World War II affected every person who lived through it. Hundreds of stories from that time have become part of our history, but there are millions more that have gone untold.

Even some famous names you know for something completely different had incredible experiences during the war. Most of their war stories get overshadowed by their more famous accomplishments, but these stories are so incredible that they deserve to be heard.

10 George Bush Barely Escaped Being Eaten By Japanese Cannibals

At age 20, George H.W. Bush, the future 41st president of the United States, was nothing more than a navy pilot. During a bombing raid against the Japanese Bonin Islands, he was shot down—and nearly eaten.

Bush was one of nine men who escaped damaged airplanes during the raid, but he was the only one who survived. He waited on a life raft protected by Allied planes while a submarine rescued him.

The other eight men were not as lucky. They were captured by Japanese soldiers and put through hell. The men were tortured, beaten, and ultimately executed. Some of their bodies were then butchered by surgeons, who served their livers and thigh meat to Japanese officers at a feast.

Thanks to the crew of the USS Finback, Bush made it out alive. But if it hadn’t been for them, the 41st president of the United States would have been served as dinner.

9 Star Trek’s ‘Scotty’ Survived Being Shot Six Times

Before he was “Scotty,” James Doohan was a lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Army. Trained as a pilot, Doohan had a reputation as the “craziest pilot in the Canadian Air Forces” because he did things like slam a plane between two telegraph poles just to prove it could be done.

When D-day came, he was put on the ground and joined the raid on Juno Beach. Doohan personally shot two enemy snipers and led his troops through a field of antitank mines—only to be taken out by his own army.

While Doohan was moving between two command posts, a nervous Canadian soldier opened fire on Doohan, shooting him six times. One of the bullets hit him in the chest. Luckily, Doohan’s life was saved by a cigarette case in his breast pocket.

8 JFK Saved His Crew With A Coconut

John F. Kennedy was deemed medically unfit to fight, but he used his connections to get into the navy anyway. Disaster struck, however, when the ship he commanded was rammed by a Japanese destroyer and cut in half.

Kennedy and his crew clung to the boat for 12 hours before deciding to swim through shark-infested waters to get to land. One injured man couldn’t make the trip, so Kennedy put a life jacket on him and swam him to shore—dragging the man by clenching the strap between Kennedy’s teeth.

The crew was stranded on the island for days before Kennedy carved a message into a coconut, gave it to two natives, and asked them to bring it to a nearby Allied base. His coconut message got through, and the crew was saved. Kennedy kept the coconut shell ever after and even used it as a paperweight in the Oval Office.

7 Tony Bennett Was Demoted for Eating Lunch With A Black Soldier

Before he was a singer, Tony Bennett was a corporal in the US Army and part of a troop fighting its way through France and Germany. For Bennett, that battle didn’t end with the fall of Berlin. It ended at lunchtime.

Bennett invited an old friend to lunch—which would have been fine if his friend hadn’t had black skin. Bennett’s commanding officer objected and ordered the black soldier to take his meal in the kitchen.

Tony Bennett launched into an angry tirade against his racist commander. It was so vitriolic that Bennett got demoted to private, kicked out of his troop, and put on assignment digging up mass graves to send the bodies back home.

6 Gene Roddenberry Created ‘Khan’ To Get In Touch With A Military Friend

When World War II began, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry signed up for the US Army Air Corps. He flew alongside a soldier who would be his best friend during the war—and the inspiration for one of his most famous characters.

Roddenberry’s friend was named Kim Noonien Singh, and the two lost touch after the war. Wanting to get back in touch with his old friend, Roddenberry wrote a character into Star Trek—Kirk’s nemesis Khan Noonien Singh—hoping his friend would see it and get in touch.

Singh never called, but Roddenberry didn’t stop trying. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, Roddenberry named Data’s creator “Dr. Noonien Soong,” again hoping to reach out to his old friend.

5 Bill Nye’s Father Used A Sundial To Find The Location Of His POW Camp

Bill Nye the Science Guy’s father was captured during the war and sent to a Japanese POW camp, where he displayed some of the scientific ingenuity that would later make his son’s reputation.

When the elder Nye wasn’t being watched, he gathered up pebbles and scattered them around a fence post to create a makeshift sundial. By comparing the dial on his creation with the stars, Nye figured out the latitudinal location of the camp.

His trick never got him rescued, and he never managed to share the information with anyone outside the camp. However, Nye said that playing with the sundial kept him sane. After the war, he went into the sundial business professionally.

4 Ernest Hemingway Posed As An Officer And Led A French Militia

Although Ernest Hemingway was just a reporter during World War II, that didn’t stop him from leading an army.

While in France, Hemingway found a ragtag group of French resistance fighters and decided they needed better leadership. Specifically, his leadership. He tore off his noncombatant insignia, convinced the group that he was a US colonel, and took charge.

Hemingway led the group into the town of Rambouillet and stationed them there. By telling the US Army that he was ferrying weapons for another troop, he convinced them to arm him with machine guns and grenades. Then Hemingway marched his militia toward Paris.

Although the plan was to lead an assault on some major cities, Hemingway mostly liberated bars so he could get drunk in them. His group went all the way to the Ritz in Paris, where Hemingway partied through the war. Later, Hemingway used this to claim that he was the first person to liberate the Ritz.

3 Audrey Hepburn Ate Tulip Bulbs To Survive

In 1944, Audrey Hepburn was in Holland when the Nazis locked down the city and began a season that would be remembered as the “Winter of Hunger.”

Food was nearly impossible to come by, and Hepburn claims that she and her family had to resort to eating nettles, boiled grass, and tulip bulbs to survive. Toward the end, Hepburn had whittled away to a mere 40 kilograms (88 lb). The malnutrition racked her body with jaundice and asthma, and she very likely could have died.

On the day before the end of the war, a Dutch soldier gave the future actress seven candy bars. Hepburn shoved all seven of them into her mouth immediately.

2 Lenny Bruce Pretended To Be Gay To Get Discharged

After serving 30 months in the navy, comedian Lenny Bruce was determined to get out. So he wrote a letter to a medical officer saying that he was “attracted physically to a few of the fellows” and wouldn’t be able to fight his homosexual urges much longer.

He convinced the officers on his ship that he was a ticking gay bomb ready to explode—if he didn’t get away from all the hunky men on his ship, he would “give way to the performance of homosexual acts.” Surprisingly, it worked. Bruce was first relocated to a station where “heterosexual companionship was available” and later given an honorable discharge.

If the story sounds familiar, it’s because Bruce’s gay ruse was the inspiration for the cross-dressing character, Corporal Klinger, on M*A*S*H.

1 Coco Chanel Was A Nazi Spy

When the Nazis occupied France, some brave heroes rose up against their oppressors. But designer Coco Chanel definitely wasn’t one of them. Instead, Chanel became the lover of a Nazi officer. She also became a Nazi spy.

Chanel was given the code name “Westminster” and sent around Europe to enlist spies for the Nazis. She even made a trip to see Heinrich Himmler and offered to use her links to Winston Churchill to gather information.

At the end of the war, Chanel and her Nazi lover fled to Switzerland where they stayed together for 10 more years. She was only spared from execution by the intervention of Winston Churchill, who took her name off the death rosters.

+Further Reading

Lest We Forget . . .

10 Fascinating Snapshots From World War II
10 Heartbreaking World War II Diary Entries Written By Everyday People
10 Mind-Blowing Secret Operations From World War II
10 Unanswered Questions From World War II
10 Unsolved Mysteries From World War II

The British Isles are home to some of the most lavish and historic landmarks, many of which are famous all over the world. Think Big Ben or the Houses of Parliament. But perhaps not as famous are the unbelievably named towns and villages found strewn throughout the land.

When we say “unbelievably named,” we actually mean humorous, rude, or downright bizarre names for places which are actually inhabited or visited by human beings. However, some of these places actually have amazing and rich histories, which are worth reading in their own right. Read on to discover ten of the rudest-sounding places in the British Isles . . . with unbelievable stories.

10 Brown Willy

Brown Willy is a hill that can be found in the county of Cornwall, the southernmost county of England. The hill supposedly gets its name from the Cornish Bronn Ewhella, which translates as “highest hill.” This is likely due to the fact that Brown Willy stands 420 meters (1,378 ft) above sea level and is the highest point in Cornwall. The hill is also known for the “Brown Willy effect,” a local phenomenon in which heavy rain that has developed on Brown Willy travels downwind causing showers in lower areas. The effects of this phenomenon can be serious flash flooding and dangerous amounts of rainfall, causing widespread damage.

In 2012, local visitors to the hill campaigned to have the name changed due to the “giggle factor”—but the name remains unchanged today.^[1] Interestingly, Brown Willy is widely regarded as sacred by UFO followers, who visit the hill annually. These followers believe Brown Willy was supercharged with what they call “holy energy.” We can only hope that this is a myth, and Brown Willy does not explode.

9 Cockermouth

Cockermouth is without a doubt the most stunning location of this list. Situated on the edge of the beautiful Lake District in the county of Cumbria, Cockermouth is known as only one of 51 “Gem” towns in the UK.^[2] The name is derived from the town’s location, as it is quite literally at the mouth of the River Cocker. Due to its proximity to the River Cocker, it has also, unfortunately, been home to terrible flooding. In 2009, it was so heavily flooded that the British Army had to take control of the town in an aid effort, airlifting people out from their homes.

Cockermouth traces its history back to the Romans, who built a fort, which was later destroyed, in the vicinity of the current town center. Cockermouth Castle was rebuilt near it. The town is also notable for being the birthplace of the famous Lake Poet William Wordsworth, and the town contains tributes to him. The most famous of these is Wordsworth House, his birthplace, which has been restored and is now a museum.

8 Bell End

Found in the county of Worcestershire, Bell End is a village with proximity to the notable towns of Kidderminster and Stourbridge. The village is home to a stunning Gothic revival mansion known as Bell Hall. The mansion is built on property dating back to Norman times and has a Norman chapel to go with it. According to some reports, Guy Fawkes hid on the property when he was on the run, after the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.^[3] Another notable resident, Lady Godiva, was said to have resided on the original grounds. Lady Godiva is most known for being said to have ridden naked through the streets of Coventry to protest against taxation laws. If the reports are true, then the estate has a fantastic link to some of the most infamous figures in Britain’s history.

So, why is Bell End on this list? For those not aware, Bell End shares its name with a British slang phrase for the glans penis and is frequently listed as one of the most unusual or shocking place names. Unfortunately for residents who have campaigned to have the name changed, it still remains Bell End today.

7 Sandy Balls

Set deep within the New Forest near Fordingbridge, Sandy Balls is a large area of parkland and forests with a long history of being a popular holiday spot. Sandy Balls is in the county of Hampshire, near the south coast of England. The name of the area goes back to medieval times in England, during which the circular, sandy domes gave the place the name “Sandyballas.” After the end of World War I, the area was developed as a school camp for a youth movement, but it has now been established as a popular holiday center.^[4]

The New Forest has been touted as possibly the most haunted part of Britain due to a number of sightings, the most famous being Rufus the Red, who was suspiciously killed by an arrow while hunting in the forest. Local stories say that Rufus’s ghost can still be seen today in the forest, and the blood of the man who was responsible for firing the arrow—Sir Walter Tirel—turns the Ocknell Pond red every year. Other apparition sightings include the Stratford Lyon, a large, antlered, red lion that carries a man on its back. The Lyon was said to have come from the ground after the man pulled at a set of antlers. Another is the Witchy White—a witch who casts love spells and who is said to wander the forest to this day.

6 Shitlington Crags

Shitlington Crags is an area in Northumberland which is a popular visitor spot. A crag, in England, is typically a group of cliffs which are known for climbing. Shitlington Crags is known as part of a larger walking area in the Hexham area of Northumberland. The crags get their name from an abandoned medieval village known as Shitlington. It was first recorded in 1279 but seems to have been gone by the 17th century.^[5]

Shitlington Crags is near the village of Wark, Northumberland, which is noted for having the Goatstones. The Goatstones are thought to be religious stones left by the Anglo-Saxons, and they get their name from Anglo-Saxon gyet stanes, which means “wayside stones.” Wark is also the home of a listed Milky Way Class Dark Sky Discovery Site, meaning the area is so secluded that the stars and Moon are illuminated brilliantly in the night sky.

5 Great Cockup

The amusing-sounding Great Cockup is a fell which is located in the stunning Lake District, in the county of Cumbria. A fell is a high, barren landform, like a cluster of mountains or large hills that can often be traversed by walkers. Great Cockup is partnered by its equally amusing-sounding neighbor Little Cockup.^[6] For those unaware, “cockup” is a slang term for badly messing up, particularly in an embarrassing way.

Great Cockup is part of a number of mountains in the area known as the Northern Fells. The Northern Fells include Souther Fell, which is most famous for a ghostly sighting that occurred in 1745. According to witnesses, on the evening of Midsummer’s Day in 1745, a line of troops marching were noticed walking along the ridge of the fell. The line included horses and carriages, and witnesses were said to be “sober and respected,” therefore verifying as credible. The following day, Souther Fell was scaled, and not a single footprint or carriage mark could be found along the edge where the army had traveled.

4 Tongue Of Gangsta

Yes, you read that right. Residing in the Orkney Islands, Tongue of Gangsta is a place that can be found on the Orkney mainland. Tongue of Gangsta is directly south of the capital of Orkney, Kirkwall.^[7] Kirkwall gets its name from the Norse name Kirkjuvagr (Church Bay), so we can only assume that Tongue of Gangsta has some Norse origins, too.

There is extremely limited information about the toponymy of Tongue of Gangsta. Kirkwall was historically an outpost or meeting place for Scandinavian travelers. It has been described as being the center of their world and as more Scandinavian than Scottish. The area was acquired by King James III in 1468 and has been under Scottish rule ever since. During World War II, in the nearby Scapa Flow, the Royal Navy used the port at Scapa as a main base. In 1939, the HMS Royal Oak was sunk by a German U-Boat and is now designated as a protected war grave.

3 Titty-Ho

Within the small market town of Raunds, Northamptonshire, is an area known as Titty-Ho. Titty-Ho is cited as being one of the most amusing names in Britain, and unfortunately for residents, the name has been highlighted on TV.^[8] Residents have noted that other people cannot contain their laughter when they disclose where they live.

Despite the immature-sounding name of one part of it, the town of Raunds has an interesting history. During the 1980s, excavations in the nearby Nene Valley revealed some remains of a Roman villa. This was in addition to finding medieval buildings such as a church and manor house the previous decade. Raunds has also been the site of prehistoric findings unearthed by English Heritage. Perhaps one day, a discovery may help archaeologists to determine exactly where the name Titty Ho comes from, but this may just be wishful thinking.

2 Wetwang

Wetwang is a village located in the historic county of Yorkshire. The village name is proposed as being a Viking name meaning “meeting place”—as the village is located on a crossroads of two main roads.^[9] The name can obviously be misconstrued as meaning something else entirely.

Wetwang is very old and is even recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086! The village is known to have existed long before 1086, however, and in 2001, a very exciting discovery was made under Wetwang. A chariot, belonging to British armies who fought against Julius Caesar, was uncovered alongside the remains of a female warrior. A street in Wetwang was renamed “Chariot Way” after this event.

Wetwang is also notable for its black swans and has a local public house named the Black Swan in honor of the local birds. The village often appears in lists of unusual or rude place names. During a Woman’s Institute centennial fair in 2015, the name of the village had to be censored on merchandise, as it was deemed as too rude!

1 Twatt

In what is probably the bluntest and most uncouth village name on this list, the village of Twatt can be found on the Orkney Islands. In a twist, there are actually two villages in the UK which share the name of Twatt. Interestingly, both villages are found right at the top of Scotland, with the second Twatt being located in the Shetland Islands.

The village in Orkney is situated on the Mainland island.^[10] The Orkney Twatt was the home of a Royal Navy airfield during World War II. The airfield was decommissioned in 1949, but an abandoned control tower still remains today and can be visited.

The village of Twatt in the Shetlands is a little less known but is definitely inhabited by people and known throughout the islands. The name of both Twatts derives from the Norse word thveit—meaning “small parcel of land.” As you would expect, both places frequently top the lists of the most rude-sounding village names in the UK.

Matt Garrow—I have an English degree (which I use) and a Law degree (which I don’t). I currently work a 9–5 and can found sleeping standing up because I have a 2 year old who doesn’t sleep. Peace !

All claims of UFOs and alien encounters are, by their very nature, a little bizarre and outlandish. Some of them, however, are just a little too outrageous for even the most enthusiastic and dedicated UFO researcher to believe, at least not in their entirety.

And while the following ten stories are most likely not genuine, there remains a tiny sliver of doubt; they might not be complete fabrications, either. So, with a huge pinch of salt with extra helpings, here are ten UFO and alien encounter claims that are just a little too unbelievable.

10 George Adamski—An Authentic Initial Sighting That Descended Into Lies?

The first person on our list is also one of the most well-known. And at one point, George Adamski was very much considered the “real deal” in terms of contact with an extraterrestrial race.^[1] Even today, there is disagreement among UFO circles as to whether his initial purported encounters were actually genuine, though plenty of believers in those are still sure that Adamski went on to fabricate and outright manufacture more stories, whether for money, attention, or both.

True or not, beginning in November 1952, after several months of “channeled directions,” he would reportedly witness and capture a picture of a “flying saucer” (shown above) from his California home. By the time Adamski was making claims of trips to the Moon, Venus, and various other locations in outer space, even his most ardent supporters were beginning to distance themselves. If there was any truth in the initial claims of George Adamski, it is a real shame that what appears to be obvious fabrication and outright manufacturing of events will overshadow it.

9 Elizabeth Klarer Conceives An Alien Child On Another Planet

At around the same time that Adamski was making his claims in the late 1950s, in South Africa, Elizabeth Klarer would state not only that she made contact with an alien life-form but that she had gone to his home world and conceived a child with him.^[2] In fact, many skeptics would point out how many details of her claims were almost identical to those of Adamski.

According to Klarer, she successfully “called down” the alien she called “Akon,” who would arrive in his scout ship. From there, they would transfer to the main mother ship and then travel to Meton, Akon’s home planet, which, according to Klarer, was in the Alpha Centauri system.

However, the son they conceived would remain with Akon on Meton. As you might imagine, this did little for Klarer’s credibility. She would nevertheless stick to her story, despite the fact that she was almost universally not believed.

8 Ludwig Pallmann Develops Friendship With Race Of Aliens

In the mid-1960s, German businessman Ludwig Pallman would claim to have discovered an alien base in Brazil and, furthermore, to have established contact with its occupants.^[3]

He had first made contact with one of these mysterious visitors on a Bombay (now called Mumbai) train around 1964. He began speaking with him and noticed how strange his voice was and how perfectly white his hair glowed. He would meet the same figure again later, learning that his name was, according to Pallmann, Satu Ra. When he was on business in South America several years later, he would meet up with the apparent alien being once more, as well as members of his family.

Among the many claims made by Pallmann is that the alien visitors were running various programs and experiments with the “terrestrial fruit,” which they were hybridizing at their secret bases on the planet. Furthermore, he was given a crystal ring that would glow and heat up slightly when the aliens were nearby.

Perhaps one of the most outlandish of Pallman’s stories, if only because of its humanlike quality, is of hearing of a disaster that had befallen an alien ship on another planet. One of the aliens he had been introduced to previously (named Xiti) was apparently killed. Shortly after this event, coincidentally or not, came several sightings of a large silver disc where Pallmann claimed the aliens had their base.

Needless to say, while many in the UFO community are aware of Pallman’s alleged encounter, most distance themselves from such claims.

7 Walter Rizzi Develops Telepathic Abilities After Chance Meeting With Aliens

Although the details of the encounter are not particularly outlandish, there is still a persistent feeling among many in UFO circles that a pinch of salt should perhaps be at the ready when it comes to the claims of Walter Rizzi from Bolzano, Italy, which he would make ten years after a supposed incident in 1978.^[4]

After pulling his car to the side of the road near an underpass to get some sleep, Rizzi would awaken to see a disc-shaped craft hovering near his vehicle. Even more concerning was the humanoid entity making his way toward him. The being would communicate with Rizzi using telepathy. It is perhaps interesting to note that, similar to Pallmann’s story, the alien Rizzi met described how they were looking for vegetation, fruit, and minerals that are rich on planet Earth and of great value to them.

In a similar manner to many sightings of the time (although we should remember that Rizzi waited a decade before speaking of the encounter), the witness would state that he was warned of an impending disaster that would affect around 80 percent of the planet.

6 Carroll Watts Learns That Aliens Are Watching Humans As They Near The Cosmos

Perhaps, by comparison to many others on this list, the claims of Carroll Watts are relatively pedestrian. However, there are many who remain suspicious, with some noting Watts’s desire for financial return regarding the sightings, all of which took place over a period of six months during 1967 in Wellington, Texas.^[5]

He would claim to first witness a cigar-shaped craft while driving between fields and buildings on the family farm. He approached the object, which hovered low to the ground, and was asked by a voice that was “neither masculine or feminine” if he was “willing to submit to a rigorous physical examination.” If he passed, he would be allowed to travel with the occupants into space.

Although he would initially decline this invitation, in subsequent meetings, he agreed and ultimately went into space with the aliens. According to the “conversation” that took place during this cosmic journey, he was informed that these alien visitors would regularly “come and go as they pleased” from the Earth. Perhaps more worryingly, he was informed that many alien races in space were concerned with humanity’s apparent impending arrival in the cosmos and of humans becoming a spacefaring race.

5 Howard Menger Meets His Former Lover From A Past Life On Venus

According to alleged contactee Howard Menger, he was invited aboard a UFO in the summer of 1956.^[6] He not only was taken into outer space and to the Moon, but he claimed to have witnessed alien civilizations and huge structures on its surface.

An already bizarre set of encounters would turn even weirder, though, when a strange woman would attend a lecture Menger was giving on the subject of contact with “space brothers and sisters.” The woman’s name was Connie Weber. It was Menger’s belief that he and Weber had once been a couple during a past life they had shared on Venus. Rather than leaving such a notion at that, Menger promptly divorced his wife and began a relationship with Weber.

Perhaps even stranger was a television interview he would give in 1960, in which he stated that he the entire story was false. However, rather than admit that he had simply made the account up for notoriety or even money, he stated that he was part of a top secret military experiment to test public reaction to alien contact, a claim which, like his original one, would divide opinion.

4 Luciano Galli Takes A Trip Into Space During His Lunch Hour

In July 1957, Italian businessman Luciano Galli was returning back to work in Rome following his lunch break when a black car suddenly pulled up alongside him.^[7] The window wound down, and a gentleman with “piercing black eyes” leaned out. He asked Galli if he remembered him.

Galli was about to respond that he didn’t when a sudden wave of memories washed through his mind, making him realize that he did, indeed, remember the strange man. He had seen him previously on the streets of Rome. The man asked Galli if he would like to go with them, and he ultimately got into the back of the vehicle. They would drive to the outskirts of the city, where a “saucer-shaped UFO” was waiting for them. After they boarded it, the craft shot off into the sky.

The spaceship would take them to a huge mother ship, which Galli was then given a tour of. He was ultimately returned to the spot from where he was taken. While many would struggle to believe his account (he would claim that he “didn’t care what people thought”), there were several similar reports around the world in 1957 that perhaps lend him a bit of credibility.

3 Hubert Lewis Meets Aliens From Venus Living Among Us

According to newsagent Hubert Lewis, in 1957, he witnessed a disc-shaped object and its occupants while cycling through the town of Church Stretton in Shropshire in order to pick up newspapers.^[8] When a tall figure appeared in the road in front of him, Lewis demanded to know who this stranger was, almost without thinking. The occupant replied that the newsagent need not fear him.

The two would speak for around half an hour, the metallic disc hovering in the background all the while. As their conversation progressed, the wind, which had previously been relatively brisk, seemed to drop (although, strangely, Lewis could still hear it).

Following the meeting, Lewis claimed to have developed certain psychic abilities. Furthermore, he claimed to receive visits from “high-ranking police officers” who would advise him to “forget certain matters,” advice to which he initially agreed. However, several months later, he would encounter the alien beings and their craft again, this time in a field. He was informed, he would claim, that the aliens were from the planet Venus and were living in disguise among the population on Earth.

2 Sir Peter Horsley Talks With An Alien In A London Sitting Room

Sir Peter Horsley had a remarkable career in the Royal Air Force (RAF). Indeed, at his height, he was the deputy commander-in-chief of RAF Strike Command.^[9] However, in 1997, after he’d retired, he released the book Sounds From Another Room, in which he recounted speaking with an extraterrestrial being in a dark room in a London house. As a result, he was almost universally cut adrift by his military colleagues.

Horsley stated how he was invited in 1954 to meet a “Mr. Janus,” who would speak to the military man from a shadowy corner of the room. Horsley wrote about how he had the distinct feeling that Janus was able to read his mind. Furthermore, he would keep firm control of the conversation at all times. The conversation revolved around Britain’s future nuclear capabilities, and Janus demonstrated an intricate knowledge of the British military, as if to convince Horsley of his authenticity.

It was following this meeting that Horsley began to rise rapidly up the ranks of the RAF. Whether that rise is connected to the meeting with Janus is open to debate. However, despite the bizarre nature of Horsley’s claims, it would be strange for such a decorated individual to choose to draw attention to himself for no good reason.

1 Gosta Carlsson Develops Pharmaceutical Companies Following Meeting With Aliens

Whatever the authenticity of the claims of Swedish ice hockey player Gosta Carlsson, a location in the town of Angelholm now boasts a concrete memorial to the affair.^[10]

Carlsson claimed that while he was walking in the country in May 1946, he witnessed a strange saucer-shaped craft landing in a nearby field. Furthermore, the occupants of the craft ventured outside and communicated with him, even passing on natural remedy recipes.

So valuable was this meeting that Carlsson would go on to found two pharmaceutical companies. He was ultimately very successful and went on to become the owner of the first professional ice hockey team in Sweden. All of this success, according to Carlsson, was down to the chance meeting with extraterrestrials that afternoon in Angelholm.

Needless to say, many people, even in the UFO community, struggle to believe his story, at least in full. Whether his account is true or not, the monument is one of only two pertaining to UFO incidents in all of Europe, the other one being in Poland to mark the Emilicin encounter.

The idea of making something out of a cat probably sounds weird because cats are pets and not some random nonliving item that can be easily exploited. Well! That does not apply to everyone. Some people consider cats as just another tool to achieve their goals—ethics be damned.

Although Americans do a good job of keeping our furry friends as pets, others elsewhere think that these animals are just another source of protein. Cats have also been used to make all sorts of unconventional and unbelievable things, including telephones, drones, pianos, and even spy gadgets.

10 A Telephone

In 1929, Professor Ernest Glen Wever and Charles William Bray, two Princeton University scientists, made a telephone out of a cat.

Wever and Bray rendered the cat unconscious with sedatives before opening its skull to reach the auditory nerve. They attached one end of a telephone wire to the nerve and the other end of the wire to a telephone receiver 15 meters (50 ft) away. Then Bray started to talk into the cat’s ears while Wever listened at the telephone receiver.

The two men were more interested in experimenting with the auditory nerve than creating a practical telephone out of a cat. Before the experiment, scientists thought that the sound of voices increased in frequency when they hit the auditory nerve. However, the experiment revealed that voices remained at the same frequency as they collided with the nerve.^[1]

Wever and Bray also discovered that the cat telephone did not work when they put one end of the wire in other tissues and nerves apart from the auditory nerve. The telephone also malfunctioned when they stopped blood flow to the cat’s head, even though the wire was connected to the auditory nerve. The experiment was crucial in the creation of cochlear implants for deaf people.

9 A Piano

The katzenklavier (“cat organ”) is a piano like no other. It is made from real cats. Athanasius Kircher gave details about making one in his 1650 music book, Musurgia Universalis.

Kircher wrote that the piano required several cats that made meow sounds of different pitches. The cats were put in small cages at one end of the piano. Their tails were connected to some mechanism that delivered a spike into the tail of a cat whenever the player pressed a corresponding button.

The pain of the spike caused the cat to meow. The player composed music by pressing different buttons to make different felines meow. Kircher added that the meows got louder with subsequent presses as the cats became determined to escape from the piano.^[2]

Although there is no evidence that someone ever made a cat organ using details from Kircher’s book, there are claims that one was played as King Phillip II rode into Brussels sometime in the 16th century—a full century before Kircher proposed his piano. Historian Juan Calvete de Estrella wrote that the piano was played by a bear on a chariot.

8 A Drone

Drones have been taking over our skies lately. Maybe that was why Bart Jansen decided to make one out of his cat after it was hit by a car in 2012. Jansen was so distraught by the death of his cat, Orville, that he wanted a way to immortalize his pet.

Jansen decided to turn Orville into a drone because the animal had shared a name with Orville Wright, one of the two inventors of the first successful airplane. Jansen worked with engineer Arjen Beltman, who managed the electrical and mechanical parts of the project.

The result was a remote-controlled quadcopter drone he called the Orvillecopter. It resembled a regular quadcopter with the skin of Orville spread over it.^[3]

Jansen and Arjen later went on to fashion quadcopter drones out of a rat and an ostrich. They also added a jet engine to a dead shark and made a submarine out of a badger. The duo is currently trying to build a quadcopter that could fit a man. It would be made from a cow.

7 A Purse

In 2016, New Zealand taxidermist Claire Third made the news after putting a purse she had fashioned from a dead cat up for auction. The purse included the head and skin of the dead feline in case you are wondering.

Third found the cat by the roadside where it had been squashed to death by a passing vehicle. She took it home and made it into a purse that she put up for auction at NZ$1,400. The auction generated mixed reactions. Some liked the product, while others accused her of making money off a dead cat.^[4]

Someone suggested that she leave the cat alone. Another asked if she thought it would be okay if someone shot and stuffed her. Others just made jokes. One asked, “Who let the cat out the bag, or is it inside out?” Third reduced her asking price to NZ$1 but sold the purse for NZ$545.

6 Food

Americans might become disgusted at the thought of eating a cat, but in Vietnam, these animals are just another source of meat. Vietnamese cat meat lovers call them “little tigers.” They are sold at restaurants where consumers eat them with beer.

Little tigers are sometimes prepared in inhumane conditions. Restaurants drown the cats in water before shaving their skin and burning them to remove leftover fur. Then the restaurant workers cut the animals into bits and fry them.

The Vietnamese continue to eat cats even though a government ban restricts restaurants from killing and selling cats over concerns that the rat population could explode. The Vietnamese consume so many little tigers that there is a shortage of cats to make the delicacy. These days, thieves prowl the streets to steal cats to sell to restaurants. Vendors also smuggle the cats from nearby Thailand and Laos.

Interestingly, the Vietnamese do not have a history of eating cats. They only started consuming cats, rats, and dogs after suffering a series of devastating wars and famines in the 20th century. While the nation is much more stable today, people have just become used to eating cats and it will take more than a government ban to stop them.^[5]

5 A Spy Gadget

Operation Acoustic Kitty was the CIA’s elaborate attempt to make a spy gadget out of a cat. The idea was to rig cats with audio surveillance systems and have them play around foreign agents in the hopes that the animals would pick up one or two secrets.

The project started with a single cat called Acoustic Kitty. It underwent surgery to have a microphone installed in its ear and a radio transmitter placed at the base of its skull. An antenna was also installed under its fur.

Agents took the cat to a park where they tested it around two random men sitting on a bench. The cat did not walk toward the men. Instead, it sauntered right into the middle of the street where a taxi ran over it. The CIA later released a memo saying that cats do not make good trainees.^[6]

4 Defensive Weapons

Cats clearly do not make good shields because they are just too small and always wander off in the opposite direction of wherever they are needed. However, they can become valuable defensive weapons when used against the beliefs of an enemy, just as the Persians did in the 525 BC Battle of Pelusium against Egypt.

Egypt and the Persian-ruled Achaemenid Empire went to war after Pharaoh Amasis II delivered another woman in place of his daughter to Achaemenid emperor Cambyses II for marriage. The pharaoh refused to give away his daughter over concerns that Emperor Cambyses II would turn her into a concubine instead of a wife.

Amasis was dead by the time the Persian army reached his border. His son Psametik III (or Psammenitus) was pharaoh. The Persians arrived with lots of cats, which they knew that the Egyptians revered and would never kill. The Egyptians were unable to deploy their arrows against the Persians over concerns that they would hurt the cats.

Other accounts say that the Persians did not use live cats but drew images of a cat-headed goddess called Bastet on their shields. Whichever was true, all sources agree that the Egyptian army was heavily defeated. There were so many casualties that the ancient Greek historian Herodotus still found remnants of dead soldiers when he visited the battlefield 75 years later.^[7]

3 Offensive Weapons

In 1584, someone in Germany published a manuscript, Feuer Buech, detailing the creation of some siege weapons. It included an incendiary weapon made from burning pigeons and cats.

The unidentified author suggested that armies stole cats that lived around castles or city walls they planned to attack. During the attack, the army would strap explosive-filled bags to the backs of the cats and set them on fire. The cats instinctively fled back home to hide, burning whatever stood in their way.^[8]

There is no evidence that the German military ever produced or used that sort of weapon. However, there are accounts that burning cats were used as weapons as early as the third century BC. There are also claims that the infamous Mongol ruler, Genghis Khan, used them during his bloody campaigns.

2 Black Diamonds

Losing a pet can be painful. However, some people are turning their animals into diamonds to remain with their beloved pets forever. Human and animals can be turned into diamonds because our bodies contain substantial amounts of carbon. Diamonds are also made of carbon.

Pets and humans often end up as white diamonds. However, one business managed to create a black diamond from a cat called Sooty.

In 2008, the BBC reported that one Sue Rogers had turned her dead cat into a one-third carat black diamond. The gem was the only black diamond ever made from ashes at the time. The manufacturer, LifeGem, made the diamond using two grams of carbon from the cremated remains of the dead cat.^[9]

They first made the diamond using the regular method. That is, they exposed the ashes to a very high temperature and pressure for two weeks. The resultant diamond was white and only turned black after it was exposed to electrons for a day.

1 Drug Mules

Incarcerated criminals in Russia and Brazil have been turning cats into unwilling smugglers. In 2015, officials arrested a cat outside the Presidio Regional Romero Nobrega prison in Patos, Brazil, after a failed smuggling attempt.

Officials discovered the smugglers had used gauze, plaster, and masking tape to strap mobile phones, chargers, and SIM cards to the cat’s body before covering it with fake fur. Prison officials discovered the plot after spotting plaster on the body of the cat. Later, they said that they would check every cat entering and leaving the prison from then on.

In another incident, two people were arrested after a cat tried smuggling hashish and amphetamines into a Russian prison in 2018. Police said that the cat had lived in the prison until one of the inmates took it home after his release. The suspects had brought the cat near the prison at the time they were arrested.^[10]

This list uncovers some amazing feats in architecture and technology, one of which has taken at least a decade to create. The building of all these structures was a major undertaking which is still taking a toll on some property developers and investors. Some of these sites are stunning and remarkable while others are slightly humorous.

It’s beyond amazing to see the painstaking efforts some individuals have taken to recreate history. We’re talking about history buffs who are so aroused by creating replicas that they will spend their family’s fortune to recreate the history of another country inside their own.

10 Paris In Tianducheng, China

If you’re in China but love Paris and luxury, you should visit Tianducheng. You’ll have the ability to have it all to yourself because the area is largely abandoned. The area impressively replicates Paris—from the buildings surrounding the 108-meter (354 ft) replica of the Eiffel Tower to the Champs-Elysees’ fountain.

The replica is a sight to behold even though it’s less than half of the real size, actually closer to a third. Paris in Tianducheng has a residential neighborhood around the Eiffel Tower, a gated community that protects practically no one.

It is built to accommodate 10,000 people, but far fewer people than that live there. Travel time to get there by public transportation takes at least an hour. Perhaps this is the reason for the lack of incoming traffic in the area despite its allure to investors.

9 London’s Tower Bridge In Suzhou, China

If an English person finds their trip to China culturally shocking, they can take solace in the faux English replicas. Those with an eye for authenticity will notice that the Tower Bridge in Suzhou does not have a raising mechanism.

The original has two towers while the replica has four towers connected through skywalks and elevators. You’ll find Tower Bridge Coffee located in one of the towers. Humorously enough, it has an English cafe with a Chinese menu.

The Chinese are proud of the £9.4 million monument, which stands 40 meters (131 ft) tall, across Huayuan Road. A Chinese publication stated that the Chinese structure was more magnificent than the original. The replica is wider at the base and has space for pedestrians and non–motor vehicles on either side.

The bridge is still discussed as part of the controversial urban planning in Suzhou that focuses on erecting foreign structures. The president of an architecture firm in Beijing called the bridge plagiarism in a city that already has its own rich culture.

8 Florence, Italy, In Tianjin, China

Florentia Village is a great place to visit if you have a taste for pricey Italian dining and shopping in Tianjin. This shopping center is definitely an Italian knockoff. But no matter how fake it might be, shoppers should be strapped with real, cold, hard cash.

This $220 million investment is nothing to be scoffed at. No need to take an 18-hour flight to shell out dollars the Italian way. When most people think of picking a gondola and riding down the canal, China is probably not the first place that comes to mind.

It’s fascinating that expensive brands such as Armani, Prada, Versace, and more have placed their shops in a replica shopping center. Wouldn’t one think that the world’s most successful retail brands would want to be associated with authenticity instead of a fictitious area of “Italy”?

Guess not. If a picture is taken at just the right angle, who is to say it’s not authentic? Italian mall operator RDM is expecting a lot of mainlander and international business. Faux Italy is located near the Kwai Hing subway station. Since it’s close to immigration checkpoints, the airport, and the subway, approximately half a million visitors are expected to travel to Florentia Village.

7 The Giza Pyramids In 3-D

Great minds at Harvard University, Dassault Systemes, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston have collaborated to make an impressive replica of an Egyptian 3-D world.

Professor Peter Der Manuelian has used 3-D immersion in his teaching for the last 10 years. Recreations include 3-D tours of major monuments of Giza—three pyramids, the sphinx, 15 tombs, and the throne of the mother of King Khufu.

Dassault Systemes and the Harvard Semitic Museum have been collaborating for six years to create tombs and pyramids. The duo worked to provide 3-D, immersive classrooms for students to learn about the Giza area. High-performance projectors and a wide, curved screen provide a fully immersive experience for students learning about the structures of ancient Egypt.

The project is focused on archaeological truths to ensure historical accuracy. It brings together the findings of 11 different universities located in the US, Egypt, Austria, Germany, and Italy.

The Giza Pyramids in 3-D contains 150,000 files with information dating back to the 1800s. 3-D technology allows the Giza plateau to be shown at three different periods in time simultaneously. This includes the pyramids in 2400 BC, the conditions in 1912, and the structures as they are today.

6 The Greek Parthenon In Nashville, Tennessee

Witnessing the replica of Greece’s Parthenon in Tennessee isn’t free. Even though this historic building is fake and completely out of place, the original casts for the marble sculptures are authentic and date back to 438 BC. Other than being made of plaster, these full-scale replicas are remarkable.

The Centennial Exposition of 1897 brought about the creation of the Parthenon replica. However, the whole point of the Centennial Exposition was to display Native Americans, the original inhabitants of the land. Nevertheless, the choice was made to honor the original Native American tribes with something that has nothing to do with their culture or history.

The 13-meter (42 ft) statue of Athena Parthenos (“Athena the Virgin”) also serves as a museum of art. The Parthenon was made for temporary display in 1895 for the Tennessee Centennial Exposition in 1897, although the state decided to make the structure permanent in 1920.

The statue of Athena Parthenos is the largest indoor statue in the Western world. The statue remained completely white for 12 years before it underwent a four-month gilding process.

Pheidias, the original Greek sculptor of Athena, was also the creator of the statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Alan LeQuire won the commission to recreate Athena Parthenos in 1982, and the work was finally unveiled in 1990.

5 The Leaning Tower Of Niles In Niles, Illinois

In the 1920s, Robert Ilg got an idea that he wanted to construct a 22-acre park in Illinois with two swimming pools. But he was confronted with the issue of unsightly water towers which provided water for the pools.

Then an ingenious idea popped into his mind to develop a replica of the “Leaning Tower of Pisa” to hide the water tanks. Size apparently doesn’t matter. At 29 meters (94 ft) tall, this replica is half the size of the original in Pisa, Italy.

Ilg required the local YMCA (which inherited the building) to maintain the site for $500 per year until 2059. The structure needs repairs, so hopefully, there are enough funds to complete the job.

4 Statue Of Liberty In Japan

These days, you just can’t count on landmarks to tell you where you are. Seeing the Statue of Liberty no longer means you’re in New York. In fact, there are three replicas of this well-known monument in Japan—one each in Odaiba, Shimoda, and Osaka.

The figure was provided on loan from France and temporarily put in place for a year in 1998 to celebrate ties between Japan and France. The following year, France took back the statue.

What better way to replace something missed than to just make a fake one? In 2000, a replica was erected in Japan and remains to this day.

3 Falconcity Of Wonders In Dubai

The Seven Wonders of the World are set to be recreated in Falconcity of Wonders in Dubai. The city is host to replicas of the pyramids, Taj Arabia, Tower of Pisa, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Eiffel Tower, and the Great Wall of China.

Taj Arabia is a replica of the Taj Mahal. The construction places heavy emphasis on modern amenities. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon in Dubai offer eco-friendly luxury flats, open-air restaurants, and of course, the garden.

Despite the immense efforts to recreate these structures, the focus is not on historical accuracy as much as aesthetic appeal. Many of the replicas have features that cannot be found on the originals, such as parks, cafes, and fountains. The luxury community is still in the process of being built after many years of delays.

2 Fred Flintstone’s House

Who would have known that it’s such a popular idea to live in a house that’s modeled after the Flintstones’ home? A theme park spanning six acres is dedicated to Fred and his lifestyle. It sits 48 kilometers (30 mi) outside of the Grand Canyon’s south rim.

The park is one of a few different Flintstones-themed parks in the US. The Flintstones’ Bedrock City Park and Campground is a theme park with quirky features, like a cafe with coffee for five cents and a fake volcano named after Wilma.

The town is complete with all the buildings—a dentist’s office, post office, jail, police station, and gift shop. Visit Fred’s Diner and chow down on the cartoon character’s favorite meals, like the Fishasaurus sandwich, Chickasaurus dinner, Bronto burgers, and Gravelberry pie.

For many years, the park was home to Linda Speckels, her five daughters, and her late husband, Francis. She is now looking for someone to take over the park’s operations as she’s raised all her children at the park and is ready to move on.

Speckels hopes that the new owner of the property will continue the Flintstones theme, but she is okay if they decide not to. Unfortunately for the new owner, the Hanna-Barbera licensing rights don’t transfer with the sale, but the conditional use permit does.

The new owner will have options to convert the property into a mall or casino. Anyone who opposes destruction of the park can slide down the back of their own brontosaurus every day for $2 million.

1 Titanic Replica

The Titanic II is being created by billionaire Clive Palmer. The design and decor of Titanic II will match the era of its predecessor. The replica of the iconic ship will even contain replicas of the original lifeboats.

The hull has finally been completed on this functioning replica of the Titanic after two years of delays. Plans were developed in 2012, and the ship was scheduled to have its maiden voyage in 2016. But that has been delayed until 2018.

Made for 2,435 passengers, the new ship will be equipped with lifeboats and modern marine applications. Even though Titanic II is slated to have 840 rooms and nine decks, it is actually going to be smaller than modern-day cruise ships.

The cost to build it is estimated at $435 million, roughly 10 times the cost of the original. It will be permanently docked at a luxury resort, set to open at the end of 2017. Titanic II will not be taking its old route. Instead, it will travel from Jiangsu, China, to Dubai.

Katana Haley is an entrepreneur and woman of many hats. When she’s not performing hard rock or songwriting, you’ll find her in a book. She has an extensive content marketing, copywriting, and musical background. Katana’s experience includes being a singer, content marketer, and web developer.

One of the biggest forged art scams in history resulted in roughly $80 million being spent on “fake” paintings. So the world of scam art is a booming business if you can pull it off. But art is far from the only industry where you can fake someone out and earn big money in the process. People will sell fake anything and everything if they think they can get away with it. And a good number of them do.

10. Nigerian Scammers Sold a Fake Airport for Over $200 Million

Selling a fake painting is one thing. You can have someone paint it, make it look real enough, frame it and then physically give it to the person you’re scamming. If you did a good enough job on your forgery, it’ll fool your buyer and they’ll hand over the cash. This makes sense and is easy to understand. Now imagine trying to do that with an airport.

In the mid ’90s, three men from Nigeria pulled off a staggering scam in which they convinced a senior bank official from Brazil to use funds from his bank to invest in their new airport. In exchange, he would earn a tidy $10 million commission. Does any of this sound familiar to you? Someone from a foreign land promising a huge financial opportunity at no risk to you and, in return, you take home millions! Yeah, it’s basically the same Nigerian Prince email scam everyone got 25 years ago, only so much bigger. Also, it worked.

The banker funneled a whopping $242 million from his bank to a variety of different accounts around the world. In a surprise twist that probably only surprised him, there was no airport, the whole thing was fake. 

The scammers bought multiple properties with their scammed money and lived the high life until they were caught, convicted, and had their assets given to the bank.

9. Up to 30% of Pharmaceuticals Sold in Developing Nations are Fake

In a lot of places around the world, access to medication is limited. This is true in poorer countries and richer ones. Americans have some of the worst markups for pharmaceuticals anywhere in the world and, for many people, the alternative of buying medicine online from another country seems like a great option. And it probably is, if you get what you pay for. The problem is that as much as 30% of the pharmaceuticals sold around the world are fake. 

According to the World Health Organization, the counterfeit drug market is worth $30 billion. This has also resulted in the deaths of thousands of people. Even in developed countries, one in ten drugs being sold is not the real deal.

Many of the victims are in developing nations however, in particular in Africa where thousands of African children have died because of getting scam medication for pneumonia or malaria. 

So what qualifies as a fake drug? Sometimes it is the real medication but in the wrong dose. Sometimes it’s a different drug and sometimes it’s just nothing at all, maybe a sugar pill or some other placebo with no active ingredients. Point is that they don’t work and they can get people killed.

8. A Man Made Millions Selling Fake Bomb Detectors

The military seems to have bottomless pockets but scamming them has to be something done with nerves of steel, you would think. It doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though. Some people have pulled off remarkable scams, like James McCormick. He made £50 million by selling fake bomb detectors, mostly in the Middle East.

McCormick is believed to have sold around 7,000 ADE-651 bomb detecting devices over a period of years. These could be used at various checkpoints and in secure facilities to detect an explosive to keep people safe. That was the scam, anyway. In reality, the machines were slightly repurposed golf ball finders that did nothing at all. 

The golf ball finder was a novelty toy that cost $20. It had a cheap antenna on it that was supposed to move when it detected “elements” in a golf ball, using the same a dowsing rod supposedly detects water. It’s just the unconscious and involuntary movements of the person holding it. There were no real working electronics or science involved at all. 

Aside from the stunning amount of money McCormick made selling these scam detectors, the other remarkable aspect of the story was that some places were still using them, even years after the scam was revealed.

7. Fake Pepper Made of Mud Was Sold in China

In 2022, real saffron could cost you as much as $10,000 per kilogram so there’s some precedent for the spice trade being a valuable one. But saffron is a relatively rare spice and one most people don’t have on their counter. It has to be harvested by hand and you can’t grow the crocuses that produce it just anywhere.

Pepper, on the other hand, is one of the most common spices in the world. Salt and pepper are the ubiquitous seasonings on nearly every table in the West. It’s made from ground up peppercorns and it’s a relatively inexpensive spice in much of the western world.

Despite how cheap and abundant it seems, if you can get away with selling fake pepper it’s even cheaper and more abundant. In China it’s been reported that some pepper sold in markets was just dried up mud. In a fun twist, the seller didn’t care that they’d been caught out and said it was no big deal because mud wasn’t going to kill anyone.

6. The Cellular Phoney Was a Fake Car Phone Sold in the ’80s 

Gather ‘round, children, for we’re about to talk about the olden times. Once, some decades ago, there was no such thing as a cell phone. If you wanted to call someone, you had a little box with numbers on it attached to the wall of your house by a wire. It was a telephone, and it was the only way to call someone. If you wanted to text, you had to write it on paper and send it in the mail. 

Around the time that big, clunky wireless phones first appeared, so too did car phones. For a time they were more popular since wireless phones were the size of milk cartons. But they were not for the average driver. In 1987, a car phone might set you back around $1,400. That would be about $3,700 in 2023. 

For the 1980s clout chaser who wanted to look rich and important there was the fake car phone called the Cellular Phoney. It looked exactly like a car phone but it did nothing; it was just a replica. They sold for $16, or $9.95 if you found a sale. The company sold about 40,000 of them, mostly in Los Angeles where people love to play pretend. 

5. Fake Amazon Listings Were Used to Scam Walmart Out of PS4s

Some people shop like it’s a life or death mission and getting the best deal possible is the goal. They will cross town and even go to other cities for the best deals. They’ll collect coupons and wait for double coupon days to ravage a store and scour its shelves clean. And they’ll also price match.

Price matching is a simple concept where a store tries to keep your business by selling things you might want to go to another store to get for the same price. You bring in a flyer from the competition that has a better deal, they’ll match the deal. Easy for you because you don’t need to travel, easy for the store because they made the sale and maybe you buy a bunch of other stuff, too.

Walmart learned the hard way that this policy can be exploited by scammers. When Walmart offered to price match online retails for the PS4, people started showing up with fake Amazon listings selling the gaming system for as low as $90 and even $50 in some cases. So Walmart had to sell the normally $400 system for the same price. 

Eventually the company clued in and dropped the price match policy for sites like Amazon.

4. Rolling Stone Made a Fake Supergroup That Sold 100,000 Records

Back in 1969 an album was released by the band The Masked Marauders. Members included Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and Bob Dylan. It was, arguably, the greatest rock ‘n’ roll supergroup ever. It was also total BS. The band, and the article about them in Rolling Stone magazine, was made up. It was a piece of satire that was published in a magazine not really known for satire, so not everyone read it that way. 

The idea started when one of the magazine’s writers, sick of supersession albums, wrote a fake review of an album that never existed. For fun, he showed it to his editor who thought it was great. So they published it. 

The album became huge, which is to say everyone wanted it but of course no one could get it because it never existed. But as desire grew, Rolling Stone took it a step further. They recorded the album. A band called the Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band was hired to do impressions of the more famous musicians. Warner Brothers distributed it and they managed to sell 100,000 copies. 

The liner notes to the album gave away the joke but, of course, you had to buy the album first to get that far. The chairman of the FCC apparently called the whole thing obscene. 

3. The Hitler Diaries Sold For Millions Before They Were Outed as Forgeries

Back in the 1980s, the secret diaries of Adolf Hitler were published, and it was a groundbreaking discovery right up until it wasn’t. Stern magazine paid the equivalent of $3.75 million for the diaries and published them in 1983. 

The diaries were authenticated by a British historian and then, about a week later, they were proven to be forgeries. Forensic testing proved the ink to be new, the paper was wrong and the handwriting itself was not accurate. There were also historical inaccuracies included in the works which helped send the forger to jail. The magazine, however, was forced to issue an embarrassing retraction for their overzealous mistake.

2. A ’90s Scammer Sold $50 Clothesline as Solar Powered Clothes Dryers

Sometimes a scam can still be technically legit, just in a way that pleases no one except the guy making all the money. That was the case with Steve Comisar, who sold solar powered clothes dryers through classified ads in the ’90s that only cost customers $50. He made $2 million before he was shut down.

So what was the scam? Comisar mailed everyone who paid him a length of clothesline. A scientifically proven way to use solar power to dry clothes. Needless to say, his customers were angry, but they were not “technically” ripped off. He kept the money, he just wasn’t allowed to sell any more.

Comisar would later go on to bigger and more complex scams and was apparently once known as the Jeffrey Dahmer of fraud. 

1. Walmart Sold Fake Craft Beer

Craft beer has been around for quite a while but really gained some popularity in the 2010s. Plenty of companies with goofy names came out of the woodwork to sell traditional and non-traditional craft beers alike, and they were cutting into the market for some of the bigger breweries. In an effort to capitalize on this, Walmart started selling its own craft beer. Except it was a fake.

Walmart’s beer was supposedly made by Trouble Brewery, only they didn’t really exist. The beer was actually brewed by WX Brands, which is actually Genesee Brewing, a Costa Rican brewery known for the Genesee brand of cheap college beers. So, in reality, their craft beer was just mass market beer that had been mislabeled, which is technically not allowed.

There’s a thing adults tell kids sometimes – cheaters never win. That’s horribly untrue, of course. They win constantly because they cheated. Now, if they get caught, they may face consequences, but that’s sort of the same as crime. Crime never pays unless you get away with it. But we’re trying to keep the kids on the straight and narrow, so you get the idea.

In sports, doping stands out as one of the most egregious forms of cheating. Using a substance that gives you an advantage over other players is cut-and-dry cheating. But it’s also hugely popular and has happened in some remarkably weird ways.

10. Most Tour de France Winners Have Been Found Guilty of Doping

Thanks to Lance Armstrong, everyone in the world became aware of doping in the Tour de France. But for those who never followed the world of cycling before, and the Tour in particular, it may have come as a shock. Doping in cycling? Surely that’s an absurd outlier, right? How often can that happen? The answer is always. It always happens in the Tour De France and has always happened. 

Nearly every Tour de France winner has been guilty of doping at some point in their career. In 2022 it was shown that 42 winners of the Tour de France in the previous 55 years had been guilty of doping at some point. That’s over 75% of the winners. That’s a lot of doping. 

In recent years the Tour has tried to clean up their act, and the scandals have lessened. This is due to increased scrutiny, of course, and it’s hard to say if anything would have changed if not for Armstrong cycling too close to the sun.

In recent years the Tour has tried to clean up their act and the scandals have lessened. This is due to increased scrutiny, of course, and it’s hard to say if anything would have changed if not for Armstrong cycling too close to the sun.

9. A Belgian Bodybuilding Competition was Canceled When Everyone Ran From Anti-Doping Officials

Bodybuilders have long been associated with doping thanks to the steroid stereotype that still hangs over the entire sport. That’s not to say it’s necessarily undeserved as there have been several scandals and bodybuilders outed for using steroids and other muscle-enhancing products over the years, but it has painted the whole industry with the same brush.

Getting out from under the stigma, the way the Tour De France has been trying, isn’t easy. And stories like this one don’t make it any easier. In 2009, a Belgian bodybuilding competition was canceled when anti-doping officials made a surprise visit and every single competitor literally grabbed their stuff and ran away.

The event was a championship competition that had 20 competitors signed up and ready to go. That every single one took off the moment officials arrived was probably disheartening for any fans that had been in attendance.

Officials noted that the people who run such competitions have never actually invited them to an event so they have to make surprise visits and this event was actually being held in the Netherlands, which they felt was done explicitly to keep Belgian anti-doping officials away. Obviously, it didn’t work and officials were forced to conclude, as most rational people would, that everyone was using something illegally.

8. Russia Had Secret Pee Swaps At the Olympics

Russia has had a sometimes sketchy history when it comes to the Olympic games because they don’t always play fair. In 2019, Russia was banned from the Olympics for four years because of doping scandals, even though some individual athletes from Russia still had workarounds. So what exactly were they doing that was so egregious that it got the entire country banned?

Let’s head back to the 2014 Olympics in Sochi. Four years earlier the country had done relatively poorly, so they needed to up their game. Now that could have meant higher caliber athletes, but what it actually meant was smuggling pee through mouse holes. 

Officials drilled a hole through the wall of the anti-doping lab and swapped urine samples from their drug-enhanced athletes with clean urine samples so they could pass the tests. The Russians won 33 medals. Good job, drugs!

The former head of Russia’s anti-doping agency helped expose the scheme and Russia naturally denied there was any state-run doping afoot. That said, the country and its athletes are constantly being investigated and five different Olympic games since 2014 have been scrutinized. One athlete said about 99% of Russian Olympians are doping.

Russia has been banned from not just the Olympics but international track and field events. Every time they have been given latitude to compete on any level, new info emerges of tampered data and samples from labs. It’s like they can’t not do it at this point.

7. Over 50% of Athletes In Anonymous Surveys Admitted to Doping

Usually, you need to catch someone doping to prove doping because people don’t volunteer that information. It kind of ruins the point of cheating. Unless you give them a way out, like an anonymous survey. That happened in 2011 and the results were not encouraging for anyone who likes sports “pure.”

Info from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) suggested maybe 2% of athletes were doping. But a pair of surveys that asked athletes about their habits over the previous year came up with results that said 57% admitted to it. 

The surveys covered over 2,000 runners. One was conducted at the world championships where 29% admitted to doping and then 45% at the Pan-Arab Games admitted to using in the prior year. That data first came to light in 2013, two years after the surveys, and it was never officially published at all until six years later.  

That the reports were commissioned by WADA and came up with results they absolutely didn’t want to hear may have played a part in the delay. One author alleged as much, saying that there was a lot of pushback from professional organizations who didn’t like the results. 

6. Nike Alphafly Shoes Have Been Banned as “Technological” Doping

There’s more than one kind of doping in sports. Drugs are the obvious and most common one but you can also engage in technological doping. That’s when you use tools or gear that gives you an unfair edge. Like, imagine if you played basketball with those cool cartoon rocket shoes that let you fly across the court to dunk. Like that, but less cool. 

Shoes have been banned as technological doping before. They are called Nike Alphafly shoes, and they were banned from the Tokyo Olympics. The shoes have been used by runners to provide greater energy return and speed. And they work so well you can’t use them.

Eliud Kipchoge brought the shoes to light when he became the first person ever to run a marathon in under two hours. The shoes, it’s been argued, were the reason. The shoes enhance spring, have added cushioning, and all that performance-improving technology that governing bodies felt was against the spirit of the competition. 

5. In 1930, Tour de France Officials Had to Explain That Drugs Wouldn’t Be Provided

One last trip to France here and their infamous bike race. We already mentioned that many winners have been shown to have doped at some point in the past, but let’s go back further. The Tour de France has been around for over a century and even way back in the day it was shady.

In the early days, competitors drank wine and smoked cigarettes while they rode. Ether, nitro, and other enhancers were also par for the course. Things were so bad that, in 1930, the official race rule book had a section to remind racers that the Tour would not provide drugs for them. Imagine how bad it was that they needed to publish it. Competitors were so used to being loaded they expected the race to dope them up before it started.

4. Doping in Chess is Done With Ritalin

Doping isn’t necessarily a problem in sports, it’s a problem in competition. When two or more people go head to head in any way, there’s always a chance one might use something to give them an edge. That’s why even chess players need to be tested because you never know if someone’s after your bishop with the help of performance-enhancing substances. 

In 2008, a professional chess player had a public meltdown after he was asked to provide a urine sample. It was later decided he hadn’t fully understood the request because of language barriers but he was never tested. This still stands as the most public and well-known doping incident in chess, despite no one ever being found guilty of doping. 

The incident also proved that there is an anti-doping body in chess, and they do test. Sometimes even too much, as one player had to give three samples in a row because he drank too much water and it was diluted. 

Ritalin and modafinil are two drugs that are considered performance enhancers for chess players. Tests show players on the drugs are slower but better players overall. 

3. Racing Pigeon Doping is a Big Problem

Doping doesn’t have to be an exclusively human issue. Obviously, humans are the ones behind it, but even racing pigeons have to be monitored because there’s always someone out there willing to slip a pigeon a mickey to get ahead in this world.

If you’re not aware, pigeon racing is precisely what you think it is. People take homing pigeons up to 1200 km from their homes and let them go. Then they race home and whoever gets back first wins. Belgium is at the forefront of the sport and had its first race in 1818.

Like anything that races, a pigeon can be slipped various drugs that range from steroids to something like analgesic painkillers that can help it endure a race better than the competition. 

In 2013, six Belgian birds were tested and found to have been doped. Five of them had anti-inflammatories on board but the sixth one had been given cocaine. People are out there making birds into cokeheads to win races.

The reason for drugging pigeons is the reason for drugging anyone or anything in sport – money. One single racing pigeon was sold in May of the same year as the scandal for $430,000.

2. Esports are Subject to Doping Scandals

If you’re of a certain age, you probably smirk when you hear the term “esports.” Not everyone considers esports the same as other sports but you can’t deny two things. Esports are very popular and they are certainly competitive. There’s also a lot of money on the line and that’s the prime breeding ground for doping scandals.

Drug testing became a part of the esports world in 2015 after a massive Adderall scandal involving a championship Counter-Strike team who were all said to be using the drug. Because these guys don’t need steroids; they need focus. You play to your strengths in the doping world.

Since that time, many more accusations have plagued the gaming world and other drugs like Adderall have been brought up, things like Ritalin and other ADHD drugs believed to improve focus, concentration, and reaction time. Despite the promise that there would be some kind of regulation, little has come from it. 

1. There’s a Speedo That was Banned as Technological Doping

We covered technological doping briefly before but no technological doping reached the heights, or depths, of the banned Speedo swimsuit. Considered an unfair edge for competitive swimmers, the Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit has faced some hard times.

As silly as it might sound, there is evidence that technology, even simply technology, helps swimmers a lot. In 1976, once goggles were permitted, tons of records were broken. In 2008, nearly every record-breaking swimmer wore the LZR suit. In fact, 62 records were broken wearing this suit. 

Speedo used full-on NASA scientists to develop the LZR suit to offer as little resistance and drag as possible. The technology is actually very complex, and the result is a super microfiber suit that improves swimming efficiency by up to 5% while reducing drag by 38%.

Criticism of the suit is that it’s a device that helps you win. It costs $550 and you can only wear it 10 times before it loses that competitive edge. In 2009, the international body that oversees swimming banned the use of the suits because they “diminish natural ability.”

There’s a good chance that, whatever money you make in a year, you could probably do with a bit more. Most of us aren’t extravagantly wealthy and our annual income is enough to get by, but a few thousand dollars more would certainly make things more comfortable. 

There is a very diverse range of incomes these days when you have people who can make over a billion dollars a year and others are struggling to just get food on the table. With that in mind, there’s a lot of interesting things to learn about annual incomes in general. 

10. The Average Broadway Theater Goer Makes Over $260,000

Live theater took a bit of a hit during the Covid pandemic but it’s been slowly regaining ground and returning to its former popularity.  Broadway made about $1.5 billion in the 2022-2023 season and the US theater industry in total made $8.7 billion in 2023. So what kind of people are going to see plays these days?

People who frequent live theater average between 40 and 45 years of age, it’s not typically a young person’s cup of tea. On Broadway, the average annual income of a theatergoer in 2019 was $261,000. For the 2022-2023 season that went up to $271,000. The average ticket price for a show is $161. 

Going to the theater isn’t a daily or even weekly occurrence for most people, and the bulk of Broadway audiences are tourists stopping in for a one-time experience. If you ever wondered what sort of people were heading to see Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, now you have a bit of a better idea.

9. Finland Fines Speeders Based on Annual Income

Over 40 million Americans are ticketed for speeding every year. People just really like to go fast. And depending on where you are and how fast you’re going there can be a lot of variation when it comes to the cost of that ticket. You may pay as little as $25 but it can get up to over $1,000 sometimes. 

Things work differently in Finland. Finland is less concerned with where you got ticketed or how fast you were going than they are with how much money you have in general. Tickets are based on your annual income which is meant to be more of a deterrent than static fines which would mean nothing to a rich person. 

In 2023, a million was hit with a $130,000 fine for traveling 18.6 miles per hour over the speed limit. It’s believed that the fine may be the most any speeder has ever been fined anywhere in the world. 

The speeder, millionaire Anders Wiklof, didn’t seem as annoyed as you might think. For one, he’s a millionaire, so he’s probably fine. But also, he was quoted as saying “I had just started slowing down, but I guess that didn’t happen fast enough. It’s how it goes” and that he regrets it. 

Finland’s math for coming up with fines is based on what you make in a day divided by two. So if Wiklof had been employed part-time at a low-paying job he may have only had a $20 fine. That said, if you are significantly over the speed limit, they may make it several days’ worth of pay, not just one.

8. Your Annual Income Increases With Your Height

It’s not uncommon knowledge that attractive people tend to have things easier in life. That doesn’t make it fair, but it’s still the way things go. A lot of things go into being attractive, at least in the conventional and generally accepted sense. One thing that is usually considered a point in your favor is your height. 

The taller you are, the more attractive you are considered at least if you’re a man. Have you ever been afraid that tall people have an advantage over you beyond what they can reach on top shelves? You’re not going to like this entry.

Studies have shown that your annual income increases by almost $800 for every inch of height that you have over the average person. One study showed that someone who is 6 feet tall will earn, on average, $166,000 more over 30 years than someone who is 5-foot-5 regardless of sex, age, or weight. One in China suggested every centimeter in height increased your annual income by 1.3%. That’s about 3.3% per inch.

7. $60K Per Year Puts You in the Richest 1% of the World 

For several years now people have referred to various income groups by their percentage. As in what percentage of the population falls into that income bracket. So we’ll refer to the wealthiest 1%, or the poorest 50%, or what have you. To be in the wealthiest 1% of Americans, you need an annual salary of $483,000. America is hardly the world, though.

If you want to feel better about your own financial situation, or worse about a lot of other people’s, look at world statistics. If you want to be in the wealthiest 1% globally, you don’t need to make $483,000 per year. Or $300,000 or $200,000 or even $100,000. If your annual income is $60,000 per year after tax then you are the one percent. In 2012 all you needed was $34,000 per year.

How can such a low number, at least by most Western standards, make you seem so wealthy globally? Well, the question answered itself. Those are Western standards. Over 900 million people on earth live on less than $1.25 a day. 

6. The Shorter Your Name is the Higher Your Annual Salary

You already know that if you’re tall, you’re making more money. What else can you do to maximize that annual salary? Shorten your name up and make it real tight. The shorter your name is the higher your salary is going to be. If you’re seven feet tall and your name is Max Pip, you are set. 

According to one study, a short first name is the key to your financial success. Each extra letter in your first name costs you about $3,600 per year. That includes long vs short forms of the same name, so Bart vs Bartholomew or Chris vs Christopher. Pick the short name and reap the rewards.

Weirdly enough, variations of the same name still benefit from brevity. Michele makes more money than Michelle. That extra letter is putting you in the poorhouse. There were a few names that broke the mold, like Christine for women and Wayne for men, but for the most part, you want five or fewer letters to earn the most.

5. Households Earning Under $13,000 May Spend 3% to 9% on Lottery Tickets

Back in 2012 it was reported that households making under $13,000 a year, which is decidedly below the $104,000 per year MIT has calculated as a minimum liveable wage for an American family of four (in 2023, so the numbers are a little off) spends 9% of their income on lottery tickets.

Now, since PBS released that figure in a documentary it has since been noted that it may be wrong and the real number may be 2% to 3% instead, and somehow PBS messed up their figures. There is a rabbit hole to go down trying to explain the different percentages but the result still has you pondering how much money people spend on lottery tickets as a percentage of their entire yearly salary.

The most significant takeaway, and one that may not be hard to wrap your head around, is that people without a lot of money will risk money on a desperate attempt to somehow make more. 

4. For About 1,000 Years the Average Annual Income Never Exceeded $500 

Elon Musk makes about $14 billion per year, which is about $1.6 million per hour, every hour, or $27,000 per minute, or about $456 per second. The average American earns just under $60,000 per year, or just over two minutes of Elon’s time. But that’s all right here in the present. Things weren’t always so high falutin’.

After the fall of the Roman empire, the average person’s annual wage was about $500. That was in money calculated in the early 2000s. So, if we’re talking cash from back then, it was maybe a few copper coins and some chicken feet or something. But the annual income stayed at that level for centuries. 

It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution that income started to go up across the board for everyone. Growth rates increased at two percent annually since the 19th century and that led to GDP increases that were substantial and got us to where we are today. But for the better part of 1,000 years, no one made any great financial strides. 

3. 10% of Pablo Escobar’s Annual Income Was Lost to Rats 

How do you feel about losing money? Have you ever reached into your pocket for a $20 bill and realized you dropped it? That can ruin your whole day. Now try to imagine life as famous drug lord Pablo Escobar.

According to Escobar’s brother, they had to write off about 10% of their annual income to losses from rats. Which is to say they had so much money, they had to just stick it wherever they could, and sometimes rats would come and literally eat it or maybe rain would destroy it. That’s 10% of their annual income. 

It already sounds terrible at 10%, because you can imagine 10% of your income. Let’s say you’re making $60,000 a year, can you afford to lose $6,000 to rats? Probably not. But Pablo Escobar was losing $2.1 billion per year to rats. That’s what 10% meant to him. And he didn’t even care because how could you when you had that much cash?

2. The Average Indie Musician Makes Just a Few Thousand Per Year

There’s something about indie rock that many people feel is more artistic or pure than commercial music. In fact, if an indie rock band gets signed to a label they will often be accused of selling out. No one likes to sell out, right? By that definition, however, to be an indie musician means you have to not be selling anything. You may not be surprised to learn that’s entirely true; the average indie musician makes pretty much no annual salary whatsoever.

In Canada, an indie musician makes an average of $7,200 per year which is as paltry as it sounds when you convert that to US dollars. In America, the median salary for an indie musician is almost $13,000 but most make under $6,000. To make even that much money you’re going to have to go on tour, sell merchandise, get a manager, and have several income streams at the same time. Indie rock is generally not the way to get rich. 

1. According to Research, Money Can Actually Buy Happiness

You’ve heard that money can’t buy happiness, maybe one of the most famous quotes in the world about money. But have you also thought that having more money would still make you happier than you are right now? Most people who don’t have a lot of money agree that more money to pay their bills, get rid of debts, afford the things they want, and so on would probably make their lives easier and therefore happier. Lucky for us, someone looked into all of this.

 It turns out that money can make you happy up to a point. That point is $75,000. Or maybe even $500,000. Researchers looked at the lives of people making various sums of money and found that happiness did increase up to $75,000 per year. After that there was no appreciable increase in happiness, it was just like you were accumulating more stuff but you felt the same about it.

That study was conducted in 2009. In 2023, a Nobel Prize-winning economist determined that $75,000 was not cutting the mustard anymore and true happiness could be found at half a million dollars. 

Some folks say that patience is a virtue or that good things come to those who wait. Instant gratification isn’t something you should expect and may not even be a good thing. But all things in moderation is another idiom worth keeping in mind. You don’t want to wait too long for something or else it can be a little out of hand. Despite that, people will wait for a long, long time for certain things. Here are 10…

10. There’s a Nearly 40 Year Waitlist For Japanese Beef Croquettes 

Have you ever gone into a business like a hair salon or a butcher and been forced to wait in line, maybe even take a number? It can be frustrating if the place is busy while you just stand there and hope you’re next to be served. Now imagine if your number hadn’t been called for 38 years.

In Japan, there’s a family-owned butcher called Asahiya, and they are known for their Kobe beef croquettes. They are potato and beef dumplings that are covered in a crispy coating and deep-fried. That sounds tasty enough and you have to assume they are since the waiting list to buy a box in 2022 was 38 years long. 

Other croquettes only have a four-year wait which you can probably just nap your way through, but their “extreme croquettes” come in at nearly four decades. What makes them extreme? Marketing.

The owner of the shop realized when he started online sales that people didn’t like to pay premium prices for beef online. So he sold croquettes for $1.80 when they had $2.70 worth of beef in them. It’s a proof-of-concept product that they sell at a loss to prove how good they are in the hopes you’ll come and buy something else at a normal price. 

The limited supply comes from the fact that not only are they sold at a loss, but they are handmade fresh every day with local ingredients. It’s impossible to keep up with the demand, especially when word got out about how good they are, so the wait list keeps growing. In 2024, it hit 43 years. 

9. The Waitlist for Packers Season Tickets is 30 to 50 Years

Americans love football, just look at the hype over the Superbowl every year even among people who ironically don’t like football at all. People will watch it just for the commercials or the halftime show. That’s solid marketing by the NFL. But for diehard fans, being at a game in person is the real treat and few fans love the game more than Green Bay Packers fans.

If you’re a true Cheesehead you want to get season tickets. Just imagine seeing every Packers game for the entire season. Except, for most fans, that’s exactly what’s going to happen – you’re going to imagine it. The waitlist for season tickets is decades long. Michelle Hensel’s parents put her name on the list when she was two years old. She got her tickets when she was 49. 

The decades-long list has 147,000 names on it. Every year those people get a postcard telling them where they are on the list. Every year they move up a few places as the glacier slowly but surely moves you towards getting your shot.  

When the time comes, you get warned it’s approaching, then a letter tells you when the tickets are available, and then you have a window in which to pay for the tickets. If you miss your window, you get dumped and the next person on the list has a chance. Numbers only move by about 100 to 200 every year.

8. The Wait for a Free Flag from the Canadian Government is a Century

If you’re a patriotic sort of person, then you probably fly your country’s flag somewhere around your home. In Canada, you can even get a flag that has flown over the Canadian Parliament on what is known as the Peace Tower, one of Canada’s most recognizable landmarks. Every day they raise a new flag above the tower. Old flags are given out, free of charge, to any Canadian who requests one. 

While it sounds very cool that you can just ask for such a flag, you need to remember there can only be 365 available in any given year and there are over 30 million Canadians, not to mention institutions that may ask for one or people who just want a second, third, or fourth one. That means you’re getting put on a waitlist if you’re interested, which is currently over 100 years long. 

About 20 years ago if you requested one you’d probably have it by now. Some people got theirs ahead of schedule, a mere 14 years into an anticipated 17-year wait. But the list only grows longer as more people learn about it and that puts the newest people basically requesting flags for their children or grandchildren. 

7. There’s a 5-Year Wait For Service Dogs That Didn’t Graduate

You’ve probably seen service dogs out in the world before. These dogs have to go through some rigorous training to meet the demands of aiding a person who can’t see, or whatever other service they provide. So what happens when a dog can’t actually do the job? Like any school, service dog school has failures. 

Turns out you can adopt a failed service dog, as depressing as that title makes them sound, and they are in high demand. Just because they didn’t make it as a service dog doesn’t mean they’re not well-trained. If you want one, depending on which service you’re trying to adopt from, the wait can be as little as a few months but up to a few years in some cases. 

Guide Dogs of America doesn’t call them failed service dogs, they call them Career Change Dogs because isn’t that adorable? It’s a five-year wait and they also don’t accept new names on the list, either. 

6. There’s a New York Restaurant That Is Working Through a 10-Year Waitlist

You knew restaurants had to be on this list somewhere, right? They may be the most common thing most of us have heard of that sometimes requires a substantial wait period. If there’s an exclusive, high-brow restaurant in town with a fancy chef, you could wait months to get into some places. And that’s if you’re lucky. 

There’s a New York restaurant that stopped taking reservations in 2014 and is still filling old ones in 2024. Damon Baehrel only seats 20 people which is part of the reason the waitlist got so out of hand. It’s also in the basement of the chef’s house and he works alone, with no sous chefs or other staff, so he’s arguably limiting his workload by keeping things kind of tight with bookings. 

The restaurant has no menu, it’s literally just whatever the chef cooked that day. He’s the sort of guy who forages local ingredients and then makes your meal for you. Something like a 20-item tasting menu. Reviews say the wait is worth it. 

5. It Can Take 12 to 14 Years to Get Subsidized Housing in the US and Canada

Both Canada and the US offer subsidized housing for people unable to afford the cost of rent. However, the demand for housing has always far exceeded availability in both countries. In parts of the US, waiting lists for affordable housing are about seven years long. That’s when the lists are still open and accepting new applicants. In 2021, the people in San Diego who received housing vouchers had waited an average of 12 years.

Canada follows the American trend. Those hoping for an affordable, one-bedroom home in Toronto, one of Canada’s most expensive cities, could wait 14 years. In Montreal, the wait time was 6 years. In all of these cases, you can see the issue. Where exactly do you live for years before you can get a place you can afford?

In Canada, community housing used to be a government responsibility but in the early 90s the federal government made it a provincial matter. Provinces then made it a municipal matter and that meant only cities with a surplus of money could even think of affording such things. The result was that barely any construction happened thereafter. Thus, the wait lists continued to grow.

4. It Takes 3 to 5 Years to Get a Kidney Transplant 

Your kidneys are doing some good work in your body and it’s always a good idea to have at least one that works properly. But sometimes things happen and your kidneys fail. What then? Luckily for most people, kidney transplants are often very successful and you can continue to live a good life after getting a new one. But we did skip a step in the middle there and that’s waiting for one to turn up.

While people who need new hearts are often on the list for a shorter period, what could even be a few days but also up to several months, kidneys are a little different. If you’re on the transplant waiting list, you can expect to wait three to five years. 

That wait time is the average. Some parts of the US will see you wait even longer. Of course, the opposite can be true as well. Your circumstances could get you bumped up the list to a much sooner operation but, again, that’s your average. 

3. You’ll Wait 13 Years For Vienna Philharmonic Tix

If you’re a fan of orchestral music, then you are familiar with the Vienna Philharmonic, one of the most famous orchestras in the world. The orchestra has existed since 1842 and is famously run by the musicians themselves, not some director. They have only used guest conductors for the better part of a century now. 

The orchestra is so famous that every show is sold out and has been so pretty much forever. If you wish to subscribe to their concert series, you can do so by putting your name on the waitlist for tickets. It’s about 13 years long right now. 

2. You Can Wait 5 Years for a Rolex Daytona

Most of us have a few brand names in mind when we think of things that signify wealth. Things that rich people buy. Like Cristal champagne. Or a Ferrari. Or a Rolex. But just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you get faster service. If you want a Rolex Daytona watch, be prepared to wait up to 5 years for one.

According to jewelers who sell the watches, there are actually a few reasons for a longer wait. First, Rolex isn’t rushing these things out. If they have precious metal parts included, they might take longer to manufacture. But there’s also the discretion of your seller. Jewelers don’t really do the “first come first serve” thing. Instead, they give preferential service to favored customers. 

If your watch seller likes you, or you have already spent a lot of money there and they know you’ll spend more, they’ll bump you up the list. If you’re just some stranger looking for a watch, expect a much longer wait. 

1. Nursing Home Spots in Beijing Have a 100-Year Wait List

Here’s a concept that’s hard to wrap your head around. If you or a loved one gets to be a certain age and they can no longer adequately care for themselves, where do they go? A nursing home is the typical response here. But how much time do you have, if you’re already a person who needs to be in a nursing home, to wait to get into a nursing home? 

In China, the wait for some spots in Beijing nursing homes has hit 100 years. That means, to safely secure one, you’re going to want to reserve a spot for your unborn child and hope for the best. 

To be fair, this was not all nursing homes, it was the most popular nursing home. And, no doubt, this place must have been the Ritz of nursing homes to develop a wait list that long. Ironically, the deputy director of the facility was quick to point out they don’t even have the best facilities, but they do pride themselves on their service. 

The turnover rate is very low with a few dozen to maybe 100 openings per year with 1,100 beds total and with such a massive population that China has, there are far more people who want to get in than there are spots available.

Forty percent of us will experience some form of memory loss by the time we turn 65. For many people, it’s just something that comes with old age, but there’s more to it than that. Lifestyle choices, medications, chemicals, and more can play havoc with our minds and our ability to create or access memories. There are probably far more things linked to memory loss than you ever realized.

10. Mountain Dew Has Been Linked to Memory Loss

Food additives are a touchy subject all over the world. There is no end of misinformation about what might be dangerous in what might not be. Much of it is fueled by a lack of understanding, strange conspiracies, laziness, and outright lies. Consider the case of MSG, which was demonized for years based on faulty research. The same thing, to some degree, has happened to Mountain Dew.

The famous soft drink has been banned in Europe and Japan because it contains brominated vegetable oil. Some reports claim that brominated vegetable oil is a flame retardant, a carcinogen, and a dozen other horrible things. 

In soda, brominated vegetable oil is an emulsifier that has been used since the 30s. It just holds Mountain Dew together so that the citrus won’t separate. But it has been recognized as potentially harmful in large amounts, and both PepsiCo and Coca-Cola claimed to be removing it back in 2014, which they didn’t do at the time but have done in the years since.

Though it’s not really a flame retardant any more than table salt is bleach because of the chloride in its name, it has been linked to memory loss in people drinking more than two liters of soda daily. 

9. Extensive Use of Benadryl is Linked to Dementia

If you suffer from chronic allergies and take Benadryl to manage it regularly, you might want to rethink your strategy. Extensive use of Benadryl has been linked to early dementia and other memory loss issues. Drugs like Benadryl block the action of a chemical called acetylcholine, which transmits messages through your nervous system. In your brain, it’s also linked to learning and memory. 

Though the link is not a proven one, just an observed one, these drugs have been shown to cause confusion and increase fall risks among older adults.

Specifically, diphenhydramine seems to put patients at risk for dementia. This is the antihistamine in Benedryl in most, but not all, countries where it is available. Taking these drugs for three years or more increases dementia risk by 54%.

8. Taking Photos Impaires Your Ability To Remember What You Photographed

It’s been estimated that 1.81 trillion photos are taken yearly. Anyone who’s been on social media in the last decade has seen just how popular selfies are. And with 15 billion cell phones and mobile devices worldwide, that’s nearly two for every living human. Almost all of us have access to a high-quality camera all the time. But that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Photos make our memories worse. Taking multiple pictures of the same thing doesn’t change this, either. Our memory of what we photograph is impaired the moment we take a picture. The irony of people taking photos to remember people, places, and events is worth noting. 

One theory for why this happens is that our brain essentially hands off the job of remembering the moment to the photograph. You understand what the photo will be, so your mind doesn’t need the memory; it has the picture. 

7. Sometimes Sex Can Cause Short-Term Amnesia

This one’s going to get a little personal, so buckle up. Sex has been linked to short-term amnesia but only in certain cases. For the effect to happen, you have to have good sex. As in the mind-blowing sort. Almost literally, as it happens. 

Known as transient global amnesia, it most often affects people in their 50s and 60s. Once it sets it, it can remove an entire 24 hours from your memory. Any strenuous physical activity could cause it, but sex seems to be a common one. 

The effect is short-term, lasting just a few hours. Though it only happens once for some patients, others have reported multiple instances. The man in one couple had had it happen five times in a span of nearly 20 years. 

6. Shift Work Leads to Major Health Issues Including Memory Loss

Someone once said if work were fun, they wouldn’t call it work. Most people would agree that work isn’t fun, so it’s not usually an issue. Worse than that, a lot of work can be detrimental to your health. There’s even evidence that shift work can lead to memory loss. That means you can hate your job and not even remember why. 

Shift work leads to lower levels of focus, alertness, impulse control, sleep disorders, cardiovascular disease, mood disorders, substance abuse, and much more. Sample sizes for determining this were not small, either. Eighteen studies of over 18,000 participants concluded shift workers were much worse with cognitive function and working memory. 

Half of the participants in the study were from the healthcare field, while the other half were made up of a mix of professions ranging from IT to law enforcement. Across the board, shift workers performed more poorly than those who stuck to traditional schedules. This is especially unsettling news when you factor in how many of them are healthcare workers, including doctors and nurses, who may try to treat you one day while their brain is messed up from doing shift work. 

5. First-Person Shooters Lead to Hippocampus Damage and Memory Loss

What are the most frustrating things about medical news is when it’s contradictory. For instance, have you ever heard that playing video games can help cognitive function and memory in children? There have been a lot of stories about it over the years. But this is about the opposite effect, isn’t it? It sure is, so let’s focus on the researchers who say first-person shooters can damage your hippocampus and cause memory loss. 

Gamers who play FPS games more than 6 hours per week were tracked over four years. The results showed a decrease in the part of the brain where short-term memories are stored.

FPS gamers come in two types. Those who navigate the game with spatial memory strategies and those called response learners who manage to navigate using a part of the brain called the caudate nucleus. Most chronic gamers are this type, and after 90 hours of play, scans of their brains showed significant loss to the hippocampus. 

Before you hang up your Call of Duty dog tags, it’s worth noting that even the author of the study says more research is needed before anyone can confirm there’s a long-term danger to worry about.

4. Some Algae Blooms Cause Brain Damage and Memory Loss

In most towns that have beach access, if algae blooms show up in the water then a sign will be put out warning you not to go swimming. Most people know that an algae bloom can be dangerous, but probably not the extent to which these things cause harm. There are also multiple toxins that you need to watch out for.

One toxin called domoic acid forms in algae blooms and infects anything that may eat it. These toxins can then work their way up the food chain. A number of sea lions were affected in 2015, leading to brain damage and memory loss. 

Another toxin, Pfiesteria piscicida, gained infamy in the 1980s when fishermen exposed to it began exhibiting signs of cognitive dysfunction, and then the scientists studying it suffered the same fate. 

The microbe has not been studied well, nor has its effect on humans. Some people report confusion or nausea. One of the scientists studying it lost the feeling in his legs and had to crawl out of his lab to get help. When fish are infected with it, the result is death. Large lesions form on their bodies, and it looks like they’ve been burned by acid. 

3. A Study Linked SpongeBob to Poor Brain Function in Children

Over the years, people have found a way to demonize almost anything under the guise of protecting children. You can go all the way back to antiquity and read about how Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth. Elvis Presley did the same thing with his gyrating hips, and heavy metal music, violent video games, and sugar in soda are all in the same boat. They have all been accused of being bad for children in one way or another. But how many of those can be accused of damaging children’s brains on a fundamental level?

In 2011 a study concluded that SpongeBob SquarePants was hurting children’s brains and harming higher cognition. According to the study, 4-year-olds who sat down to watch 9 minutes of SpongeBob showed “less self-control, a reduced ability to delay gratification, and poorer working memory skills” than kids who did something else.

One of the conclusions drawn here was that kids who watch SpongeBob are overwhelmed by having to keep up with the fast pace, frantic cartoon. Obviously, the fact that these were four-year-olds did factor in, and no long-term conclusions were drawn suggesting they would have chronic memory issues. That said, if you ask a four-year-old to remember a phone number right after watching Spongebob, you’ll probably not be happy with the results. 

2. A Bad Sex Life Can Lead to Memory Loss in Later Life

Sex has been shown to provide multiple health benefits. From lower blood pressure to an improved immune system, pain relief, and depression relief, a healthy sex life boosts your well-being. You can add protecting your memory later in life to the list, also.

Sexually active patients between 50 and 89 score higher on memory tests than those who are not engaging in sexual activity. In another study that spanned 12 years, over 800 men were tracked, and those who experienced a lack of sexual satisfaction or erectile dysfunction also had higher instances of memory decline. The study was not concerned with how often a person had sex or how many partners they had, just their overall level of satisfaction. And if you are satisfied, you’ll probably suffer less memory decline in later years. 

1. Social Isolation Has Been Linked to Memory Decline

Being alone is not considered good for your health. One reason it’s good to keep in touch with others and maintain a social relationship is for the sake of your memory. Social isolation has been linked to memory loss, and it’s been determined that memory loss precedes social isolation, not the other way around. If you consider yourself a lone wolf, you might want to look into getting some friends to add to your wolfpack.

During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, doctors saw the effects of social isolation firsthand. People who normally engaged with family and friends had to cope with being more alone, and the effects were profound. Studies during the pandemic were small, but associations were drawn between isolation and issues with memory. 60% of patients in one study who already had Alzheimer’s or mild memory impairment experienced worse issues.

It’s believed lack of socialization can cause cognitive decline and poorer resilience in your brain simply because your brain is getting so little stimulation.