Brontides

In July 1808, 100 kilometers east of the Montana Rockies, Lewis and Clark wrote, “We have repeatedly heard a strange noise coming from the mountains. … It is heard at different periods of the day and night … and consists of one stroke only, or of five or six discharges in quick succession. It is loud and resembles precisely the sound of a six-pound piece of ordnance.”

They were leading the first overland expedition of the United States territory, so it wasn’t a cannon. The sounds have never been explained.

| History · Oddities

Snow Miser

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Snowmangma_2.jpg

The world’s tallest snowman was Angus, King of the Mountain, built in Maine in 1999. He stood 113 feet 7 inches tall.

In Lithuania, a snowman is called “a man without brains.” Last winter, protesters made 141 snowmen in their capital — one for each member of parliament.

| Entertainment · Trivia

Tretretretre

In 1658, French admiral Etienne de Flacourt reported a curious legend among the natives of Madagascar. They described a creature, called tretretretre, that was as big as a 2-year-old calf, with a round head, a human face and ears, an ape’s feet, a short tail, and frizzy fur.

That description matched nothing on the island, so the Europeans dismissed it. But since then, fossils have been unearthed of a giant lemur, Megaladapis, that may explain the myth. It had been thought to become extinct thousands of years ago, but now zoologists think it may have survived into the sixth century, when humans came to the island, and entered their folklore.

A few Megaladapis may even have survived into the 16th or 17th century, so perhaps Flacourt was witnessing the birth of a legend.

| History · Oddities

Yonaguni

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Yonaguni_Ruins_Scuba.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

These structures were discovered off the Japanese island of Yonaguni in 1985. Are they man-made? They resemble the pyramids of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mexico, and Peru, but analyses showed one was 8,000 years old, which would make these the oldest ruins in the world.

If that’s so, historians can’t explain who would have built them. And archaeologists have suggested that the plates may have formed naturally. For now, the jury’s out.

| Oddities

Duck!

How much damage can one sparrow do?

Last year in the Netherlands organizers were preparing a world-record display of cascading dominoes when a house sparrow flew into the room.

The bird knocked over 23,000 tiles before organizers finally resorted to shooting it, setting off a furor among animal-rights activists.

Four days later, a new record was set when 4,002,136 dominoes fell in one continuous cascade.

The bird, stuffed and mounted, will go on display at the Natural History Museum in Rotterdam this November, exactly one year after the shooting.

| Oddities

Beach Blanket Hades

In western Namibia, there’s a deadly strip of beach where the Namib Desert runs right up against the South Atlantic Ocean. Shipwrecked sailors who landed there found themselves trapped between heavy surf on one side and hundreds of miles of desert on the other. Many starved to death right there on the beach.

It’s called the Skeleton Coast.

| Death · Oddities

The Power of Community

Francis A. Johnson of Darwin, Minn., started a ball of twine in March 1950 and kept going for 29 years. The ball is 12 feet in diameter and weighs 17,500 pounds.

That’s impressive, but it’s also inspiring. Frank Stoeber of Cawker City, Kan., heard about Johnson’s achievement and started his own ball. Sadly, when he died in 1974, Stoeber’s ball measured 11 feet — just short of his goal.

But, in fine Frank Capra style, Cawker City built an open-air gazebo over the ball and began holding a “Twine-a-Thon” every August to increase it.

They’ve succeeded. The Cawker City ball now incorporates 1,325 miles of twine … and weighs 17,554 pounds.

| Trivia

Sunburn Alley

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Us_route_50_nevada.jpg

In Nevada, U.S. Route 50 is known as “The Loneliest Road in America.” Because of the barren terrain and low traffic, AAA warns its member to stay off the road unless they’re sure of their survival skills.

There are only five towns along the road, and all of them offer “Route 50 Survival Kits.” Stop in all five and you’ll get a survival certificate signed by the governor.

| Trivia