7 Crazy News Stories That Deserve Their Own Movies

Here are a few incidents that deserve more than a mere 15 minutes of fame.
7 Crazy News Stories That Deserve Their Own Movies

If you spend any sort of time online, you know that weird news pops up about every 20 minutes. While there's clearly no end to absurd things happening and no shortage of people dumb enough to enact them, some stories surpass "weird" and "stupid" and land squarely in the genuinely epic category. Here are a few incidents that deserve more than a mere 15 minutes of fame -- they should get their own movies.

Thawed-Out Iguanas Attack A Florida Man Trying To Eat Them, Crash A Car

If you live in a place that ever gets cold, you've probably only seen iguanas at a zoo or in someone's apartment during a very disastrous first date. However, if you live in southern Florida, they're just everywhere -- on the street, in the trees, even on your plate. In parts of Central and South America, these little monsters are considered yummy delicacies, known as the "chicken of the trees." But unlike other food you can pick from a tree (including chicken), these fellas can mess you up.

7 Crazy News Stories That Deserve Their Own Movies
Luis Figueroa/Wiki Commons
Before you think about talking any shit, remember that you've had Taco Bell three times this week

The winter of 2017-2018 saw unusually cold weather in typically warm places. One of these was Florida, where temperatures dropped to under 40 degrees. Bad news for the iguanas, which, like any cold-blooded reptile, become "cold stunned" at such low temperatures. During the cold snap, paralyzed iguanas would simply fall out of trees, landing on roads, walkways, and even in backyards. However, from the perspective of some Floridians, it was suddenly raining delicious frozen treats from the sky. Frozen. Not dead.

Of course, Florida being Florida, one local was dumb enough to start scooping up these stunned iguanas and pile them into his car for later. However, seeing as it was so gosh darned cold outside, of course he put his heater on blast as he was cruising for lizard ... consequently thawing out dozens of iguanas as he was driving. Needless to say, it's difficult to drive a car full of pissed-off reptiles, so he ended up crashing. They didn't eat him, though, making them the bigger iguanas.

Swiss Toilets Overflowed With 100K In Cash

Blocking somebody's toilet is one of those faux pas you'll never live down. It's the kind of shame that makes you move to a new state and assume a new name, one that isn't "Poop Monster" Dave. But in Switzerland, someone found a way to clog their can in the classiest way possible: by literally flushing money down the toilet.

When an employee at the USB Bank in Geneva went on their bathroom break, they encountered a very pleasant surprise -- words that have never before been said about a public bathroom stall. First at the USB Bank, then at three nearby restaurants, hundreds of 500-euro bills were clogging the pipes and rising back up out of the toilets. Altogether, authorities estimated that about 100,000 euros' worth of cash ($120,000), which was sadly cut up into pieces, was sent to a watery, shit-ridden grave.

1500 00s 500108 Mcr
J2R/iStock
"It’s dirty money now, one way or the other."

Police quickly found the culprits: two Spanish women who admitted to cutting up and flushing the bills. Yet the case remains a mystery, as both women refuse to explain why they did it. Naturally, the police immediately suspected they were dealing with dirty money -- well, dirtier money. However, while U.S. law makes it a crime to destroy money, in Switzerland, it's technically not illegal to put your money where your opposite-of-your-mouth is, so they've yet to be charged with any wrongdoing except for clogging up a toilet like a monster.

Spanish Police Found 8,000 Pounds Of Stolen Oranges Stuffed Into Some Cars

It's hard to imagine how much 8,000 pounds is really is. One elephant. A billion Cheetos. Or, as it turns out, about three cars' worth of oranges.

In January 2018, a routine traffic stop led Spanish police to uncover some rather zesty contraband. Stuffed inside two cars and a van were over 8,000 pounds of stolen oranges. Officers noticed the vehicles driving very close together in the middle of the night, so they decided to stop them and check for shenanigans. This caused the cars to speed off, resulting in a very short chase. Of course, cops are trained to be ready for everything when stopping a car, but when they asked these guys to roll open their windows, they probably weren't expecting to be hit in the face with a clown car's worth of oranges.

7 Crazy News Stories That Deserve Their Own Movies
Sevilla Emergency Services
The second most shocking crime involving OJ.

Five people were arrested in connection with the theft. At first, the thieves insisted they had obtained this unreasonable amount of oranges fair and square, claiming they had come "from very far away and had been stopping and collecting oranges along the way," like they were on a picnic that got out of hand. Suspicious of this dumbest of explanations, police quickly discovered that the oranges had in fact been stolen from a shipment in the city. Which leaves one question: Shouldn't they have been in crates? Did they take them out of the crates to maximize orange-carrying capacity? Where were they going to sell loose oranges? Alright, so we have several questions.

Cops In Scotland Had A 45-Minute Standoff With A Stuffed Tiger

Late one night, Bruce Grubb, a Scottish farmer, went to check on his pregnant cows and got the fright of his life. Wandering down to the cowshed to check on the herd, Grubb caught sight of something altogether unexpected for rural Scotland: a tiger. In the barn. With his cows. The tiger wasn't attacking them, just lying on his side like some feline grim reaper waiting for his big moment.

7 Crazy News Stories That Deserve Their Own Movies
Scotland Police
Tiger, tiger burning bright, in the cowshed late at night.

Naturally, Grubb called the police, figuring his local animal shelter wouldn't have big enough butterfly nets. Taking his odd ramblings about tigers very seriously, an armed police unit and several vehicles took up positions outside the shed. After containing the very chill tiger, other officials started calling nearby wildlife parks to ask if someone happened to be short one giant man-eater. After a tiring 45 minutes, an irritated Grubb drove his truck up to the big cat to kindly ask if he could go away. However, when he got close enough, it dawned on the 24-year-old farmer that the tiger was, in fact, stuffed. Not the kind that once had a family but then got very intimate with a taxidermist, but a full-on cuddly wuddly toy teddy-tiger.

Somewhat embarrassed, Grubb returned to the police officers with the stuffed animal like he had just won big at a fairground ring toss. "I feel a bit silly for calling the police but I thought it was a real emergency," he later said in an interview, adding, "We're laughing about it now but it was very scary at the time." As far as how the stuffed tiger got there, Grubb's best guess is that it was left there as some sort of joke. Tricky, those cows.

Thieves Stole A Minivan With A Dead Body Inside

If you're going to do something as dangerous as stealing a car, you need to have a plan. Case out the vehicle, know who you're stealing from, have a getaway plan -- awesome criminal stuff. And if you really want to tick off all the boxes, you should probably also check to make sure there aren't any corpses in the trunk.

Earlier this year, an employee of Affordable Cremation Solutions had to quickly drop some paperwork off. When he jumped out of his 2006 Honda Odyssey, he left the doors unlocked and the engine running. After all, why would anyone in their right mind want to steal a crematorium car with a dead body in the back seat? But he came back out just in time to see his van leaving without him, which either meant he'd been carjacked or the zombie apocalypse had started.

Police immediately started looking for the car thief / involuntary body snatcher. Regrettably, the thief didn't seem in the mood for some wonderfully morbid Weekend At Bernie's-style hijinks with the corpse, and police quickly found the minivan abandoned in front of an auto parts store.

A Woman Receives 150 Tropical Fish After Ordering A Table On eBay

Buying stuff on eBay is a lot like using Tinder -- you can read the descriptions and look at the photos all you like, but that's no guarantee that whatever you click on is safe to bring home. That's how one Londoner who thought she had found the small dining set of her dreams wound up sharing a flat with dozens of confused fish.

Becky Smith thought she had hit the jackpot when she won a 185-pound eBay auction for an expensive-looking glass table and faux-leather chair set. So when two massive boxes arrived at her home sometime later, she and a friend immediately started unboxing. Except the boxes were a bit too light for allegedly holding an entire dining room, and the pair soon discovered why: inside were 40 bags of water containing 150 live tropical fish. Surprise!


Pretty sure it's illegal to sit on those.

Of course, a video of Smith unpacking the 150 very oblivious fish became viral within hours -- and is quite the treat if you like seeing British women calling fish the C-word. Fortunately, it didn't turn out to be an scam at all, just an innocent delivery mix-up between Smith and a nearby pet store. The driver quickly realized his mistake in time, and was able to drive back before a confused pet store owner had to fish an entire dining set out of their aquarium.

A Man Got A Letter Approving Unemployment Benefits For His Dog

Times are ruff. For every dog with a successful career in therapy, police enforcement, or modeling, there are plenty who can't seem to catch a break, no matter how hard they chase it. And because begging makes you bad, what is an out-of-work good boy to do? File for unemployment, of course.

One day, a Michigan man named Michael Haddock was checking his mail and, to his surprise, saw an official-looking letter from the State of Michigan addressed to his dog, Ryder. It was from the state's Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA), telling Ryder they were sorry he'd been laid off from his work at the restaurant, and that he'd been approved for a cool $360 per week in unemployment benefits. This confused Haddock. If Ryder was working at a restaurant, why had he never brought back any doggy bags? Also, dogs can't earn a paycheck.

After the initial shock wore off, Haddock, a lawyer, figured something scammy was going on here. Looking at the letter again, he noticed that it was actually addressed to "Michael Ryder," a combination of Haddock's first name and his dog's only name. Haddock contacted the UIA, which investigated and found that the letter was supposed to go to Michael Ryder the person, not the German shepherd. However, the human Michael Ryder had never filed for unemployment, but instead had been a victim of one of the millions of identity thefts which happen in the U.S. each year. How the letter wound up in the paws of dog-Ryder though, nobody knows.

As for Ryder, his benefits claim was eventually denied, and Haddock says he " not intend to assist Ryder in filing an appeal." Guess Ryder now needs to start looking for a new lawyer and new best friend.

Go ahead, start writing the scripts for these with a beginner's guide to Celtx.

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For more, check out 6 True Stories That Prove Local News Is Creepy As Hell and 5 Crazy Recent News Stories That Didn't Get Enough Attention.

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