Welcome to the Weird Things podcast featuring Andrew Mayne, Brian Brushwood and Justin Robert Young.

In this episode we discuss our entirely self-serving ideas on utilizing superpowers, how even Tyler Durden couldn’t make us cool and argue over the logistics of building your own extinct animal preserve.

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Thanks to everyone who helped make this a reality including David Nott, Barry & Stuart, Michael Shermer, Phil Plait, Penn Jillette, Teller and David Copperfield. Very special thanks to Brandon of the JREF for making sure this happened and, of course, to James Randi for allowing us the space and making a very special cameo at the beginning.

UK’s own Diggerland won the prize this week in minimalist fashion. Watch the super-catchy commercial and theme song AFTER THE JUMP!

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If you’d like more information on the Cotesia Glomerata read this stuff. Wow.

Here is a link to the story about Hitler’s painting lessons aboard an alien craft, long before he became the power-mad dictator we came to revile.

Thanks to Matt Finley and VenomV for helping with the chat.

Featuring Weird Things writer Matt Finley.

The video for Baby Laughs-A-Lot

Ah, moons. So often overshadowed by your rocky, gassy, and thermonuclear overlords, you help invoke tides, stabilize axial tilts, sculpt and replenish rings, and provide at least one species with a stepping stone to timidly venture from the safety of their home planet. In this article we pay tribute to all those underappreciated planetary custodians by recognizing five of the downright weirdest moons in the solar system.

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The unfortunate passing of temporary worker at a chocolate factory in Camden, NJ was the Weirdest Death in the World according to our viewers. Check out the recorded of the broadcast including help from Scam School’s Brian Brushwood.

Thanks to everyone for showing up to our Weirdest Thing In The World livestream including Brian Brushwood and Brett “Amtrekker” Rounsaville. Find out how Doll’s Eyes became our champion.

Brett “Amtrekker” Rounsaville is an adventurous man who recently completed a journey whereby he had to tackle 50 life goals before returning home. Read more at Amtrekker.com. He is a special reporter for Weird Things.

After nearly two years wandering America as a homeless vagrant I’m no stranger to the weird. Like a supercolony of Argentine ants poised to take over the world it stretches from one coast to another lurking just beneath the surface. Sometimes you have to dig down a few inches but make no mistake, weird is everywhere, it’s all part of the same colony and sometimes… it comes up for air.

Willow Creek, CA

Willow Creek is only one small town in the vast area of Northwestern California known by locals and those looking to cash in on poor innocent cryptids as “Bigfoot Country.” Despite the fact that the only memorable thing to come out of Bigfoot Country in the last several millennia is 953 frames of grainy, questionable Cine-Kodak footage there is no shortage of speculation about Bigfoot in the area.

I would even venture to say a trip into Bigfoot Country is more likely to end in a sad death at the hands of a Bigfoot memorabilia avalanche than in an actual Bigfoot sighting, yet speculation runs wild and no one is afraid to show you their own representation of Mr. Henderson’s dear friend. So what is it that makes Willow Creek so interesting? Is it the Bigfoot Motel, Bigfoot Bookstore, Bigfoot Rafting Co., Bigfoot Contractor Supply, Bigfoot Dollar Store or (no joke) Bigfoot Podiatry?

Well, yeah, actually, it kinda is…

BUT, in an effort to stay on topic, I want to talk about the Early Bird restaurant. In a world where everyone is out to make a buck off of cryptozoology’s finest creation only the Early Bird is willing to step up and tell it like it is. Sure, they sell a two-patty, foot shaped hamburger…but look at these wall paintings!

Do you see anyone else willing to admit that it was the Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) who INVENTED fire roasted bagels and goose-stepping. (Which, by the way, has some very interesting “missing link” implications for Germany.) And check out that coffee percolator. You think Harry over there just walked into Wal-Mart and picked that bad boy up? Don’t be ridiculous. These are obviously VERY advanced creatures we’re talking about here.

Once my eyes were opened wide by the hallowed halls of the Early Bird I began to see all of the other establishments for what they truly were! Bastions of hate who would stop at nothing to keep the Bigfeet down; spurning what they don’t understand and spreading their message of species-ial inferiority! All the while, the Early Bird stands tall, convention be damned, ever fighting to bring Bigfooted civil liberties to the forefront of society. Starting a conversation, starting a movement!

Or…

Those are some effing weird murals in an already effing weird town.

I bought a milkshake and headed toward Oregon.

I’m done.

Click AFTER THE JUMP for a look at some of the Willow Creek’s finest Bigfoot collectables from shot glasses to children’s puzzles…

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The Honey Pot Ant is the Weirdest Thing In The Desert according to our Weird Thing Tiny Chat this week. Here is a brief description by Wikipedia.

Many insects, notably honey bees and some wasps, collect and store liquid for use at a later date. However, these insects store their food within their nest or in combs. Honey ants are unique in using their own bodies as living storage, but they have more function than just storing food. Some store liquids, body fat, and water from insect prey brought to them by worker ants. They can later serve as a food source for their fellow ants when food is otherwise scarce. In certain places, they are eaten by people as sweets and are considered a delicacy.

These ants can live anywhere in the nest, but in the wild, they are found deep underground, literally imprisoned by their huge abdomens, swollen to the size of grapes. They are so valued in times of little food and water that occasionally raiders from other colonies, knowing of these living storehouses, will attempt to steal these ants because of their high nutritional value and water content. These ants are also known to change colors. Some common colors are green, red, orange, yellow, and blue.

Thanks to everyone who helped out this week! Next week’s contest will be to find the Weirdest Plant In The World. Email nominations to JustinRobertYoungATGmail!

Medicine Net.com:

A syndrome of distorted space, time and body image. The patient with the Alice in Wonderland syndrome has a feeling that their entire body or parts of it have been altered in shape and size. The syndrome is usually associated with visual hallucinations. The majority of patients with the syndrome have a family history of migraine headache or have overt migraine themselves.

The syndrome was first described in 1955 by the English psychiatrist John Todd (1914-1987). Todd named it, of course, for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Perhaps not coincidentally, Lewis Carroll suffered from severe migraine. Also known as a Lilliputian hallucination.

Thanks to everyone who helped out with the chat today! See you next week!

And this guy, sent in by Brian Brushwood is in the lead for the crown!

Come join us at TinyChat.com/WeirdThings!

Saturn’s North Pole (Cassini-Huygens, 2007 and 2008)

In November 1980, planetary scientists eagerly examined transmissions received from the Voyager 1 spacecraft as it sped past Saturn. And with good reason! Amid those transmissions was the first image of Saturn’s North Pole – a region that’s virtually impossible to see from Earth, and, depending on the degree by which Saturn is tilted, can be cloaked in darkness for up to 15 years at a time (and you thought your last winter was never going to end).

What those scientists saw, and later missions confirmed, was a decidedly bizarre feature in the gas giant’s atmosphere directly above the North Pole: a 15,000-mile-wide hexagon.

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