Year: 2023
Now this is a mouthwatering hat
Crazy 80’s. This hat was offered circa 1984.
Chinese Zoo Squashes Speculation That Its Bear is a Human in Costume
A zoo in China was forced to issue a statement squashing online speculation that one of its bears is actually a costume-clad human. The strange case reportedly began when a visitor to the Hangzhou Zoo filmed one of the creatures walking on its hind legs and interacting with people watching the animal. When the footage was posted on social media in China, several viewers observed that the bear’s fur sported strange wrinkles and that it also seemed to possess inordinately thin legs. Those physical characteristics quickly led to many theorizing that the zoo was pulling a fast one on patrons by way of featuring a human dressed up as a bear.
The rumors apparently became so rampant online that the zoo ultimately felt compelled to assure the public that the animal is genuine. Explaining that while the perception of bears is that they are “a huge figure,” the facility noted that the creature in question is actually a Malaysian sun bear, which is actually rather diminutive. A spokesperson for the zoo also noted that the area had been experiencing temperatures in excess of 100 degrees Fahrenheit and, as such, a costume-clad individual “would not last more than a few minutes before collapsing.” The online confusion is somewhat understandable as multiple facilities in China have been caught orchestrating similar ruses wherein they have tried to pass off dogs, donkeys, or even inflatable birds as ‘exotic animals.’
Now I think this one is definitely a man in a bear costume.
Stubbs the Cat who was Mayor
Stubbs (April 12, 1997 – July 21, 2017) was a cat who was the honorary mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, from July 18, 1997, until his death.
Stubbs was described as a tourist attraction, having been flooded with cards and letters, and drawing 30 to 40 tourists each day (most of whom were en route to other Alaska destinations, such as Denali) who hoped to meet “the mayor”. His position was honorary, as the town is only a historic district.
Every afternoon, Stubbs went to a nearby restaurant and drank water laced with catnip out of a wineglass or a margarita glass.
Stubbs died in 2017 at the age of 20.
In 1997, Lauri Stec, manager of Nagley’s General Store, found Stubbs in a box full of kittens in her parking lot. The owners were giving the kittens away; Stec chose “Stubbs” because he did not have a tail.
Stubbs was widely described as having been elected after a write-in campaign by voters who opposed the human candidates, but NPR pointed out that this could not have happened because “the tiny town has no real mayor, so there was no election.” Nagley’s General Store was used as Stubbs’s “mayoral office” during his tenure.
Stubbs was featured in an effort to protest the 2014 United States Senate election in Alaska when people urged voters to write Stubbs in on the ballot. Stubbs was featured in a video criticizing both the Democratic and Republican candidates for Senate.
One opinion writer for the Alaska Dispatch News insisted that the whole story was false, and that Talkeetna did not have a cat mayor.
In 2015, Stubbs was growing older and thus slowed down his public presence. He died on July 21, 2017. His owners said that “He was a trouper until the end of his life.” Stubbs lived to the age of 20 years and three months.
Stubbs’s owners have suggested that another family cat, Denali, may assume Talkeetna’s “mayoralty”.
Injuries
On August 31, 2013, Stubbs was attacked by a dog. He was placed under heavy sedation at a veterinary hospital 70 miles (110 km) away in Wasilla, having suffered a punctured lung, a fractured sternum, and a deep cut in his side. A crowd-funding page was set up to help pay his veterinary bills. Stubbs remained in the veterinary hospital for nine days before returning to the upstairs room of the general store. As a result, he was discouraged from roaming. Donations toward his care were received from around the world; the surplus was given to an animal shelter and to the local veterinary clinic.
Other incidents included Stubbs being shot by teenagers with BB guns, falling into a restaurant’s deep fryer (which was switched off and cool at the time), and hitching a ride to the outskirts of Talkeetna on a garbage truck.
Eerie Glowing ‘Doorway’ Appears in Sky Over Indian City
A woman in India captured footage of a curious rectangular shape resembling a glowing doorway that appeared in the sky over a city and no one is quite sure what could have created the eerie anomaly. The strange scene was reportedly filmed this past Sunday evening as Aditi Singh was returning to her residence in the city of Bengaluru. Sharing her video of the odd event on Instagram, she explained that “my friend was dropping me back home” when they noticed something rather unusual above them in the form of a distinctly rectangular shadow-like shape that seemed to glow around its edges.
Marveling that the very weird aerial anomaly did not appear to be “a natural phenomenon,” Singh observed that “the clouds were running against it like there is something levitating in the air.” The bewildered witness also noted that “the moon was in the waxing crescent phase,” which made the considerable degree of illumination surrounding the oddity to be particularly inexplicable. According to Singh, the strange sighting lasted for approximately 90 seconds before the anomaly vanished and “the sky was just filled with clouds.” Left with no explanation for what had appeared in the sky, she ultimately mused that “I have so many questions” and asked if anyone could identify a cause for the rectangular shape.
Singh’s video quickly went viral after it was shared on social media and viewers had all manner of suggestions for the nature of the peculiar anomaly. Some imaginative individuals speculated that it was some kind of doorway or portal that briefly manifested before disappearing. Others theorized that perhaps it was the shadow of a building or a light projection from some event being held in the city. Another plausible possibility put forth by people online is that the anomaly is an optical illusion known as a Brocken spectre.
A Brocken spectre (British English; American spelling: Brocken specter; German: Brockengespenst), also called Brocken bow, mountain spectre, or spectre of the Brocken is the magnified (and apparently enormous) shadow of an observer cast in mid air upon any type of cloud opposite a strong light source. Additionally, if the cloud consists of water droplets backscattered, a bright area called Heiligenschein, and halo-like rings of rainbow coloured light called a glory can be seen around the head or apperature silhouette of the spectre. Typically the spectre appears in sunlight opposite the sun’s direction at the antisolar point.
The phenomenon can appear on any misty mountainside, cloud bank, or be seen from an aircraft, but the frequent fogs and low-altitude accessibility of the Brocken, a peak in the Harz Mountains in Germany, have created a local legend from which the phenomenon draws its name. The Brocken spectre was observed and described by Johann Silberschlag in 1780, and has often been recorded in literature about the region.
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