Weird Universe Archive

January 2016

January 31, 2016

Under Fire


It takes ba...determination to stand in the path of a high powered rifle round. Even when that round is fired under water.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 31, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Guns, Swimming, Snorkeling, and Diving

Objected to taking out trash

One for the weird death file. The tragic case of Jamella Jackson, age 12.

Cincinnati Enquirer - Feb 15, 1985

Posted By: Alex - Sun Jan 31, 2016 - Comments (6)
Category: Death, 1980s

Mystery Illustration 15

image

Why was this horse brought inside a house, if not just as a photo stunt?

The answer is here.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 31, 2016 - Comments (8)
Category: Animals, Interior Decorating, 1960s

January 30, 2016

Anti-Aircraft Dumpling Cannon

February 1967: Munich resident Helmut G. Winter was sick and tired of the noise of military aircraft flying low over his house. So he built a catapult and started launching Bavarian potato dumplings at the planes.

In one week he launched 120 dumplings. He never managed to score a direct hit. But eventually both the West German Luftwaffe and American pilots conceded defeat and agreed to a flight path that avoided his house.

Reportedly, he gave the Americans a model of his dumpling cannon as a gesture of thanks, inscribed "As a souvenir and a warning — Helmut G. Winter, The Bavarian Dumpling Shot." I bet this model has now been lost or thrown away, instead of being in a museum where it belongs.

Cincinnati Enquirer - Feb 20, 1967



Newsweek - Mar 13, 1967



Newsweek - Mar 13, 1967



St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Mar 1, 1967

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 30, 2016 - Comments (7)
Category: Military, 1960s, Weapons

January 29, 2016

Smoking Periwinkle

Every so often the media needs to sound the alarm about a new drug that's corrupting the youth of the nation. In the summer of 1967, that drug was the periwinkle plant. The entire scare was based on one group of teenagers in Florida who experimented with the plant, but still it generated plenty of headlines.

Can smoking periwinkle actually get you high? Probably. Over at erowid.org there are some reports of people experimenting with it. Though despite the scare of 1967, it never caught on as a popular drug.

Dr. George Dame, a health officer in Manatee County, warned that periwinkle could have all kinds of unpleasant side effects (such as "withering of muscle tissue") because periwinkle is the source of some drugs (vinblastine and vincristine) used in chemotherapy. However, an expert on those drugs disagreed with him. From Newsweek (June 26, 1967):

A chemist at Eli Lilly & Co. of Indianapolis, where the drugs vincristine and vinblastine were developed, said last week that the perils may not be as great as Dame suspects. Both vincristine and vinblastine, he pointed out, are highly unstable and probably do not get into the smoke of burning periwinkle leaves in an active form. Nonetheless, the chemist was quick to put down the periwinkle cult. "Periwinkle," he said, "like most inedible plants, is toxic. You might get pretty sick to your stomach."


Sydney Morning Herald - Jun 4, 1967

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 29, 2016 - Comments (9)
Category: Drugs, Psychedelic, Smoking and Tobacco, 1960s

Newest Must Have Trend

image
These creepy so called "God dolls" are a new popular trend coming out of Thailand. Not all of them have the disturbing third eye markings but all are supposed to be inhabited by a child's spirit. They are purported to bring good luck when loved and cared for. Because, yeah, that's where I hope kids spirits go, into a creepy doll to bring good luck to some yuppie jerk.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 29, 2016 - Comments (5)
Category: Gods, Toys, Myths and Fairytales

La Bruja

I regret that I cannot find a subtitled-in-English version of this Mexican film, where a mad scientist creates a formula that turns an extremely ugly woman into a beauty, as in the before-and-after pix below. But those of you who know Spanish--or who just want visuals--can enjoy the full movie.

image

image

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 29, 2016 - Comments (2)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Drugs, Mad Scientists, Evil Geniuses, Insane Villains, Movies, 1950s

January 28, 2016

They lurk in libraries

Originally I was going to write this article about the 1980 case of "Leonardo da Toenail," but then I realized how many additional cases of foot-fanciers lurking under library tables there have been. So I ended up writing a round-up article instead.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 28, 2016 - Comments (9)
Category: Crime

Coyotes High on Mushrooms?

Along Highway 1 near Bolinas, CA, there have been numerous reports of coyotes (or maybe just one coyote on multiple occasions?) "staring down automobile drivers as they drive through this twisting, turning section of highway." A driver said, "It's a terrifying, yet beautiful thing to behold."

Why is a coyote staring at motorists? One theory is that the animal ate some hallucinogenic mushrooms, and the cars have become "some sort of coyote vision, a dark vision of human interlopers."

Another, more mundane, theory is that someone fed the coyotes by throwing food from their car, and so the coyotes are now sitting and waiting for more food.

More info: Pacific Sun

Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 28, 2016 - Comments (14)
Category: Animals

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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 books such as Elephants on Acid.

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.

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Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre.

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