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10 Weirdest Wikipedia Pages | Alex Noudelman
Curated by Alex Noudelman. Alex Noudelman is a content curator with over 5 years of experience. He regularly scours the web to find interesting info to share with readers.
12. Villisca Axe Murders
In 1912 in a sleepy town in Iowa (population around 2k), someone took an axe to a family of six and their two house guests. A hundred years later the case remains unsolved. No one knows who murdered these people or why, or even how all the people (save one, maybe) remained asleep while other people in the house were bludgeoned with an axe.
Now the house is reportedly super haunted and since you can stay at the house and do your own ghost hunt, and I heard a particularly terrifying recording of an EVP on this radio show. Warning: it is not for the faint of heart.
11. Spontaneous human combustion
Spontaneous human combustion is a phenomenon where you could go up in flames suddenly. Like, right now. With no cause (hence, ‘spontaneous’).
Henry Thomas, a 73-year-old man, was found burned to death in the living room of his council house on the Rassau council estate in Ebbw Vale, south Wales, in 1980. His entire body was incinerated, leaving only his skull and a portion of each leg below the knee. The feet and legs were still clothed in socks and trousers. Half of the chair in which he had been sitting was also destroyed. Police forensic officers decided that the incineration of Thomas was due to the wick effect. His death was ruled ‘death by burning’, as he had plainly inhaled the contents of his own combustion.
No thanks.
10. Bloop:
Bloop is an extremely low-frequency and extremely loud noise heard in the ocean. It sound like a noise an animal would make, but it does not match the sounds of any known animal, AND the volume is way louder than the loudest known animal (the blue whale).
Here’s a journalist paraphrasing Dr. Christopher Fox who works for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration talking about the Bloop:
Fox’s hunch is that the sound nicknamed Bloop is the most likely to come from some sort of animal, because its signature is a rapid variation in frequency similar to that of sounds known to be made by marine beasts. There’s one crucial difference, however: in 1997 Bloop was detected by sensors up to 4800 kilometres apart. That means it must be far louder than any whale noise, or any other animal noise for that matter. Is it even remotely possible that some creature bigger than any whale is lurking in the ocean depths? Or, perhaps more likely, something that is much more efficient at making sound?
Other scientists believe the sound is made by icebergs, but come on, listen to the audio above. It’s totally an extremely large, secret ocean monster.
Grumpy Old Men is a film that was released in 1993. It stars Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as old friends that regularly argue and poke fun at each other. The movie follows the stereotype of the wise-cracking old grandfather. Witzelsucht is a set of neurological symptoms that causes people to make uncontrollable puns and jokes. The term originates from the German word witzeln, meaning to joke or wisecrack, and sucht meaning addiction or yearning. A person with Witzelsucht finds humor in telling cruel jokes and bizarre tales. The disease is associated with frontal lobe disease or injury. Elderly people are prone to Witzelsucht because they lack gray tissue, helping stir the movie stereotype.
Defamation is the communication of a statement that is implied to be factual and gives an individual, business, product, group or government a negative image. Libel is defined as defamation by written or printed words and pictures. For a statement to be defamatory on the Internet it must be a fact. By definition, opinions posted on the Internet cannot be called defamation in a court of law. You may wonder why you don’t see more high profile Internet defamation lawsuits. This is because the process is impacted by the previously mentioned Streisand Effect. When a person makes a public claim of defamation, the information is guaranteed to be 100% true and the lawsuit will be spread over the Internet.
The small penis rule is a literary technique that is used to evade libel lawsuits. In writing novels, one way an author can protect themselves when mirroring a real life personality is to give the character a small penis. The theory goes, who is going to come forward and say, “That character with a very small penis, that’s me.” In 2006, news journalist Michael Crowley accused author Michael Crichton of using the small penis rule against him. Crowley says that Crichton was upset because of an unflattering review he published about his novel, State of Fear. In response, Crichton included a character named “Mick Crowley” in his book, Next. In the novel, Mick Crowley is a child rapist, described as being a Washington-based journalist and Yale graduate with a small penis.
In 2004, the North Korean government released a set of grooming and dress standards for the people. Part of the campaign included a documentary titled Let’s Trim our Hair in Accordance with the Socialist Lifestyle. The news segment aired on Korean Central Television in the capital city of Pyongyang. The television program claims that hair length can affect human intelligence. It says that long hair can deprive the human body of nutrients needed to grow properly. The disinformation campaign was part of the longstanding North Korean law regarding haircuts and fashion. In North Korea, many types of clothes are forbidden by law and deemed at odds with “Socialist values.”
In North Korea you can’t be seen wearing jeans, or you will be arrested and jailed. North Korea is clearly fighting a serious guerrilla war against the incursion of capitalism by the expression of personal appearance. The enemy is long hair and untidy shoes. In North Korea, you must make sure that all hair is kept between 1 cm and 5 cm in length. Men shall receive haircuts every 15 days. For the program, the North Korean government hid cameras around Pyongyang in order to record citizens with improper hairstyles. Upon discovery, the men and their wives were criticized on national television. They were mentioned by name and their addresses were released in the media.
Post Ejaculatory Guilt Syndrome (PEGS) is a widely experienced sexual event which lasts for approximately five minutes after the male orgasm. During this time, the man becomes physically and mentally disinterested in his partner. PEGS is a bit of a joke and not recognized as a real syndrome. However, all men reading this article will agree that something happens to your psyche immediately following ejaculation. During this time, the male in question will find himself not as attracted to or interested in the person or subject matter involved with the previous activity. This occurs mainly in dating, casual sex and masturbation.
After ejaculation, the male may also experience emotions of disgust or dislike toward themselves and other people they interact with during the PEGS period. The disgust for themselves sometimes falls in line with the heavy responsibility of having random sex. PEGS is extremely evident after extra marital affairs. It includes a surprisingly large amount of people who are extremely religious and don’t believe in masturbation. The Latin phrase post coitum omne animal triste est (after sexual intercourse every animal is sad) describes the phenomenon. After reaching orgasm, a man’s post-ejaculatory mood reflects a subtle, but noticeable flatness in emotional tone.
Throughout history the world has witnessed a large collection of military powers with the single goal of conquering land. What happens when the culprit is the emu, which is the second largest bird in the world behind the ostrich? In the 1930s, Australia faced a series of droughts that caused a large collection of emus to travel into populated areas in search of water. Instead of finding a way to create a watering hole and help the birds, the people of Western Australia decided to call in the military. In 1932, over 20,000 emus flocked to the Campion district of Western Australia. The birds created problems for the local farming community by eating crops, as well as leaving large gaps in fences through which rabbits could enter and cause further problems.
In response to the problem, the Minister of Defence, Sir George Pearce, organized a collection of soldiers who were given machine guns and ordered to kill the birds. Yes, they decided to use machine guns. Military involvement began in October of 1932. The “war” was conducted under the command of Major G.P.W. Meredith of the Seventh Heavy Battery of the Royal Australian Artillery, with Meredith commanding a pair of soldiers armed with two Lewis Automatic Machine Guns and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. As one might expect, it proved difficult to kill a large amount of emus with machine guns. They are big birds that can take a lot of physical abuse. Six days after the first engagement, 2,500 rounds of ammunition had been fired. The number of birds killed is uncertain. One account claims only 50 animals.
Major Meredith’s official report noted that his men had suffered no casualties. Ornithologist Dominic Serventy commented “The Emu command had evidently ordered guerrilla tactics. Its army split up into small units that made the military equipment uneconomic.” Following the negative coverage of the events in the Australian media, Pearce withdrew the military personnel and guns. Major Meredith commented on the maneuverability of the birds. “If we had a military division with the bullet-carrying capacity of these birds it would face any army in the world…They can face machine guns with the invulnerability of tanks.” After the troops were withdrawn, the Emu War was not over and the Australian government placed a bounty on all emus. People became successful trappers and trained killing machines. In the 1930s, emu deaths in Western Australia peaked at 57,000 per year.
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. During his time, Catullus’s was appreciated by fellow poets, but many other people despised his writing. His explicit style has shocked many readers and made him one of the most censored authors in history. Catullus’s poem titled Carmen 16 was considered so explicit that a full English translation was not published until the late twentieth century. Carmen 16 was originally released by Catullus around 75 BC. The first line of the poem, pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo, has been called one of the filthiest expressions ever written in Latin, or any other language.
Carmen 16 is a significant part of literary history, not only for being censored, but for challenging the Roman social decorum of moral orthodoxy. You have to understand Latin in order to completely comprehend the poem of Carmen 16. Let’s take a look at the first sentence in English. It starts and ends with the phrase, I will sodomize you and face-(penetrate) you. The second line of the poem mentions a catamite, which is a boy or youth involved in a sexual relationship with an older man. Latin is an exact language with words for obscene acts. In Carmen 16, there is an elegant poetic chiasm (a criss-cross rhetorical structure) in the first two lines.
Each of the lines has two obscenities. The first of the first line, pedicabo (insert one’s penis into another person’s anus), matches the second of the second line, cinaede (bottom person in that act), whereas the second of the first line, irrumabo (insert one’s penis into another person’s mouth for suckling), matches the first of the second line, pathice (male that suckles a penis). The central pun of the poem occurs in line 4 with quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum. In this line Catullus is challenging the reader, giving a sexual metaphor and saying “just because my writing is soft, doesn’t mean I am.” Should anyone (Furius and Aurelius) challenge his sexuality, Catullus says that he will have sex with them, anally and orally, to prove otherwise.
Humans can perform defecation in a number of different postures. The two most common are the squatting and sitting position. The squatting posture is used for Japanese toilets and in squat toilets. The sitting defecation posture is used in Western toilets, with a lean-forward position or a 90-degrees posture. The squatting position is commonly used in the absence of toilets and other devices. The type of posture chosen by an individual may affect certain medical conditions and urination. Articles have been written promoting the squat method, indicating that sitting can cause too much internal pressure. However, the sitting method helps protect privacy and leaves little or no chance of getting fecal matter on your clothes or ankles.
The sitting method may feel more comfortable and can minimize strain in thighs, calves, ankles and the lower back. The sitting posture is less common in the developing world. Toilet seats are a recent development, only coming into widespread use in the nineteenth century. The sitting posture causes the defecating human to assume a narrow anorectal angle. Some people believe this is obstructive and can cause difficulty for the person in emptying their bowels. Critics of the sitting posture say that squatting is “the only natural defecation posture”. The squatting position is also known as the “Catcher’s Position” because of its similarity to the posture of a baseball player. Surgeon Denis Burkitt has suggested that the squatting defecating posture can prevent colorectal cancer.
A mondegreen is the mishearing of a phrase or song lyric in a way that gives the words a new meaning. They are most commonly applied to poetry and music. Rap and hip-hop lyrics are particularly susceptible to being misheard because they often lack an official written version. Hundreds of songs are notable for containing mondegreens. Let’s take a look at some examples. The song Blinded by the Light by the Manfred Mann’s Earth Band contains what is considered to be “the most misheard lyric of all-time”. The line “revved up like a deuce” is frequently misheard as “wrapped up like a douche”.
A Mondegreen is clearly evident in the classic Beatles song I Wanna Hold Your Hand. People have confused the line “I can’t hide, I can’t hide, I can’t hide” with “I get high, I get high, I get high”. One of the greatest songs of the 1980s is Rock the Casbah by The Clash. In the lyrics, the band isn’t locking the cash box, but rather rocking the casbah. A casbah is a walled citadel used in many North African cities and towns. The song invites the people to “rock the casbah” (take a stand). In response, the King orders jet fighters to bomb the protestors. The pilots ignore the orders and instead play rock music on the cockpit radio.
Many examples of mondegreens exist in the music of Creedence Clearwater Revival. One example is the last line in the chorus of Bad Moon Rising. Many have heard “there’s a bathroom on the right” instead of “there’s a bad moon on the rise”. People have struggled with the ACDC song “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” and a large number of mondegreens exist for the song. People think Johnny Rivers is singing about a “secret Asian man”. Elton John doesn’t even know who Tony Danza is. The Fall Out Boy song This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race has many mondegreens. My personal favorite is “this ain’t a city, it a golf cart ass face”.
The world’s funniest joke is a term used by Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire. In 2002, Wiseman constructed an experiment named LaughLab, in which he used a website to rate jokes. The purpose of the research was to discover the joke that had the widest appeal among different cultures, demographics and countries. The winning joke was submitted by Gurpal Gosall of Manchester.
Two hunters are out in the woods when one of them collapses. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are glazed. The other guy whips out his phone and calls the emergency services. He gasps, “My friend is dead! What can I do?” The operator says “Calm down. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is a silence, and then a shot is heard. Back on the phone, the guy says “OK, now what?”
The second place winner is. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson were going camping. They pitched their tent under the stars and went to sleep. Sometime in the middle of the night Holmes woke Watson up and said, “Watson, look up at the stars, and tell me what you see.” Watson replied, “I see millions and millions of stars.” Holmes said, “And what do you deduce from that?” Watson replied, “Well, if there are millions of stars, and if even a few of those have planets, it’s quite likely there are some planets like earth out there. And if there are a few planets like earth out there, there might also be life.” And Holmes said, “Watson, you idiot, it means that somebody stole our tent.”
The top choice in the UK is interesting. A woman gets on a bus with her baby. The bus driver says, “That’s the ugliest baby that I’ve ever seen. Ugh!” The woman goes to the rear of the bus and sits down, fuming. She says to a man next to her, “The driver just insulted me!” The man says, “You go right up there and tell him off, go ahead, I’ll hold your monkey for you.” The highest rated computer-generated joke was. What kind of murderer has moral fiber? A cereal killer.
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