News of the Weird: Week of November 7, 2024

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The Litigious Society

The Colorado Supreme Court in Boulder was the setting on Oct. 24 for a showdown between justices and five elephants, the Associated Press reported. The elephants -- Missy, Kimba, Lucky, LouLou and Jambo -- live at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs. But the NonHuman Rights Project believes the pachyderms should be able to dispute their detention there because they were born in the wild in Africa and are now showing signs of brain damage, such as rocking, which signals distress. The organization wants them to be moved to an accredited elephant sanctuary. The justices were moved by the story but skeptical: "How do I know when it stops?" asked Justice Melissa Hart, who was worried about pet emancipation. The zoo's attorney wasn't having it: "This court, no court is the proper venue for what they're trying to accomplish," he said.

The Continuing Crisis

There's a metaphor for our times in here somewhere ... In the wee hours of Oct. 21, 39-year-old Adam Sotzen showed up at his mother's house in North Liberty, Iowa, The Smoking Gun reported. Sotzen, whose rap sheet is lengthy, was allegedly intoxicated and yelled at his mother while destroying property inside the house, police said, then shoved her to the ground. She was able to move to a recliner chair, where Sotzen approached her with a 3-by-5-foot American flag that he had stolen from a nearby home. Twisting the flag into a rope, Sotzen began choking her while threatening to kill her; she fell to the floor, and Sotzen continued strangling her until her boyfriend tried to intervene. The mother said her 6-foot-3, 230-pound son was "capable of killing her" and used a lot of force while strangling her. Sotzen was charged with assault with intent to inflict serious injury and harassment and held on $30,000.

Spooky!

              -- When Joshua Dairen and his wife, Keema Miller, bought a coffee shop in Opelika, Alabama, in early 2023, they might not have expected to experience paranormal phenomena -- but the soldier ghost who frequents the place didn't know that. Metro News reported that Dairen hears "rustling" noises from the back office when he's in the shop alone, and on Sept. 24, the barista saw a "soldier" walking toward them before disappearing. Dairen believes the shop is haunted by someone who died in the Civil War. "I have seen unexplained boot prints on the floor," he said. "Nobody in our shop has ever worn combat boots." Dairen looked back into the town's history and found that many soldiers lost their lives in a raid on Confederate supply depots there. "Luckily, nothing has presented itself as threatening toward us," Dairen said.

              -- English Heritage, a charity that oversees many historic properties, revealed that Gainsborough Old Hall in Lincolnshire, England, houses a "staggering array" of witches' marks and curses carved into the walls. The Guardian reported on Oct. 29 that volunteer Rick Berry found and mapped about 20 ritual protection marks, believed to repel evil. Berry also discovered daisy wheels and hexafoils, thought to trap demons, and overlapping letter V's, which called on the Virgin Mary for protection. "The Old Hall has undoubtedly had a tumultuous past," said Kevin Booth, English Heritage's head of collections. "Why it's the scene of quite such a high concentration of protective carvings remains a mystery."

Latest Religious Message

Attendees of the Lucca Comics and Games conference in Italy this week are getting a first look at the new mascot for the Vatican's 2025 jubilee, the Catholic News Agency reported. The church declares a jubilee, or a year of grace and pilgrimage, every 10 to 50 years. This year's new addition is Luce, a cartoon figure a la Olympics mascots, who the church hopes will help engage with "the pop culture so beloved by our young people." Luce (which means "light" in Italian) and her "pilgrim friends" are promoting "the theme of hope, which is more central than ever to the evangelical message," said Archbishop Rino Fisichella.

But Why?

Mary Kay Bower, 42, of St. Paul, Minnesota, was arrested on Oct. 19 for rustling and livestock theft, which is a felony, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. Officers were alerted to Bower when she and a man were seen walking a sheep and a dog on leashes. Bower told them that she purchased the sheep for $200, but her companion ratted her out: He said she stepped over a farm fence, put a leash on the sheep and pulled it out through the fence. When police checked with the farm owner, they found out that Bower had not paid for the animal, a breeding hair ram worth about $500. Bower's tattoo might have given her away: She has a sheep inked on her left cheek.

Oops

On Oct. 24, emergency officials in Stoughton, Wisconsin, contacted the county public health agency after transporting five people with "possible food-borne illness exposure," The New York Times reported. The common denominator? Famous Yeti's Pizza -- but it wasn't tainted onions or bad cheese that sickened patrons. On Oct. 22, a worker at Yeti's ran out of oil while making pizzas, so he visited a shared industrial kitchen nearby. The oil he grabbed was from "food-grade hemp" and contained Delta-9 cannabis, or THC -- the active ingredient in marijuana. "The oil can be used to make everything from cookies to condiments," the health department said. Famous Yeti's served "60 contaminated pizzas," prompting "dozens of reports" of sickness. The restaurant closed for deep cleaning on Oct. 25.

Creme de la Weird

A 107-year-old Chinese woman named Chen has become a social media star, the New York Post reported on Oct. 29, because of an unusual facial feature -- a 4-inch-long horn growing out of her forehead. Some viewers think the growth is responsible for Chen's advanced age and are calling it a "longevity horn." Doctors, however, say it's a cutaneous horn, which is often associated with prolonged sun exposure. Nevertheless, Chen remains in good health and eats heartily, and she has no intention of having the horn removed.

The Passing Parade

Social media influencers are on the move and extending their "influence" to even the most mundane of travel experiences: putting items in a bin for the TSA conveyor. Reader's Digest reported on Oct. 28 that people are curating their travel bins -- arranging everything just so, then taking photos to post on the socials -- and getting reactions such as "i would buy prints of these!" and "your shoes omg." A TSA spokesperson responded: "As long as the staged glamour photos are not causing delays or issues with other passengers in the checkpoint, there are no issues."

Awesome!

Calcea Johnson and Ne'Kiya Jackson, then students at St. Mary's Academy in New Orleans, just hoped to win the $500 prize when their teacher challenged them to create a new proof for the Pythagorean theorem in 2022, NOLA.com reported on Oct. 29. In March 2023, they submitted their work to the American Mathematical Society conference, and "it went well, and it blew up," said Jackson. They were rewarded with a commendation from the Louisiana governor and keys to the city, and their findings were published in American Mathematical Monthly. Since they submitted their proof, they believe they've come up with nine other proofs. Jackson is now studying pharmacology at Xavier University, and Johnson is pursuing environmental engineering at Louisiana State University.

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