50 Bizzare Facts Stranger Than Fiction – Part 4

Oscar is a nursing home cat in Rhode Island who appears to be able to predict the impending death of terminally ill patients-by choosing to nap next to people a few hours before they die. Oscar has been mentioned in The New England Journal of Medicine and so far has predicted at least 100 deaths.

27. Mike the Headless Chicken was a decapitated chicken who lived for almost two years without a head. His owner would administer droplets of milk and water down its open throat with an eyedropper.

28. The “Tree That Owns Itself” is a white oak tree in Athens, Georgia, that is widely assumed to legally own itself and the eight feet of land surrounding it. According to newspapers, a deed written by Colonel William Jackson was written to the tree, giving ownership of the land to itself in the 1800s.

29. Henry VIII had someone whose job it was to wipe his bottom for him. They were called 'Grooms of the Stool' and Henry VIII had 4 of them during his reign, all of whom were knighted.

30. The nut that is attached to the main rotor of a helicopter is referred to as the "Jesus nut." If it comes loose, the only option you have is to pray.

There is an alarm clock named “Clocky” which has wheels, runs away from you, and hides forcing you to get out of bed.

32. The Great Stork Derby was a contest held in Toronto from 1926-1936, in which women competed to produce the most babies in order to win $750,000 as stipulated in the will of a wealthy lawyer. The prize ended up being split among four women who each had 9 babies.

33. Tinfoil hats are actually a very bad way of keeping signals out of your brain. Tin foil actually amplifies those signals.

34. Klerksdorp spheres are small objects, often spherical to disc-shaped, that have been collected by miners and rockhounds from 3-billion-year-old pyrophyllite deposits.

35. Female Urination Devices aid women to urinate while standing upright. They have increased in popularity since the 1990s. They are used for medical reasons, outdoor pursuits, and sometimes are handed out to concertgoers.

In 1982, a Los Angeles man named Larry Walters used a lawn chair and weather balloons to ascend to 15,000 feet above the ground. On the way up, he lost both his glasses and his bb gun, which he planned to use to shoot balloons to descend. He caused a 20min power outage and was fined $1500.

37. In Casorzo, Italy, there is a unique tree called Bialbero di Casorzo, meaning "double tree of Casorzo". It is actually a cherry tree growing straight on top of a mulberry tree.

38. The Peel P50 car weighed only 130lbs and was designed for a single driver and one shopping bag. Because it had no reverse gear, drivers have to walk out of the car and physically drag it around.

39. In 1927, a Georgia Tech student was accidentally sent 2 enrollment forms. He filled out both, creating a fictional man named George P. Burdell for one of the forms. The student also did all the work for George and George graduated with a mechanical engineering degree.

40. A toy doll called My Friend Cayla became infamous for asking its owners personal questions, saving the answers and being hackable at the same time.

Mooning the Cog is a tradition in which hikers bare their buttocks to the Cog Railway on Mount Washington, the highest peak in New Hampshire. It is most commonly done by hikers, as they pass by on the Appalachian Trail. It is a 30-year-old tradition.

42. The sport of Gurning is a traditional rural sport in some English towns that consists of pulling a snarling or otherwise ugly face through a horse collar. Annual contests have existed for over 800 years by estimate.

43. An Iranian man named Mehran Karimi Nasseri lived in Terminal 1 of the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris airport for 18 years after becoming stateless.

44. You can remove bad smells like garlic, fish, and tobacco smoke from your hands by using a bar of stainless steel soap.

45. The Get Out and Push Railroad was a 19th-century passenger railway, which asked its passengers to get out and push the car over some of the steeper parts.

There is a blind cave beetle named after Adolf Hitler, Anophthalmus hitleri. Nazi memorabilia collectors willing to pay up to £1200 for a specimen are putting it at risk of extinction.

47. In 1973, the most isolated tree in the world, L'Arbre du Ténéré, was killed when a drunk driver hit it while crossing the Sahara Desert. It was about 300 years old and the only living tree in over 400 kilometers (approximately 250 miles).

48. A Splayd is an eating utensil combining the functions of spoon, knife, and fork. It was created by William McArthur in the 1940s in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.

49. Miss Belvedere was a car that was buried as a time capsule in 1957 and unearthed in 2007, only to find out it wouldn't start due to it suffering 50 years of water damage.

50. A fatberg is a congealed lump of fat and non-biodegradable buildup in sewer systems. A 250 m long, 140-ton specimen was discovered under London in September 2017.