-- Adult Pedophiles Unnecessary: According to a July announcement by police in York Haven, Pa., at least 17 kids aged 7 to 16 had created a club over the last two years to teach each other sex, and then practice, on their own with no adult participation. Three days after that, the Washington Post reported an unusually high incidence of oral sex by middle-school students in the Washington, D.C., area, more as the latest trendy thing to do rather than as intimacy by adolescent couples.
-- In April, Rene Joly, 34, filed a lawsuit in Toronto against several drugstore chains and the Canadian defense minister, charging that they conspired to kill him by poisons in his prescriptions and a military microchip in his brain. He told reporters in May, "Genetically speaking, I'm a Martian, yes," having been cloned from material recovered from NASA missions. The college-educated Joly apparently impressed some reporters with his eloquence and calm demeanor, but one defense lawyer said merely that Joly "has watched too many episodes of 'The X Files.'"
-- On Jan. 31, at the annual Hindu festival in Singapore honoring Lord Murugan, worshipers again proved their faith by sticking skewers through their skin, with the amount of pain endured taken as the measure of devotion. According to a Reuters wire service report, the apparently super pious Kalai Arivalagan let relatives push 6-inch stakes through his cheek and tongue, pins into his forehead, and hooks into his chest and back, attached to a frame containing religious symbols. Hundreds more Hindus marched almost three miles with hooks and pins attached. Believers say their pre-festival rituals, including abstaining from sex, help them to create pain-ignoring trances.
-- In March, Angel Luis Montes, 26, was sentenced in Lamar, Mo., to probation for receiving stolen property. Throughout his courtroom appearance, he referred to himself as "Angel Montes Clinton" (the president's son), as well as the Unabomber and the husband of "Prince (sic) Diana," with whom he has fathered 100 children. Though Montes appeared to observers to be not in his right mind, he also claimed to be embarrassed by his father for carrying on with Monica Lewinsky and said his dad needs to keep his "(body parts not identified in the Carthage (Mo.) Press story) where they belong."
-- In May, a Jerusalem Post reporter interviewed an extraterrestrial by telephone through the services of Adrian Dvir, an engineer who develops computers for the Israeli military. The alien, "Fenix," said he was 200 years old and was calling from near Uranus, via electronics that translated his speech into Hebrew. Dvir was chosen for contact because he had enrolled in psychic-training courses that were being monitored by Fenix's Kliendcontlar race. Fenix called Dvir (from a number blocked by Caller ID) and spoke for 85 minutes, answering the reporter's questions as relayed by Dvir.
-- At his June pretrial hearing in Worcester, Mass., on racketeering charges, Vincent "Gigi Portalla" Marino claimed the federal government implanted a tracking device in his buttocks when he was in the hospital in 1996 to have a bullet removed. A Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman denied the charge, even though Marino said it was a DEA agent who once asked him to sign a release form to let the feds remove the device.
-- In Ottawa, Ontario, in June, Richard Hamilton, 29, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for an April robbery of a Harvey's fast-food restaurant. Hamilton had no gun; he pulled a .32-calibre bullet from his pocket, waved it around, said he had more where that came from, and demanded money from the cash drawer. He got about $200 but was apprehended a few minutes later.
-- The Bremerton (Wash.) Sun reported in its April 9 edition that a man was arrested in Silverdale, Wash., on suspicion of stealing a van. According to the police report, the man, who was dressed in a miniskirt, tights and head scarf, was booked at the sheriff's office and then "released on his own recognizance."
-- Ms. Kikui Tomoe, 79, habitual pickpocket arrested in Tokyo in April with the wallet of a 52-year-old woman: "When I see wallets in a crowd, I feel as if they are calling out to me to take them."
-- Republican presidential candidate Dan Quayle, commenting in May on TV's "Crossfire" program about the Littleton, Colo., school shootings: "You're not there to be just the child's best friend. You're there as a parent. (A)nd if you see a sawed-off shotgun or whatever else laying around (his room), take it away."
Throughout the spring in South America, South Africa, Canada and the United States (notably in Omaha, Neb.), hundreds of worshippers have claimed that gold teeth and gold fillings have appeared spontaneously in their mouths, apparently as a result of prayer. However, two of the claimants, Canadian TV evangelists Dick Dewert and William Thiessen, were forced to issue corrections when reminded by their respective dentists that the gold fillings had been installed in the conventional way. Said Thiessen, "I (now tell) people to please check their dental records before they declare a miracle." Ahead of the curve, pastor Dennis Morgan-Dohner of Big God Ministries in Indiana said God gave him a platinum filling.
In 1988, Iranian Merhan Nasseri, then 46, landed at Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris after being denied entry into England because his passport, and United Nations refugee certificate, had been stolen. No country would take him without papers, including France, and there he has been ever since, in Terminal One, luggage at his side, reading, writing in his diary, studying economics, receiving food and newspapers from airport employees. News of the Weird reported on Nasseri in 1991, 1995 and 1998. On July 2, 1999, Belgium granted Nasseri refugee status, but at press time, he had not decided whether he wanted to leave the airport or not.
Police confiscated 800 marijuana plants from a storage locker when the owner forgot to pay the rent (Winnipeg, Manitoba). The robbery of a gun range was foiled when an employee shot the suspect in the shoulder (Santa Clara, Calif.). A dairy farmer, distraught at his son's recent suicide at Niagara Falls, wielded a 3,000-gallon manure spreader in a standoff with Falls police and threatened to hose down tourists. And Americans Billy Mitchell and Steve Keiner quietly added to U.S. sports prominence: Mitchell posted the first perfect game in the 19-year history of Pac-Man (Weirs Beach, N.H.), and Keiner wrested the Mustard Yellow International Belt from a Japanese man by eating 20 hot dogs in 12 minutes (Coney Island, N.Y.).
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679, or Weird@compuserve.com.)