The 9 Strangest News Stories of 2009
From LiveScience.com:
Weirdness takes many forms, and 2009 had its share of weird events. Here’s a look back at the strangest news stories of the year drawn from the realms of pseudoscience, the paranormal, media hype, outright lies and the just plain strange.
9. Trailcam Transforms Hiker into Bigfoot
When some hunters set up a camera to record wildlife in the Minnesota woods, they accidentally photographed a hiker or hunter on a trail. A few local Bigfoot buffs concluded that the dark figure was probably Bigfoot, much to the embarrassment of other Bigfoot researchers who claimed it was just a guy in a dark outfit—unlike the famous 1967 image of Bigfoot, which couldn’t possibly be a guy in a dark outfit.
8. Turin Shroud Duplicated
A team of Italian scientists duplicated the Shroud of Turin, believed by some to be the burial cloth of Jesus. The test does not prove that the shroud was faked, merely that it could have been faked. Believers, of course, remain unconvinced, and Shroud T-shirt sales remain brisk.
7. Dogs Maul Mother Earth
According to research published in New Scientist, a medium-sized dog is more damaging to the earth than a gas-guzzling SUV, based on the amount of land and resources each uses in the course of a year.
6. Sleeping Girl Wakes Up with Star Tats
An 18-year-old Belgian girl claimed she fell asleep at a tattoo parlor and woke up to find 56 star tattoos on her face. She accused the tattooist of inking her without permission, and the girl’s father threatened to sue. She later admitted that she had been awake and requested the tattoos, and lied about it because her father was furious when he saw them.
[Read more at LiveScience.com]
