Category: Weird

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Private Investigators Share the Weirdest Cases They’ve Ever Worked On

For a lot of people, zany detective cases are the stuff of TV shows and movies, not reality. But when you work as a private investigator, real life truly is stranger than fiction.

On two AskReddit threads, people who have worked in the PI field shared some of the craziest stories from work — at least, the craziest ones they can talk about.

1. He faked his own death.

“I’m a paralegal who investigates backgrounds of witnesses for our cases. I found someone who was pretending to be someone else who died as a kid. My boss alerted the feds and they investigated and found out he had faked his death 20 years before to avoid a embezzlement trial. He got convicted for the false identity because he filed taxes in the fake name. Not sure about the original embezzlement charge.

He was a witness in a financial case involving the SEC, btw.”

2. The energy drink bandit.

“I’ve been a P.I. for about 3 years – mostly for disability fraud, no cheating wives or anything. Coolest/strangest thing I observed was a low level criminal (who was supposed to be disabled), who would spend all day going from Walmart to Walmart.

In each Walmart, he would fill the shopping cart full to the brim with energy drinks (Monster I think), walk briskly out the door without paying, throw them in his trunk, and take off like a bat out of hell.

At the end of the day he sold a trunk-load of energy drinks to a corner store and I video taped him walking out with a wad of cash.

Definitely not as exciting as the movies, but it was a fun day for me.”

3. He thought his neighbor was invisible.

“Guy calls me to help catch his neighbor who is knocking over his trashcans at night. We set up a small night vision camera to catch the guy. Watch the video the next day – it is the wind. The client freaks out, says that his neighbor could have had an invisibility field or could have been moving too fast (like the Flash) to show up on camera. Wants to pay us thousands of dollars to rent a heat-seeking camera or one that can shoot thousands of frames per second… Turns out lots of crazy people call PIs to investigate the TV controlling them, alien abduction, etc.”

4. Went looking for a cat, found a drug operation.

“Last year (I was 17) I pretended to be a private investigator just for fun and my neighbour gave me a tenner to go look for his missing cat, I guess he just wanted me to have some fun and I was just fooling around and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t find anything.

But damn did I find something.

At the bottom of my street there was an old abandoned retirement home, closed a couple years after I moved in. I went there first and found a blood trail leading into the place, there wasn’t a lot of blood but just enough that it could have been the cat’s blood.

Case in point, the building was being used by some druggies that were hiding their operation, just some weed, meth and coke and a couple of guns. After seeing that I shat myself because I was only going in to the whole PI thing as a joke.

I anonymously tipped off the police who raided the place, apperantly one of the guys accidently attacked the cat who started to wail loudly and he was scared people would come to investigate, he couldn’t bring himself to kill the cat so he dragged it inside and forgot to clean the blood away.

It was one of the most thrilling, yet terrifying things that I had ever gotten myself into. But hey, at least the cat lived and my neighbour got her back!”

5. A twisted rich man’s mansion.

“I don’t have my license but I work in a PI office. I’m the only administrative staff member. It’s basically me and my Vietnam Vet boss in a Ron Swanson-April Ludgate kind of situation. A story he told me recently comes to mind.

He and his partner were once hired to sweep a house and look for any valuables. They agreed to the case before knowing the full extent of the damage to the home because the lawyers were willing to pay well and our caseload was small at the time.

The home was owned by a man who inherited a large fortune because his father had invested in a little movie that went on to become one of the biggest horror franchises of all time. The son never worked a day in his life. He had a big mansion out in the boonies. No one ever saw him or his wife because they spent all of their time inside.

The home was now empty because he went nuts and murdered his wife and their dog. He was serving life in prison and the family’s estate needed the home cleared.

When my boss and his partner got in there they realized how bad it was. For years this guy and his wife had been shooting up drugs in the house. Every square inch of the mansion was covered in trash. After binging on drugs and alcohol the two would puke and then just cover the vomit with trash and leave it there. The same went for the dog shit and piss. This went on for years. In addition to the puke and animal waste there were needles littered through the trash. My boss had to buy hazmat suits to sweep the home and look for valuables. Apparently, there was a ton of diamond and gold jewelry just thrown right in with the filth.

At one point they found a table behind a door that was missed by the forensic crew completely covered in the wife’s blood from where he had mutilated the body.

They also found an entire room full of a many thousand dollar kiln and ceramics supplies, all untouched. I guess the guy decided he wanted to become a master potter before quickly abandoning that pursuit to become a fucking murderer.

They could only access the home through one exterior door that wasn’t blocked. When they eventually walked around the exterior of the home they found that the guy had purchased himself a shark cage. As in, he decided he wanted to become a shark photographer, and ignoring the fact that he didn’t live right on the ocean, BOUGHT a shark cage and stuck it in the yard. Eventually, people started to invade the grounds and steal stuff from the home and one day the shark cage just disappeared.

6. Cheating husbands and coaches.

“P.I. for 5 year, I had a few exciting, not necessarily strange cases. One incident was of a coach who was sleeping with one of the female players. One of the players that was benched hired me to document the coach for sleeping with one of the starters on the team…They were careful with how they arranged their meetings, and took me a bit to document it, but ultimately got the information.

Fast forward a week later and the papers reporting the coach has resigned to work in the family business…fast forward another week later, the story broke with all the evidence I had collected (I was not named in the story as I had requested not to be.) Another case was my quickest (2 hours). Picked up surveillance after the subject had dinner with his wife at Applebee’s, followed to a hospital parking garage and he went in to visit his mother. I stayed to monitor the vehicle, and another shows up.

The subject exited the hospital and jumped in the other vehicle…I then recorded him getting a bj. Case opened and closed in 2 hours (paid $1,000 retainer, was able to keep all $1,000 since retainers are non refundable I charged $60/hr and would’ve only made $120)….I have many many more stories….some funny, some really sad (I specialized in father’s rights cases).”

7. The subject died immediately.

“Not me personally, but I worked with a guy whose subject died on the first day of surveillance. Drug overdose. I’m sure the final report must have been legendary. “The claimant died.””

8. He snorted coke out of where?!

“My personal favorite case was this one wherein a guy with a video-game esque last name (akin to Gannon) had a criminal record against him. The record indicated that he had been charged with cocaine usage and that he had reportedly snorted the cocaine out of a Hooker’s a*s.”

9. Some people are just in denial.

“Get hired by a wife to see if her husband is sleeping with his secretary. We follow them, recording them going into his single-bed hotel room at 10:20pm after a nice dinner and leaving together the next morning at 8am. She says it proves nothing, that they could have just been working late…”

10. No tattoo is safe.

“I had one hired against me, and they found out everything. Tattoos that aren’t visible normally, the address I lived at in a different country, medical records from an accident that happened 6 years prior, so many random things that aren’t publicly available.”

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These Unexpected Coincidences May Make You Reconsider the Fictionality of “The Matrix”

Sometimes, you just can’t explain the odd things that happen in this world. I’m talking about those weird coincidences that make you scratch your head and wonder, “Huh…what the hell did I just see?”

Here are 15 times that things just like that happened.

Let’s take a look.

1. The most beautiful pigeon sh*t in the world.

Pigeon poops portrait of itself on a leaf from nevertellmetheodds

2. A perfect landing.

The cat knocked my daughter’s fish bowl off the dresser. from nevertellmetheodds

3. What are the chances?

The first time my friend visited my apartment she was mind-blown that my shower curtain looked “exactly” like one of her shirts. I half-seriously said that her story sounded made up and promptly forgot about it until she returned the following week to demonstrate. I forever stand corrected. from nevertellmetheodds

4. Blending right in.

Girl’s shirt matches a coffee mug perfectly at Purdue University from nevertellmetheodds

5. Musical curly fries.

Found a treble clef in my Arby’s curly fries once from mildlyinteresting

6. That is random.

my grandma (left) went to a wine tasting & met her two friends there & they were all wearing the same dress from mildlyinteresting

7. One in a million.

The serial number on this pizza cutter from nevertellmetheodds

8. Separated at birth?

It’s gotta be weird to go to the mall one day and run into… yourself. from nevertellmetheodds

9. I’m a huge fan!

This bird that looks like Danny DeVito from mildlyinteresting

10. That is incredible.

My girlfriend and I both took pictures from the same angle at the same show… 3 years before we met each other from nevertellmetheodds

11. Saved by a bird.

The police Facebook page posted a picture taken by a speeding camera. The bird saves the day from nevertellmetheodds

12. Thank your lucky stars.

This car not being swallowed up after the earthquake in Alaska from nevertellmetheodds

13. Here I am!

Well that was easy. from nevertellmetheodds

14. Twist of fate.

This pilot found out that the OH58 Kiowa helicopter he’d been flying was the very same aircraft which made him want to become an army pilot in the first place from interestingasfuck

15. It equals ten!

I was born with 6 toes on my left foot and my Co-worker was born with 4 toes on her right foot from nevertellmetheodds

Those sure are odd!

Have you ever captured photos of some totally random coincidences? If so, share them with us in the comments! Please and thank you!

The post These Unexpected Coincidences May Make You Reconsider the Fictionality of “The Matrix” appeared first on UberFacts.

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These Unexpected Coincidences May Make You Reconsider the Fictionality of “The Matrix”

Sometimes, you just can’t explain the odd things that happen in this world. I’m talking about those weird coincidences that make you scratch your head and wonder, “Huh…what the hell did I just see?”

Here are 15 times that things just like that happened.

Let’s take a look.

1. The most beautiful pigeon sh*t in the world.

Pigeon poops portrait of itself on a leaf from nevertellmetheodds

2. A perfect landing.

The cat knocked my daughter’s fish bowl off the dresser. from nevertellmetheodds

3. What are the chances?

The first time my friend visited my apartment she was mind-blown that my shower curtain looked “exactly” like one of her shirts. I half-seriously said that her story sounded made up and promptly forgot about it until she returned the following week to demonstrate. I forever stand corrected. from nevertellmetheodds

4. Blending right in.

Girl’s shirt matches a coffee mug perfectly at Purdue University from nevertellmetheodds

5. Musical curly fries.

Found a treble clef in my Arby’s curly fries once from mildlyinteresting

6. That is random.

my grandma (left) went to a wine tasting & met her two friends there & they were all wearing the same dress from mildlyinteresting

7. One in a million.

The serial number on this pizza cutter from nevertellmetheodds

8. Separated at birth?

It’s gotta be weird to go to the mall one day and run into… yourself. from nevertellmetheodds

9. I’m a huge fan!

This bird that looks like Danny DeVito from mildlyinteresting

10. That is incredible.

My girlfriend and I both took pictures from the same angle at the same show… 3 years before we met each other from nevertellmetheodds

11. Saved by a bird.

The police Facebook page posted a picture taken by a speeding camera. The bird saves the day from nevertellmetheodds

12. Thank your lucky stars.

This car not being swallowed up after the earthquake in Alaska from nevertellmetheodds

13. Here I am!

Well that was easy. from nevertellmetheodds

14. Twist of fate.

This pilot found out that the OH58 Kiowa helicopter he’d been flying was the very same aircraft which made him want to become an army pilot in the first place from interestingasfuck

15. It equals ten!

I was born with 6 toes on my left foot and my Co-worker was born with 4 toes on her right foot from nevertellmetheodds

Those sure are odd!

Have you ever captured photos of some totally random coincidences? If so, share them with us in the comments! Please and thank you!

The post These Unexpected Coincidences May Make You Reconsider the Fictionality of “The Matrix” appeared first on UberFacts.

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Scientists Worry That the Incurable “Zombie Deer” Disease Could Make the Leap to Humans

Deer (and related animals, like elk) in 24 states that have tested positive for chronic wasting disease – sometimes referred to as the “zombie deer” disease, and scientists are worried that humans might not be immune to catching it, should we eat tainted meat.

The disease causes infected animals to stumble through the forest, drooling and becoming more aggressive toward humans. They’re listless, consistently lose weight, and will eventually die from the incurable infection.

It’s the result of a prion – a mis-folded brain protein that’s mysteriously able to infect other nearby proteins, talking them into re-folding wrong, too. A prion is not alive, so it cannot be killed, which means there are no treatments or cures for chronic wasting disease or any other prion diseases like it.

We’ve been aware of these types of infections, and how hard they are to fight, for years. Mad Cow Disease is the result of prions, as is Jakob Creutzfeldt Disease. In humans, prion disorders cause people to decline over the span of several months; they lose the ability to speak, move, and eventually control the muscle movements necessary for life.

CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease) currently seems limited to deer, moose, and elk, but researchers at the University of Minnesota are urging local lawmakers to consider funding further research into the matter.

Michael Osterholm, the university’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Prevention director, is at the forefront of the effort.

“It is my best professional judgement based on my public health experience and the risk of BSE transmission to humans in the 1980s and1990s and my extensive review and evaluation of laboratory research studies …that is it probably that human cases of CWS associated with the consumption of contaminated meat will be documented in the years ahead. It is possible that the number of human cases will be substantial and will not be isolated events.”

Basically, even though as of yet there is no reason to panic, scientists are sounding the alarm.

Osterholm has reason to be concerned – he was involved with the British review panels that dealt with the mad cow disease scare, when it was found that it was rare, but possible, for humans to contract the disease by eating contaminated tissue.

That said, all evidence points to the consumption of brain tissue specifically as being the means for transmission, not other, more commonly-eaten portions of meat.

The existence of CWD in deer and the potential for contraction in humans is not news to the CDC – since the 1990s, they’ve kept an eye on hunters who come down with versions of the prion disease killing the deer. Many are diagnosed at surprisingly young ages, and some were known to eat deer meat regularly.

All of the patients died not long after their symptoms emerged, but in all cases, no known herds infected with CWD were in the area.

Basically, there was no way to confirm that they contracted anything at all from eating contaminated deer meat – some of the men weren’t even conclusively diagnosed with prion infections – so it could have been a simple coincidence.

Rates of prion disease in human aren’t any higher in areas rife with infected deer than anywhere else in the United States, but scientists are also quick to point out how little we know about the afflictions overall.

This CDC report states that “because CWD has occurred in a limited geographic area for decades, an adequate number of how people may not have been exposed to the CWD agent to result in a clinically recognizable human disease. The level and frequency of human exposure to the CWD agent may increase with the spread of CWD in the United States.”

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The progression of chronic wasting disease in North America (CWD) since 2000. CWD is a highly contagious disease in cervids (deer, reindeer, elk) that degrades the animal’s neurological system, leaving holes in the brain. It is 100% fatal. ⠀ Although there are no known cases of CWD in people, there is concern that the prions that cause the disease could adapt to new hosts and someday infect humans, just as the prion culprit of mad cow disease did in the United Kingdom in the 1990s. ⠀ To offer her expert testimony and recommendations, wildlife disease ecologist Dr. Krysten Schuler joined the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources for their June 25 subcommittee hearing on the subject. “Any meaningful strategies to combat CWD will require long-term approaches with sustained state and federal efforts," said Schuler. ⠀ Her recommendations included ✔ sustained fiscal support for state and federal wildlife agencies, as well as veterinary and wildlife diagnostic labs ✔ research funds to work toward new breakthroughs in treatment and prevention ✔ improved support from stakeholders up through their elected officials to raise the disease to a national level of prominence ⠀ #cornellvet #cornell #vetmed #veterinary #cwd #chronicwastingdisease #wildlife Maps created by @cornell_cwhl and image provided

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The disease has been spreading through deer, elk, and moose populations since 1981 (at least), when it was first identified in wild deer. While most populations still have low infection rates, they have grown to 10% or even 25% in others.

The more deer infected, the bigger risk to humans, warns a 2012 review in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

“The potential for interspecies CWD transmission (by cohabitating mammals) will only increase as the disease spreads and CWD prions continue to be shed into the environment.”

The CDC and WHO agree that transmission between species is possible, or one day could be, even though we have no evidence that it has already happened. Researchers are hoping to develop a test that could be used in the field, one that would tell hunters whether or not the meat they’re butchering is contaminated before they eat it.

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Members of the UWSP Student Chapter of #TheWildlifeSociety helped construct a Chronic Wasting Disease kiosk for the Stevens Point area. Students will now have the opportunity to assist local DNR with collecting CWD samples from harvested deer. . Thank you @uwsp_tws for allowing us to share! Want to see your student chapter featured? DM us @thewildlifesociety. . Repost: Through a partnership with the @wi_dnr and @uwsp_bha, the UWSP TWS was able to construct and deploy a #CWD kiosk for the Stevens Point area. Over the course of several weeks, student volunteers constructed the kiosk and were able to set it up before the gun opener this past weekend. With the kiosk, students will have the opportunity to monitor and check for heads and assist the DNR with lymph node extraction and sampling. The kiosk is located at Frank’s Hardware in Stevens Point. . . . . . . . . . . #Wisconsin #CWD #wildlifedisease #chronicwastingdisease #deer #wildlifebiology #wildlifebiologist #wildlifemanagement

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University of Minnesota scientists are working on that now, but in the meantime, if you hunt in an affected area, be aware of what the animals you kill looked and acted like prior to being shot. In all cases, you’re better off avoiding touching the internal organs as much as possible, particularly the brain and spinal cord.

If you’re worried, contact your local wildlife authority to get the animal tested before consuming it.

This is new territory, but as with most things that could cost you your life, better safe than sorry.

The post Scientists Worry That the Incurable “Zombie Deer” Disease Could Make the Leap to Humans appeared first on UberFacts.

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15 Creepy Mysteries That Might Never Be Solved

There are so many unsolved mysteries out there that it can be hard to keep up with them. Luckily, we have online forums where people fill us in on the creepy tales and stories we should read up on if we want to scare the sh*t out of each other.

Here are 15 scary unsolved mysteries that might never be solved. Click on the links in the titles to read more about these topics.

These answers come to us from the Buzzfeed Community.

1. The disappearance of Bobby Dunbar.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“I just find it crazy that we’ll never quite know if the kid who was returned to the Dunbars was really their son or the son of another woman who they won against in court. If that wasn’t Bobby, what happened to Bobby? And if it was Bobby, why did he seem so confused about it?”

2. The Somerton Man.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“The dude from Australia! The Somerton Man! He was found on the beach, dead. All signs pointed to poisoning but they didn’t find anything in the tox report. All the tags in his clothes were cut out, there was no way of identifying him. Then they found a line from a book in his pocket or something. They say he could have been a spy but we’ll probably never know.”

3. The Yuba County Five.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“Five young men went missing in California after seemingly being chased up a mountain in their car. Months later, four of their five bodies were found malnourished, but the fifth has never been found. People think since the men were mentally challenged they were targeted or that the 5th man murdered them, but that theory seems unlikely.”

4. The death of Rebecca Zahau.

“She was found bound and hanged naked off the balcony of her boyfriend’s beachside mansion. There was a mysterious message written in black paint on her bedroom door reading, “She saved him. Can you save her?”

5. The death of the Black Dahlia.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“This one is obviously super well known but the fact that no one knows who the killer is is wild and what was done to her was so brutal and creepy.”

6. The disappearance of Timmothy Pitzen.

“Everyone needs to read this case, it is nuts. Amy Fry-Pitzen checked her 6-year-old son out of school and three days later her body was found in a hotel where she had died of apparent suicide. A note was found next to her saying that Timmothy was safe with people who would care for him and he would never be found. They have never been able to find him, or any remains of him.”

7. Australia’s Mr. Cruel.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“Many people have seen the police sketch of the modified balaclava that he wore in one of the kidnappings (the one with white stitches to conceal any potential identifying markers — super creepy!), but his crime spree and its sudden stop is haunting. Its unsolved nature adds more to its overall creepiness.”

8. The 1962 Alcatraz prison break.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“Along with their friend Allen West, they planned to dig a hole using spoons into their cell walls and climb up the walls onto the roof. Using loads of raincoats they also planned to take all their belongings and make a raft and swim away. West never made it as his hole was too small, but the others have still not been found. There are many weird things involved in this story — someone claiming to be Clarence wrote a letter to the police a few years back stating he is alive and that he would tell them where he is if they didn’t arrest him and that the other two have died.”

9. The Lane Bryant murders.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“It happened on a Saturday morning in the southern suburbs of Chicago. A person walked into the store, held people hostage for a short time, and murdered everyone in there. The person got away and was never found. A manager, who wasn’t even scheduled to come in that day, called 911 and just said, ‘Lane Bryant, hurry.’ One person survived the shooting but the person has not been identified. They’re not even sure if the killer was a man or a woman. The 911 call is super chilling.”

10. The disappearance of Susy Tomassi.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

“Susy was 73 years old with slight dementia. She owned a restaurant called The Quilted Giraffe with her husband and was known for walking from the restaurant to other stores. One day, she was seen on camera walking away from her restaurant and literally just vanished. Nobody knows what happened. They recently released a video of a person they believe to be Susy, walking through some store alleys and getting into a white pickup truck the exact time she went missing.”

11. The death of Gareth Williams.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

“The spy in the duffel bag. His naked remains were found in a duffel bag, padlocked from the outside, in the bath of a safe house. No forensic evidence was found that pointed towards it being an accident, and the key to the padlock was found underneath his body. The official cause of death was ‘probably an accident’ but a KGB agent claims he was killed by the Russian SVR.”

12. The fate of the Sodder children.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“The whole case is quite the rabbit hole with so many lies and cover-ups and unanswered questions. Someone out there has answers! It’s been over 70 years, so if the children survived, they’ve probably passed on now. But I’m still so curious about what happened!”

13. The incident at Dyatlov Pass.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“Nine experienced trekkers were found dead. There was no sign of foul play, but most of them were missing clothes, some of them had extreme injuries, and the tents were ripped open from the inside. It happened over 50 years ago and to this day is still unsolved!”

14. The death of JonBenét Ramsey.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“ARE WE EVER GOING TO FIND OUT WHO DID IT?! Did the mom write the ransom? Why was the random note written at the house? Why did JonBenét have pineapple in her stomach? Who gave her the pineapple? How did the DNA on her clothing get there, who does the DNA belong to? Was she being abused? WHY DOES HER BROTHER SOUND SO CREEPY AND WHY DOES HE SMILE SO MUCH?! Someone in that family is guilty of something. Darnit! It still keeps me up at night.”

15. The disappearance of Amy Bradley.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

“She disappeared on a cruise ship and there were rumors that she was trafficked. They found a photo of a really similar looking woman on an escort site!”

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People Share True Facts That Sound Fake

There have been several times while plotting books when I discarded an idea because it sounded too outlandish…even though, in some cases, it was historically true.

In that vein, Redditors thought it would be fun to share facts that are truly hard to believe, and I bet at least a few of these are going to blow your mind!

15. This isn’t really surprising, if you think about it.

Death rates in boxing exploded after the introduction of the boxing glove. Almost nobody ever died bare knuckle boxing because head punches often resulted in broken hands, so nobody used them.

14. A man-eater.

The Champawat Tiger was a female Bengal tiger responsible for an estimated 430 deaths in Nepal and India, (listed in the Guinness Book of World Records and Wikipedia) More people than died in the U.S. in the last 100 years from, snakes, bears, wolves, and spider fatalities combined.

13. I’m going to need video of this.

President Lyndon B. Johnson owned an Amphibious car, the Amphicar, and used it to scare guests by driving them into his lake screaming about brake failure.

12. Let’s get on activating that, hmm?

Humans have the gene to, and are capable of hibernation. It’s just not active

11. This is not actually surprising.

There was once a war between Honduras and El Salvador started by a soccer game.

10. It’s Australia. There’s any number of things that could have happened to him.

Australia once lost a prime minister. as in straight up couldn’t find him. and they have yet to find him.

9. Wait, why?

Saudi Arabia imports camels from Australia.

8. That’s gotta be uncomfortable.

Wombat poop is square. Go ahead, google it. *edit: yes, cube-shaped.

7. A desert is just a desolate, arid environment.

My friend doesn’t trust me with these things now that I’ve told her that Antarctica is the world’s largest desert. She still doesn’t believe it.

6. I’m sure that’s pretty.

It rains diamonds on Saturn, and Jupiter.

5. In case you want to hate corporations a little bit more.

There is a little town in Mexico called Chamula where shamans started using Coca Cola in their religious rituals to heal worshippers. Pepsi heard about this and began giving commissions to shamans if they recommended Pepsi instead, so then Coca Cola did the same and there are now rival religious groups based on which soft drink they use.

4. Crazy or innovative? You decide.

In the 1950’s Popular Mechanics published a story about a former artillery Sergeant who attempted to invent a personal delivery system similar to what Amazon intends to create with drones. Except he used modified artillery shells. He actually got a hold of an M116 howitzer which he fired modified shells over a small town in upstate New York.

The shells were hollowed out inside and a parachute would automatically deploy as it approached the target. The problem was the shells weighed twenty pounds and if the parachute did not deploy that meant a twenty pound shell would come crashing down from the sky and wreck someone’s house or possibly kill someone in the street. As the Sergeant tested the device and was utterly convinced it was a way of the future he offered to sell a solution installing expensive iron plating on the roofs of people’s homes and heavy protective armor for navigating the streets.

This Sargent’s story had become an inside joke among people who market modern electronics and virus software. Create a problem that is unnecessary and then sell people an expensive and completely impractical solution.

3. I fail to see how this could be a bad thing.

Thanks to a botched burglary attempt at the Émancé Nature Reserve (about an hour outside Paris) in the 1970’s, there is now a feral Wallaby population in France.

2. And they were Nazis.

The founding of Adidas and Puma.

Rudolf “Rudi” Dassler and Adolf “Adi” Dassler were born into a German family, and Adi eventually began to produce athletic shoes. Rudi joined his younger brother’s company, and everything went swimmingly… for a while.

Eventually, both brothers joined the Nazi Party and turned on each other. Rudi formed “Rudas,” now known as Puma. And Adi formed “Adidas,” now known as Adidas.

The first time I heard this story, I was convinced it was fake.

1. He might be an alien.

In the hockey world, some of the numbers that Wayne Gretzky put up are mind-boggling. He scored nearly 3,000 points, nobody else even has 2,000. He has more assists than anyone else does points. He recorded 4 seasons with at least 200 PTS, nobody else has ever scored 200 in a season, though Lemieux came close. Rarely do we see a 50 goal scorer anymore, Gretzky set the record with 50 goals in a mere 39 games. So many other records that just make you say “wow.” No wonder he’s known simply as “The Great One.”

Do you have something you would add to the list? Share it in the comments!

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These Old Recipes Illustrate How Our Tastes Have Evolved

People will always eat weird stuff, but it can be jarring to find out that people en masse – or at least, Americans en masse – used to eat very differently from today. Some of these recipes-past sound interesting, and not necessarily in a bad way.

And some of them sound downright horrifying.

Here are 17 things people used to think were delightful dishes – a good mix of interesting and horrifying, I hope!

17. Tuna Fish Mold

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/73714023817/tuna-mold

16. Party Potato Salad

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/68678947219/glazed-potato-salad

15. SPAM Upside-Down Pie

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/2430606225/spam-upside-down-pie-by-charm-and-poise

14. Hamburger-Onion Pie with Bisquick and Cottage Cheese

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/2306117002/hamburger-onion-pie-with-bisquick-and-cottage

13. Frozen Fruit Cheese Salad

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/2165535139/frozen-fruit-cheese-salad-via-things-your

12. Ham and Banana Hollandaise

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/74274870387/via-ham-and-banana-salad

11. Mexican Shrimp-Orange Salad

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/73509134936/1970s-mexican-shrimp-orange-salad

10. Hash Filet Mignon

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/68571207225

9. German Pizza

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/2365313772/german-pizza-with-sausage-and-sauerkraut

8. Deviled Ham Whip

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/2154077623/deviled-ham-whip-via-found-in-moms-basement

7. Zucchini Tomato Pie

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/73406640059/via-impossible-zucchini-tomato-pie-taco-pie

6. Frankfurter Spectacular

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/73303552135/frankfurter-spectacular-via-its-franktacular

5. Putting on the Dog

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/68497070205/via-kitchen-monkey-a-mad-men-cocktail-party

4. SPAM n Limas

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/2317333580/spam-n-limas-via-foodiggitycom

3. Baked Tuna Ring

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/1715889961/baked-tuna-ring-via-iimgurcom

2. Frankfurter Pie

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/74602228716/via-frankfurter-pie

1. Patio Platter

https://fuckyeahvintagerecipes.tumblr.com/post/72981046465/vintage-ad-2333-a-platter-befitting-the-finest

 

Interesting or not, I don’t think I’m going to be trying any of these out on my family anytime soon!

How about you – any of these going on your weekly rotation?

The post These Old Recipes Illustrate How Our Tastes Have Evolved appeared first on UberFacts.

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People Share the Crazy Things Others Told Them That They Shouldn’t Have

People are strange. Very strange!

I’m sure you’ve been here before, where a random person tells you a story that is way too personal and makes you very uncomfortable. I know I sure have.

AskReddit users shared their stories about when this happened to them.

1. Thanks for the info!

“I was going to a summer cottage owned by my work. Upon hearing that, a coworker of mine informed me that his daughter was conceived there, in the very bed that I was about to sleep in.

Did not need to know that, at all.”

2. Classy photo shoot.

“I was working in the photo lab at Walmart. They have a policy about not printing lewd photos, and they have to be destroyed if they are printed.

20 minutes before closing a woman comes and asks to print some photos. I direct her to the kiosk, and after a while they start printing in the back.

I notice that the first few photos are poorly cropped as they come off the machine. They’re full-body portraits with half her face cut off. This isn’t uncommon, the software isn’t super intuitive, so I check the next few to see if it happened on more.

The next few photos are the same framing, just different poses. It looks like she’s showing off this nice dress.

And then she’s reclining on a couch…

And then she’s on a bed…

And then her legs are spread…

Now I have to figure how to tell her I cant sell these prints. I’m all ready with the policy binder out and open to the relevant page when she comes up, and I start explaining:

“I’m sorry ma’am, I can’t sell some of these photos to you, they violate our Inappropriate Print Policy so I had to shre-”

“Oh! I’m so sorry I forgot those were in there! It’s fine he’s not allowed to have those kinds of photos in prison anyway!”

I was so relieved that she wasn’t going to yell at me that jt didn’t register what she said until after she left.”

3. Okay, let’s move on to the muffler.

“I see my mechanic a like 5 times a year and he always tells me how many Asian girls he met online and had sex with since we last met. Its like an unprompted tradition he must get past before we can talk about what’s wrong with the car.”

4. Wow this is quite a story.

“As a passenger in an Uber, I had my driver tell me that day was the anniversary of the day his son was murdered. As we drove past the spot where it happened for, according to him, the first time since it had happened. We then drove past a building where he told me the murderer worked, pretending to be a man of God with, in his words, “four bodies on him”.

His son was a gangster. My driver was a 56 year old father just lost in his grief that day and when he picked me up, in that neighborhood in Minneapolis Midtown, it just came out. He also told me that every single day he thought about killing the man who killed his son and then just turning himself in. He told me his wife told him once a week that he better not make her a widow.

It wasn’t the ride to the airport that I signed up for but that was ok. He needed to talk to someone. As a father, I could feel his pain. His kid was weeks away from leaving the life and joining his brother in the military. He told me he was killed by his second in command right after he said he was joining the service.

My bullshit meter is always very high. He wasn’t telling tall tales or workshopping material. I just happened to get in his car when a year’s worth of hell came to the surface. After he dropped me off he told me he was going home because he needed to talk to his wife.”

5. Listen up, sonny boy.

“My 89 year old grandfather told me his and his wife’s favourite sexual position. Number 1 on the list of things I never ever needed to know.”

6. A real catch.

“Sitting with my fiancé’s new friend and she starts bragging to me how she’s been manipulating men including my fiancé into doing things for her. (Picking up her paychecks for her, babysitting her son while she goes on a date, cleaning her place for her etc) Then she started showing me these long messages she’d send to guys she had just met on dating sites telling them how my fiancé was her best friend and her standard for guys.”

7. Dropped a bomb.

“That he considers paying a hooker to lose his virginity. It was back when I worked in retail, and he was a co-worker. We didn’t talk much, only a couple of words, and only about work. Then one day he came to me, and dropped this bomb.

At first at though he was joking, and tried to laugh it off, but he was dead serious. He also wanted to hear my opinion, but I told him that this was not a comfortable conversation for me.

Later another co-worker told me he tries to talk about this to all female workers, and he hopes that one of us would offer him to take his virginity, so he doesn’t have to pay.”

8. Jesus…

“An ex-coworker, whom I barely knew, told me she was in a sexual relationship with her biological father.

They had been together for about 10 years, and moved to a new city together. She was only 25 or so.

I politely smiled, switched topics, and went home shortly afterwards.

Of course I kept that story to myself, but damn.”

9. Ummmmmm…

“A kid I was sort of friends with in high school told me that he regularly had sex with his twin brother.

For the record, he had no history of ever being sexually abused, and from what he talked about, it was mutually suggested between the two.

They were just gay and into incest.”

10. Didn’t need to hear that.

“Managed a restaurant and a man was there to service the building, HVAC or something. He seems anxious and starts rattling on about his girlfriend and then her brother and how said brother f*cked a cow… immediately apologizes, “I don’t know why I said that, I probably shouldn’t have told you that, sorry.””

11. Thanks sis!

“My sister told me she was getting her tonsils out, so that she would give better head.”

12. More sex!

“A (strange) coworker, whom I wasn’t ever close with, decided to tell me at work – across the entire office – that she and her husband were having marital problems due to lack of sex. He wanted more sex. But since she wasn’t trying to get pregnant, she didn’t see the point and said he needed to get over it.

This happened loudly, out of nowhere and with no prompting. What made it more uncomfortable was that she was our HR person.”

13. The rules of swinging.

“Had a super weird chick who lived in our neighborhood once who asked me if I knew the “rules” of polygamy and swinging. I was like, “Uh….no?”

She then proceeded to tell me some long, rambling story about a house party that her husband was invited to, but not her, because they wanted to sleep with her husband but she couldn’t come along to participate or watch or whatever.

Her husband was probably 6 ft 4, but weighed around 350 lbs. He was probably the original neckbeard. She was no prize either. I doubt anybody wanted to sleep with either of them.

She also told me she hated sunbathing nude because her nipples always got super sunburned. o.O

Ok then.”

14. Sounds like a great place to work.

“Working on a assembly line, a girl I had to work next to that day explained to me why part of her shirt was yellow and wrinkled. The yellow part was cat pee, it’s wrinkled cause she sleeps in it. And hasn’t done laundry in 2 week’s…yes she smelled and yes I told her she did.

Next girl working with me confessed that she slept with 50 people at work. Married, has 3 kids, not sure if kid #2 and #3 is her husbands. Then told me not to tell anyone, I barely knew her, but I’m sure people all ready knew this about her. There were less than 300 people working at this plant, that’s including 2 shift’s.

Guy starts talking to me at lunch, ask if I heard about his son committing suicide “yes I did, I’m sorry to hear this,” guy said “don’t worry about it I think he did it for attention” WTF. I left immediately.

I don’t miss that place.”

15. Total creeper.

“Business partner of my then boss, that had just introduced himself to me:

“Nice team you’ve got here. we should all go on a trip to Thailand together. You can f*ck prostitutes without protection over there! They all have documents from their doctors showing that they’re clean!

Dude was also married, with two young daughters.

What the actual f*ck.”

Okay, yeah… wow. Why would people admit ANY of that? Just keep your damn mouths shut, people!

Have you ever encountered anything like this? What did they say?

Let us know in the comments!

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People Share the Things You Should Never ‘Google’

I’m probably not giving you any information you don’t already have, but there are a ton of sick and strange people out there and there is also a TON of weird and disturbing things online. I’ve never explored these things personally because it’s not my thing, but people are…strange.

AskReddit users shared the things they think you should never, ever search for on Google…you’ve been warned.

No, seriously… we didn’t Google ANY of these. So we don’t have any idea what they are.

You’ve been warned… again.

1. Sounds horrible, whatever it is…

“Blowfly girl.

Just don’t do it.”

2. Ugh. Nope.

“There’s a video from a family’s dashcam as they’re driving down the highway.

A brick falls off a truck or something and goes through their windshield and hits the wife in the passenger seat. You can’t see anything cause the gore is all behind the camera, but you can hear the husband’s reaction when he realizes that she’s dead.

The screams are haunting.”

3. Weird…

“Bobby Yeah.

It’s the only online video I ever came across that not only unsettled me deeply but made me feel like vomiting for a very long time after. It’s some bizarre claymation video that could be passed off as art about a somewhat Tim Burton-sequel character’s misadventures. It quickly unravels into something disturbing and disgusting with the visceral, surreal feeling of 80s campy fx, but with clay.

It was so gross. I didn’t even finish it. I saw it maybe 6 years ago but if it crosses my mind I still wish I hadn’t seen it. Not sure if it’s a personal thing, but that one sat very badly with me.”

4. You people are odd…

“Vacuum sealed pr0n.”

5. Go see a doctor instead.

“Their symptoms.

The internet will always tell you that you’re dying.”

6. Never heard of this one…

“Woodskin Disease/Tree people, not gonna google to get proper name for it.”

7. Absolutely not.

“2 girls one cup.”

8. Okay…

“Fortniteburger.net.

I mean, its not close to a burger.

It’s Wreck it wralph with his pong it schlong.”

9. Hmmmm…

“MANGO WORMS!”

10. Grizzly Man.

“Timothy Treadwell.

He was filming a documentary about grizzly bears with his, wife I think, but there was a woman with him.

Anyway, yeah, they were filming when they were attacked, I think he was attacked first, and you can hear he and she screaming, and then she is attacked, there wasn’t any video, just audio, still crazy.”

11. Chinese crackdown.

“Anything Hong Kong-related while in China, you can be arrested.”

12. It can’t be that bad, can it?

“Anyone see the movie Tusk? Don’t.”

13. Yeah, don’t do that.

“When I was a kid I was trying to make homemade smoke bombs.

And of course you can slip down the rabbit hole of making real bombs. I’m glad nothing ever came of it but when I got a bit older I was really worried my family was on a list because of me googling things about bombs.”

14. Sounds terrible.

“I am way late, but White Phosphorus burns, I feel like the first time I saw this something grazed my soul.”

15. Just go see a doctor.

“Disease symptoms.

Literally every time I checked any disease’s symptom all the help it did to me was convince me I had the said disease and made me more concerned.

Doctors exist for a reason.”

Whew… that was a weird ride down the rabbit hole.

And although we hesitate to ask… do you have anything we SHOULDN’T Google?

Let us know… in the comments…. maybe…

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15 People Share Their Small Town’s Most Recent Scandals

I lived in a small town until I was 10 years old when my family moved away, and I remember that everyone there seemed to know everyone else’s business.

Because that’s how it works in small towns. A lot of gossip, a lot of drama – and when a scandal hits, everyone knows about it.

Here are the latest small town scandals according to AskReddit users.

1. A criminal from the big city.

“A few days ago, Amber Alert sent out an emergency message about a fellow in a green car who had stabbed his girlfriend and stolen their baby out of San Jose, which is 3 hours north of us. Lo and behold, the guy was caught right at our own downtown gas station when the kidnapper accidently locked the baby and his keys in his car, which drew attention to him.

A good samaritan from an entirely different town, (a tourist), put the puzzle together, and put the guy in a headlock until the authorities arrived.”

2. On the loose.

“My small town includes a pretty large zoo and a tapir has recently escaped and is still at large.”

3. Holy sh*t.

“The school gym teacher was fired after being caught masturbating in the equipment room (he was caught by two students). A few days later he killed himself. Everyone is a bit shaken up about it.”

4. He seems really smart.

“A substitute teacher at the high school started smoking a joint in class in front of students.”

5. An epidemic.

“Terrible heroin epidemic. Brother’s best friend who was fairly close to our family overdosed a few days ago. My brother only has maybe 2 childhood friends left because of this.”

6. Damn kids…

“We don’t know who but someone has been going around egging random cars and throwing full water bottles at people’s windshields…”

7. That’s pretty bad.

“Our newly elected mayor (who is a school teacher as well) caused a head-on car crash injuring 2 small children in the other car. She was found to be drunk and it was 330 pm on a weekday. The kicker: she wasn’t charged with a crime (as of yet) but she did resign after “considerable thought.””

8. Meth lab?

“A vacant house exploded and no one is sure what caused it.”

9. Naked bandits.

“My grandparents small town has had a recent outbreak of teenagers riding horses through the middle of downtown, while wearing nothing but facemasks. It has happened a total of three times now, always different kids, always different horses.”

10. This is amazing.

“I left my small town years ago but I was home over thanksgiving and got an earful.

The local grocery store was renovated/expanded after 30 years and now “everything’s moved and you can’t find nothing”.

I was home for four days and literally every new social interaction with people in town involved the goddam grocery store and how awful it is now.

Spoiler: it actually looks quite nice and they hang signs over the aisles telling you where things are. You know, like a grocery store.”

11. Banned!

“The guy thats been trolling our town’s community Facebook page finally got banned. LOL.”

12. Oh My God.

“Not really recent, but the owner of the petting zoo turned out to be a serial murderer and buried 2 corpses under the goat enclosure. A lot of kids volunteer there and walked over them unknowingly. He murdered the couple, and used their house, car and money.”

13. Always the same.

“The scandal in my town is always the same… Someone is sleeping with someone else’s husband… Or the 50 year old dating the 18 year old…”

14. Kissin’ cousins.

“Two cousins just got married. The families all knew when they started dating and didn’t say a word until they were in a committed relationship. They went ahead with it. Wasn’t even very distant.”

15. Not a big fan.

“A married resource officer (aka cop that’s at the school all day) messed around with a married teacher. Both had kids, the teacher was fired, and the cop was pulled off of that duty. Nothing that interesting in its own, but it’s been the talk of the town for about a month.

This is the same town where everyone stares at you if they don’t recognize you. Dealt with that the first 2-3 years I lived here, just constant fucking staredowns lol. Population is less than 700.

I hate small towns.”

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