Strange stories from around the world, some of which might be true...
- Lepidopterists who have spent a decade studying the Euptychiina subtribe of butterflies have named a new group after Sauron, the overarching villain of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, usually
depicted as a great glowing eye. The two inaugural members of the group, Saurona triangula and Saurona aurigera, have eye-like patterns on their wings. ● A 92-year-old widow in the French village
of Frontenex has been told by the local police that three large frogs who took up residence in her garden pond will be removed because a neighbour complained about their loud croaking. ● Mystery surrounds how
several lancetfish came to be washed ashore along a 200-mile (322km) stretch of the Oregon coast; the scaleless fanged fish usually live at more than 5,300' (1,600m) underwater. ● A five-year study by NatureScot
has warned that the Scottish wildcat population, most of which are now hybrids of the original wildcats and domestic cats, is functionally extinct with too few left in the wild to sustain the population. ● A snake
which got into an electrical panel at a traffic intersection in Prince William County, Virginia, flipped a switch and turned off the traffic lights. An animal control officer and a police officer managed to safely
remove the snake and released it nearby. ● A pickup truck carrying beehives collided with a semi on a Florida highway last week releasing thousands of bees. While the bees were reported as not being aggressive
many died or flew away; Jesup Bee Company owner Trent Padgett told reporters that he had lost $40,000 (£31,600) worth of bees.
- A 4"x6" (10x15cm) 4lbs (1.8kg) metallic object which crashed through a New Jersey home earlier this week is thought to be a meteorite. Nobody was hurt and damage was minimal. ● To be fair to SpaceX, it is not
just their rockets that have exploded recently. An UP Aerospace suborbital rocket blew up shortly after takeoff from a New Mexico launchpad earlier this week. It was carrying student experiments for NASA and the
ashes of several people including NASA astronaut Philip K. Chapman, a scientist who was involved with preparations for the Apollo lunar landing missions. ● Among the most iconic things in the Solar System are
Saturn's rings, but since the 1980s astronomers have known that the ice and rocks comprising them are falling into the planet's atmosphere, and nobody knows how long they will last. A team from Reading University
using the James Webb Space Telescope and the Keck telescope on Hawai'i recently estimated that the rings could disappear within a few hundred million years. ● Astronomers in America who have seen two shadows
in the disk of gas and dust around TW Hydra, a relatively young red dwarf star, have suggested that they are a pair of planets still forming. ● Early next year the British CarbSar radar satellite will be
launched. In typically British Blue Peter style, the reflective tungsten wire mesh which will make up the antenna dish is being created using an industrial knitting machine...
- An extremely rare Patek Philippe Reference 96 Quantieme Lune wristwatch which belonged to Aisin-Gioro Puyi, last emperor of China, is to be auctioned in Hong Kong later this month. The 1.2"- (3cm)-diameter face
has Arabic numerals, pink gold hands and shows the current phase of the moon. It is not known how Puyi acquired the watch, which went into production in 1937, a time when he had fled China and was ruling Japan's puppet
state of Manchuko in Manchuria. It is expected to sell for over $3m (£2.4m).
- Texas police have confirmed that Melanie Brown, a woman in her 50s living in the Fort Worth area is Melissa Highsmith, who was abducted as a 21-month-old infant by a babysitter in 1971 and was the USA's longest-running
missing person case. Last year the Highsmith family hired an amateur genealogist who used the public DNA website 23andMe to track her down. Brown was unaware of her true identity but has been reunited with her parents
and surviving siblings. ● When Derbyshire police pulled over a car for several (unspecified) offences they discovered that the 69-year-old driver had never passed the driving test and had been driving illegally
for the last 50 years, repeatedly stating to motor insurance companies that he had a driving license. The car was seized and the driver is due in court. ● In January two men entered a jeweller's shop in Sydney,
threatened owner Michel Germani and a member of staff, and demanded access to the safe. Germani, whose website says has made "fine jewellery for the Saudi Royal Family, Queen Noor of Jordan, the Duke & Duchess
of Wellington, Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Diana and other well known international dignitaries around the world" subsequently put in a miltimillion dollar insurance claim, but police investigating the heist thought
something was not quite right and have now arrested Germani and two men, alleging that he had arranged the robbery to defraud the insurers. ● A man wearing a full-body latex 'gimp' suit has been arrested on
suspicion of causing a public nuisance after jumping out in front of a car in the early hours of Tuesday morning in Bleadon, Somerset. Police already had 14 reports of a man wearing costumes, including the gimp suit,
approaching people in the village and responded within minutes of the latest report. ● After her husband died suddenly in March 2022 Utah woman Kouri Richards wrote a book for her three children about coping with
grief; the book was subsequently published. Police have now charged her with the murder of her husband by fentanyl overdose and with possession of the narcolepsy drug GHB. ● Last month somebody dumped almost 500lbs
(227kg) of spaghetti in woods near Old Bridge, New Jersey. There are conflicting reports concerning whether the pasta had been cooked or just soaked by rainfall. The perpetrator remains unknown although one local
suggested it might have been someone clearing out an emergency stockpile from their deceased parents' house. Whoever it was, one user of a local Reddit group suggested that they should be sent to the New Jersey
"penne tentiary"...
- America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has announced that ongoing surveying of the ocean floors has mapped more than 19,000 previously-undiscovered underwater volcanoes, or seamounts. ● The
Canadian province of Alberta has declared a state of emergency after more than 100 wildfires spread, forcing the evacuation of almost 25,000 people from their homes. ● As a pre-monsoon heatwave spreads across
Southeast Asia Vietnam has recorded its highest ever temperature with thermometers reaching over 44oC (111oF). Temperatures in Myamnar reached 43.8oC (110.84oF), the highest
in a decade, while in Thailand the alltime-record-equalling temperature of 44.6oC (112.28oF) was recorded and in Laos the temperature reached 43.5oC (110.3oF), breaking the
record set last month. ● Residents of the village of Brienz in Switzerland's Graubünden canton have been ordered to evacuate after 2,000,000 m3 (70,600,000 cubic feet) of rock in the mountain
above the village showed signs of an imminent landslide.
IN BRIEF: An illegally-flown drone has come within 16' (4.9m) of an EasyJet passenger plane that had just taken off from Gatwick Airport and was flying at 300mph (483km/h) at an altitude of 5,000' (1,500m).
● When Neil Sneddon lost his wedding ring while hauling in a boat in Aberdour harbour, Fife, he knew who to call. His friend Scott Spence's six-year-old daughter Katie had a toy metal detector and, once the tide
had gone out, she set to work and found the ring under a pile of seaweed. ● When Care UK's Sway Place care home in Hampshire offered its residents a "Wishing Tree" to suggest things they wanted to do
92-year-old Betty Richardson's wish was to see the Dreamboys male strippers - so she and a group of friends had a trip to the Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre, including a meet-and-greet with the performers and a tour of the
theatre. ● The first babies have been born in the UK with DNA from three parents after the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority gave permission for mitochondrial donation treatment to be used for the first
time; the process - during in vitro fertilisation - replaces harmful DNA mutations with 'clean' DNA from a second woman. ● Record-holding engineer Kevin Nicks, creator of the fastest shed and the fastest
wheelbarrow in the world and a mobility scooter the length of an elephant, has now come up with the only legally-roadworthy motorised wheelie bin. ● During King Charles III's coronation last weekend alert
Twitter users speculated somewhat frantically about a figure resembling the grim reaper seen walking past an open doorway on TV coverage. A spokesman for Westminster Abbey later clarified that it was a verger. There was
also speculation that a man in the congregation sporting a large bushy moustache, thick hair and oversized glasses might have been Meghan Markle in disguise (It was not; it was composer Karl Jenkins). ● Two tourists who drove
their car off a jetty into the Honokohau Small Boat Harbor in Hawai'i while following their satnav were rescued by the crew of a nearby sailboat who dived into the water to pull them out of the car, then attached a rope
to pull the car back into shallow water. ● Actress Karen Gillan has admitted on Twitter that during the filming of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 she forgot that she had a couples' therapy video session booked
and had to attend it while in full blue head makeup as her character Nebula; she even posted a screenshot. ● A man is being praised after a baby stroller was blown by the wind towards a busy road while the infant's
great-aunt had her back turned to get something from her car, then tripped as she tried to stop it herself; he raced after it and stopped it just in time. ● An 8-year-old boy, found safe after being missing for
two days in a Michigan state park told his rescuers that he had thought the safest thing to do was to stay where he was, sheltered under a log while making an impromptu shelter with branches and foliage, and survived by
eating snow. A 48-year-old Australian woman whose car got stuck in mud in the middle of dense bush after taking a wrong turn during a trip in Australia's Victoria state survived for five days by eating sweets and drinking
a bottle of wine, despite being a teetotaller (the wine was intended as a gift for a friend). She told reporters that when she was rescued "the first thing coming in my mind, I was thinking 'water and a cigarette'.
Thank god the policewoman had a cigarette."
CORONAVIRUS: Last Friday the World Health Organisation declared that COVID-19 no longer represents "a global health emergency" three years after it declared the highest alert level for the virus.
At the time of writing there have been just under 766 million confirmed cases worldwide since the start of the pandemic, with a peak of more than 100,000 deaths per week in January 2021. By April 24, 2023, the global
death rate was down to just over 3,500 per week. Those who are medically vulnerable and their carers are still advised to take precautions.
UPDATES: The signpost for the non-existent Llandegley International airport on the A44 in Powys, Wales, is back. As reported in TFIr#691
last year the 20-year-old hoax sign's creator took it down because it was on a commercial billboard and too expensive to keep up, but after its popularity online soared he launched a crowdfunding campaign to make it an
official landmark with the local council. The campaign aimed to raise £1,300 ($1,650) but raised £2,000 ($2,530); the surplus was donated to the Wales Air Ambulance, and the new official sign was unveiled at
a different location this week.
Little Jennifer came home from school crying. "What's the matter, Little Jennifer?" her mother asked.
"Oh, Mummy, I dropped a pound coin somewhere and can't find it," Little Jennifer sobbed.
"Oh, don't worry," her mother said, reaching for her purse, "here's another one for you." Little Jennifer took the coin and started crying even louder. "Now what's wrong?"
Little Jennifer smiled through her tears as only she could. "I wish I'd said I'd lost a two pound coin, Mummy..."
