Weird Facts

They're sold in over 170 countries. But bring a Kinder Surprise egg into the United States and customs will seize it. A toy inside a chocolate egg violates a 1938 federal law. Border agents confiscated over 60,000 in one year. The original Kinder Surprise remains contraband.

Kandovan’s cone-shaped homes are carved from volcanic rock—and people still live inside them.

About 2% of people worldwide can hear a mysterious low-frequency humming sound known as "The Hum" — and despite decades of research, no one has been able to fully explain it.

In 1971, a man named Dan Cooper hijacked a plane, extorted $200,000, parachuted into a stormy night, and vanished without a trace. The only clue ever found was $5,800 of the ransom, rotting on a riverbank years later.

There’s a rare breed of chicken called Ayam Cemani that’s completely black. They have black plumage, legs, nails, beak, and even black meat, bones, and a black tongue!

Demodex are microscopic arachnids living in nearly everyone's facial pores. Scientists believed for decades that they had no anus and burst when they died, releasing accumulated waste. A 2022 genome study proved this wrong—they do have anuses and excrete normally.

French entertainer Michel Lotito ate an entire Cessna 150 airplane over a 2-year period (1978-1980), and consumed an estimated nine tons of metal during his career from 1966 to 1997.

Oasis star Noel Gallagher once took cocaine in a toilet reserved for the Queen in Downing Street.

In 2008, a 13-year-old boy in Florida was arrested for excessive farting in school.

In 1910, as Earth passed through the tail of Halley's Comet, people bought "Anti-Comet Pills", special "comet umbrellas", and gas masks, because there was public hysteria that all life on Earth would be destroyed by gas - called cyanogen - that was detected in the tail.

In 2007, an unmanned yacht was discovered drifting off the coast of Australia. The engine and a laptop were running, the radio and GPS were working and a meal was set to eat, but the three-man crew were not on board.

In 1942, there was a man in Mississippi called the Phantom Barber who would break into people's houses at night and cut their hair.

There's a bot called the 'Random Darknet Shopper' that was given $100 in Bitcoin each week to purchase random items from darknet markets. Among its purchases were 10 ecstasy pills, which led Swiss police to seize the artwork—though the case was later dropped and the items returned.

Researchers find new emperor penguin colonies by looking for their poop from a satellite in space.

If you don't wash strawberries before eating them, you may also be eating little white bugs.

In 1977, a 13-year-old boy had a tooth growing out of his left foot.

Mike the Headless Chicken was no different from any other chicken, except that he lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off.

Earthworms are about 60-70% protein by dry weight, rich in Omega-3 fatty acids, and pair well with cumin and curry. Many who've tried them say they taste surprisingly like bacon.

Ice worms live inside glaciers and are so sensitive to temperature that exposure above 40°F causes their body enzymes to break down rapidly, killing them within minutes.

Some Chinese paramilitary police learn their 'perfect posture' with pins in their collar.

Li Ching-Yuen was a Chinese herbalist who became famous for claims he lived to be 256 years old (1677-1933). While his extreme longevity is almost certainly legend, he was a real person who became a celebrity in 1920s China, with newspapers reporting the Qing government had congratulated him on his 150th and 200th birthdays.

If you eat lots of carrots, you'll start to turn orange.

There's a rentable mansion that's located where Beowulf was based.

The state sport of Maryland is Jousting.