Humans and animals have a lot more in common than one may assume at first glance. It seems like even the taste for alcohol is not exclusive to mankind. Many animal species, especially fruit-loving birds, have been reported to exhibit drunk behavior after feasting on fermented fruit, grain, and other intoxicating substances.

Some animals are also believed to consume alcohol on purpose since several species have been recorded seeking out intoxicating substances rather than ingesting them by accident. Like people, drunk animals still manage to stir up trouble despite bad coordination and liver problems. Here are some unusual stories about intoxicated animals.

10 Police Lock Up Inebriated Raccoons

Residents of a West Virginia neighborhood made several calls to the Milton Police Department about disoriented raccoons in November 2018. Locals believed that the raccoons might be sick with rabies. However, the police quickly discovered the real reason behind their strange behavior.

Most fruit can ferment in the presence of yeast or bacteria. In this case, some crab apples had gone bad—or perhaps good from the raccoons’ perspective. The animals were absolutely wasted after eating the fermented crab apples. They caused enough concern in the neighborhood for police to hold two raccoons in custody until they sobered up.

Luckily for the masked bandits, police had looked into the matter instead of making a snap decision and putting them down right away. Both animals were released unharmed near the woods. Sadly, one of the raccoons was euthanized a few days later when it was diagnosed with distemper—a serious viral illness. Police hope the other raccoon continues to thrive in the wild.^[1]

9 Drunk Canadian Birds Crash Into Windows And Cars

Drastic weather changes, which are fairly common during the autumn months in Canada, can make berries start to ferment. It typically happens when the temperature gradually climbs from a colder period where frost has formed. Then the sugars in the berries ferment and turn into alcohol. This makes birds with an appetite for berries become accidentally intoxicated and behave drunkenly.

Flight coordination can become challenging for drunk birds. They also have trouble with properly using their feet for perching and walking. Some species even show signs of slurred and off-key singing. Many incidents of birds flying into windows, walls, and parked cars have been reported. A few of them even suffer fatal crashes or ruptured livers. In some places, local police had to warn residents to watch out for the inebriated avians.

Over the course of the past few years, drunk birds have become such a common problem that miniature drunk tanks were created in Yukon to help their rehabilitation. Equipped with water and bedding, these small cages are kept dark and quiet to keep the birds safe until they recover. The most common drunk tank resident tends to be the Bohemian waxwing, a Yukon songbird with a diet consisting almost exclusively of fruit.^[2]

8 Intoxicated Seagulls Throw Up On English Beaches

In June 2018, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), the largest animal welfare charity in the UK, received more than a dozen calls about drunken seagulls vomiting on southwest England beaches. The seagulls were described as disoriented, confused, and struggling to stand.

Experts stated that the animals likely found access to waste from a local brewery or alcohol producer. Others theorize that the avians might have gotten into the beer cans left on the nearby beaches.

According to an RSPCA officer, the birds initially looked like they had botulism. However, their recovery after vomiting suggested otherwise. Although most of the birds survived, some of the seagulls were found dead.

A veterinarian who treated several of the drunken birds urged other vets who notice similar symptoms to avoid euthanizing the seagulls as they may be recovering from the effects of alcohol. RSPCA officers also urged local breweries and distilleries to keep their waste secure and away from wildlife.^[3]

7 Male Fruit Flies Turn To Alcohol When Sexually Rejected

In a 2012 study, researchers discovered that male fruit flies which have not successfully mated prefer food containing alcohol while mated males do not. Mated males also had higher levels of neuropeptide F, a brain chemical which spikes when the flies receive a reward such as sex.

Unmated males with lower levels of the chemical likely turn to alcohol to boost their feelings of satisfaction. Unmated male fruit flies were also documented to avoid alcohol when given artificial neuropeptide F doses.

However, that isn’t the only reason that fruit flies seek out alcohol. Another study revealed that the Drosophila melanogaster species, generally known as the common fruit fly or vinegar fly, uses alcohol to protect its young.

These flies are often targeted by parasitic wasps that lay eggs in their bodies. Typically, around 90 percent of fruit fly larvae make it to adulthood. But with body-snatching wasps nearby, their rate of survival drops to 10 percent.

As a defense mechanism, the larvae have learned to consume toxic levels of alcohol to stop the newly hatched wasps from eating them alive, which raises their survival rate to 50 percent. The alcohol kills most of the wasp grubs and leads to crippling deformities in the rest.

On the other hand, fruit flies are used to living with fermenting fruit and only suffer minor consequences. Even within the mere presence of parasitic wasps, female fruit flies immediately lay their eggs on food soaked with up to 15 percent alcohol concentration—the highest concentration found in nature.^[4]

6 New Zealand Votes Drunk Pigeon As The Bird Of The Year

The New Zealand pigeon, commonly called kereru in Maori, is endemic to the country and lives on both of the main islands. This pigeon has an unhealthy habit that has earned it the title “drunkest bird in New Zealand.” When rotten fruit becomes abundant during summers, these birds are known to fall from trees after consuming too much alcohol. Sometimes, the pigeons are taken to wildlife centers to sober up.

Although not endangered, New Zealand pigeons are vulnerable, especially while intoxicated, to predators such as feral cats and stoats. The avians have an important role in dispersing the seeds of native species—such as miro, tawa, taraire, and karaka—as most other birds are not large enough to swallow their fruits whole. The conservation group Forest and Bird describes the bird as clumsy, drunk, gluttonous, and glamorous.^[5]

Despite the alcoholism, the New Zealand pigeon was voted the bird of the year in 2018 with 5,833 out of 48,000 total votes. The kakapo earned second place with 3,772 votes, and the black stilt, an extremely rare hand-raised bird, came in third with 2,995 votes. Two thousand fraudulent votes originating from Australia were discarded.

5 Inebriated Squirrel Causes Damage Worth Hundreds Of Dollars

In 2015, the secretary of the Honeybourne Railway Club in Worcestershire, England, thought that somebody had broken in and ransacked the place. That was until the 62-year-old man saw the drunk culprit stagger out from behind a box of crisps. A squirrel had somehow found a way into the private members club and caused an estimated £300 in damages.

The rodent managed to fling itself onto the Caffrey’s Irish ale tap, drink some of the alcohol, and vandalize the club. According to the man, money and bottles were scattered around, several glasses and bottles were smashed, and the floor was covered in beer.

Meanwhile, the slow-moving squirrel tried to stay on its feet. The criminal was eventually caught in a waste paper bin and released through a window.^[6]

4 Intoxicated Bats Fly Right

According to a study in 2009, bats can fly just as well under the influence of alcohol as while sober. The research was conducted on 106 bats from six different species caught in northern Belize. They were given sugar water or ethanol—the intoxicating agent in liquors—proportionally to each bat’s body weight.

Next, the bats were placed in an obstacle course on the forest floor with an objective to maneuver around hanging plastic chains. Scientists also recorded their echolocation calls to find out if the flying mammals would “slur their words.”

Despite some of the bats having a blood-alcohol content of more than 0.3 percent, they passed the tests with flying colors. For comparison, in all of the 50 US states, it is illegal to drive with a blood-alcohol content of 0.08 percent. It was also discovered that, like humans, alcohol tolerance in bats may be dictated by how much and how often the animal drinks.^[7]

A previous study of drunk Egyptian fruit bats resulted in significantly more crashes than the New World bats. Researchers believe that this is due to the lower availability of fermented foods in Egypt as compared to Central America.

The New World bats’ high tolerance could have given them an evolutionary edge and allowed them to handle fruits that other animals cannot. It might also explain why Central and South American bat species are the most diverse in the world.

3 Some Vervet Monkeys Prefer Alcohol Over Water

Vervet monkeys (aka green monkeys) are native to Africa. Slavers in the 18th and 19th centuries frequently took the monkeys as pets. When their ships ended up on the shores of the Caribbean islands, some of the monkeys escaped or were released intentionally. Today, a handful of isolated vervet monkey groups remain scattered across the islands.

These primates quickly adapted to their new tropical island lifestyle and have lived in an environment dominated by sugarcane plantations for 300 years. Whenever sugarcane was burned or fermented before harvest, it became a delicacy for the vervet monkeys.

They seem to have developed both a taste and a tolerance for alcohol over the years. Locals have plenty of stories about catching the primates by supplying them with a mixture of rum and molasses in coconut shells.

Researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico studied the alcohol habits among vervet monkeys and found that teenage primates do most of the drinking. It is believed that adults might drink less due to the stresses of monkey politics. They have to be more alert and perceptive of the group’s social dynamics.

According to one study, when provided with a cocktail of alcohol mixed with sugar water and some sugar water on its own, nearly one in five monkeys preferred the booze.^[8]

2 Swedish Drunk Moose Epidemic

Each autumn, hordes of moose wander into unsuspecting towns, feast on fermented apples, and terrorize the locals. The Swedish press has documented plenty of drunken moose antics over the years. Some of their favorite habits include crashing parties, scaring schoolchildren, and falling into swimming pools.

One inebriated and angry moose fought with a children’s swing set, eventually dragging the playground equipment around 240 meters (800 ft) away. In a different incident, a concerned homeowner had to call the police when a gang of five moose got drunk on the rotting apples in his garden.

Another man witnessed some moose engaging in a threesome after eating a pile of fermented fruit. In Gothenburg, one of the animals got stuck in an apple tree and required assistance from rescue services to break free.

Stories about the intoxicated beasts became so prevalent in Sweden that National Geographic even theorized that one of them might be behind the murder of a woman in 2008. Eventually, police confirmed that the woman had been killed by a moose, although they could not determine whether it was drunk at the time.^[9]

Some scientists argue that the animals, which weigh up to 540 kilograms (1,200 lbs), are too big to catch a buzz from eating the fermented fruit and might only appear drunk due to their lack of fear toward humans. However, Swedes are reluctant to accept the theory.

1 Staged Drunk Animal Footage Wins A Golden Globe

Marula trees are widespread across Africa, and their fruit contains eight times more vitamin C than an orange. These trees are incredibly popular among elephants. They eat the tree bark and fruits. Then they spread marula seeds through their feces.

Marula fruit is not only a delicacy for elephants but also for most animal species living in the African savanna. Baboons, warthogs, kudu, impalas, and other creatures also feast on the fruits whenever they fall to the ground or get shaken down by elephants.

Like most fruits, marula can ferment to create alcohol. Tales of drunk elephants go back at least two centuries when a French naturalist named Adulphe Delegorgue described elephants as mysteriously aggressive after feeding on marula fruits. On the topic, Delegorgue wrote, “The elephant has in common with man a predilection for a gentle warming of the brain induced by fruit which has been fermented by the action of the Sun.”

The stories of drunk elephants were believed by many and even inspired the famous “Amarula” cream liqueur, which has an elephant on the front cover. They were just stories until a man named Jamie Uys produced two documentaries in 1974 containing footage of animals getting drunk from eating the fruits.

The footage quickly became famous and even received a Golden Globe for best documentary. Turns out, the directors had given animals alcohol-soaked food to make the intoxication appear more believable.

One of the main arguments against elephants getting drunk from marula fruit is that food is too scarce in the savanna to get a chance to rot before it gets consumed. Also, it is estimated that elephants would need to eat 25 percent of their body weight in fermented marula fruit to become intoxicated, which is highly unlikely. Although the animals in the footage really are drunk, it is not because of marula fruit.^[10]

A wedding is a beautiful ceremony that commemorates the union of two people on a journey of sharing the rest of their lives together. Each culture has its own customs as to how people get married, usually depending on religious beliefs and sometimes on superstitions as well.

Some of these rituals are better known than others. Here is a list of 10 wedding traditions from around the world that are unusual yet interesting in their own ways.

10 France

In France, when people got married (especially couples who were young), friends and family gathered at the house of the newlyweds and banged on pots and pans while yelling and singing. The newlyweds had to come out and serve these visitors drinks and snacks and sometimes even give them money to make them go away.

In more extreme cases, if the visitors were ignored, they would break into the house and kidnap the groom and leave him somewhere far away. He would then have to find his way home while probably undressed.

This tradition of the charivari (aka the shivaree) started in the Middle Ages. When widows were supposedly getting married too soon, neighbors engaged in this disruptive behavior on the wedding night. However, the tradition is all in fun.^[1]

9 Mauritania

In Mauritania, the bigger a girl is, the more attractive she becomes. This is why parents send their daughters, some as young as five years old, to “fat camps” during summer to gain weight. This tradition is known as the Leblouh. The girls have to eat an absurd amount of food and may even be force-fed in some cases.

It is believed that these girls consume up to 16,000 calories per day. This practice stems from a belief that a woman’s size indicates the space she occupies in her husband’s heart. A woman’s size also indicates the husband’s wealth. The richer he is, the bigger the wife he can afford.

When the time comes, a man and his family would choose his bride and make an agreement with her family. The bigger the girl, the more desirable she becomes.^[2]

8 Scotland

The Blackening, a traditional Scottish wedding custom, is done before the ceremony as a way to symbolize the hardships of marriage. The bride, the groom, or both are doused in anything disgusting—such as eggs, dead fish, rotten food, curdled milk, tar, mud, or flour—by their friends and family.

Then they are either tied to a tree or taken around town in the back of an open truck. The idea is to get them to be very uncomfortable and have it witnessed by as many people as possible.^[3]

It is believed that after going through this together, the couple can go through all the trials and tribulations that marriage entails. The Blackening is practiced mostly in the rural areas of northeast Scotland.

7 China

There is a custom among the Tujia people of China for every bride to cry at the wedding ceremony. The elders believe that this practice can be used to express the bride’s gratitude and love toward her parents and other family members. If the bride doesn’t cry, then the guests look down on her as a poorly cultivated girl.

The bride begins to practice her crying a month before the actual wedding. She spends an hour every night weeping loudly. After 10 days of this, the bride’s mother joins in the practice, followed by the bride’s grandmother and other female relatives. The tears do not signify sadness but rather joy and hope. This practice is not as common anymore.^[4]

6 Borneo

Even though many wedding traditions are observed by the Tidong people of Borneo, the oddest one bans the couples from using the bathroom for three days after the wedding. This means that the bride and groom have to hold their pee and poop for three days in a row.

If they do use the bathroom during this period of time, they believe that it will bring terrible luck to the marriage. It will be filled with infidelity or even the death of their children at a very young age.

During this post-wedding period, the couple is watched over by several others who feed them minimal food and drink. After the three days are up, the newlyweds are bathed and permitted to return to normal life.^[5]

5 China/Mongolia

The Daur people of China and parts of Inner Mongolia have a unique way of choosing a wedding date. The engaged couple holds onto one knife and uses it to execute a baby chick. Then they dissect it to inspect its organs.

If the liver is healthy, the couple can set a date and start planning the wedding. However, if the liver is diseased, it is considered back luck. The couple has to repeat the process until they find a chick with a healthy liver.^[6]

4 India

In some parts of India, astrological compatibility plays a huge role in marriage and wedding ceremonies. If the bride is born “Mars-bearing,” she is said to be cursed and to cause an early death for her husband.

To break this curse, she has to marry a banana tree. This tree is then destroyed, and the curse is lifted. However, this practice has been made illegal because it is believed to violate women’s rights. Nonetheless, people still practice it, even Bollywood stars like Aishwarya Rai.^[7]

3 Wales

From as early as the 17th century, the Welsh have had a unique tradition of courtship. A young man would take a single piece of wood and ornately carve it into a spoon. Then he would gift it to the woman he is courting as a token of love and intention.

If accepted, the spoon became symbolic of an engagement between the couple. This love spoon also served as a promise that the groom would never let the bride go hungry.^[8]

Nowadays, love spoons can be purchased. They are also given as gifts for other special occasions, such as christenings and birthdays. This tradition can be found in other parts of Europe as well.

2 Maasai

Maasai weddings are elaborate and involve many traditions. However, the most unusual customs involve spitting. After a marriage is agreed upon by the two families, a wedding date is set. On that day, an elder will spit out milk in front of the bride’s house to mark the wedding procession.

The bride is dressed in a colorful, bold outfit with necklaces made of shells and beads. Her head is shaved and oiled with lamb fat. Her father will then spit on her head and breasts. Spitting is believed to bring good fortune into the bride’s married life.^[9]

1 India

Another unusual wedding tradition is practiced by the Tamil Brahmins in southern India. In one of many rituals, the groom has to pretend to reconsider the marriage and leave to become a priest while his family members convince him to stay and go through with the wedding.

The priest who will officiate at the wedding is also involved in trying to “change the groom’s mind.” After all this, the groom eventually goes to the marriage hall, the bride’s family welcomes him, and other wedding functions begin.^[10]

+ Marquesas Islands Of French Polynesia

The people of the Marquesas Islands have a unique wedding tradition. After the ceremony is over, the bride’s relatives lie facedown and side by side on the floor. The couple then walk over them out of the wedding hall as if they were a normal carpet.^[11]

They were the largest animals to fly. Pterodactyls thrived from around 230 million to 66 million years ago but left behind few fossils. Every new bone can reveal more about the lives of these predatory reptiles.

In fact, they are changing the way pterosaurs looked, existed, and ultimately died out. Even so, their complete story remains mysterious and contentious. More than any other creature, pterodactyls can make researchers go a little crazy.

10 Flightless Young

Scientists debate whether pterodactyls could fly directly after hatching. In 2017, a cache of eggs proved that there was no such independence. Around 16 eggs were perfectly preserved, allowing scans to reveal complete skeletons in 3-D. The thighbones were strong, but those supporting the pectoral flight muscles were underdeveloped.

This meant that hatchlings could probably walk but not soar into the sky. None of the youngsters had teeth, either. Both the flightless vulnerability and the lack of teeth would have made life dangerous for baby pterodactyls.

Another find suggested parental protection. Close to where the 120-million-year-old clutch was found in China, adults of the same species turned up. They were male and female H. tianshanensis.^[1]

The number of eggs in the area, over 200, pointed at colony breeding behavior. The soft shells of the eggs also indicated that, much like modern reptiles, pterodactyls buried their eggs to prevent the embryos from drying out.

9 Mysterious Plane-Sized Species

In 2017, paleontologists stuck their spades into the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. They focused on a rich fossil mine. Since the bone patch never produced a pterosaur, it came as a surprise when huge neck bones turned up.

They were cervical vertebrae of such immense size that the creature was estimated to match a small plane. The species has not been identified. But it lived around 70 million years ago and was probably one of the biggest pterodactyl species ever to exist. Calculations suggested that the animal terrorized the sky with an 11-meter (36 ft) wingspan.

Confirmation will have to wait, however, as the rest of the body remains missing. It is also possible that the species was average or small but developed jumbo necks for some reason. At least, the discovery proved that the flying predators were more widely distributed that previously thought—it was the first of its kind to be discovered in Asia.^[2]

8 The Quail Study

In 2018, researchers claimed that paleontologists were wrong about pterodactyls—specifically, about how the animals’ hip joints were portrayed in flight. They drew on a 19th-century depiction of a pterosaur posing like a bat. Claiming this was impossible, they went on to say that close to 95 percent of pterosaur and dinosaur reconstructions were wrong.

This conclusion came after the common quail showed similar thighbones to those of pterosaurs. A dead quail’s skeleton splays like a bat’s, but living muscles and ligaments prevented the pose.

The study was not welcomed. Birds descend from a certain dinosaur lineage, but pterosaurs were not dinosaurs. According to the strange study, pterodactyls had similar femurs to quails. But other scientists pointed out that the bone structure surrounding the hip joint had nothing in common with birds.

Several facts were also ignored, including new research on the reptiles’ pelvic muscles and tracks showing how they walked. Additionally, scholars had dismissed the 19th-century sketch as incorrect years ago. A lot about pterodactyls remains unknown, but this baffling attempt with quails and long-acknowledged mistakes certainly does not help.^[3]

7 They Breathed Strangely

Pterodactyls did not breathe like people. They possessed an unusually rigid chest, which could not expand to inhale or squeeze out old air. Extra air sacs existed in their bones, just like birds, but the two could not have breathed the same way. Birds rely on the up-and-down movement of their sterna to regulate breathing. Once again, pterodactyls were just too stiff.

In recent years, living reptiles—crocodiles and alligators—gave the best answer. They breathe via something named the hepatic piston. This odd technique involves the liver, which separates their guts and lungs. The liver contracts and shoves the guts down, making space for the lungs to inhale. Belly ribs return the liver to its original position, and the croc exhales.^[4]

Pterodactyls could have used a similar method. Sure, their chests were ridiculously tight. Some species had fused vertebrae and ribs, along with dense networks of mineralized tendons. However, there was a method to this madness. It strengthened their skeletons and lowered muscle mass. This allowed pterosaurs to become the largest animals that ever flew.

6 When Pterosaurs Are Turtles

In 2014, paleontologists Gerald Grellet-Tinner and Vlad Codrea identified a 70-million-year-old new species called Thalassodromeus sebesensis. Oddly, this genus already existed—pterosaurs that soared above Cretaceous Brazil around 42 million years earlier. If this was the same animal, then a massive chunk of its history was missing from the fossil record.

Grellet-Tinner and Codrea attempted to patch the hole with migration, evolving alongside flowering plants and how islands could have altered the species. Despite this elaborate backstory, the Romanian fossil stayed out of place.

During publication, the single piece was called a “snout.” When other paleontologists reviewed the study, they knew why the new species could not fit. It was a turtle. The plate matched the belly shell from a Kallokibotion—a turtle from the Cretaceous.^[5]

Despite Kallokibotion‘s presence in Romania being known for almost a century and the fact that nobody agreed with them, the authors persisted with the conviction of a pterodactyl. Worse, this misidentification could muddy research with a creature that never existed.

5 Pterodactyls From Hateg Basin

Hateg Basin was an island where animals existed in dwarf form. During the dinosaur era, several species roamed Hateg as diminutive versions of their larger counterparts on the mainland.

Oddly, the island produced giant pterodactyls. It would appear that a lack of big predators, like tyrannosaurs, gave the flying reptiles the chance to become the fright factor on the island.

The tallest was Hatzegopteryx, which could have looked a giraffe in the eye. Its wingspan measured 11 meters (36 ft), but the lengthiest wings on the island went to another pterodactyl, cutely nicknamed “Dracula,” with a span of 12 meters (39 ft).

In 2018, researchers identified the biggest pterosaur jawbone in history and it came from Hateg. The 66-million-year-old fossil was found decades ago but was only recently recognized for what it was.

In life, the unnamed species sported a jaw that was 94–110 centimeters (37–43 in) long. However, this does not mean that it was the largest pterosaur. Researchers believe that it had a smaller wingspan—around 8 meters (26 ft)—than the giraffe guy and Dracula.

4 The Most Complete Skeleton

Pterodactyl fossils are exceptionally scarce. From the Triassic Period (220 million years ago), only 30 individuals have been found, often in the form of single fragments. Recently, researchers removed a living-room-sized block from a quarry in Utah that is known for tightly packed Triassic fossils.

Back at the laboratory, the team chiseled out a few ancient crocodiles and then made a smashing find. Among the block’s 18,000 bones sat a pterosaur. At least, it was the most complete one ever found with a partial face, intact skull roof and lower jaw, and a portion of a wing.

Scans soon identified a new species, Caelestiventus hanseni. This juvenile grinned with 112 teeth and had a bony jaw appendage, probably to support a pelican-like throat pouch. The brain suggested sharp sight but a poor sense of smell.^[7]

The best information concerned the Triassic-Jurassic extinction. The rare fossil appeared to be related to another species from the later Jurassic, which means that C. hanseni‘s lineage conquered a terrible event that wiped out innumerable species.

3 Cretaceous Surprise

By the end of the Cretaceous, their last era, all pterodactyls were supersized. Scholars felt the competition was so stiff that the flying reptiles had to be huge to survive. The ecological niche that once supported small pterosaurs was taken over by birds.

In 2008, a fossil hunter found a rock on Canada’s Hornby Island. About as big as a softball, the chunk contained visible vertebrae. After initially examining the rock, the fossil hunter concluded that it was a “flying something.” When researchers got their hands on the specimen, it challenged the Cretaceous pterosaur story. The vertebrae, aged 70–85 million years, had a special design linked to flight, something not present in Cretaceous birds.^[8]

The remains suggested an adult pterodactyl no bigger than a cat. Since the bones were few, researchers hesitated to name a new species or mash its existence into the evolution story of pterosaurs. However, this is a fantastic find. This pint-sized predator, which could still turn out to be a known species, existed when everyone said they should not.

2 They Were Fluffy

We can now burn the books depicting pterosaurs as leather-naked creatures. It is official—they were covered in feathers. Not just a tuft here and there, either. When scientists examined two pristine fossils in 2015, they identified four types of feathers. Found in China, the reptiles sported down, single filaments that resembled hair, filament clumps, and filaments with fluff in the middle.

Although it remains unclear if the pair belonged to the same species, both dated to approximately 165–160 million old and came from the same fossil bed. Additionally, the creatures had preserved soft tissues. Surviving pigment suggested that the feathers were rust-colored, which could have been significant in camouflage or communication.

Like modern birds, pterodactyl feathers could also have insulated the body or been used for streamlining flight or tactile sensing. They may share the four types with certain dinosaurs, but the pterodactyls boasted special honors. The discovery of the fluffy pair pushed the origins of feathers back 70 million years.^[9]

1 Killed In Their Prime

A long-standing belief claimed that pterodactyls slowly became extinct by themselves. Supposedly, by the time the dinosaurs became extinct 66 million years ago, pterodactyls were few. However, a 2018 study crushed this theory.

The story begins with pterodactyl-obsessed student Nick Longrich, who later went on to professionally study fossils. While excavating in Morocco, he found a tiny bone. Having studied the book on pterosaurs to the point of religion, Longrich recognized that the bone belonged to the nyctosaurs, a group of smaller pterodactyl species.

This initiated a slew of discoveries, including seven species from three different families. The best were pteranodontid bones, a group thought to have gone extinct 15 million years before. The fossils belonged to the late Cretaceous when an asteroid is believed to have killed the dinosaurs.

Their diversity showed that the studies were wrong. They did not fade away on their own. When the asteroid arrived, pterosaurs were varied and going strong. After soaring through the skies for 150 million years, it was the space rock they could not beat.^[10]

Burying people has been a common way of dealing with the dead across the world and throughout history. However, there is much variety within burials.

Social, religious, and cultural norms often decide how individuals are placed, whether they have burial goods, and what they are buried in (e.g., stone tombs or wooden coffins). Even with all the different burials that have been found in the archaeological record, there are still some ancient burials that are unique and eye-catching.

10 Infant-Encircled Tomb

In Pachacamac, a site near modern-day Lima, Peru, a tomb was found containing roughly 80 individuals buried around AD 1000. They belonged to the Ychsma people, a pre-Incan population.

Half the individuals consisted of adults placed in fetal positions. Wrapped in textiles that are now mostly disintegrated, they had wooden or clay false heads lying on top of them.

The other half of the deceased consisted of infants arranged in a circle around the adults. The babies may have been sacrificed. They were all buried at the same time, and the Ychsma people had sacrificed infants in other burials. However, this is not certain as the skeletons don’t have visible evidence of it.

A large number of the adults had serious diseases, such as cancer or syphilis. They may have traveled to the site to be healed, a relatively common occurrence in pre-Columbian times. There were also skeletons of animals (such as guinea pigs, dogs, and alpacas or llamas) that had been sacrificed and placed in the tomb.^[1]

9 Skeleton Spiral

In modern-day Tlalpan, Mexico, archaeologists discovered a 2,400-year-old burial containing 10 individuals arranged in a spiral formation. Each individual had been placed on his or her side, with the legs pointed toward the center of the circle formed by the bodies. Their arms had been intertwined with those lying on either side.

Each skeleton was overlapping in other ways, too. For example, one individual’s head was placed on another person’s chest. The deceased consisted of people from all age groups, including an infant and an older child as well as young, middle-aged, and old adults.

Of the adults, two females and one male were identified. Two skeletons had skulls that had definitely been artificially modified. Some also had teeth that had been modified, a common practice at the time. The cause of death for these individuals is still unknown.^[2]

8 Standing Burials

In a Mesolithic cemetery just north of modern-day Berlin, a 7,000-year-old male skeleton was discovered. Besides Mesolithic cemeteries being exceedingly unusual in themselves, this man had also been buried standing up, making him even more conspicuous.

Initially, he had only been buried up to his knees, allowing the rest of his body to decay for a bit before it was interred. The man was buried with flint and bone tools and had been a hunter-gatherer with a physically undemanding life.

Similar burials have also been discovered in the cemetery known as Olenij Ostrov in what is now Karelia, Russia. The large cemetery contained four individuals who had also been buried in standing positions at approximately the same time. No further connection between the man from Germany and the people in Russia have been found yet.^[3]

7 Sacrificial Children

In Derbyshire, England, a mass grave was found that contained 300 soldiers from the Great Viking Army. Although this mass grave was not unusual, another grave next to it contained four individuals who were 8–18 years old. The children were placed back-to-back with a sheep’s jaw at their feet.

They were dated to the same time as the Vikings, and at least two of them had died from traumatic injuries. Their placement and potential cause of death has led researchers to believe that they may have been sacrificed to be buried with the fallen warriors.

This may have been part of a ritual for the children to accompany the dead soldiers in the afterlife. Although this is still conjecture, no similar grave has been found from this time in England.^[4]

6 The Speared Man

An Iron Age burial site found in what is now Pocklington, England, contained 75 burial chambers (aka barrows) with over 160 individuals. One of these burials contained a man in his late teens or early twenties who had been buried with his sword 2,500 years ago.

The distinctive part of his burial? After he had been placed in a crouched position in his grave, he had been stabbed with five spears. Four went down his spine while the fifth pierced his groin.^[5]

The spears were placed so that they would have been sticking out from his burial mound—to be seen for years after his death. Researchers believe that the man may have been a high-ranking warrior who was ritualistically speared to release his spirit.

5 The Bound Woman

In modern-day Plovdiv, Bulgaria, a medieval female burial from the 13th to 14th century was found in the ancient Thracian and Roman Nebet Tepe fortress. It differed from the other burials found there as the woman had been placed with her face down and her hands tied behind her back.^[6]

Although burials with people facing down have been found across the globe, it does not commonly include binding. The archaeologists who excavated her had never seen a similar burial in the area. They believe that it may have been a punishment for criminal activity, though that it is not a reaction to the vampire beliefs for which Bulgarian archaeology has received a lot of attention.

4 The ‘Great Death Pit’

During the excavations of Ur in the early 1900s, there were six burials found without tombs that were dubbed “death pits.” The most impressive of these is the Great Death Pit of Ur, a burial containing six males and 68 females.

The males were laid to rest at the entrance. Wearing helmets and holding weapons, they were believed to be guarding the pit. Most of the females were neatly placed in four rows along the northwest corner of the pit. Two groups of six women were also in rows along two of the other edges.

All the women were dressed in expensive clothing with headdresses made from gold, silver, and lapis lazuli. One of the women had a headdress and jewelry that was much more extravagant than the rest. These pieces resembled those of Puabi, a Sumerian queen. It is thus believed that the dead woman was a high-ranking person and that the rest of the deceased were sacrificed to go with her to the afterlife.

Whether this was a voluntary or forced sacrifice is unknown. Two skeletons, one male and one female, had premortem skull fractures. None of the others had any visible injuries. Researchers believe that the victims consumed poison to kill them. The two injured people may have also been clubbed on their heads.^[7]

3 Mass Infant Graves

Mass graves containing babies are unusual, but several ancient ones have been discovered. In Ashkelon, Israel, a collection of bones belonging to over 100 infants was discovered in a sewer from Roman times. The babies showed no signs of illness or deformation and may have been killed as a form of birth control.

A similar burial containing 97 infants was found in the Roman villa at Hambleden, England. These remains are theorized to have been babies born in a brothel who were thus unwanted. Alternatively, they may have been babies who were stillborn.^[8]

Another mass grave was found in a well in Athens, with remains dating from 165 BC to 150 BC. The location contained 450 infant skeletons, 150 dog skeletons, and one adult with severe physical deformities. Most of the infants were less than a week old. One-third had died from bacterial meningitis, and the rest had died from unknown causes. There was no evidence that their deaths were unnatural.

As babies were not considered to be real people until a ceremony performed 7–10 days after birth, it is possible that these babies had died before they were considered real humans and were thus disposed of in a simple way.

2 Multiple Skulls

On Efate Island, Vanuatu, a 3,000-year-old cemetery was excavated with over 50 skeletons exhumed. Each skeleton was missing its skull. It was common for the Lapita people who lived there to exhume a dead body once its flesh had rotted and remove the head. The head would be placed in a shrine or somewhere similar to pay respect to the deceased.

All the skeletons were facing the same (unspecified) direction except for four who were facing south. These four had isotope levels indicating that they had originated somewhere other than the island unlike the rest of the individuals buried there.

One of these immigrants was buried with three skulls (taken from the local people) on his chest. This burial was the only one that included skulls and most likely indicates that he was admired in some way.^[9]

1 Mixed Mummies

A study conducted on ancient burials on the British Isles found that there were at least 16 mummies created between 2200 BC and 700 BC. As this area of the world is cold and wet, which is not great for mummification, it is believed that they were created by being smoked over fires or intentionally buried in peat bogs.^[10]

Mummies are not that unusual as they have been found in many parts of the world. However, several of these mummies seem to have been made up of multiple people. It is possible that only certain body parts were preserved during the mummification process and that these parts were cobbled together to create complete mummies.

Plenty of truths pretend to be mysteries or facts. Dedicated researchers whittle away at puzzles, sometimes making great new finds without solving the whole shebang.

However, real progress means ousting the pretenders—those pesky facts that convince scholars of their authenticity for years when, in reality, they are mere misconceptions. From a dangerous vitamin everyone loves to herbivores eating their friends, the simplest of facts are no longer so simple.

10 The Aging Plateau

A widely accepted concept is late-life mortality deceleration. According to this theory, some people get so old that even their aging slows down. This “aging plateau” means that, statistically, a 105-year-old has no greater chance of dying than a person who is 90. The process is not fully understood or even unanimously explained.^[1]

In 2018, the plateau was challenged. Opposing researchers claimed that the age surveys supporting the “phenomenon” were faulty. There was a good chance that some seniors had their ages recorded incorrectly. A deliberate demonstration showed that just a few incorrect entries could skew the outcome in a big way.

An actual study done on the life span of Italians found evidence of the plateau but also matched a hypothetical outcome if 1 in 500 people had their ages wrongly listed. However, each would need to be grossly misreported and the study worked with a hypothetical scenario, not actual survey mistakes. Either way, somebody is wrong.

9 China’s Ozone Problem

In 2013, China’s smog problem was so bad that skylines vanished from cities. Within four years, the country achieved the remarkable feat of lowering eastern China’s concentrations of PM 2.5 particles by 40 percent. These ultrafine boogers are dangerous to the human respiratory system.

However, the progressive step turned dark. In a move that nobody could predict, ozone levels increased in the cities. High up in the sky, ozone is great. At ground level, it qualifies as air pollution. In fact, ozone is a really bad thing to inhale.

A survey found that China’s megacities, including Beijing and Shanghai, were swamped with this potent pollution. The reason? The well-meaning attempt to remove the PM 2.5 particles also eradicated the very thing that soaked up the chemicals that produce ozone. All this time, the PM 2.5 fog had acted like a giant sponge that kept it under control.^[2]

8 Nun With Blue Teeth

Around AD 1100, a nun died at a monastery in Dalheim, Germany. When researchers recently examined her skull, they found something odd. The woman, who was between 45 and 60, had blue stains on her teeth.

X-ray spectroscopy revealed that the flecks were lapis lazuli, a semiprecious stone that was prized during the Middle Ages. It was the main ingredient in ultramarine, a rare and expensive blue paint. Ultramarine was used solely for the lavish decoration of religious books. Only the most skilled painters were allowed to use it.

The pigment saturated layers of the nun’s dental plaque thanks to years of licking paintbrushes. This technique was known to be used by painters when they faced particularly detailed work. However, it is the first physical proof of the habit.^[3]

Additionally, it proved that nuns also worked on religious manuscripts, a domain thought to belong to monks. Since lapis lazuli only came from mines in Afghanistan 4,800 kilometers (3,000 mi) away, it also revealed that Germany and Asia had extensive trade links almost 1,000 years ago.

7 Extra Denisovan Pulses

Scientists have known for a long time that humans interbred with two ancient hominids. Although the Neanderthals and Denisovans are extinct as individual species, their DNA continues in certain populations today. Our gene map shows two “pulses,” or sudden concentrations of hominid interbreeding. Both happened in Siberia’s Altai region thousands of years ago.

In 2018, a study searched for a third interbreeding event by examining the genetic codes of 5,500 volunteers from Asia, Europe, and Oceania. They found enough foreign hominid DNA to prove that Siberia was not the only place where humans absorbed pulses. In a surprising twist, Denisovan influence occurred twice outside the Altai Mountains.

Barely any fossils of these rare hominids exist. Yet, back in the day, they were plentiful enough to mingle heavily with humans who traveled across South Asia. The groundbreaking study found a Denisovan pulse to the north in living Chinese, Japanese, and Vietnamese. Another pulse showed up to the south, likely the result of humans meeting Denisovans while migrating to Papua New Guinea.^[4]

6 Paternal Mitochondrial DNA

Mitochondria nest inside cells and also provide them with energy. As a rule, people only inherit their mother’s mitochondrial DNA. The father’s is destroyed after conception.

In 2018, a new study challenged this concrete belief. Although maternal inheritance is a given, it would appear that the father’s mitochondrial DNA can do three things—avoid the next generation completely, pass on a tiny amount, or almost entirely eclipse the mother’s. This mercurial behavior challenges everything researchers know about this genetic material.

The Cincinnati study found 17 people who inherited it from both parents, and this finally lends some credence to a 2002 case from Denmark. This man appeared to have inherited 90 percent of his father’s mitochondrial DNA, but everyone thought it was a technical error.^[5]

Interestingly, it could be a family thing. The Cincinnati hospital also found the biparental inheritance in 10 people over three generations from the same family.

5 Meat-Eating Hares

Canada’s snowshoe hares are supposed to be herbivores. A recent study accidentally uncovered the hairy truth. Not only do they eat meat, but the hares are also cannibals.

Researchers rigged a remote trail near the Alaskan border with cameras. They put out hare carcasses as bait and hoped to capture photos of predators scavenging on them.

Over a period of 2.5 years, 20 dead hares were consumed by their living brethren. For the first time, the photographs captured this unexpected, if not shocking scavenging behavior in hares. Researchers also found that winter-hungry hares were not picky about the species. In one case, they even ate their main predator—a dead Canada lynx.^[6]

This meaty turn appears to be a survival strategy rather than preference. During the summer, snowshoe hares nibble exclusively on vegetation. Winter turns the region into one of the coldest on Earth. When foliage becomes scarce in such conditions, any protein is welcome.

Bizarrely, the hares also consumed feathers from dead birds. The reason remains unknown as feathers offer little nutrition.

4 How Tornadoes Really Form

Conventional belief teaches that a tornado forms inside the clouds and then grows a funnel down to the ground. A study released in 2018 told a different story. Tornadoes start on the ground.

For years, climatologists chased the deadly swirls and four spawned by rare supercell storms changed the game. Tornado intensity ranges from EF1 to EF5. A pair was recorded in 2012 in Kansas—both babies at EF1. An EF3 hit Oklahoma in 2011. A monster swept through El Reno in 2013. This EF5 was the widest tornado ever recorded, measuring 4.2 kilometers (2.6 mi).

Researchers had a hilltop view of the giant which allowed them to capture the moment of its birth. The high-tech equipment found signs that the tornado formed 10 meters (32 ft) above the ground. Droves of storm chasers provided photos of the event, which also supported the finding.^[7]

This prompted a closer look at the data. Soon, it became clear that wind rotation began on the ground long before anything churned in the clouds. The other three tornadoes showed similar data.

3 Lizard That Breathes Underwater

A group of lizards called anoles fascinate researchers so much that thousands of studies have been done on them in the past 50 years. Despite being thoroughly studied, one species did something so strange that scientists had no answer. The Costa Rican river anole disappears underwater for up to 15 minutes. The best assumption was that they could hold their breath really well.

In 2018, biologists worked with filmmakers to try to solve the mystery. What they captured was astonishing. For the first time, the footage revealed that the anoles did not stop breathing once they had sunk to the bottom.^[8]

Instead, the female they filmed had a bubble on her head. For 10 minutes, it grew and shrank repeatedly, almost as if she were recycling the air within. This behavior had never been seen in lizards or any species with a spine. As astonishing as it was to find an anole with its very own “diver’s tank,” scientists do not know how the oxygen is stored or exactly how they tap into the bubble.

2 Vitamin D Is Not A Vitamin

Vitamin D is the darling of thousands. For decades, governments and doctors encouraged swallowing more of this wonder vitamin, linking it to a host of benefits and disease prevention. In recent times, scientists focused on a particular benefit—the prevention of bone fractures. As the largest study of its kind, it involved over 500,000 people and 188,000 fractures. No evidence was found that vitamin D stopped breaks from happening.

The truth about this supplement is scary. It is not a true vitamin but an unsafe steroid. The popularity comes from outdated studies in the 1980s and marketing skills of food manufacturers and vitamin companies.^[9]

Apart from taking increasingly stronger dosages, people get extra vitamin D through exposure to sunshine and food. For this reason, clinics see a rise in overdose cases. At the lower end of the problem, nobody really knows what qualifies as a vitamin D deficiency. Ironically, several studies have shown that dosages above 800 IU actually increased the chance of a fracture.

1 Mona Lisa‘s Gaze

So many people have claimed that Leonardo da Vinci’s painting has stared at them that the phenomenon became known as the “Mona Lisa effect.” Her gaze is said to follow observers no matter where they are in the room.

When researchers recently worked on artificial intelligence programs, they wanted the avatars to really look at people. Due to her famous “effect,” the Mona Lisa was included in the study. At one point, the team realized that she was not gazing soulfully at any of them.

To confirm this, they asked volunteers to view the painting on a computer. A ruler in front of the screen carried numbers, and participants picked the one which intersected with her stare. The ruler was then moved to a second point, and the exercise was repeated.^[10]

The two sets of answers gave researchers an angle. Mona Lisa does not stare at anyone. Her gaze is 15.4 degrees to the right of observers. The real mystery is why people continue to believe otherwise.

Crows are no ordinary birds. They have sparkling intelligence and a highly social nature. It took strange discoveries to prove just how far a crow’s mind can reach. Researchers made the birds go through kidnappings and tested fables and dead crows on them.

The results were remarkable and, sometimes, a little creepy. From displaying abilities unique to humans and a bizarre approach to death to killing an animal that kills everything else, crows delight those who dare to look closer at them.

10 Theme Park Workers

Around 20 years ago, Christophe Gaborit watched wild ravens sort through trash. Years later, Gaborit worked as a falconer at a theme park. Puy du Fou is located in France and enthralls the public with ancient gardens and villages. Visitors also enjoy historic reenactments but liberally sprinkle the park with litter.

Seeking a solution, Gaborit’s memory of the ravens sparked a novel suggestion—train rooks to pick up the trash. Rooks belong to the crow family and share their smarts.

In 2000, Gaborit hatched and trained his first two birds. He used a specially designed cabinet to dispense treats when the rooks put things like cigarette butts in the drawer. In this tasty manner, the falconer eventually raised and taught six rooks to recognize and remove litter. The feathery trash collectors graduated class in 2018 and now hop about the park, picking up rubbish.^[1]

9 Dead Crows Concern Them

Some people believe that crows hold funerals for their dead. This is pure whimsy, but it is not hard to understand why the notion persists. Some birds cannot give a hoot when they encounter a dead member of their species. On the other hand, crows gather around a fallen friend, call to each other, and pay unusual attention to the situation.

However, they are not mourning the dead. The surviving flock recognizes that something killed a crow. They are crows. This thing can kill them, too. The show of concern is more about trying to find the threat and avoid it in the future.

A large study of dead crows involved over 100 breeding sites in Washington State. It found that the birds viewed humans who handled a dead crow as a threat. They persistently stayed wary of feeding near such a person, even when the dead crow was removed from the picture.

The birds did not brand any volunteers who stood there with empty hands or even with a dead pigeon. Those who held dead crows in the past (now empty-handed themselves) were scolded on sight for weeks.^[2]

8 They Mob Ravens

Crows and ravens belong to the same family and share a resemblance. However, the two species are not buddies. Ravens are much bigger and often help themselves to a crow’s eggs. Sometimes, they will even eat the crow. Even so, the smaller cousin is not an easy victim.

A recent study looked at both populations in cities and analyzed over 2,000 reports from bird-watchers describing interactions between crows and ravens. The results showed that crows actively worked together to ruin a raven’s day.

Crow gangs are so aggressive that ravens avoid populating great environments that contain such mobs. Many bird species rely on coordinated attacks to drive off a larger predator. However, none match the crows’ technique: 2–5 birds move in a cohesive, tightly knit squad.^[3]

This successful behavior is largely due to the socialness of crows and the loner nature of ravens. Had ravens been more social and formed their own gangs, crows would come in a mangled second.

7 Aesop’s Fable Was True

Ancient lore recognized the intelligence of crows. One of Aesop’s Fables is called “The Crow and the Pitcher” and describes a thirsty but clever crow. In need of a drink, it found a long jar. When it saw the water inside was just out of reach, the bird dropped pebbles into the vessel to raise the water level.

Researchers recently decided to test the fable but twisted it a little. Instead of making crows thirsty, they lured them with snacks. A pair of tubes contained water and delicious floating tidbits.

In front of the tubes were objects that the crows could drop to make the water level rise. Some were sneaky choices, like light polystyrene items and hollow cubes that would do nothing to help the birds. The rest consisted of heavy rubber pieces and solid cubes.

The six New Caledonian crows soon found out that the bait was just out of reach. Incredibly, they also grasped the concept of water displacement and eventually added the heavier items to make the snacks rise.^[4]

6 They Eat Cane Toads

A crow having a toad lunch sounds fairly normal. However, not when the amphibian is Australia’s cane toad. This invasive species was taken to the continent in 1935 to control a pesky beetle. Now, the toad is a poisonous pest itself. The creature exudes a white gunk that can kill dogs, cats, snakes, and people. Worse, once the toads hit Australian soil, they flourished.

A survey in 2006 estimated the existence of around 200 million, thanks to a lack of predators that could keep the population under control. In 2018, a photographer captured the first evidence of crows filling that ecological void. Within 40 minutes, one bird ate a cane toad and lived to tell the tale.

Incredibly, it would appear that Australian crows figured out which parts are toxic. They avoid the white poison by grabbing the toad’s limbs or head and then roll it over to expose the belly. The crows then dine on the edible parts, like thighs, tongues, and intestines.^[5]

5 They Hold Grudges

Better not tick off a crow. It will remember. A weird experiment proved that crows do not forgive the face that offends them. A study released in 2012 revealed that researchers went about Seattle and kidnapped some crows.

While wearing a mask called “the threatening face,” the researchers plucked 12 crows from the wild. The abducted flock was kept for four weeks. During that time, they were cared for by someone who wore a different mask called “the caring face.” Neither mask looked particularly grandmotherly or zombie-movie terrifying. Both were different but neutral.

Despite this, the birds matched the experience to the mask. During their captivity, they were exposed a few times to the threatening face before undergoing a brain scan. For the first time, researchers documented that the crow brain stored negative associations similarly to mammals.

Eventually, the birds were set free. The true depth of a crow’s inability to forgive became clear in a follow-up study. Years had passed, but the crows recognized a researcher wearing the “threatening” mask. They taunted him and even delivered a few dive-bomb attacks.^[6]

4 Corpse Canoodling

Some crows are deviants. They like to hump their dead. In 2015, researchers did an extensive study of crows in Washington State. They lured crows with a stuffed bird to watch their reactions. Unexpectedly, one tried to mate with the bait. This created an unnecessary risk of catching a disease or getting killed by scavengers. It seemed like dumb behavior for an exceptionally smart species.

To find out how common this quirk was, the team decided to engage with 308 pairs of wild crows, all mated. They were presented with taxidermic crows, squirrels, and pigeons. The extra species were used to find out if the necrophilia extended to other animal corpses.

It did not. In fact, the behavior was rare. Just 4 percent of the crows had romance on the brain. They only mounted the stuffed crows. Clearly, the majority of crows shared the researchers’ feelings—corpse canoodling was a risky endeavor.^[7]

Since the necrophiliacs also displayed heightened aggression, it could be that the stress of breeding season plus the alarming sight of a dead crow made them a little confused and angry.

3 They Visually Judge Weight

When humans observe a moving object, they can gauge its weight. For example, the way a leaf flutters in the wind shows lightness. This attribute was considered unique to humans, but then crows came along and changed everything. More specifically, 12 New Caledonian crows divided into two groups of six.

Their training was the same: Put an object in a box, and get a treat. However, one group was dispensed treats only when they dumped heavy items into the box. The other received goodies when they deposited light objects.

During the second stage of the recent study, the birds were shown two new items. These were things the crows had never seen before. For three days, they had to watch the suspended objects react to a fan.

Naturally, the lighter object moved more. They also observed the same things with the fan off when there was no movement. When given access to the fan objects, the birds—depending on their previous training—chose the right object first 73 percent of the time.^[8]

2 Crow Versus Eagle

In 2015, a photographer named Phoo Chan took amazing photos. They showed an eagle and a crow in the California sky. Apparently, the crow decided to take on the larger predator single-handedly. Capturing the whole sequence, Chan’s photos followed the crow’s incoming attack and how it grabbed hold of the enemy.

Then, for some reason, the crow decided to sit on the eagle’s back. It gets weirder. The eagle did not give its passenger a second glance. When bird experts looked at the snaps, they did not find the crow’s decision to attack unusual. During the summer, crows get really crabby about airspace. Their hatchlings are on the menu, so adults tend to launch more aggressive attacks on intruders.

Even so, a single crow dicing with a giant eagle and then making itself comfortable on the other bird’s back is uncommon. Why was the eagle so unconcerned? They get harassed in the air by other species so much that one more attack is nothing new. The crow was passive once it landed, and that could be why the eagle just ignored it.^[9]

1 They Build Compound Tools

In 2018, a group of New Caledonian crows stunned scientists. They displayed an ability only previously seen in primates. To reach a snack inside a box, they built compound tools.

The fact that this ability has been found in birds is remarkable. But what makes it so special is that the birds received no training except to understand the purpose of the box. (They had to maneuver a snack out with a long object.)

After they grasped this, they were left with parts too short individually to get to the food. The secret was to assemble them. When presented with the challenge, the crows assembled the pieces within 4–6 minutes after the experiment had started.^[10]

Once finished, the lengthy tool was used to push the treat toward an opening in the box. This feat required perseverance and dexterity but also the ability to think into the future. To assemble the pieces, the crows had to think ahead and imagine how it would all fit together before actually doing so.

For the purposes of this list, “crisis” shall refer to negative circumstances that could alter a nation’s economy. Most of the time, such a description would be fit by large-scale disasters like wars, epidemics, and famine. Sometimes, however, portents of doom might barely seem newsworthy.

Seemingly innocuous things like a low birth rate, a shortage of vultures, or just having too many cattle around are, for some countries, more dire than they appear. While the following situations seem unspectacular, they could lead to worse disasters.

10 South Korea’s Birth Crisis

South Korea’s birth crisis is so bad that the government is paying couples to have children. The nation’s fertility rate hit a record low in 2018. At the current rate, the population is expected to grow in the negative in just ten years. This means there will be more deaths than births. If the trend is allowed to continue, it is estimated that there will be nobody left in the country by 2750.

In just 13 years, the South Korean government has spent over $121 billion to encourage parents to have more children. These days, most parents are eligible to receive up to $270 a month from the government.

Starting in late 2019, parents with children below the age of eight will be allowed to work one hour less per day. The government is also building more kindergartens and day cares. Fathers will also given be a paid paternity leave of ten days—seven days more than the currently approved three days.^[1]

9 India’s Stray Cow Crisis

The Indian state of Uttar Pradesh is currently experiencing a severe stray cow crisis. Cows are not eaten in India because they are considered sacred creatures. Some people do eat cows, but the state government and cow protection groups have been clamping down on them.

This has left farmers with fewer incentives to keep male calves and cows that no longer produce milk. Most farmers abandon these unproductive cattle on the streets because having them around costs money. In 2012, there were 1,009,436 stray cattle in the state of Uttar Pradesh. This year’s Live Stock Census is expected to show a much higher number.

The stray cattle have become a nuisance because they raid farmlands and eat crops. Some cows end up in cow shelters, which have quickly become overcrowded and underfunded. These days, farmers and community members lock the stray cattle in government buildings like schools and hospitals.^[2]

8 Venezuela’s Passport Crisis

Venezuela has been in the news for all the wrong reasons over the past few years. The oil-rich Latin American nation has suffered serious hyperinflation that has almost brought its economy to a standstill. And with two people claiming to be president, its many problems won’t be ending anytime soon.

Over 2.3 million people have fled Venezuela for neighboring Latin American nations since 2014. However, many more are still stuck because they do not have passports. The passport crisis is so bad that fellow Latin American nations are allowing Venezuelans in with expired passports. But Venezuelans without passports remain stuck in the nation.

Getting a passport or any government-issued document was an uphill task before the crisis. Now it’s worse. Workers at the passport office are known to deliberately delay passports unless passport-seekers pay bribes of $1,000 to $5,000. Today’s passport-seekers don’t have that kind of money. And the government itself isn’t too keen on allowing its citizens to leave.^[3]

7 Venezuela’s Health Care Crisis

Venezuela is also experiencing a severe health care crisis. At least 22,000 doctors have fled the country since the crisis began, causing a nationwide shortage of doctors. Several hospitals have either closed or operate irregularly. Those that remain open do not have enough supplies.

These days, patients are required to bring their own drugs, syringes, gloves, and even soap. This has seen Venezuelan hospitals go from places where people are cured to places where they get killed. It is normal for patients to contract deadly diseases while admitted for other ailments.

This is worsened by a shortage of drugs, which, coupled with severely malnourished patients, is the perfect recipe for disaster. Hospitals have also seen an increase in burn victims. Most are toddlers who got burned when they strayed into wood fires and kerosene lamps that have taken the place of heaters and light bulbs.^[4]

6 China’s Food Crisis

China has been experiencing a food crisis for a few years now, and the trade war with the US made it worse. Last year, the Chinese government introduced several tariffs to much-needed food imports like soybeans, sorghum, and corn in response to Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods.

Interestingly, the Chinese government-owned Sinograin, which keeps a stockpile of grain for the government, had to pay the tariffs. President Xi Jinping later toured areas of Northeast China, where most of China’s farms are based, and said that China should become more self-sufficient in food production.

Food production has always been a problem for China. China’s arable farmland amounts to less than a tenth of the world’s farmland, even though it has one fifth of the world’s population. On top of that, lots of its farmland is either occupied by industries or contaminated with heavy metals released by those industries.^[5]

The food crisis began decades ago, when an improved standard of living caused Chinese citizens to shift from carbohydrate- to protein-rich diets, and there isn’t enough farmland to grow vegetables and rear livestock. For now, China has been able to manage by importing food and leasing or buying farmland in Africa, Australia, and the Americas.

However, the trade war with the US has shown that importation could be unreliable. Besides, most countries harboring Chinese farms are expecting a population boom in a few decades and will be needing the farmland to feed their own citizens.

5 The US Recyclable Plastic Crisis

Bad news for environmental activists: the US government cannot recycle most of its recyclable plastics. A few years ago, a huge chunk of recyclable items used in the US ended up in China. This changed in January 2018, when China banned recyclable plastics from the US.

The US turned to Canada, Turkey, Malaysia, and Thailand to recycle its plastics. In the first half of 2017, the US exported 4,000 tons of recyclable plastics to Thailand. Within six months of China’s ban, the US had exported 91,505 tons of plastic to Thailand. That’s a 1,985-percent increase.

But these countries do not want US plastics. Malaysia introduced a tax and limited the types of plastics that are acceptable. Thailand has promised to ban US plastics within two years. In response, several US states have either abandoned recycling some types of plastics or dumped recycling altogether.^[6]

4 China’s Birth Crisis

A few decades ago, China introduced a one-child policy to control its booming population. The policy was strictly enforced, with the government even conducting forced abortions and sterilization on people who flouted the policy.

In 2015, the government replaced the one-child policy with the two-child policy when it realized that the nation was experiencing a decline in population growth, just like South Korea. But it seems like most Chinese couples prefer having just one child or none at all.

The Chinese government wants parents to have more than one kid so badly that it is encouraging couples to have more children “for the country.” A government-run newspaper also informed couples that, “Having children is a family matter but also a national matter.”

The government is considering paying couples to have a second child. It is also considering tax breaks or even dumping its two-child policy to allow couples have as many children as they want.^[7]

3 India’s Vulture Crisis

India had lots of vultures in the past. Its vulture population was so high that nobody bothered to count, though an estimate put it at 40 million in the early 1990s. This changed between 1992 and 2007, during which the vulture population fell by 97 to 99.9 percent. India has only around 20,000 vultures today.

Interestingly, nobody noticed the decline in vulture population until researchers and villagers suddenly noticed that they were not seeing enough vultures. Some villagers even thought the US had stolen their vultures.

Remember we mentioned that Indians generally don’t eat cattle? This is where the vultures come in. Indian farmers fed their dead cattle to vultures. Unfortunately, diclofenac, a popular painkiller used for cattle, is lethal to vultures. It causes renal failure and death in vultures that eat the carcasses of dead cattle.

Now, there aren’t enough vultures to eat the carcasses, leaving lots of dead and decomposing cattle scattered across India. This has left the country on the brink of a disease epidemic. Rats and dogs have replaced the vultures, but they are not as effective. Besides, dogs could pass bacteria in the carcasses to humans.

India has banned diclofenac and introduced breeding programs to repopulate the wild with vultures. However, it will take time before it gets the intended results. The government could also suffer a setback because some cattle owners still use diclofenac illegally.^[8]

2 South Korea’s Suicide Crisis

South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. 13,500 South Koreans committed suicide in 2015. That’s an average of 37 in a day. Most who choose to end their own lives are senior citizens, who often live in poverty and do not want to become a burden to their living relatives. Many aged South Koreans are so poor that they depend on free meals to survive.

In response to high suicide rates, the government has criminalized suicide pacts—agreements between two or more people who promise to engage in joint suicide.^[9] In 2011, the government also reduced suicide rates by 15 percent when it banned paraquat, a pesticide often used to commit suicide.

1 Germany’s Renewable Energy Crisis

Germany is the model nation for renewable energy. On one Sunday in 2017, it generated so much power from its renewable sources that the government paid users to use the excess power. This is referred to as “negative prices” and has also happened in Belgium, Britain, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.

In such instances, the government pays citizens and factories to switch on equipment and machines they are not using. Imagine the US government paying you to switch on your washing machine for no reason. To be clear, the government does not give consumers money. Rather, the energy companies subtract it from their electricity bills.

Negative prices happen because green energy is unpredictable and uncontrollable. Coal and nuclear plant output can be increased or decreased to meet demands. Solar panels and wind turbines cannot. They generate electricity depending on the weather conditions.

Green energy companies keep themselves abreast of the weather with forecasts. But for anybody who has ended up in the rain when the weatherman said it would be sunny, we know weather forecasts are not always reliable.

The attempt to shift to green energy has created a crisis Germans call “energy poverty.” Energy poverty happens when people find it difficult to pay for electricity, or they spend so much on electricity that they do not have enough money to survive. This happens because Germans pay an average annual tax of $171 and high electricity prices to keep the green energy companies in business.

Besides plunging many into energy poverty, the unreliable green energy is counterproductive for Germany. While the government pays citizens to waste excess electricity, it always leaves it coal and nuclear plants working in case the green sources do not produce enough electricity. This has increased Germany’s carbon emissions and even caused the government to build more coal plants.^[10]

With the holidays wrapping up here in the Western world, many of us still have our Christmas lights up, our bellies full, and plenty of other cheerful things hanging around to remind us of our recent celebrations. Holidays in this day and age are a great way for us to share, laugh, love, and make memories with our friends and loved ones.

But how often do we stop and consider the roots of our holidays and the events from which they were born? Most people with an Internet connection know that many modern holidays are a hodgepodge of ancient pagan practices which have been augmented or adopted in various forms by the surviving religions.

But beyond just ancient paganism, many holidays stem from historical events. Sometimes, those events are quite dark and not exactly the nice, cheery tales we’d expect such holidays to spring from. Here are 10 holidays with unusually dark and strange histories.

10 The Death Of St. Patrick

Most of us in the Western world who celebrate the holiday, especially if we’re not particularly religious or even armchair historians, think of St. Patrick’s Day as a fun festival marked by the consumption of copious amounts of beer. St. Patrick’s Day has always been a religious holiday, but Irish immigrants who came to the United States in search of a better life greatly popularized it as a secular holiday, solidifying it as a representation of Irish culture.

But the holiday didn’t have a happy-go-lucky beginning. It’s actually the celebration of the death of St. Patrick. His life was hard from the beginning. When the Romans occupied Great Britain in the fifth century, St. Patrick was just a 16-year-old boy who was captured and taken to Ireland from Britain as a slave.

Somehow, in 432, St. Patrick managed to escape slavery and become a force for Christianity by converting the then-pagan Irish to the religion and establishing monasteries and places of worship. He was said to have died on March 17, 493, which would have made him over 100 years old. However, historians generally agree that he actually died in 461, which is a bit more realistic.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that St. Patrick’s Day is a celebration of the day of his death. Even more dark and unusual than that are the events that ensued after his death.

The Battle for the Body of Saint Patrick took place when two rival factions fought over who had the proper rights to the corpse. However, things get a little mythological in the account in Annals of the Four Masters, the work that describes the battle.^[1]

It concludes with a scene where the rival factions end up on a river to do glorious, bloody battle for the rights to the corpse of the beloved saint. Allegedly, the river rose up and flooded upon their arrival. Both sides walked away with what they believed to be the body of St. Patrick, and it was attributed to a divine miracle that the battle was stopped.

Odd beginnings for a holiday of green beer, fun, and leprechauns.

9 Good Friday

For a holiday with such a nice name as Good Friday, its historical origins are rather dark in nature. However, Good Friday came from the ancient Germanic culture and language and was long ago Karfreitag (“Sorrowful Friday”). Before the contemporary world got hold of it, the holiday was celebrated by fasting, by asking for forgiveness from sin, and by general sorrow-filled reflection on behalf of the practitioners.

If you think about it, this makes sense. Good Friday is a holiday that was born out of betrayal, greed, and execution. For most of its history, it wasn’t the wonderful holiday that we make it out to be, but rather the celebration of the death of Jesus Christ.

Traditionally, monks and devout religious people saw this as a day of observance and remembrance and of somber reflection—not just the prequel to Easter Sunday. Some people even hold services that last three hours in remembrance of the amount of time that Jesus was said to have suffered upon the cross.^[2]

8 The Friday Of Sorrows

The lesser-known holiday of the Friday of Sorrows takes place on the Friday before Good Friday and dates back to the medieval times of Europe. It’s like Good Friday, only for the Virgin Mary, where worshipers and the devoutly religious celebrate the suffering of the Virgin Mary as she witnessed her son dying on the cross. This remembrance takes place mainly in predominantly Catholic countries rather than Protestant Christian ones.

Also known as the Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary, this holiday was not only meant to remember the suffering that Mary experienced while Jesus was on the cross but also seven of the sorrows that took place over the course of Mary’s life.

From Mary receiving the prophecy of Simeon to desperately fleeing into Egypt after Jesus’s assumed birth, losing Jesus in Jerusalem as mentioned in Luke 2:43–49, and watching Jesus be executed, taken off the cross, and buried, the Feast of the Seven Sorrows is perfectly dark in the way that only a medieval holiday could be.^[3]

7 The Night Of Broken Glass

This is a dark holiday observed in Germany in remembrance of one of the most atrocious events of all time: the Holocaust. Kristallnacht, or Night of Broken Glass, refers to the acts that led to the events that would eventually transpire at Auschwitz concentration camp.

On the night of November 9, 1938, German Nazis committed a grievous massacre in the streets, killing Jewish people and destroying their property. In response to these events, the Nazi government said that their actions and senseless violence against the Jewish people were “perfectly understandable.”

The name of the holiday refers to the broken glass left in the streets in several countries after the events unfolded. The violence wasn’t limited to just Germany. It also took place in Austria and Czechoslovakia.

It all began on November 7, 1938, when a Nazi German official named Ernst vom Rath was shot in Paris by a Polish Jew who was 17 years old at the time. Ernst vom Rath died two days later after an extremely drummed-up propaganda assault by none other than the Nazi minister of propaganda himself, Joseph Goebbels. He had said that there was a massive conspiracy of Jews behind the assassination.^[4]

Of course, the die-hard Nazi supporters ran with it, committing widespread violence against Jewish people on the night of Ernst vom Rath’s death, which was November 9, 1938. Germany now tries to keep this night burned into their memory with a holiday of remembrance for those who lost their lives on the Night of Broken Glass and all who subsequently died in the tragic events that followed.

That night marked the beginning of much of the anti-Jewish legislation that was railroaded through by the powerful Nazi Party, which legalized the Holocaust and the acts which led to it.

6 Samhain

Samhain is a holiday celebrated by the ancient Celts as a part of their religion before they were subjugated by Roman rule and eventually turned to Christianity (with the help of St. Patrick, no doubt). The Celts were loose-knit tribes known by the Romans as the Gauls. They shared a similar language and culture.

Samhain was the ancient Celtic festival of the dead. Celtic religion held that the spirits of the dead would have to wander the Earth and wait until the day of Samhain, which was November 1, to pass into the afterlife. It didn’t matter what time of year that the person died.

The Celts also believed that their gods were not only mischievous and caused trouble, but that they were also invisible—except on Samhain. During the celebration on October 31, the Celts would leave out burning candles to light the way for their dead so that they could see where they were going.

It should be noted that Samhain isn’t Halloween, though Halloween borrows a lot of Samhain’s traditions. Samhain is actually still practiced by pagans around the world, albeit in smaller numbers.^[5]

In ancient times, it was believed that this period was a time when people could communicate with not only their dead friends and relatives but also the Dark Mother and the Dark Father, entities of supernatural power that the ancient Celts believed in.

Their religion was quite intricate, and this holiday is a time when people would communicate with their darker natures, the darker supernatural, and the dead.

5 Valentine’s Day

Today, the watered-down tradition of St. Valentine’s Day is represented most often by thoughtful cards, chocolates, and romantic love, even courtly love not unlike that of the Middle Ages. And long before the famed St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the brutal Mafia execution of seven men conducted by Al Capone and his gang on February 14, 1929, there was another bloody day that actually spawned Valentine’s Day.

This was the martyrdom of St. Valentine. Yes, Valentine’s Day is the celebration of an execution.

The year was 269, and Claudius II was the emperor of mighty Rome. The growth of marriage and family life had caused a shortage of men willing to leave home and fight in foreign lands. Therefore, Claudius outlawed marriage entirely and anyone caught getting married or performing marriage rites would be condemned.^[6]

But St. Valentine refused to stop performing marriages. He was punished severely for his “crimes” and was eventually tortured, beaten with clubs, and beheaded. Yes, you read that right—St. Valentine’s Day is the celebration of a saint from ancient Rome who was tortured, beheaded, and died on February 14, 269.

4 The Feast Of Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi could be regarded as a particularly strange holiday to those who aren’t Catholic and don’t believe in transubstantiation, the idea that food and wine can turn into the body and blood of Christ for the believer consuming them. The Feast of Corpus Christi is a whole day to drink blood and eat flesh for devout believers.

“Corpus Christi” translates to “the body of Christ” in Latin, so there’s no ambiguity that the idea of eating the flesh of Christ is involved.

Heavy symbolism characterizes this holiday, which began in 1246. With chalices and bread wafers everywhere, it’s an aesthetic experience as much as a spiritual one. For most non-Catholics, a holiday where one places bread into his mouth that actually turns into flesh might raise some eyebrows. But many Catholics all over the world celebrate this holiday annually and have done so for hundreds of years.^[7]

3 Dia De Los Muertos

The reason we can’t appropriately say that Samhain was the forerunner of Halloween is that Samhain became what Catholics celebrate as All Saints’ Day on November 1. All Saints’ Day is basically the Catholic version of Samhain, complete with celebrating those who’ve gone to Heaven and the saints taking the place of the Celtic gods of old.

Dia de los Muertos is a Mexican holiday which celebrates the personification of death itself and has long roots in both European and Aztec cultures. With Spanish conquests of the Aztecs, Dia de los Muertos was moved to line up with the Catholic All Saints’ Day. The two fused into one holiday when practitioners would pay respects to their dead, which was in the origins of both holidays.

Dia de los Muertos makes no claims to be anything other than a dark holiday that’s all about death, with the name itself translating to “Day of the Dead” in Spanish. However, there are some notable differences between All Saints’ Day and Dia de los Muertos.

Santa Muerte (aka Our Lady of Holy Death), the major figure celebrated on Dia de los Muertos, is the saint of death. Dia de los Muertos takes Samhain and All Saints’ Day one step further by actually making death itself a saint. The Catholic Church rejects this saint and warns against the holiday as being dark and even satanic.^[8]

2 Passover

Passover is a Jewish holiday in which practitioners remove all leavened bread from their homes and reenact what life must have been like when the Jews fled Egypt in the Bible. For many, it’s a celebration of the liberation of the Jews from an oppressive Egypt and the foundation of the homeland for the Israelites. The holiday begins on the 15th and runs through the 21st in March or April.

But what’s the real story behind what they were fleeing? Well, it all starts with the slaughter of the firstborn. Exodus 11:5 says:

“Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well.”^[9]

According to the Bible, Jehovah killed every firstborn Egyptian child in the country to prove his point. And it gets worse. This was actually a reprisal because the pharaoh of Egypt had killed all the newborns and infants of the ancient Hebrews to prove his point. Then the 10 plagues of Egypt happened, with everything from raining frogs to bubonic plagues hitting Egypt hard according to the Bible.

This is what the holiday actually celebrates—a religious and military victory over another nation that, if you take it as gospel, is quite barbaric in nature.

1 Christmas

Christmas is both unusual and dark in its history for a few reasons. First, Christmas is an extremely modern holiday. Historically, Christians don’t celebrate birthdays as it has long been viewed as pagan to celebrate an individual’s birth on Earth rather than his dying to go to Heaven in accordance with Christian beliefs.

This is why saints are remembered for their (often macabre) deaths instead of their births because the moment of eternal judgment in Christianity is more important than life. This made Christmas a mockery for a long time, with writers advocating strongly against it. Traditionally, in Christianity, the moment of death was your actual and true “birthday” in the kingdom of God.

The second and more macabre part of the story comes with a jolly old fat guy, Saint Nicholas or Santa Claus. Thanks to Coca-Cola ads stemming from the 1930s, we now see him plastered everywhere as a fat guy with a wispy white beard, a red onesie with white fur trim, and a big grin on his face at all times.

But this isn’t the real Saint Nick, so who was he? Well, the answer is that we don’t really know because we have no surviving historical documentation. He was the bishop of Myra in the fourth century. But aside from that, we know next to nothing about the man.

However, we do have one major artifact: his dead body. Yes, the only thing we know for sure about Saint Nicholas is that we have his actual dead corpse.

Allegedly, the real Saint Nicholas wasn’t very jolly. He was present for the very first Council of Nicaea in 325. There, he punched a guy in the face whom he thought was heretical.^[10]

After he died in 343, his remains lay buried until Italian sailors stole his corpse and moved it in 1087 from Myra to a city in Italy called Bari. Before this, the original Santa Claus was a nobody. But the theft of his remains made his popularity surge in Europe, which is how he became a figure that’s still present in our cultures today.

To put this little piece of history to the test, researchers analyzed a fragment of Santa’s hip bone. Sure enough, it dated all the way back to the fourth century, confirming that it probably belonged to the original Santa Claus.

I love to write about dark stuff, horror-themed material, the unusual, murder, and death. Here’s a twisted little piece about the dark histories of holidays. This isn’t your usual holiday list, and Christmas is definitely the bizarre kicker. I haven’t seen it discussed like this anywhere.

Every day, the oceans crash upon countless beaches. More often than not, oddities arrive between the usual flotsam of shells. There is always the mandatory monster’s carcass and real species so surprising that few can recognize them.

The most bizarre shoreline finds are usually man-made. From large pieces of foreign harbors to hundreds of Garfields, beachcombing is the lucky dip of the sea.

10 Enormous Sunfish

In 2019, a couple strolled along a beach in South Australia. When they reached Murray River, something caught their eye. Near the mouth of the river was a huge object. At first, they thought that the weird-looking fish was fake. However, the creature was very real (and very dead).

One can understand why they thought it was a hoax. For anyone who has never seen one, sunfish are odd-looking. Their fins sit too close to the tail, and they have a beak and surprised-looking eyes.^[1]

Additionally, this particular fish was enormous and not a local customer. Called the oceanic sunfish, it drifts all across the world but rarely visits South Australia.

Earlier that month, another species beached in California. Known as the hoodwinker sunfish, it solidly smashed the belief that this type only lived in the southern hemisphere. Nearly all species count among the heavyweights of fish, but swimmers have nothing to fear. Sunfish nibble on zooplankton and jellyfish.

9 Ice Tsunamis

North American beaches sometimes meet with walls of ice. Despite their name, ice tsunamis do not move with the speed or devastation of real tidal waves. Technically, when heaps of ice clutter a beach, it is called an ice shove. The frosty phenomenon fringes the shorelines of large lakes, occurring when spring arrives and winds sweep the breaking ice outwards.

Some shoves are not satisfied with staying on the beach. When there is enough ice and strong winds, the stacks can overrun retaining walls and cross roads. A 2001 crush piled ice 4.9 meters (16 ft) high on the beach of Alaska’s Chukchi Sea.

The floes also have an interesting effect on large rocks at the bottom of the lake. When the frozen sheets expand and contract suddenly from temperature swings, they maneuver boulders onto the shore. This process forms what is known as ice-push ramparts, and they can measure 1.5 meters (5 ft) across.^[2]

8 Monster Driftwood

In 2010, Phillip Lachman and his daughter walked on the beach in Washington. Lachman, a retired teacher living in the nearby community of La Push, also had his camera with him. Which was a good thing as they found a pretty impressive piece of driftwood. When they come in this size, they are called drift logs.

The tree was never measured, but it dwarfed Lachman’s daughter who posed to have her picture taken next to it—and she was 183 centimeters (6’0″) tall. A park official from the surrounding Olympic National Park admitted that the size of the drift log was a rare sight even though the area is known for big forest trees.^[3]

It was probably felled by a winter storm before bobbing down a river and ending up on the shore. It was not a simple matter of floating into place. Researchers estimated that exceptionally powerful winds had to have been present to push this monster ashore. The tree’s species could not be identified, but it was probably a Douglas fir, a Sitka spruce, or a Western red cedar.

7 Rare Jellies

Holly Horner was a professional wildlife photographer. For 45 years, she walked the beach in Brigantine, New Jersey. In 2018, she encountered something that matched nothing in her experience. It was a bright turquoise creature, round and fringed with feather-like tendrils. It also resembled a jellyfish.

Several washed ashore and caused a sensation among beachgoers. However, scientists have already met the blobs. Called blue buttons, they are not jellyfish but are related to the Portuguese man-of-war instead. A single button hosts a predatory colony working together to stun prey. Luckily for swimmers, they do not have the same horrible sting as their Portuguese cousins.

The odd thing about the New Jersey buttons is that they are not native to the area. Researchers believe that they were happily bobbing about in the Gulf Stream when Hurricane Florence kidnapped them. Unfortunately, most of them likely perished in the following weeks when local temperatures dropped to a level to which they were not accustomed.^[4]

6 The Wolf Island Creature

In 2018, the sea left something on the beach. The creature washed up in Georgia at the Wolf Island National Wildlife Refuge. Jeff Warren found and photographed the remains. After he distributed the images to media outlets, it divided the scientific world in two.

Some supported the notion of an unknown species or a known animal rendered unrecognizable by decomposition. Other marine experts were not satisfied that the thing had ever lived. The “decay” was too neat. There was no flayed skin, damaged extremities, or exposed internal areas. Ergo, the Lochness-like thing was probably a hoax.^[5]

If this was someone’s idea of a joke, they chose the perfect location. The area is the haunt of a mythical creature called the Altamaha-ha Monster. The photographs matched artistic depictions of the animal, but the one thing that could have solved the case—the creature’s body—had vanished.

5 Human Urns

In 2019, a beachcomber took his 14-year-old son, Maarten, with him. They found a funeral urn, the first of three to show up on Katwijk and Noordwijk beaches in the Netherlands. The other two were discovered by a woman and a fisherman, respectively.

The teenager, Maarten, thought the urn might contain drugs. But once he opened the container, the content was clearly human remains. All three urns were marked, which allowed them to be traced back to a crematorium in Germany.

German laws surrounding human remains are very strict. Rarely will permission be given for ashes to remain in a private home or garden. Sea burials are permissible with biodegradable vessels, but the Dutch finds were made from aluminum.

The urns sparked a furious debate about how they ended up where they did. Then a Dutch shipping company came clean. The three urns had been aboard one of their ships. Had things gone according to plan, they would have scattered the ashes at sea. Instead, an employee accidentally dropped the box with the urns and it fell overboard.^[6]

4 Frozen Turtles

Every year in November, a few turtles become stranded in New England. The 2018 batch was far from normal. Hundreds washed ashore. Many were from the critically endangered Kemp’s ridley species. The reptiles had been caught in a cold snap, which was not a good thing for creatures needing warmth to function.

Cape Cod’s beaches counted 219 animals within three days. Only 46 clung to life, while the rest had already died. During one of the three days, the weirdest thing happened.^[7]

On that Thursday, 82 turtles came ashore. Except for one, they were all dead and frozen solid. One researcher noticed that their flippers were in odd positions, almost as if they had been flash-frozen while swimming. The following day, a Friday, temperatures rose slightly and more of the beached turtles were found alive.

3 The French Goop

The English Channel coastline hugs a busy shipping lane. Strange things often float to its beaches, but none matched the greasy balls that arrived in 2017. Hundreds of yellow clumps lined miles of northern France’s beaches. There was a faint whiff of paraffin wax, but paraffin melts in the sun and this goop never did.

Authorities issued a statement that the spongy-looking balls were probably not dangerous. In the same breath, they could not positively say what the objects were made of. Pollution watchdogs were more realistic and warned people not to touch the stuff.^[8]

Considering that tons littered miles of coastline, some beachgoers undoubtedly touched the gunk. Thankfully, no morgue reports were forthcoming. The only clue seemed to be that that fluff balls originated from an oil product. One theory suggested that it was some kind of boat exhaust grease that solidified once it came into contact with the cold seawater.

2 Tons Of Invasive Life

When the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami hit Japan in 2011, a lot of debris got sucked back into the sea. A year later, one such item floated into Oregon. The Japanese dock measured 20 meters (66 ft) long and was encrusted with 100 tons of sea life.

This may sound peachy, but scientists were horrified. There is a huge problem in the area with invasive species, some so aggressive that native creatures cannot compete. Environmentally speaking, the tsunami dock was a ticking bomb. The floating “island” had an astonishing variety of anemones, starfish, urchins, algae, crustaceans, worms, snails, mussels, and much more.

Most had already called the dock home before the tsunami hit. After it was torn from its moorings, the float picked up more hitchhikers at sea. Admirably, the dock’s teeming citizens survived traveling across the open Pacific.

However, they were destroyed to prevent the threat they posed to native species. The threat may still be realized—some could have dropped off the dock earlier and already settled into Oregon’s shores.^[9]

1 Garfield Phones

Garfield the cat is a cartoon icon. During the 1980s, a company created novelty Garfield phones that became very popular. Mysteriously, they started to appear along the coastline of France. The feline flotsam invaded French beaches for decades, long after the phone’s popularity had passed.

In 2019, environmentalists finally found the source. A local man knew the secret all along—only it was not a secret to him. After learning that the rest of humanity considered the washed-up Garfields a mystery, Rene Morvan told his story.^[10]

In the 1980s, he and his brothers had explored a seaside cave. They found a shipping container inside. Among other things, it contained an enormous number of the Garfield phones.

Morvan took the anti-litter organization Ar Viltansou to the site, where they found the plastic cats and the container. Records show that a local storm raged around the time that the Morvan brothers made the discovery. The storm probably knocked the container off a passing ship and crushed it into the cave.

A town is generally accepted as any region bigger than a village and smaller than a city. It has its own government, name, and boundary, complete with marketplaces and people spread throughout the area. However, some towns have turned out to be very unique, including those built to look like other towns, and those built and then not inhabited. Some towns have only one resident, while the residents of other towns all live under one roof.

10The Villages
Florida

The Villages is a town in Florida that was built for retired people. It covers an area larger than Manhattan, and has over 100,000 inhabitants—most of whom move around in golf carts. In fact, it holds the Guinness World Record for assembling the longest golf cart parade in the world, with 3,321 total golf carts. The town—where children are forbidden—is also home to controversies and scandals. Old men and women have been caught making out in golf carts, and the men are known to fight over women. There is also a black market for Viagra, which costs about $12 for a single pill.

Unsurprisingly, the town—which has 10 women for every man—has also seen a massive rise in sexually transmitted diseases. In 2006, a gynecologist said she encountered more cases of herpes and human papillomavirus in the town than she did when she worked in Miami. Inhabitants are also known to drive under the influence (in golf carts), use illegal drugs, and engage in bar fights.

9Busingen Am Hochrhein
Germany

Busingen am Hochrhein is a German town in Switzerland. The town is separated from mainland Germany by a narrow strip of land, which measures about 700 meters (765 yards) at its narrowest point. Considering its unusual location, Busingen am Hochrhein is more of a Swiss town than a German one. It also enjoys public services from both Switzerland and Germany. It has a Swiss postal code (8238 Busingen) and a German postal code (78266 Busingen). It also has two telephone codes: +49 7734 (for Germany) and +41 52 (for Switzerland).

In case of an emergency, the Swiss or German police can be called in, although the Swiss police usually arrive first. Everybody living in Busingen is allowed to work and own properties in Switzerland, even if they do not possess Swiss citizenship. And, if a German citizen lives in Busingen for more than 10 years, he or she receives a special status similar to Swiss citizenship. The town’s football team—FC Busingen—also plays in the Swiss football league.

But the town never started off like this. Back in the 14th century, it was ruled by Austria. After the Lord of Busingen was killed by members of a nearby Swiss town, Austria vowed not to hand over the town to Switzerland. They later handed it over to a neighboring German town, and it was eventually claimed by Germany. In 1919, 96 percent of the locals voted to leave Germany and join Switzerland, but the Swiss wouldn’t offer anything in return, so the German government threw a fit and refused to let them go.

8Whittier
Alaska

Almost all of the 200-plus inhabitants of Whittier, Alaska live inside a single 14-story building called Begich Towers. The rest live in their vehicles, boats, or another, similar building. Begich Towers was built in 1956. Back then, it served as an army barracks, but today, it is a town complete with a police station, post office, store, church, video rental shop, playground, and health center—all located inside the building.

The only way to access the town is either via sea or through a 4-kilometer (2.6 mi) one-lane tunnel which has gates that open twice every hour, allowing cars in or out of the town. The tunnels close at night and do not reopen until the next day. Before 2001, the tunnel could not accommodate vehicles, and the only way to get to the town was a 100-kilometer (60 mi) train ride. Then, trains ran only few times a week. During summer months, Whittier gets about 22 hours of sunlight, and during winter, it could get covered in over 6.35 meters (250 in) of snow.

7Colma
California

The town of Colma, California has more dead people than living people, with 1,500 living inhabitants and over 1.5 million dead inhabitants. The history of the town can be traced back to the Gold Rush of 1849 which led hundreds of thousands of people to migrate to nearby San Francisco. They brought diseases and, subsequently, death. By the 1880s, the 26 cemeteries in the town had been almost filled and, by the late 1880s, cemetery owners began constructing cemeteries in southern Colma because it was easily accessible.

In March 1900, San Francisco’s government banned new burials within the city. They said this was necessary because the land was too valuable to be used as cemeteries. Later on, in January 1914, cemetery owners were ordered to remove all bodies buried in San Francisco. Politicians said that the cemeteries spread disease, but the cemetery operators believe it was because of the rising cost of real estate. Nevertheless, the operators removed the bodies, and moved them to Colma, leaving it sprawling with graveyards. Today, over 73 percent of Colma’s land is destined to become cemeteries.

6Monowi
Nebraska

Monowi was founded by Czech migrants in northeast Nebraska, and it has only one resident: 77-year-old Elsie Eller. Population-wise, Monowi is the smallest jurisdiction in the US. Elsie runs the town’s only tavern and library, which is made up of about 5,000 books owned by her late husband, Rudy. She also serves as the town’s mayor, clerk, and treasurer. She also runs the council. In the 1930s, the town had a population of about 150 people, but by 2000, it had two: Elsie and her husband, Rudy. Elsie’s husband passed away in 2004, leaving Elsie as the town’s lone resident. Every year, Elsie pays tax to the town to maintain its four streetlights and provide other basic amenities. Several abandoned buildings in the town are covered with grass, slowly fading into obscurity, while others have collapsed.

5Ordos
China

The city of Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China, has been called the largest ghost town in China. It was built to accommodate more than a million people, but only 2 percent of it was ever occupied. The remainder is unoccupied and was left to decay. The history of the town began more than 20 years ago during the coal rush of Mongolia. Investors soon began building apartments, hoping to rent them out. However, demand didn’t keep pace with the builders, and many investors pulled out or went broke before the buildings were even completed.

Today, streets are filled with incomplete houses. Even the completed buildings are hardly occupied thanks to their high prices. Many of the residents occupying the town are also leaving for elsewhere. In just five years, price per square foot fell from $1,100 to $470. To encourage people to come to the town, investors have reduced prices. Fresh graduates who move to the town to start a business are even given office space, Internet connections, and several other utilities for free.

4Longyearbyen
Norway

Longyearbyen, Spitsbergen in Norway is the northernmost city in the world. It contains the world’s northernmost church, ATM, museum, post office, airport, and university. In Longyearbyen, dying is forbidden. Anyone found ill or dying is immediately flown by airplane or ship to another part of Norway before he or she passes away. And, if someone suddenly dies there, they would not be buried.

Dying is forbidden because bodies buried in the town’s cemetery do not decompose thanks to its extreme cold weather. Scientists recently removed tissue from a man who died years ago, and discovered that it contained traces of a deadly virus that caused an epidemic in 1917. Aside from not being allowed to die, citizens are also allowed to move around with high-powered rifles, thanks to the over 3,000 polar bears hanging around. Cats are also forbidden because they pose a threat to the bird population.

3Asymmetric Warfare Training Center (AWTC)
Virginia

The Asymmetric Warfare Training Center (AWTC) in Virginia is an uninhabited town built by the US Army to train its soldiers. The town is complete with a school, church, mosque, train station, and a five-story embassy that’s likely the tallest building in Virginia’s Caroline County, where it is located. It also has a gas station, football field, bank, subway, and bridge. The school is built to replicate schools in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the subway resembles that of Washington, D.C. The trains even have the same logo as those found on trains in Washington. Costing $90.1 million to build, it is run by the US Army Asymmetric Warfare Group.

Another similar town is called Yodaville. It was built in the middle of the Arizona desert by the US Air Force. The uninhabited town, built to look like towns in Iraq and Afghanistan, is meant to teach Air Force pilots how to carry out bombing runs.

2Marloth Park
South Africa

Marloth Park is close to the Kruger National Park, which is filled with wildlife including lions, hippopotamuses, and crocodiles. What makes the town unique is that, despite the dangers of having these wild animals close by, residents are not allowed to build fences around their houses. The only fence that separates the townspeople from the park is a small 1.2-meter (4 ft) fence that was built more to keep humans out of the park than to keep the animals in.

It is not unusual to see wild animals walking about the town. Baboons are known to enter houses through windows to steal from the refrigerators, and giraffes and elephants are known to block the road. Lion attacks on humans are also not uncommon. Eyebrows were raised when a lion attacked, killed, and ate a burglar fleeing with his loot, leaving only his head and a foot. Even after the deadly attack, most of the town’s occupants want the lions to remain. Some said the burglar was shot while escaping, and his corpse was eaten by lions. Others said the lions would serve as a form of crime control for the town, which was seeing a rise in burglary.

Cyclists are often the victims of attacks. This belies underlying race issues in the town, as most of the town’s residents are white and have cars, while the bicyclists are mostly black people who commute there for work. One cyclist managed to escape an ambush staged by four lions, abandoning his bicycle and fleeing to safety. Townsmen have nicknamed people riding bicycles at night “meals on wheels.”

1Hallstat
China

The real Hallstat is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Austria. The Chinese Hallstat is a similar mock-up town built in Guangdong province, China. The town, which cost about $940 million to build, looks like the real Hallstat, including its roads, church tower, and wooden houses. The town’s construction was sponsored by a Chinese millionaire, and it caused quite a stir among residents of the real Hallstat who were not aware of the project.

Residents of Austria’s Hallstat (including the mayor) later visited the town. They said they were proud that their town was copied (it wasn’t like they could do anything about it), but they did not like the way the Chinese went about it. They were supposed to have met with the owners of the buildings they copied and asked if they were comfortable with the idea of replicating their buildings elsewhere, rather than just building them. The company that built the mock-up town, called Minmetals, had sent several of its workers to Austria’s Hallstat where they took pictures of places to replicate.

Elizabeth is an aspiring writer and author.