Just Dropping By
As staff at the Sequoia Park Zoo in Eureka, California, performed inspections in the early morning of Oct. 17, they were surprised by the presence of an unexpected visitor — a wild American black bear leaning on the gate to the park’s bear habitat. In a Facebook post from the zoo, the wild bear was described as “a very polite visitor” that was observed interacting nonaggressively with resident bears Tule, Ishung, and Kunabulilh. The zoo called in the Eureka Police Department and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the bear was escorted out of the park and back into the nearby woods. “We respond to bear calls within the city of Eureka quite often,” state department spokesperson Peter Tira told the LA Times, “but having a wild bear get into the zoo is a first.”
I Hope that Someone Gets My …
After more than a century, letters from two World War I soldiers will soon be in the hands of their families, ABC Australia reported Oct. 27. Debra Brown and her family were cleaning up a beach near their hometown in Western Australia when they found an old bottle, which turned out to contain letters — dated 1916 — from Private Malcolm Alexander Neville and Private William Kirk Harley. The two were shipping out to serve their country, and jettisoned the bottle “somewhere in the [Great Australian] Bight,” per one of the letters. Social media did its thing, and Brown was soon connected to relatives of both soldiers. Private Neville’s records show that even though he was initially discharged due to his poor eyesight, he reenlisted in the service corps a week later. “I think that just shows you his character, how determined he was,” said the private’s great-nephew, Herbie Neville. Sadly, Private Neville was killed in action in France at the age of 28. His compatriot, Private Harley, did make it home; his granddaughter Ann Turner said finding the letters “feels like a miracle” for her family: “We are all absolutely stunned.”
Monkey Business
It isn’t uncommon to see costume shops across the country packed with last-minute shoppers in the days before Halloween. Usually, it’s people clambering over the racks of capes, masks, and vampire teeth, but NBCDFW reported that on Oct. 27, in a Spirit Halloween store in Plano, Texas, a pet primate got loose. The monkey, clad in a diaper, became scared by animatronics and escaped its leash, running past shoppers, climbing shelves, and swinging from the rafters. “It was entertaining,” store employee Jimmy Harris said. “A lot of people just stood and watched it for like 30 minutes, the whole time, they were like, ‘Monkey,’ and we had kids trying to catch it.” Police were called and, after being offered a cookie, the monkey was re-leashed and returned to its owner, with no humans or monkeys harmed.
Crème de la Weird
Gizmodo reported on Nov. 5 that doctors in the Philippines have documented the case of a woman whose armpits leak milk. Dermatologists writing in the journal JAAD Case Reports said the patient was born with extra breast tissue on both sides of her underarms, which swelled up after she delivered a baby and produced “milky secretions from the overlying hair follicles.” The condition didn’t bother her when she wasn’t pregnant or breastfeeding; doctors said it affects fewer than 6 percent of women.
Wait, What?
A woman in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, was expecting a package of medicine that she had ordered, but when the box came, she found something very different inside: two human arms and four fingers. WSMV-TV reported that the woman contacted 911 and Christian County Coroner Scott Daniel. Daniel responded to the home and gathered up the unexpected parcel, and the body parts are being dispatched to the correct recipient — but it’s unclear in this case who that was.
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NEWS OF THE WEIRD
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