Peculiar effect of a thunderstorm near Leadhills, Lanarkshire, on June 7, 1817, reported by surgeon James Braid before the Wernerian Society and later reprinted in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine:

… [T]he master of the house told me that he was very much alarmed as he was going home on Saturday evening, between six and seven o’clock, ‘from,’ as he expressed himself, ‘his horse’s ears being the same as two burning candles, and the edges of his hat being all in a flame.’ …

On Thursday 20th, I was gratified for a few minutes with the luminous appearance described above. It was about nine o’clock, P.M. I had no sooner got on horseback than I observed the tips of both the horse’s ears to be quite luminous: the edges of my hat had the same appearance.

The horse’s ears stopped glowing after a shower of moist snow, Braid reported, “but the edges of my hat, being longer of getting wet, continued to give the luminous appearance somewhat longer.”

“I could observe an immense number of minute sparks darting towards the horse’s ears and the margin of my hat, which produced a very beautiful appearance, and I was sorry to be so soon deprived of it.”

Mike is overweight. His wife has just baked a cake. Happily, Mike has a box that will quiet his desire for cake. Unhappily, its battery is dead. Mike pushes the button, nothing happens, and he eats the cake.

Now, the fact that he pushed the button shows that his desire to avoid cake was greater than his desire to eat cake. So why did he push the button?

Statements of the family and associates of H. Rider Haggard regarding the events of July 9, 1904:

Mrs. M.L. Haggard:

On the night [of] July 9th I was awakened by most distressing sounds proceeding from my husband, resembling the moans of an animal, no distinct words. After listening for a few moments, I woke him up, whereupon he said that he had had a nightmare, in which he was engaged in some struggle connected with our retriever dog “Bob,” and that “Bob” was trying to talk to him and explain that he wanted help. It was quite dark at the time, so I conclude it must have been about 2 a.m.

Angela Rider Haggard:

On Sunday morning, July 10th, my father mentioned at the breakfast table that he had had a horrid nightmare about my black retriever dog “Bob.” He said that he dreamt the dog was dying in a wood and trying to make some communication to him. My mother corroborated this statement, saying he had made such a noise that he had even awakened her, and she aroused him as he seemed so disturbed. Of course we all laughed at it at the time, for we did not know then that anything had happened to the dog, for I had seen him myself at 8 o’clock on the preceding evening.

Lilias R. Haggard:

On the evening of Sunday, July 10th, I, who am in the habit of feeding the dogs, told Daddy that “Bob” had not come to his breakfast or his supper that day, so I thought he must be lost. Daddy had said at breakfast on Sunday that he had dreamt that “Bob” was dying in a wood, and that he, Daddy, was trying to extract something from “Bob,” and that “Bob” was trying to speak.

Harry Alger, railway platelayer:

I was at my business on the line between Bungay and Ditchingham at 7 o’clock on the morning of Monday, the 11th July … and found the broken collar of a dog lying there, which I produce, and had to scrape off the dried blood and some bits of flesh from the line. … Under all the circumstances I think that the dog must have been killed by the late excursion train on Saturday night which left Ditchingham for Harleston at 10.25. … The marks of blood upon the piles showed where the dog had fallen from the bridge into the reeds. These reeds grow in deepish water.

C. Bedingfield, groom:

My master and I found the dog in the Waveney near the Falcon Bridge on the morning of July 14th. It is the retriever dog, Bob, which I have known ever since it has been at Ditchingham House.

“I seem therefore to come to this conclusion,” Haggard wrote later, after relating the story in the Times. “Either the whole thing is a mere coincidence and just means nothing more than indigestion and a nightmare, or it was the spirit of the dog on its passage to its own place or into another form, that moved my spirit, thereby causing this revelation, for it seems to be nothing less.”

What’s 2.5 miles wide, perfectly circular, and warm enough to melt ice?

I don’t know either, but there are at least two of them in Russia’s Lake Baikal.

They were spotted in April from the international space station.

09/26/2013 Resolved. (Thanks, Drew.)

In 1945, Dutch designer Arnold Henske realized that his body was “invulnerable” and took to swallowing glass and razor blades as a fakir in Amsterdam.

That’s a real rapier transfixing his thorax at left.

His dream was to use his ability to spread a message of love and peace, but Dutch officials would license him only to perform his act, not to preach against materialism, as he’d hoped.

A voice told him to swallow a steel needle in 1948, and he died of an aortic rupture — a broken heart.

At a desert oasis, A and B decide independently to murder C. A poisons C’s canteen, and later B punches a hole in it. C dies of thirst. Who killed him?

A argues that C never drank the poison. B claims that he only deprived C of poisoned water. They’re both right, but still C is dead. Who’s guilty?

Distances to which objects were carried by the tornado at Mount Carmel, Ill., June 4, 1877:

A letter from Mount Carmel was found at Vincennes, Ind., twenty-five miles northeastward. A piece of tin roofing was picked up near Hazleton, Ind., seventeen miles northeastward. The spire, vane, and gilded ball of the Methodist church were found near Decker’s Station, Ind., fifteen miles northeastward. A letter from Mount Carmel was carried by the wind to Widner Township, Ind., forty-five miles north-northeastward. A discharge from the military service of the United States belonging to a Mount Carmel man was found near Edwardsport, Ind., nearly fifty miles northeastward, and a letter from Mount Carmel was found near the same place. … I was also told that a paper sack of flour from a demolished store was found nearly five miles distant in Indiana, with no further damage than a small hole in it.

From the Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1877.

In September 1931, the Irving family claimed to hear a scratching behind the walls of their farmhouse on the Isle of Man. That seemed mundane enough until the scratcher revealed itself as Gef, a 79-year-old talking mongoose from New Delhi. Over the next four years, James Irving kept a journal recording the family’s bizarre interactions with the creature, which he said threw objects, boasted about its powers, and gossiped about the neighbors.

Investigations went nowhere, as Gef appeared and spoke only to the Irvings. A hair sample and tooth impressions suggested only a dog; a set of pawprints were found not to be those of a mongoose.

It’s hard to credit such an outlandish story, but it’s equally hard to see why anyone would invent it. The Irvings profited nothing by it and were widely ridiculed in the media; when the family finally sold the house in 1937, they lost money, as it was now reputed to be haunted.

In 1947, the new owner claimed to have discovered and shot a real mongoose on the property. You don’t suppose … ?