Football Team Killed by Lightning

This bizarre story is as much sad as it is strange. It comes out of the Democratic Republic of Congo in the late 1990s, like so many sad stories. However, this is not the kind of tragic tale that one would expect from a war zone, as the DRC was at the time and still is in many ways. This is about the sudden and immediate death of an entire football (soccer) team in Basanga on October 28, 1998.

The report came out of Kasasha soon after the group of 11 men in their 20s and early 30s died. There are definite missing details, but that is not surprising given the other news coming out of the area at the time. The incident took place when the now deceased team and Basanga's team got together for a game. Suddenly, lightning struck, killing the entire visiting team and burning 30 other individuals. Not a single member of the Basanga team was so much as singed.

Shrunken Heads

Authentic shrunken head MOS London
Photo in the public domain

In all of our forays into all that is bizarre, we have yet to touch on tribal, old-school oddities. In pondering this unfortunate lapse, I could think of nothing better to introduce this topic to this blog than shrunken heads. This is no legend. People can and often did shrink heads -- human heads. To be honest, I'm trying to start this off with a witty pop culture reference and am finding it tough. I'm sure I have seen them in movies, but I must have blocked it out. Beetlejuice? Indiana Jones? Ah, well. Let me know in the comments if you can think of any shrunken heads in film.

To give you an idea of what exactly a shrunken head is, apart from the obvious, I'm going to partially describe the process. You can refrain from telling me that I do not have it all quite right because I'll be darned if I'm going to write a recipe for shrinking heads. My love for the bizarre has its limits. Of course, shrinking a head involves the removal of the head. Then, the skin is taken from the head. This is what becomes the shrunken head through a process of drying and sewing a la Ed Gein. So, if you are thinking how odd it is that a skull shrinks like that, perish the thought. The skull is presumably given to the village witch doctor for use as a mortar with a femoral pestle or tossed aside like trash.

Thankfully, you do not have to worry about your head being shrunk. Well, you don't have to worry too much. It seems that the ever-frightful Amazon and the Nazi party are the only areas/groups responsible for shrinking heads in history. However, the cutting off and collecting of heads is pretty universal throughout all of the cultures in history. It's a madman thing.

If you want to see one of these macabre creations, many museums have them.

Bizarre Creatures: Haast's Eagle

In light of a new viral video that is apparently a hoax, but still very creepy, we are going to talk about a creature that is scarier than a horror movie monster. You may have seen the video of a boy nearly being carried off by a predatory bird. While it may not seem feasible, it really is. Golden eagles in particular are savage and strong, but there are few existing birds that pose a danger to very small children. However, less than a thousand years ago, New Zealand was home to a bird that would have made you poop your pants if you were unlucky enough to see it coming before it dive bombed you -- the Haast's Eagle.

The Haast's eagle was a dinosaur of a bird. It stood up to six feet and weighed about 35 pounds. You might scoff at the idea of a 35-pound predator. If you can read, you likely outweigh it. Let us not forget that this is 35 pounds of predatory bird with a sharp beach and four-inch talons. You cannot fight it. It can fly. You probably will not see it when it decides to eat you. It can dive at a speed of up to 60 miles an hour. That means you probably will not be able to fight it once it plows into you anyway. Imagine being hit by a car on the highway and then trying to fight it. Well, a car that eats people.

The Haast's Eagle had a nasty reputation as a baby snatcher. It would dive bomb Maori and make off with the smaller ones. Yes, according to their stories, which are not even as old as the Bible, people were once carried off by eagles to be eaten. Thankfully, the King Kong of birds did not know that native New Zealanders are absolutely insane. They killed off the Haast's eagle and all of its favorite flightless meals around 1400 CE.

Bizarre Swarms of Jellyfish: Danger or Natural Cycle?

The Earth's oceans have an abundance of jellyfish. However, it appears that they are becoming even more abundant. In the past 10 or so years, fishermen, scientists and even nuclear power plant workers have been noticing dense blooms of jellyfish that can number in the billions. Some species also seem to be venturing further from their natural waters. This is adding up to several dangers and there is no consensus regarding the potential consequences of these blooms.

Large jellyfish blooms can hinder or even destroy certain industries. In 2007, it was impossible to fish Irish salmon, as jellyfish were actively attacking the cages that were meant for the fish. Fishing has been a problem in other areas of the world thanks to this as well. Because the blooms are capable of clogging the inlets leading into nuclear power plants, which are necessary to their proper functioning, they have closed several power plants in various countries.

Researchers, laymen and scientists have posited several possible explanations for the increase in jellyfish populations. As usual, global warming is one possible explanation. Overfishing creatures like turtles that eat the same food as jellyfish could also be the problem as jellyfish move to fill in the gap in the food chain. Jellyfish are more resilient to unbalanced water than some food fish, which is another possible explanation or one of a few reasons.

While it seems that this could lead to a problem and possibly a jellyfish filled ocean such as has not been seen in millions of years, some experts think it is no problem at all. The populations of jellyfish, like many other things, ebbs and flows. The population may correct itself, as competing species are replenished, normal temperatures return, predators move in to take advantage of the abundance, etc. It is either that or we'll be swimming in tentacles.

Bizarre Entertainment: A Real Mummy Becomes Carnival Fodder

Oh, the scares we subject ourselves to. We will walk through a "haunted house" at an amusement park almost hoping that we will be sent into fits of fear or at least get to see a hysterical person run screaming or crying out of the realistically innocent building. Really what we are afraid of are mere facsimiles of the things we dread. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mummies -- they are all just fakes for our sick amusement. Or are they? Alright, I will spare the theatrics. They typically are, but just once that I know of, the mummy in an amusement park house was real.

In December of 1976, a film crew was at the Nu-Pike Amusement Park in Long Beach, California when a member of the crew moved one of the pesky spooks out of the way. When he did, the mummy's dry, old arm snapped off and I imagine a puff of skin dust filled the air and only when the epidermal exhalation of death cleared did the man notice that there was a bone in the arm. Not a pig bone. Not a sheep bone. It was not even a really good fake bone. It was a freaking man's freaking arm bone.

It turns out that the sick and twisted carnies of old school Nu-Pike thought it would be cool to rip a dude off and steal the mummy he had been parading around for profit. It was the body of Elmer McCurdy, who was shot and killed in 1911. The funeral home did not find an owner for the body so put it on display and sold views for a nickel. Five years later, the creepy carnies claimed to be related to the deceased and the previous "owner" was forced to give up the corpse. The new "owners" continued to use it for profit until it wound up in the fun house where I presume countless people touched it, not realizing it was a dude who died decades earlier. Bizarre? You might say that.

The BC Feet Mystery

The so-called "BC feet mystery" began around 2007, when a man's foot was discovered still wearing a sock and sneaker. The rest of the body was nowhere to be found. Other discoveries were made around the Salish Sea in Canada and Washington State amounting to a few more than a dozen with the bulk coming from Canada. Obviously, the discovery was more than a bit disturbing and people quickly came up with morbid explanations.

The two most popular explanations for the feet that have turned up in British Columbia and Washington are murders and the 2004 tsunami. The feet have obviously come from bodies that decomposed, coming loose naturally at the ankle or the knee. It has been suggested that the feet turn up and not the bodies because the sneakers help make them buoyant. It would take a heck of a lot for a foot to travel all the way across the ocean, though. It is presumably not impossible, given that trash has a way of making its way around the world on currents, but it is unlikely.

Investigators took to trying to identify the feet as they appeared. Four of the feet were matched into two pairs. That eliminates the idea that a serial killer is leaving a single foot of each of his or her victims to taunt locals and authorities. The more likely answer is equally as sad. In 2011, one of the pairs was linked to a woman who was known to have jumped off the Pattullo Bridge in Westminster. Her feet obviously floated along the river and reached the shore. Another of the identified feet belonged to a man who was known to be depressed. Does this mean that is what happened with all of the feet? No, but it is a start.

Nearby, there is a river -- the Fraser River -- that goes out to the Salish Sea. Over that river are numerous bridges and many suicides occur in the area every year. Some experts believe that this is the most likely source of the mysterious feet.

Can Living at a Higher Altitude Lead to Suicide?

Suicide is an unfortunate result of being extremely depressed or apathetic for one reason or another. Known reasons for suicidal behaviors are some medications, depression, extreme loss, certain mental illnesses, etc. Other times, a strange trend is seen in suicides.  One of these strange trends is the apparent correlation between high altitude and higher than normal suicide rates.


In 2012, a psychiatry professor from the U School of Medicine and his team found that suicide rates appeared to be higher in states with higher altitudes. They found that the risk of suicide was roughly one-third higher than normal at an altitude of 6,500 feet. The study focused on data available from NASA, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the Centers for Disease Control.

We know that the western states tend to have higher altitudes than eastern states. In 2006, all 10 of the states in the top 10 for suicides were western states. This was what led to the research. They wanted to see what the common denominator was and it was altitude. The conclusion was that the higher risk may have something to do with mild hypoxia and may just make already depressed people more depressed. Similar data is appearing at high altitudes in other countries, such as South Korea.