12 Explicitly Prohibited Bits of Trivia We Found Under Your Bed and Now We’re Gonna Stand Here and Watch While You Read the Whole Thing

12 New Mexico’s Other Mid-Century UFO Incident

In 1964, police officer Lonnie Zamora reported seeing two “small adults or large kids” standing next to a bizarre egg-shaped vehicle in the middle of the desert. Several tourists corroborated his account of the vehicle streaking away in a flash of blue flame, but Zamora himself became a pariah, spending the rest of his life being hounded by conspiracy theorists and the Air Force. (Source)

11 A Man Named Stephen Gore Was Caught With 10 Tons of Human Remains

His business, a “non-transplant tissue bank” called the Biological Resource Center, sold and rented human body parts to researchers and educators — an alarmingly legal, unregulated and predatory line of work. The liver of a person who can’t afford a proper burial might go for $607, legs for $350 each and a full body can set you back $5,893. The business was raided after selling some diseased guts, and the 851 individuals in his freezers were cremated. Gore testified against another organ magnate, and got off with probation. (Source)

10 A Whole Town Ate the French President’s Pet Camel

President Francois Hollande was gifted a camel in 2013 by the Mali people for his help in combating terrorism in Timbuktu. He promised to "use it as a means of transport as often as possible,” but by all accounts, this camel was a massive pain in the ass, so he regifted it to a local town. Within a week, it was cooked up in a stew. (Source)

9 Kirby Is (Probably) Named After the Man Who Saved Donkey Kong

Universal Studios filed a duplicitous lawsuit against Nintendo when they noticed Donkey Kong becoming wildly popular. They first argued that big angry apes named “Kong” were in the public domain — when the judge pointed out that that meant Nintendo was free to use the name, Universal switched gears and argued that, on second thought, they actually owned the rights. Universal was essentially laughed out of court, thanks to Nintendo’s lawyer: John Kirby. It’s thought that they thanked him by naming the little pink dude after him a few years later. (Source)

8 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Tried to Kill Off Sherlock Holmes So Many Times

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had Holmes fall off a cliff in an 1893 short story called “The Final Problem.” He brought him back, due to popular demand, in a 1902 pre-death prequel called The Hound of the Baskervilles. In 1905’s The Return of Sherlock Holmes, he decided that actually, Holmes had survived his deadly fall! Though, at the end of that book, Sherlock retires and instructs Watson to quit writing about him. Nevertheless, Conan Doyle published about five more books before retiring the character for good. (Source)

7 The 1904 Olympic Marathon Was Every Kind of Fucked-Up

Participants ran on unpaved roads, battling car and pedestrian traffic, with race officials driving laps around the runners, kicking up a dust storm that almost killed a guy. Only 14 of the 32 athletes finished the race. The winner was later found to have hitchhiked part of the course, and the runner-up was dragged across the finish line by his trainers, who had pumped him full of brandy, raw eggs and strychnine. One guy stopped at an orchard, ate some spoiled apples, then took a nap — and finished in fourth place. (Source)

6 The Man Who Laughed in the Face of the Number 13 (and Died Mysteriously)

Captain William M. Fowler founded The Thirteen Club — a bunch of dudes who dedicated themselves to debunking the bad vibes associated with the number 13 in the mid-1800s. They’d have 13-course meals, sitting in groups of 13, ordering from menus shaped like gravestones. They eventually branched out into walking under ladders, intentionally spilling salt and smashing mirrors. Despite being “apparently in splendid health” the last time anyone saw him, Fowler died in his sleep one night. (Source)

5 Sriracha Was Declared a Public Nuisance (by Yuppies Who Probably Think Flavored Seltzer Is Too Spicy)

At the height of the Sriracha craze of the 2010s, Huy Fong Foods upgraded to a massive factory in Irwindale, California. While reporters generally couldn’t find any residents complaining about the smell, the town council insisted it was giving people bloody noses and asthma attacks, and a judge ordered them to shut down operations. (Source)

4 A Lady Took a Mountain Dew Bath to Avoid a Murder Charge (It Didn’t Work)

A woman was detained by police in connection to the grisly murder of her roommate. When they told her they wanted to take a DNA sample, she dumped a can of Diet Mountain Dew all over herself, apparently trying to nullify any evidence from the crime scene that was still on her. (Source)

3 Dick Assman: Ragina Gasman

Assman was a gas station attendant from Ragina, Saskatchewan, who had such a kickass name he was invited to do a nightly segment on The Late Show with David Letterman for a month. (Source)

2 Mammals Take 21 Seconds to Pee, Regardless of Size

Researchers somehow convinced Zoo Atlanta to let them videotape a bunch of animals peeing, and take home a flight of exotic piss, to study similarities in how they all take a leak. They discovered that there’s some sort of golden ratio of bladder-size-to-urethra-length, causing every mammal to clock in right around 21 seconds-per-piss. (Source)

1 Peyton Manning and Seth Meyers Turned ‘The Blind Side’ into a Horror Movie in 2010

Ex-NFL player Michael Oher has recently accused the Tuohy family of misleading and manipulating him into giving away the rights to his life story, as told in the 2006 movie The Blind Side. In a parody sketch for the 2010 ESPYs, clips of Peyton Manning were spliced into excerpts from the film, painting an eerily prescient picture of a crazy lady who collects NFL players like trophies:

MANNING: I’ve never had one before.
TUOHY: A room all to yourself?
MANNING: No, a crazy lady, holding me against my will. (Source)