A Chinese man was recently diagnosed with “crocodile tear syndrome”, a rare medical condition that causes people to shed tears whenever they eat.

Crying is usually triggered by a strong emotional reaction, such as sadness, pain or uncontrollable laughter, but in rare cases it can be activated by something as benign as eating. Last year, an elderly man, referred to only as ‘Mr. Zhang’ by Chinese media, reportedly started shedding tears when he ate. He didn’t think much of it at first, but the crying got noticeably worse when he needed to chew for longer, and this interfered with his social life. Zhang started avoiding eating in public, for fear of tears rolling down his face in front of people, so he became isolated. Luckily, he realized that this wasn’t something he could hide forever, and decided to see a doctor.

Read More »

In what may be one of the creepiest, most disturbing stories we’ve ever featured on Oddity Central, a young man was arrested for stalking a New Hampshire woman, hiding in her attic and filming her as she slept.

Mauricio Damian Guerrero, a 20-year-man from Philadephia, was arrested last month on the roof of a house from which he had allegedly been stalking an OnlyFans woman he had become obsessed with. The young man had reportedly gotten his hands on the woman’s keys, made copies of it, which allowed him to come and go from her house as he pleased, and hid in her attic, waiting for her to go to sleep so he could come down and film her. The victim only realized something was wrong when her mother started hearing strange sounds from the attic.

Guerrero’s victim, only referred to as “NR” by the media, told investigators that she had been contacted by the Philadelphia man in October of last year, on OnlyFans, where she published adult content for paying members. At one point, he promised to buy NR a television set and a fireplace, so she gave him her address, for shipping purposes. Then he began being pushy, asking to meet her in person, despite her best efforts to make him understand that she wasn’t interested.

Read More »

A medical student in India was recently caught cheating on his graduation exam with a Bluetooth device embedded in his inner ear to avoid detection.

On February 21, 78 medical students took part in the final MBBS (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery) exam at the Mahatma Gandhi Medical College in India. One of them, however, was more desperate to pass than the rest. Apparently, the unnamed medical student had been admitted 11 years ago, but had failed the final exam multiple times over the last few years, and this was his final chance to pass. To increase his chances, the man apparently turned to cheating, getting a Bluetooth device surgically implanted in his ear.

Read More »

In South Korea, people who can’t convince their neighbors to keep the noise down are increasingly turning to expensive but effective sound systems designed specifically to irritate neighbors.

South Korean media first started reporting on these specialized sound systems back in 2016, when they were viewed as an almost funny way that some apartment building neighbors used to settle their disputes regarding noise. However, as time went by, they became incredibly popular as they delivered on the promise of making next-door or above-floor neighbors pay for ignoring requests to keep noise levels down. There are now different types of wall-mounted speakers designed specifically to annoy.

Read More »

An Indian man was recently arrested for allegedly marrying at least 27 well-off women over the last 43 years purely for financial gains.

Ramesh Chandra Swain, a 66-year-old man from Odisha, in Eastern India, stands accused of tricking dozens of women into marrying him by posing as a successful doctor and important official of the Indian Ministry of Health. Swain, who only has a Class 10 education, used fake identity documents to convince his victims, before proceeding to swindle important sums of money and assets from them. Interestingly, most of the women he married over the last decade were very well-educated, ranging from doctors and accountants to Supreme Court lawyers.

Read More »

A Chinese man who won the praise of his employer by working 12-hour shifts basically 30 days a month recently sparked controversy in his home country.

On February 18, pictures of a framed billboard depicting the “model employee” of a company in Zhengzhou, Henan went viral on Chinese social media, sparking a heated debate. The honorary billboard praises the man, one XueLintao, for working 12-hour days, basically 30 days a month, influencing both new and old employees through his actions, improving the company’s daily production, saving his employer money in labor costs and improving equipment utilization. But most netizens didn’t see Xue as an example, but rather as a “traitor” and as an “accomplice in overtime hell”.

Read More »

A Georgia woman allegedly faked several pregnancies in order to benefit from paid maternity leave, but co-workers became suspicious when they saw her fake baby bump detach from her body.

In October of 2020, Robin Folsom, who worked as Director of External Affairs at Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation Agency, told her bosses that she was expecting a baby and arranged to take maternity leave. She reportedly had a yearly salary of $100,000 and was entitled to $15,000 in paid leave. However, during her alleged pregnancy, one of her co-workers noticed a bizarre incident in which Folsom’s baby bump seemed to “come away” from her body, which led them to believe that she was wearing a fake pregnancy stomach.

Read More »

A Chinese man claims he was kidnapped by a criminal gang whose members used him like a “blood slave,” routinely draining his blood and selling it on the black market.

We’ve heard of people being kidnapped and having their organs removed, but one 31-year-old man from Beijing claims his kidnappers were more interested in his blood. The man, whose identity has not been revealed, to protect his privacy, used to work as a security guard in Beijing and Shenzhen, but decided to try his luck as a nightclub bouncer after finding an online job advert. The pay was a lot better, so he decided to travel to the southwestern region of Guangxi for an interview, not knowing that the job offer was actually a trap.

Read More »

Three African men were recently arrested in Algeria for allegedly disguising themselves as Arab women in order to reach the wealthy country of Dubai.

In a scene reminiscent of the cult comedy film “White Chicks”, three black with half their faces covered in thick makeup foundation can be seen posing for mug shots in Algeria. The sad-looking trio were reportedly apprehended in Algeria, after officials noticed that they were not who they claimed to be – Arab women wearing traditional clothing, including niqab face covers. They had gone through the trouble of covering the exposed parts of their faces with a thick layer of foundation and used black eyeliner to increase their chances of passing off as women, but it wasn’t enough.

Read More »

Thousands of Porsche, Audi and Lamborghini cars have been abandoned on a cargo ship after it caught fire on its way from Germany to the United States.

The Felicity Ace was traveling from Emden in Germany when the crew announced a fire on board, last Wednesday. The 22-member crew has since been evacuated, but the ship and its precious cargo continue to burn, despite firefighters’ best efforts to contain and hopefully put it out. The cargo ship was carrying an estimated 4,000 vehicles including Porsches, Audis and 189 Bentleys, some of which were equipped with lithium batteries. It has been speculated that one of these batteries could have sparked the blaze, and while has yet to be confirmed, firefighters say that the lithium batteries are now definitely “keeping the fire alive”.

Read More »

A Rhode Island has been suffering from an extremely rare fungus-caused condition that literally causes black mold to grow in his brain.

Tyson Bottenus, a 35-year-old man from Rhode Island is only one of only 120 documented cases of infections with Cladophialophora bantiana, an exotic fungus known as “black mold”, since 1911. In his case, the fungus made its home in the brain, causing all sorts of issues that Bottenus has been dealing with ever since symptoms began, about four years ago. Tyson is lucky to be alive, as black mold kills over 70% of its hosts, and he is doing everything possible to fight and hopefully get it out of his brain, but it’s a tough battle, one that even modern medicine is struggling with.

Tyson’s ordeal began 4 years ago, when he and his fiancée, Liza, decided to celebrate their engagement by going cycling together in Costa Rica. Everything was well and good until the third day of their vacation when Tyson accidentally fell off his bike and scraped his left elbow. It wasn’t the most serious injury, so he just rinsed and bandaged the wound as best as he could, and had it looked at by a nurse early the next morning.

Read More »

Carlos Henrique Raposo, aka Carlos Kaiser, is a Brazilian former football player known primarily for having a decade-long career without actually playing a single game.

As children, most people grow up dreaming of one day becoming sports champions, despite an obvious lack of athletic abilities. Most of us realize this to be nothing more than an impossible dream and move on, but a few still manage to find ways of making their goal a reality, by any means necessary. This is the story of Carlos Henrique Raposo, a Brazilian athlete who “wanted to be a footballer, but did not want to play football”. Believe it or not, he managed to be just, playing for top-ranked Brazilian and international clubs for over a decade. ‘Playing’ may not be the right word, though, as he never actually played an official game in his entire 12-year-long career.

Carlos Kaiser – nicknamed earned due to his alleged resemblance to German football legend Franz Beckenbauer – always knew that he had the physique of a professional football player, but not the necessary talent and skills to make the roster of top football clubs, so he relied on a variety of tricks to build himself up as this great player that every team was after.

Read More »

A viral video showing a flock of hundreds of yellow-headed blackbirds flying straight into the pavement in the Mexican town of Cuauhtémoc has left a lot of people scratching their heads about the cause.

Footage from a security camera shows a large flock of yellow-headed blackbirds descending upon on a house before brutally crashing into the asphalt. Although most of the birds manage to take to the skies after the bizarre crash, many can be seen scattered on the street, barely moving. Subsequent videos showing dozens of bird carcasses confirm that the unusual descent had been fatal for some of the birds.

Read More »

A Swiss man has found himself at the core of a modern mystery after discovering that he had been by a bullet that seemingly came out of nowhere.

Last Thursday, the unnamed 38-year-old man was walking with his two children and an acquaintance in Frauenfeld, a town around 45 kilometers northeast of Zurich, when he felt a sharp pain in his lower body. Unable to explain the pain, the man headed to the emergency room of the local hospital, where doctors informed him that he had been shot. They removed the projectile and treated his wound, but neither they nor the patient could explain how the bullet had entered his body.

Thurgau canton police spokesman Matthias Graf told reporters that an investigation in this bizarre case is currently underway and that there are currently no leads. Neither the shot man, the people he was with at the time of the incident, nor anyone else in the area heard any gunshot or saw someone with a firearm. It’s like the bullet came out of nowhere.

Read More »

A Catholic priest who has performed thousands of baptisms over the last two decades recently resigned after learning that they are all invalid, because of a simple mistake.

Father Andres Arango recently resigned as a priest from St. Gregory’s Catholic Parish in Phoenix, Arizona, after a 25-year career. He stood accused of botching thousands of baptisms while serving as a priest in California, Brazil, and Arizona, and he was recently found guilty. Interestingly, it all came down to a simple wording issue, which apparently mattered a lot more than Aango or anyone outside the Catholic CHurch ever imagined.

Read More »