimillionaire and had Will Smith star in the Hollywood movie of his life: The Pursuit of Happyness.

You may be wondering if this qualifies him as a hero. Well, some may argue that having unshakable hope in the face of despair is the quality of a true hero, not to mention his steely perseverance to not only survive but thrive for the sake of his son. However, I see your point. Gardner doesn’t just bask in his estimated worth of $60 million by buying private islands, a golden toilet, or $10,000 pajamas, as you may imagine millionaires do. Instead, he continues to be a champion for the homeless. He travels the globe 200 days of the year, giving motivational speeches. He also sponsors countless homeless charities and domestic abuse organizations.^[12] He’s still not giving up the fight.