Category:
1970s
1970s
Guard Pig
We recently posted about tarantulas used to guard jewelry. Another unconventional security animal was CP, the guard pig, trained to attack by animal trainer Marcel Leblanc:The thin, tanned Leblanc said he has trained attack dogs for Canadian police departments for 17 years.
Leblanc said he bought CP—which stands for Canadian Pig—"to fatten up and slaughter for a friend's party."
But he said he noticed the 150-pound, 6-month-old, pink and white Yorkshire pig learned tricks quickly. So he placed the animal among the Doberman pinschers and German shepherds in a police canine training program.
"The pig performed better than the dogs," said Leblanc.
Leblanc said he bought CP—which stands for Canadian Pig—"to fatten up and slaughter for a friend's party."
But he said he noticed the 150-pound, 6-month-old, pink and white Yorkshire pig learned tricks quickly. So he placed the animal among the Doberman pinschers and German shepherds in a police canine training program.
"The pig performed better than the dogs," said Leblanc.
If a 150-pound pig was charging at me, I'd sure run away!
Orlando Sentinel - Sep 23, 1979
El Paso Times - Oct 10, 1979
Fort Worth Star Telegram - Oct 10, 1979
Posted By: Alex - Thu May 28, 2020 -
Comments (7)
Category: Animals, Crime, 1970s
The Phone Thing
Those of us who are old enough might recall that in addition to linear slide rules, there were circular slide rules.Such an arrangement of movable circular parts was extrapolated to a variety of other gadgets for calculating different things.
You can see a museum of such "disk or wheel" charts here.
I set out on this search thanks to the 1979 ad below.
I wonder if anyone relies on such devices nowadays, or if businesses create them for promotional purposes, as Bell Telephones did in 1979.
Phone Thing source. (Page 6)
Posted By: Paul - Thu May 28, 2020 -
Comments (3)
Category: Business, Advertising, Telephones, Instruments and Measuring Devices, 1970s
The gunman who wasn’t there
"Oakland police spent two hours last night trying to convince a mentally disturbed gunman holed up in his apartment to surrender—only to discover that he was standing next to them helping to direct the police."
San Francisco Examiner - June 16, 1974
Posted By: Alex - Wed May 27, 2020 -
Comments (0)
Category: Crime, 1970s
The postman who pretended to be paraplegic
Ian Moor had qualified to compete in the 1979 National Paraplegic Championships, in events such as table tennis and wheelchair discus. But when a picture of him ran in the Yorkshire Evening Press, people recognized him as their postman, who was fully capable of walking.His deception revealed, Moor was kicked out of the Paraplegic Championships. But he never faced any criminal charges because he hadn't benefitted financially from his deception in any way.
The Guardian - Aug 23, 1979
Los Angeles Times - Aug 23, 1979
Posted By: Alex - Fri May 22, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Hoaxes and Imposters and Imitators, Sports, 1970s, Differently Abled, Handicapped, Challenged, and Otherwise Atypical
Clint Bolin, Rock Collector
Clint Bolin collected rocks. That, in itself, isn't weird. However, Bolin made it weird by hoarding massive amounts of rocks of absolutely no value. He also collected chunks of concrete and slabs of cement.When he vacated his Long Beach apartment in 1975, he left behind 60,000 pounds of rocks, all neatly boxed. There were about 600 rock boxes, each weighing over 100 lbs.
Strangely, no one had ever seen him carrying any of these boxes in. And he was only a frail man, weighing about 150 lbs. Plus, he had only lived in the apartment for four months. So how he managed to accumulate so many boxes of rocks in his apartment remains a mystery.
I haven't been able to find any sources that describe what became of him after he made headlines in 1975. It's as if he disappeared into thin air.
Los Angeles Times - May 8, 1975
Posted By: Alex - Thu May 21, 2020 -
Comments (5)
Category: Hobbies and DIY, 1970s
Trapped 5 days in folding bed
Unfortunately, I can't find any info about how Leon Colby fared after his 5-day ordeal trapped in a folding bed.The situation seems like an absurdist, real-life variation on the premise of Stephen King's Gerald's Game.
Lancaster Intelligencer Journal - Oct 10, 1977
Some googling reveals that, while being trapped in a folding bed may sound bizarre, it's disturbingly common. See here, here, and here.
Posted By: Alex - Tue May 19, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Accidents, Furniture, 1970s
Drunk Driving Defense
Back in 1971, Melvin Baker offered a novel defense for why he shouldn't have been charged with drunk driving. He was, he said, too drunk to have made an intelligent decision about whether to submit to the breathalyzer test — the results of which led to him being charged. He apparently argued this case all the way up to the New York Supreme Court.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat - July 7, 1971
Details about this case are hard to come by, but this other brief article offers an explanation for why Baker persisted with his seemingly hopeless argument. Because if he had refused to take the test, he would only have had his license suspended. But having taken the test, and failed it, he also faced criminal prosecution. So it was all an elaborate, legalistic ploy to get the lighter penalty.
Long Beach Independent - Sep 7, 1971
Posted By: Alex - Thu May 14, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Inebriation and Intoxicants, Law, 1970s, Cars
Tarantula security guards
In the mid-1970s, there was a fad among jewelry stores to use tarantulas as security guards. Stores claimed it helped prevent thefts, although tarantulas aren't going to do much to stop a thief, besides looking scary. Rattlesnakes, I imagine, might work better.
La Crosse Tribune - July 19, 1975
Posted By: Alex - Fri May 08, 2020 -
Comments (5)
Category: Crime, Insects and Spiders, 1970s
Staring Hitchhikers
Will hitchhikers get more rides if they stare at oncoming drivers or if they look away? A 1974 study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology attempted to answer this question:A field experiment was conducted in which a single male, a single female, or a male-female couple attempted to hitch rides at four different traffic locations, under conditions in which the hitchhikers either stared at or looked away from oncoming drivers...
In the stare conditions, E stared at the driver of the target vehicle and attempted to fixate on the driver's gaze and maintain this gaze as long as possible until the driver either stopped his vehicle or drove on. In the comparison conditions, E looked anywhere else but at the driver. Thus, on some trials E looked in the general direction of the car; on other trials E looked at his feet, the road, the sky, etc. Es were specifically instructed to neither smile nor frown, and to maintain a casual (neither rigid nor slouching) body postural orientation while soliciting rides.
In the stare conditions, E stared at the driver of the target vehicle and attempted to fixate on the driver's gaze and maintain this gaze as long as possible until the driver either stopped his vehicle or drove on. In the comparison conditions, E looked anywhere else but at the driver. Thus, on some trials E looked in the general direction of the car; on other trials E looked at his feet, the road, the sky, etc. Es were specifically instructed to neither smile nor frown, and to maintain a casual (neither rigid nor slouching) body postural orientation while soliciting rides.
The two hitchhikers were described as, "both 20 years of age and both dressed in bluejeans and dark coats. The male had short, curly blond hair, and the female, straight, shoulder length blond hair. Both could be described as neat, collegiate, attractive in physical appearance, and of an appropriate age to be hitchhiking."
A hitchhiker in Luxembourg - Aug 1977 (source: wiktionary.org)
(not one of the hitchhikers in the study)
Staring is often interpreted as a threat. So the researchers anticipated that staring at oncoming drivers might result in fewer rides. But the opposite turned out to be true. Which is a useful tip to know if you ever need to hitchhike. But what really helped get a lot of rides was being a single female. From the study:
it seems that the effect of attempted eye contact and sex of hitchhikers were such that a staring female got the most rides and a nonstaring male the least, with a staring male and a nonstaring female in between.
Contrary to popular belief and hitchhiking folklore , it was no easier for a male-female couple to hitch a ride than a single male, and a mixed sex couple was less successful at soliciting rides than a single female hitchhiker. Although the generality of this conclusion is limited by the fact that it is based upon results obtained by one male and one female E, it is probably the case that couples are less successful hitching rides because of space limitations in the cars they approach. That is, it is more likely that the driver will have room for one additional passenger than that he will have room for two or more additional passengers in his car.
Contrary to popular belief and hitchhiking folklore , it was no easier for a male-female couple to hitch a ride than a single male, and a mixed sex couple was less successful at soliciting rides than a single female hitchhiker. Although the generality of this conclusion is limited by the fact that it is based upon results obtained by one male and one female E, it is probably the case that couples are less successful hitching rides because of space limitations in the cars they approach. That is, it is more likely that the driver will have room for one additional passenger than that he will have room for two or more additional passengers in his car.
Incidentally, the experimenters never actually ever got in a car with anyone: "After a motorist stopped to pick up one of the hitchhikers, he was politely thanked and given a printed description of the nature of the experiment. No driver expressed any discomfort when he learned that the hitchhiker did not actually want a ride."
Posted By: Alex - Mon May 04, 2020 -
Comments (5)
Category: Science, Experiments, Psychology, 1970s, Cars
The Tummy Tutor
It also went by the name "Belly Beeper". The idea was that if you slouched or let your stomach out, it would start beeping. Supposedly this would train you to always keep your stomach muscles tensed and not slouch.Either that or it would train you to avoid wearing it.
The Miami Herald - Oct 7, 1973
Posted By: Alex - Tue Apr 21, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Inventions, 1970s, Dieting and Weight Loss, Stomach
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Contact Us |