The random opening could be related to an oil well abandoned in 1950 that’s close to the home. The only silver lining now is if the opening leads to a Goonies-style adventure.

But it probably won’t.

Unless it does.

[KTLA]

How did folks describe UFO phenomenon before we had the science fiction constructs to fill in the blanks of interstellar travelers from deep space? Probably a lot like 12-year-old George Campbell of Sherman, Texas in 1898.

“Last night papa and I were riding along the ‘Eighty-foot Road’, about two and a half miles [4km] north of town, when all at once everything got very bright. We saw a great ball of fire coming down toward the ground. It got within about three feet [90cm] of the ground and seemed to rest for a while and then it went back up until it got clear out of sight. There was a buzzing sound all the time.”

George described the ball as 10 feet wide and not emitting any heat.

[Fortean Times]

Marvel at the various life cycle of the fantastical Turritopsis nutricula, a jellyfish that is, for all practical purposes, immortal. This strange creature reaches adulthood, transforms itself back into a child, then lives through it’s life again. Think of it as Groundhog Day with a jellyfish.

While old age can’t kill it, the creature is still susceptible to disease and fatal injuries.  Read more about this fascinating forever-fish here.

Maybe it’s the summer time, but weird beach stories are just dominating the news lately. Yesterday we had a couple of Russian jackasses strapping a mule to a parachute for publicity and today we get news that 500 penguins washed ashore in Brazil, dead as Dillinger.

About 500 of the black-and-white birds have been found just in the last 10 days on Peruibe, Praia Grande and Itanhaem beaches in Sao Paulo state, said Thiago do Nascimento, a biologist at the Peruibe Aquarium.

Most were Magellan penguins migrating north from Argentina, Chile and the Falkland Islands in search of food in warmer waters.

Many are not finding it: Autopsies done on several birds revealed their stomachs were entirely empty — indicating they likely starved to death, Nascimento said.

Don’t you hate it when you leave the house to get something to eat and nothing you like is open? Thanks to Mike Beam for sending this in.

[MSNBC]

Real picture. Thanks to Weird Things reader Mike Beam.

[Telegraph]

Boom. How’s that for a Monday morning? That thing looks like the Yeti of cats.

As described by Gadopoder:

These little (big) guys are the oldest living relative of modern day cats. The Pallas’s Cat is the oldest living species of a clade of felids that includes the modern genus Felis. This feline, along with the extinct Martelli’s Cat, was probably one of the first two modern cats to evolve from Pseudaelurus approximately 12 million years ago.

Hit up their site for more pics.

[Gadopoder]

So you’re a cute little monkey, scampering about the Amazon. For the sake of this discussion, your name is Joe. All of a sudden you hear someone yell, “Hey Joe! Nice haircut!” You look around, but don’t see anyone. What anonymous stranger is shouting compliments through the thick underbrush of the rain forest? Do they really like my haircut, or was it one of those backhanded compliments?

Lost in thought you make a left through a bush only to find yourself face to face with a gigantic jungle cat. You’re paralyzed with fear. The cat repeats his haircut compliment in what you now realize is just an uncanny monkey impression.

“By the way,” Jungle Cat purrs in his natural brogue. “Your hair makes your face look fat.”

And with that, you’re devoured. Victim of a deadly impression.

[Live Science]

Well now…

The “King of Kings” statue, one of southwest Ohio’s most familiar landmarks, had stood since 2004 at the evangelical Solid Rock Church along Interstate 75 in Monroe, just north of Cincinnati.

The lightning strike set the statue ablaze around 11:15 p.m., Monroe police dispatchers said.

The sculpture, 62 feet tall and 40 feet wide at the base, showed Jesus from the torso up and was nicknamed Touchdown Jesus because of the way the arms were raised, similar to a referee signaling a touchdown. It was made of plastic foam and fiberglass over a steel frame, which is all that remained early Tuesday.

After the blaze erupted, first respondents included local fire and police officers, as well as officials from the Department of Irony and Metaphorical Symbolism.

[MSNBC]

Weird Things Live: Hunting the Night Creeper from Andrew Mayne on Vimeo.

Last Monday night in front of a live internet audience we set out to solve the mystery of the Night Creeper. Ghost? Frogman? Or something else? Although we’re pretty sure we figured it out, we haven’t definitively proved our theory. The mystery continues…

Running time 55 minutes.

Check out our photos of the scene on Flickr.

A young Chinese boy who was born with a thick patch of skin on his back had a surgery to remove the reason he’s earned the nickname “Turtle Boy” by school bullies.

[News.Com.Au]

The crew invents a new form of inter-species prejudice, declares their willingness to do stupid things in the name of science and then goes metaphysical.

Subscribe to the Weird Things podcast on iTunes
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Download url: http://itricks.com/upload/WT051410.mp3

Listen now

Hundred-year-old woman grows horn in forehead . The horn began growing on the left side of the forehead of Zhang Ruifang last year. Now it measures 5-6 centimeters long but the elderly woman feels no pain in the horn.

Thanks to WT fan Brian for passing this along.

[Zuzutop]

[National Geographic via Boing Boing]

Pretty self-explanatory. Big ups to Atlas Obscura!

WARNING: The following post contains SPOILERS about the new film The Box. If you do not wish to read SPOILERS, do not read this post. For it does indeed contain SPOILERS. SPOILERS.

Everyone knows the scenario: a well-dressed stranger arrives at your door and presents you with a wood-paneled box, atop which is a glass dome containing a shiny, red button. He says something to the effect of, “if you press the button, someone that you don’t know will totally die and you’ll receive x amount of cash money. Aw yeahz.” What do you do?

This past weekend, Richard Kelly’s adaptation of the classic Richard Matheson story “Button, Button” arrived in theaters and answered the question in true Darko style, with a resounding “I’d… um… well… deformed mind control guy and water teleportation and some NSA experiments funded by lightning aliens and… what was the question?” More than anything, though, Kelly’s film turns the mind back to Matheson’s original philosophical conundrum and the true issues at hand.

What Does it Mean to “Know” Someone?

Matheson’s ending, which is wholly disregarded in the Twilight Zone’s adaptation, and only summarily addressed in Kelly’s film, turns the wording of the enigmatic button contract into its own philosophical dilemma – after the button is activated, the presser’s husband dies and the confused, despondent presser is told, in smirking, ironic-twist fashion, that she never really knew him. Yeah, it’s sort of annoying in that Philosophy 101 “do I really even know myself?!” BUH BUH BUM! kinda way, but it does add a new dimension to the initial problem. You know who I don’t know? RICHARD MATHESON! OHHHH! INSANITY! Statistically speaking, though, it would most likely kill a random Asian person.

What’s a Human Life Worth?

Obviously, the woman in Matheson’s story, who presses the button for a payout of $50,000, values a single human life to be worth, at most, $50,000. The question becomes, of the theoretical individuals who don’t press the button, how many are actually morally incorruptible and how many are merely waiting for a better offer. The button test, as designed, doesn’t assess whether people will compromise their morals and indirectly kill a stranger for money; it tests whether certain individuals will compromise their morals for a specific sum. On one hand, this reveals a major flaw in the well-dressed stranger’s test. On the other hand, it does make you pause to think how much money you’d have to receive to press the button. On a third hand, it makes you think that you’d probably be willing to go as low as $10,000.

Pressing a Button is Fun

Think about how much more money you’d want if you only got to flip a switch or pull on a rope.

Travelet.com has this fun tourist destination known as Rookund in the Himalayas. It’s a lake filled with skeletons:

Roopkund is better off known as “The skeleton lake” due to the presence of an enormous grave that holds about 300 to 600 skeletons. This discovery has revolutionized the world of ancient history ever since 1942, when a park ranger came across this mass deposition of bones. It probably is an in-accessible frozen lake that requires about four day travel to reach from the nearest locality. Recently, it has become an important spot for the visitors as they learn and conjecture this advent of science.

link: Roopkund – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
link: Roopkund The Mysterious Skeleton Lake | Travelet