A 42-year-old Spanish man has been unable to ingest any food or liquids for three weeks after taking a simple sip of bottled sparkling water at a restaurant.

Pablo González, a 42-year-old businessman from Salvaterra de Miño, Spain, has been hospitalized in the city of Vigo since April 12, when he suffered a bizarre accident that has yet to be explained. After eating at a tapas-style restaurant with some friends, González ordered a bottle of sparkling mineral water along with a glass of ice and a slice of lemon. The water was a well-known brand, and the glass bottle looked properly sealed, from what he can recall, but what he can remember clearly is the burning sensation in his mouth mere seconds after taking his first sip of it.

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Scientists are trying to understand how a herd of goats not only survived but thrived on an isolated island in northeastern Brazil for over two centuries without any known fresh water source.

It’s not clear how exactly the goats originally wound up on Santa Bárbara, one of the five volcanic islands that make up the Abrolhos archipelago, about 70 kilometers off the coast of Bahia, but scientists believe they were brought and left there by colonizers. Livestock like goats, pigs, and poultry made for a reliable food source, but they were usually left behind when colonization failed. Their presence on Santa Bárbara Island has been documented for more than 250 years, according to historical records, which is remarkable if we take into account that the small island has no known fresh water sources. Despite this “inconvenience,” the goats thrived on the dry, windy island to the point where they had to be relocated in order to protect endemic plants and animals.

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For more than a year, at the start of every month, the people of Beeston, a town in the United Kingdom, have been finding a plate of peeled bananas in exactly the same place.

Between the first and second day of each month, a plate stacked with 16 to 20 peeled bananas always shows up on the corner of Abbey Road and Wensor Avenue in Beeston and residents have no idea who is behind the strange custom or its meaning. All everyone can say is that the banks have been appearing in the same spot for more than a year, and despite several signs asking whoever puts them there to stop, it doesn’t look like the mysterious fruit is going away anytime soon. Some have speculated that the plate of honey-drizzled bananas has some sort of religious meaning, while others believe that it’s just someone feeding the local wildlife, although no animal ever touches them. So far, no one has come up with a real answer to this quirky mystery.

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At least five Srilankan fishermen have tragically lost their lives and three more are in critical condition after consuming the mysterious contents of bottles found floating in the open sea.

The Sri Lanka Navy recently reported that at least five fishermen have died after consuming an unknown liquid from bottles they found while at sea, around 320 nautical miles from Tangalle, a town on the southern coast of Sri Lanka. It’s unclear how many of these mysterious bottles were found floating out at sea, but a Navy spokesperson told journalists that they contained some sort of alcohol. The bottles were shared among the sailors of the fishing vessel named Devon, and before long, some of them started feeling sick. Despite receiving rudimentary assistance on the boat from Sri Lanka Navy medical personnel, at least five of the fishermen have died, and another is in critical condition. Unfortunately, the crew is believed to have shared the mysterious bottles with other fishing boats.

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A team of scientists studying freshwater ponds on an Australian island observed a rather peculiar mosquito behavior – when feeding on frogs, mosquitoes would always go for the nostrils.

John Gould and Jose Valdez – the first with the University of Newcastle, in Australia, the other the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research – spent three years surveying approximately 60 freshwater wetland ponds on Kooragang Island, in New South Wales, Australia. During their research, they observed and photographed a total of 3977 amphibians, but upon returning to their laboratory and laying out all of their photos, they noticed something intriguing. Out of their thousands of photos, 12 of them showed mosquitoes feeding on various species of frogs, but in all of them, the mosquitoes were sucking blood from the animals’ nostrils.

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The people of Omagh, a small town in Northern Ireland, have been complaining about a mysterious humming sound that can be heard at night and disrupts their sleep.

In recent weeks, the Omagh District Council has actively been trying to identify the source of a nighttime noise that several residents from all over the small Northern Ireland town have been complaining about. Unfortunately, all their efforts so far have ended in failure, leaving them with no other choice than to call in sound experts to solve the mystery. People “usually characterize it as a persistent buzz or hum” that differs from the sound of passing vehicles and that can only heard late at night, usually around 12:00 am – 01:00 am. While some have gotten used to it, others claim that it is interfering with their night sleep and demand that something be done about it.

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For the past five months, the people of Pravia, a town in Spain’s Asturias Region, have been under constant siege from flocks of crows who mindlessly attack their homes and vehicles.

The town of Pravia has no less than six crows proudly displayed on its historic coat of arms, so it’s safe to say that people here have been living in harmony with the birds for centuries. That is not the case anymore, however, as large flocks of blackbirds now attack the homes and vehicles of human residents for some unknown reason. The people of Pravia started reporting groups of birds mindlessly flying into their windows repeatedly until the impact caused them to bleed in May of this year, and things have been getting worse ever since. No one knows exactly why the crows are targeting people’s homes and vehicles, but they are relentless in their attacks, pecking at and flying into windows until they start to bleed.

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Mexican authorities are still struggling to find answers to the seemingly unexplained fainting of hundreds of middle school students all over the country in the fall of last year.

On September 23, 2022, 12 students (11 girls and 1 boy) at the Federal 1 public secondary school in Tapachula, Mexico spontaneously collapsed in their classrooms, in the bathrooms, and in the school courtyard. Another 22 middle school students reported symptoms like severe headaches and vomiting. Interestingly, some of the affected students reported smelling something smoky in the air, like the scent of burning leaves, which led investigators to believe that drugs like marijuana had probably been to blame, but tests came back negative. Other students reported seeing a mustard-color powder in the bathroom on that day, but toxicology analysis again revealed nothing of interest. Eventually, doctors concluded that the kids had suffered panic attacks, but in the following days, similar incidents started being reported at other schools across Mexico…

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For decades, the mummified remains of a creature resembling a small mermaid have been worshipped at a temple in Asakuchi, Japan, but scientists have long suspected that the mermaid mummy was actually man-made.

Allegedly caught in the Pacific Ocean, off the island of Shikoku, between 1736 and 1741, the famous mermaid mummy has been kept on display at the Enjuin temple in Asakuchi for over 40 years, attracting visitors convinced that the remains would bring them good luck. It is said that these tiny supernatural creatures were immortal and that whoever consumed their flesh would also enjoy eternal life. Somehow, no one actually tried, but a team of scientists did request a more thorough examination in order to confirm the many legends around the artifact.

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For about a year now, authorities in Salt Lake City have been trying to solve the mystery of a series of solar-powered antennas that keep popping up in the foothills around the city.

The first devices were discovered around a year ago. There was just a couple of them, but since then about a dozen have been reportedly located and disabled. According to the city’s recreational trails manager, the devices consist of a locked battery box, a solar panel, and an antenna. No one knows who keeps planting them and for what purpose, so for now all anyone can do is speculate and attempt to dismantle them, because they are installed on public land without a permit.

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For several years now, residents of Holmfield, a village in Yorkshire, England, have been affected by a mysterious hum the source of which has yet to be discovered.

Not everyone can hear it, but those whose who do claim to have had their lives seriously impacted. The “Holmfield Hum”, as the mysterious low-frequency sound plaguing the English village of Holmfield has come to be known, has been making news headlines in the European country for at least a couple of years, but so far no one has been able to discover its source. Local authorities reportedly carried out an investigation and also hired an independent consultant to get to the bottom of the mystery, but their efforts have so far been in vain.

Holmfield residents who can hear the mysterious hum describe it as the whirring of a washing machine or an idling diesel engine. It doesn’t sound like the most annoying sound in the world, but it takes a toll on a person’s mental health and general well-being after a while. It interferes with their sleep and their mood, and some claim to be on the edge of a nervous breakdown because of it.

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A herd of sheep in China has been walking in a circle for almost two weeks now, and no one seems to really know why.

The bizarre behavior was captured on surveillance video at a sheep farm in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region. In a video released on Wednesday by Chinese state-run news outlet People’s Daily, dozens of shep can be seen walking clockwise in a large circle, as other animals stare from outside the circle or at times stand motionless in the middle of it. Although it has been reported that the sheep appear to be perfectly healthy, it’s unclear if the animals ever stop to eat and drink, and if others take their place in the circle when that happens.

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Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome (LPS) is a seasonal disease that occurs every year between October and June, causing lorikeets to drop out of the sky and become unable to move.

Ornithologists and veterinarians have known about Lorikeet Paralysis Syndrome for many years now, but despite their best efforts, the cause of the disease has remained a mystery. That is particularly alarming because the disease affects thousands of birds every year, and proves fatal to many of them, rendering them unable to feed or escape predators. Cases of LPS have been reported in Australia since 1970, and although scientists have been able to eliminate some probable causes, they still don’t know what causes it.

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An 18-year-old lioness has baffled staff at a zoo in Kansas after growing an “awkward teenage mane” after the pride’s last male lion passed away.

Looking at Zuri, you’d think she was a young lion growing his mane for the first time, but she is actually an 18-year-old female. That makes the mane around her neck pretty unusual, with only a handful of similar cases reported in the past. The lioness reportedly started growing a mane soon after the last male lion at Topeka Zoo in Kansas passed away in October of 2020. Although zookeepers don’t believe there is any connection between the lack of a male lion and Zuri’s mane, they do admit that the lioness has gotten feistier since growing the new fur, growling, snarling, and roaring more often than before.

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Authorities in Gresham, a suburb of Portland, Oregon, are trying to catch the infamous “Gresham Lumberjack”, a person who is suspected to have cut down around 700 trees in the area for no apparent reason.

A special task force put together by Gresham Police and the Parks & Recreations has been scouring thousands of photos of a forest in Gresham, looking for clues that could help them identify and finally catch the Gresham Lumberjack. The elusive ‘tree serial killer’ has been felling trees for over a year now, and seems to be getting bolder. Unfortunately, so far, all they know is that the culprit seems to prefer trees along a segment of the trail between the Seventh Street Bridge and Towle Avenue, and cutting them with a hand saw or a bow saw.

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