The top 20 weird news stories of 2012

French apiarist Andre Frieh holds up samples of honey

(Image credit: REUTERS/Vincent Kessler)

last updated 8 January 2015

20. Car lands on roof

In a scene you would expect in an action movie (or a comedy), a stolen car landed on the roof of a house in Fresno, Calif. Police say the car was going too fast and hit a rock and a tree stump, which launched it into the air and onto the roof. The driver of the car fled the scene and was arrested soon after at his girlfriend's home. There were people in the house when the car landed on it, but no one was seriously injured. A towing company had to use a crane to remove the vehicle.

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Bank manager Otto Neuman embezzled £150,000 in cash and gold from the Erste Bank in Vienna in 1993. He covered up the theft by having accomplices stage a robbery. Of the total, only £51,000 and some gold was recovered when police arrested Neuman. The gold went to the insurer, and the cash was kept as evidence for 19 years. Now, the Austrian Justice Ministry is returning the money to Neuman! The insurer compensated the bank for its loss, the gold had appreciated so much in the intervening years that the insurer suffered no loss in the long run, and the ministry feels it has no claim on the cash.

The headlines just write themselves. A six-foot-tall fork appeared in Carlsbad, Calif., in the traffic island at the intersection of Levante Street and Anillo Way on Oct. 16. The unnamed artist is a 62-year-old retired teacher who said he was impressed by the joke in The Muppet Movie in which the characters encounter a giant silverware fork when they are looking for a fork in the road. Carlsbad residents got a kick out of the sculpture, but a city crew removed it the next day. Another resident erected a sign in its place that says "Why the fork not?" which the city also removed. Then residents then began taping real, normal-sized forks to a nearby sign. A spokesperson for the city said the sculpture is a code violation.

Roy Day of Northfleet, Kent, England, had 20 homing pigeons in his garden shed. Neighbors complained of the noise and smell, and the Gravesham Borough Council notified Day that the pigeons were a health problem and that he would have to sell or give his pigeons away. Day says that if he took the pigeons somewhere else, they would come back, because that is what homing pigeons do. "They gave me a seven-day deadline to get rid of them, but even if they went 150-odd miles away, they'd still come back — they are homing pigeons."

Beekeepers in northeastern France were puzzled to find their hives were full of honey in strange blue and green tints. Although flowers bloom in colors, the nectar from them is usually colorless. The culprit turned out to be candy-coated M&Ms! A biogas plant near Ribeauville in Alsace had contracted with a Mars candy manufacturer to process the plant's waste products, which included the colored candy and food dye. The biogas company was red-faced when confronted with blue honey, and promised to rectify the situation by immediately covering the waste to prevent bees from eating it, and to process the materials as soon as possible. The blue and green honey will not be sold.

Many cities and towns around the world have a link to another city or town far away, for friendship and cultural exchanges. The village of Glenelg, on the western coast of Scotland, has announced it will "twin" with another place with the same name. Glenelg, Mars, is the designated name of the spot that the Mars Curiosity rover is headed toward. Officials in Glenelg, the Scottish one, held an official "twinning" ceremony on Oct. 20. It was a smashing success, and pictures are posted at the Glenelg and Arnisdale Community Portal. Although there were no Martian natives at the ceremony, American astronaut Bonnie Dunbar did attend.

People ask why England has so many funny news stories. The reason is that American journalists typically skip these kinds of stories in favor of something more earth-shattering. Bless the U.K. for publishing them. Margaret Parker of Carlisle, England, found a five-inch-long tortoise in her garden. The miniature tortoise was cute, so she brought it inside and tried to feed it. Parker's daughter brought some lettuce for it, but it still wouldn't eat. So the women called Knoxwood Wildlife Rescue Centre for advice, and a volunteer was sent out. Pauline Adams picked up the tortoise and figured out the problem.

She said: "At first when I arrived I didn't have my glasses on and I thought it was a baby tortoise. It was sitting there in the shoe box, on a bed of lettuce and tomato. Then I put my specs on, and thought: 'Oops — what's this?' When I picked it up I saw the CE mark and the words Made in China, and I just cracked up. I laughed even more when she told me her daughter had been to the Co-op to buy tomato and lettuce for it. She was very apologetic. Judging by the moss on it, it had been in the garden a long time." Adams and Knoxwood founder George Scott both said Mrs. Parker did the right thing by calling them.

An unnamed German man retired at age 65 when his civil service position was eliminated. In an email letter addressed to his colleagues in the city of Menden, he boasted that he had done no actual work since 1998. However, in that time he had gone to his office and collected 745,000 euros ($980,000) in pay from the municipal state surveyor's office. He blamed the waste on authorities who hired another surveyor to do the same job, leaving him with nothing to do. The man had been in the same job since 1974. Mayor Volker Fleige was upset when he received the email, and said the employee had never once complained before now.

When U.S. troops went to confirm that Ashan had in fact come forward to claim the finder's fee, they were initially incredulous. "We asked him, 'Is this you?' Mohammad Ashan answered with an incredible amount of enthusiasm, 'Yes, yes, that's me! Can I get my award now?'" recalled SPC Matthew Baker. A biometric scan confirmed that the man in Afghan custody was the insurgent they had been looking for. "This guy is the Taliban equivalent of the Home Alone burglars," one U.S. official said.

A 41-year-old homeless man in Mobile, Ala., was treated with anti-venom after he was bitten by a decapitated cottonmouth. A friend had seen the snake in a creek and cut its head off with a machete. The unnamed victim was playing with the severed head and stuck his finger in the snake's mouth. By reflex, the snake head bit down on the finger. The man first refused medical treatment, but after he started showing symptoms of venom poisoning, he was taken to USA Medical Center, treated, and released.

In a story that was shared with a monthly police magazine, a police officer in Sussex, England, ended up chasing himself around for 20 minutes. A CCTV (closed circuit TV) operator saw a suspicious man on the streets, and called a plainclothes officer for help. The operator gave directions to the areas where the suspicious man was caught on camera, and the officer always seemed to be close, but could not see any evidence of the man. That is, until they realized that the "suspicious character" was actually the plainclothes officer! The date of the misadventure has been lost in the retelling, as all police officers involved were too busy laughing.

A mysterious box appeared in a parking lot at Erie Community College campus in Amherst, N.Y., last Friday afternoon. The state police bomb squad responded and took an x-ray of the sealed box, which showed a cat inside! Police turned the cat over to the local SPCA. Gina Browning of the Tonawanda SPCA says the cat is okay. "The cat was not malnourished, not dehydrated, didn't need any kind of veterinary care. So, it had a happy ending. What concerns me is the people capable of doing this might be capable of doing something worse," Browning said. Just who would put a cat in a taped up box and leave it in a parking lot remains a mystery at this point. Capt. Camilleri said, "Right now it doesn't appear there's really much to follow up on. It didn't have any identification on the box or anything like that." The upside to this is that the cat, named "Truffle," is fine, healthy and back with her owner. Tracking down the person responsible is unlikely, if not impossible. If found, the persons responsible could be charged with animal cruelty. Even Schrodinger never wanted to try his famous thought experiment on a real cat.

The planned expedition led by Norwegian Jarle Andhoy was already shady, and now there's an unwilling member along for the ride. The yacht took off in a hurry as immigration officials arrived to investigate Andhoy at an Auckland harbor, while a local mechanic was on board repairing an anchor on the 52-foot boat Nilaya. Andhoy and three crew members have embarked on an unpermitted voyage to Antarctica's Ross Sea, in defiance of both the Norwegian and New Zealand governments. A previous trip he made to Antarctica almost a year ago ended in disaster when his yacht Berserk sank in a fierce storm and three men died. Declaring himself "a Viking," the Norwegian adventurer says he is seeking the wreckage of the Berserk, which was serving as a supply ship for an attempt to reach the South Pole on quad bikes. Authorities are looking for the Nilaya, which Andhoy said does not have a locator beacon. It is not thought to have adequate supplies for an extra crew member, either.

London mayor Boris Johnson is enjoying his time in the spotlight and the opportunity to promote his city. However, there's always the risk of something going wrong. One of those promotional opportunities was at Victoria Park, where Johnson took a ride on the zipline while carrying two British flags. But the wire sagged about 65 feet from the end of the line, and the mayor was left dangling in the wind. It was only a few minutes before help arrived, but the press was there to record the event. Johnson used the time to wave the flags and cheer on the British Olympic team.

A typhoon wrecked the squirrel enclosure of the Inokashira Park Zoo in Tokyo in July, resulting in the escape of 30 squirrels. Attempts to recover the animals were quite successful; at one count, 38 squirrels had been "recaptured." Zoo officials have offered three different explanations for the discrepancy: 1. They miscounted how many squirrels had escaped 2. The squirrels reproduced while on the loose and 3. Some wild squirrels may have been picked up by mistake. The zoo implants microchips in their animals, so all recovered squirrels will eventually be scanned.

A 30-year-old man in Madison, Wis., found a way to get his 15 minutes of fame. Jeffrey Drew Wilschke had legally changed his name in October 2011 to Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop. That makes a great headline in itself, but Zopittybop-Bop-Bop was arrested in early January after neighbors complained of "excessive drug use." Police recorded quite a few charges, including carrying a concealed weapon, possession of drug paraphernalia, possession of marijuana, and probation violations. When Zopittybop-Bop-Bop was taken into custody, he told police he would "get even with them."

Residents of Suðurnes, Iceland, called police on Sunday after they observed several cats going in and out a window of an unoccupied house. Police arrived at the scene and, entering the house, found no people there. However, two to three cats — the exact number is still unclear — were allegedly occupying the house. According to police reports, the cats were "snuggling" on a couch that had been left behind by the previous residents. Officers on the scene sprang into action, immediately evicting the cats from the house. They then ensured that all doors and windows into the house were securely closed and locked, in the hopes of preventing an incident of this sort from ever happening again.

A fresco of Christ by artist Elias Garcia Martinez was painted more than 100 hundred years ago in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza, Spain. A recent donation from the artist's granddaughter was intended for the painting's restoration. However, cultural officials found that an elderly parishioner had already done her own restoration. The woman, who is in her 80s, did an "alarming and unauthorized" touch-up of the original work that completely covered Martinez's painting, although she claims the priest gave his permission. The woman had eventually realized she was having trouble with the job, and contacted the cultural ministry for guidance, but it may be too late to save any of Martinez's work. If the painting cannot be recovered, a photograph of the original may be mounted over what now adorns the wall — which you must see to believe. The "restored" picture became one of the biggest internet memes of the year. The elderly art restorer, Cecilia Gimenez, became an instant celebrity, so we revisited the story later.

Remember Ecce Homo, the Spanish fresco of Christ that was made into a cartoon after an amateur restoration effort? The new look of the art has made its home, the chapel at Santuario de Misericordia, such an attraction that the church has started charging an entrance fee of 4 euros. Now Cecilia Gimenez, the octogenarian who painted over the fresco, wants a cut of that. Her lawyers say she is entitled to royalties, which would go to charity. Meanwhile, the family of the original artist is considering suing Gimenez for destroying the art, and the church has retained lawyers in defense from all sides.

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