Gnome Sweet Gnome: Mystery as 107 Gnomes Make Themselves at Home on Woman’s Lawn

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Extraordinary

If you suffer from gnomophobia (the fear of gnomes, obviously) we advise you look away now – perhaps you should go and read this story about the man who was evicted from his home by his own cat, because this bit of extraordinary news is probably not for you.

A woman awoke this week to find an army of gnomes set out in and orderly fashion in her front garden – one hundred and seven of the scary little fellas, to be precise. How they got there remains a mystery but needless to say the homeowner was in a state of shock when confronted with the 30 rows of gnomes lined up in front of her three abreast down the garden path.

Marcela Telehanicova, who lives in her home in Devon, UK with her son, took to Facebook to ask: “Ok, who the f*** has put 100 gnomes outside my front door?!?!”

However, her anger quickly subsided when she realised it was nothing more than a harmless lampoon… albeit a really, really strange one.

The 30-year-old later told her local newspaper, the Plymouth Herald: “I was in hysterics, I found it really funny.

“It’s the best, most bizarre thing that has ever happened to me. I don’t know who did it but I would love to know, I would love to shake their hand and say ‘Well done, you made me laugh’.”

Sure, it’s all fun and games now Marcela, but lest we forget that as well your expletive social media post, you did also call the police immediately after it happened. And someone think of the poor gnomes, dragged from their normal resting spots and forced to attend a mass meeting in the middle of the night on a stranger’s lawn – gnomenapping is no laughing matter folks!

Police officers say that no gnomes were stolen from any local garden centres, meaning they were either taken from people’s homes in the area or, perhaps most disturbingly, the unknown mastermind behind the prank has shelled out their own hard earned cash on the garden accessories just for the love of good old-fashioned practical jokes.

Student reborn out of stone vagina

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Extraordinary

Imgur/ Erick Guzman

We all enter the world kicking and screaming from our mother’s lady parts. Magical, maybe, but not the most pleasant experience all the same.

Luckily, while the parents may never forget it, the child has no memory of the birthing experience. Well, that all changed for one unfortunate man.

Goaded on by his mates, an unnamed US exchange student in Germany climbed into a stone vagina. However, no sooner had he crammed himself inside the rocky imitation of a woman’s nether regions than he found himself impossibly stuck.

Helplessly caught inside the sculpture of the sexual orifice, which stands outside the microbiology and virology department of Tübingen University, our anonymous victim of peer pressure had no choice but to call emergency services for help while his friend (thankfully) took a picture (which has since gone viral). Help came in the form of a 22-strong team of firefighters who reported to the scene of the incident to pull the fully-grown male from the oversized birthing canal.

No damage was done to either the art installation – that has a value of almost £100,000 – or the born again student, although his self-esteem might have taken a bit of a beating.

The fire crew’s report simply reads: “A person trapped in a stone vulva”. All in a day’s work.

Imgur/ Erick Guzman

The five craziest theories about the missing Malaysian plane

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Extraordinary

Screen shot 2014-03-18 at 17.41.36

How a giant Boeing 777 could just disappear without a trace is, in itself, an extraordinary piece of news. However, the vanishing has also (unsurprisingly) given birth to a plethora of fantastical theories of what happened to the jet.

The ever-expanding, multi-national search is now entering its 11th day and while there are countless perfectly plausible outcomes being explored, there are countless other people letting their creative juices flow as they voice their own somewhat less likely thoughts on what happened to the Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.

At risk of being made to look rather foolish should any of these ideas prove to be true, here is a quick rundown of some of the more inconceivably wonderful brain nuggets to have graced social media and online forums.

1. Illuminati

Numbers. People love to draw upon the significance of numbers whenever any major tragedy strikes. So here you go: the missing plane was the 404th Boeing 777 to have been manufactured. ‘So what?’ I hear you ask, well as a keen Reddit user pointed out: “An HTTP 404 error means not found, which in this case is oddly appropriate for the status of the aircraft, or just a coincidence. Coincidence, I think not!” What conspiracy this implies is unclear… but it is a conspiracy nonetheless.

2. They are living on an island with a polar bear

Comparisons with the hit US TV series Lost were inevitable from the moment the news broke. Theories that the plane went off course, crashed, and the inhabitants are now fighting their own inner demands and a magical island became prevalent as quickly as people could type them out.

3. Aliens

The A word was never going to take long to rear its extra-terrestrial head. Swathes of social media users have touted it as the only possible explanation. And in case you are struggling to conceptualise just what that look like, don’t worry, someone has made a very useful, thorough and educational video below.

4. Bermuda Triangle take II

One Bermuda Triangle seems implausible – the conspiracy theorists’ favourite polygon gets enough bad press for any missing item as it is, but now people are suggesting that there could be a second such phenomena in the South China Sea, meaning that flight routes are going to have to become yet more convoluted. Again, the tenacity of people in the pursuit of their theories must be admired as one Twitter user takes the effort to show just what the mysterious triangle might look like.

Mystery solved – that’s what a triangle in the sea would look like…

5. Courtney Love knows where it is

If all the above somehow fail in the attempts to find Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 then authorities need look no further than the Twitter timeline over Kurt Cobain’s former partner Courtney Love. As shown below, she has kindly taken the time to point out exactly where it is. Phew!

Courtney love cracks it! (via Twitter)

Chinese man has whistle removed from body after 15 years

Posted on March 10, 2014 by Extraordinary

Chinese man will wet his whistle after plastic instrument (not this one) is removed from his body after 15 years!

A Chinese man will be keen to wet his whistle after a small plastic instrument (not this one) is finally removed from his body after 15 years!

A lot of people lament ‘not having a musical bone in their body’. Well, it could be worse, you could actually have a musical instrument in his body.

That was the case for a Chinese man who, for a staggering 15 years, had a whistle lodged in his body.

Liu Yougang, 23, swallowed the tiny woodwind instrument at the tender age of nine. He told the Chengdu Commercial Daily that at the time the doctor could not find the whistle. Subsequently, two thirds of Liu’s life has consisted of restricted breathing and regular coughing fits, while those who slept within ear shot of him had to endure night after night of shrill whistles while he slept.

Finally, after 15 years wrapped in the tissue of one of his airway passages, Liu decided enough was enough and opted to go under the knife to have it removed and last Monday (3 March) doctors at the West China Hospital in Chengdu dislodged the whistle.

The musical device was inhaled by the enthusiastic whistleblower back in 1999. Perhaps he became over zealous in his rendition of then chart topping hit ‘I Want It That Way’ by the Backstreet Boys or perhaps Britney Spears’ more upbeat number ‘…Baby One More Time’? We can only speculate. What Liu did say after the operation was that the relic from the last millennium was so badly broken down that he has no keepsake from the procedure, should he have wished to have one more toot on the mini-flute.

While Liu breathes a long-awaited (silent) sigh of relief, children everywhere will be thankful that recorders remain so indigestibly cumbersome.

Jurassic Park dinosaur cage for sale on auction site

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Extraordinary

Beware the velociraptor my dear when the moon is fat.

Arguably one of the best pieces of film memorabilia ever to come up for sale is the original Velociraptor cage crate from the hit 1993 film ‘Jurassic Park,’ which is currently selling on an internet auction site.

The item – which is being sold by Theme Park Connection – has offers on it of around £30,700 at the moment, with that price set to rise as dinosaur fans from across the globe get in on the action.

The listing states: “In this auction you are bidding on one of the most recognisable props from Steven Spielberg’s 1993 worldwide hit, Jurassic Park. This is the full size animal transport cage crate featured in the terrifying opening scene of the classic blockbuster movie.”

“This is the crate that housed the Velociraptor that attacked and killed the ill-fated gate keeper as Jurassic Park’s game warden and workers attempted to move the Raptor into its permanent pen,” adds the listing.

The cage also comes with a full-size Velociraptor prop, which was used to terrify guests at the film’s premiere. Both the prop and the cage are in need of some restoration, the listing adds.

Second passenger flight in two month lands at wrong airport

Posted on January 14, 2014 by Extraordinary

It’s always a good idea to check a map when flying a massive jet plane off into the sunset.

A Southwest Airlines flight has landed at the wrong airport, the second aircraft in two months to do so.

The commercial Boeing 737-700 jet, which took off from Chicago’s Midway International Airport bound for Branson Airport, Missouri, ended up landing seven miles away at Taney County Airport instead.

Its eventual destination has a runway half the size of the one at its intended destination, and the flight is now under investigation to find out why such a thing happened, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokesman Tony Molinaro has confirmed.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Southwest Airlines, Brad Hawkins said: “The landing was uneventful, and all customers and crew are safe. Our ground crew from the Branson airport arrived at the airport to take care of our customers and their baggage.”

It is the second time in two months that a major aircraft has landed at the wrong airport. In November, a Boeing 747 Dreamlifter bound for McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, ended up landing at Colonel James Jabara Airport, nine miles away. The Dreamlifter was carrying parts rather than passengers.

McDonalds burger survives 14 years

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Extraordinary

McDonalds: Still Lovin’ It 14 Years Later

In a worrying reminder about the contents of fast food, a US man has saved a McDonalds hamburger that he bought 14 years ago … and it looks exactly the same.

David Whipple, who lives in the US, bought the burger out on television show, The Doctors. He revealed that after he accidentally left it in his pocket for two years without seeing any deterioration to the meat or the bun he decided to see how long it would continue to look normal.

“It was about showing some people how enzymes work and I thought a hamburger would be a good idea,” he told the TV show. “And I used it for a month and then forgot about it.”

Mr Whipple added that the burger had ended up left in a coat pocket with the receipt for about two years. When they saw that other than the disintegration of the pickle there were no signs of deterioration, they decided to keep it to see how much longer it remained in the same state.

There was talk of selling the antique burger on eBay at one point, but the family decided to keep it to use to educate people about the content of fast food. “It’s great for the grandkids to see. To see what happens with fast food,” Mr Whipple said.

Can you fit half a Mini down the toilet?

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Extraordinary

How did half a Mini Cooper end up in London’s sewer system?

Some strange things turn up in the sewers, but there is usually an explanation for the majority of items the sewer workers dredge up.

However, one unusual case has stuck in the mind of Simon Evans, a Thames Water employee. In a bit of a one-off, he recalls finding half a Mini: “It was dragged out of one of our major London sewers. Pretty bizarre. Obviously that didn’t get flushed down the toilet.”

How the half a vehicle made it into London’s underground sewer system is a bit of an unsolved mystery given the sheer size of the item. But while it is pretty unusual to find sections of vehicles in the pipes under our streets, Mr Evans told the Guardian that there is a host of other weird discoveries trawled up on a daily basis.

‘Fatbergs’ were one such issue. This is what sewer workers call fat that has been washed away down the sink while warm which has then cooled and congealed once it hits the sewer. The ‘fatbergs’ then bind to other detritus floating around to cause problems in the system.

The old cliché of flushing dead goldfish down the toilet is also true, but other small animals also crop up now and again, including hamsters and gerbils. “They don’t help, because they’re quite sturdy little things,” observed Mr Evans.

So next time you’re wondering if you can flush some odd item down the toilet thinking it will never be seen again, spare a thought for the sewer workers labouring away to keep the city clear of fatbergs and rogue Minis.

ExtraordinaryNews.com

Category Archives: Lost & Found