WTF • Fun • Fact    ( /dʌb(ə)lˌju/  /ti/   /ef/ • /fʌn/ • /fækt/ )

     1. noun  A random, interesting, and overall fun fact that makes you scratch your head and think what the...

WTF Fun Fact 12670 – Thieves Return Plundered Temple Artifacts

In May 2022, thieves unwisely stole 16 statues of Lord Balaji (an incarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu). And if you know anything about Vishnu, you’d know that was a particularly bad idea. Vishnu is known as the preserver and protector of the universe, and it is said that he will return to earth in troubled times to restore the balance of good and evil.

However, the belief is that Vishnu has been incarnated 9 times already and his 10th reincarnation will signal the end of the world. So, seriously, do not make him come down here!

Lucky for the rest of us, the thieves got some personal punishment rather than triggering the apocalypse.

Most of the statues were returned a week later to the temple in the Chitrakoot district in Uttar Pradesh, India along with a confession, apology, and plea for forgiveness. It turns out the thieves had been plagued with such terrible nightmares and bad luck during the time they held the statues that they felt they had no choice but to return them and come clean.

“We have been suffering from nightmares since we committed the theft and have not been able to sleep, eat and live peacefully,” the thieves said in the accompanying letter, the Times of India reported (in translation). “We are fed up with the scary dreams and are returning your ‘amaanat’ (valuables).”

Returning stolen temple items is actually somewhat common because of feelings of guilt and misfortune – but, somehow, they still justified keeping two of the stolen items!

Sweet dreams! –  WTF fun fact

Source: “Thieves Return Stolen Treasure To Temple After Being Haunted By Nightmares” — IFL Science

WTF Fun Fact 12669 – The World’s Oldest Rose Bush

The world’s oldest rose bush is a bit more untamed than what we’re used to seeing – but it’s earned the right to grow as it pleases. After all, it survived being bombed during WWII.

The Rose of Hildesheim, aka the Thousand-Year Rose, is believed to be the oldest living rose specimen on the planet (though, of course, we can’t know for sure if some other rose bush lurks out there hidden away from human eyes).

You can find it growing up the column Hildesheim Cathedral, in Germany, where it has been since the early 800s when it was planted. The 9th-century plant still blooms each year, around May. Its flowers are a delicate pink.

According to Atlas Obscura, it’s survival has been beyond unlikely:

“While the rose bush looks as though it’s big enough to have been growing for a thousand years, the plant has been nearly destroyed a number of times throughout its history. Most notably the bush was nearly completely razed during the Second World War when Allied bombs annihilated the cathedral. Every bit of the plant above ground was destroyed, but from the rubble, new branches grew from the root that survived.

Today the base of the Thousand-Year Rose is protected by a squat iron fence and each of the central roots is named and catalogued to protect one of the oldest pieces of natural beauty one is lucky to find.” –  WTF fun fact

Source: “The Thousand-Year Rose” — Atlas Obscura

WTF Fun Fact 12668 – The Gates of Hell

There are a couple of places on earth that are referred to as the Gates of Hell, or something similar. But we’d never heard of the one in Turkmenistan (then again, there’s not a lot of news coming out of Turkmenistan). Apparently, this particular version of the Gates of Hell really needs to be put out – if that’s even possible.

The fire put has been burning for over 50 years and no one is quite sure why. However, in January of 2022, the amazingly-named leader of Turkmenistan, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, announced that he was asking officials to find a way to extinguish it. It’s not only using up natural resources (it’s burning gas deposits) but a giant burning greater isn’t great for air quality either.

According to an interview with Atlas Obscura, an explorer named George Kourounis has actually descended into the firery pit and gathered soil samples But he also found a big problem: “As I was digging into the ground [at the bottom of the crater] to gather these soil samples, fire would start coming out of the hole I just freshly dug because it was creating new paths for the gas to come out of the crater. So even if you were to extinguish the fire and cover it up, there’s a chance that the gas could still find its way out to the surface and all it would take is one spark to light it up again.”

Oh, and did we mention that the origins of the fire are unclear? Locals tell stories of a Soviet gas accident in 1971 and someone trying to light a collapsed rig on fire, but geologists have traced the crater back to the 1960s and the fire to the 1980s.

We may never know exactly what happens because of Turkmenistan’s isolation from the rest of the world. –  WTF fun fact

Source: “The Quest to Extinguish the Flames of Turkmenistan’s Terrifying ‘Gates of Hell’ Firepit” — Smithsonian Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12667 – America’s Oldest Park Ranger

Betty Reid Soskin retired from a full-time job with the National Park Service just months after celebrating her 100th birthday.

Joining the Park Service at age 85, she started working for them full time in 2011, at age 89 at the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park in Richmond, CA. There, she shared her own experiences working on the WWII homefront.

“To be a part of helping to mark the place where that dramatic trajectory of my own life, combined with others of my generation, will influence the future by the footprints we’ve left behind has been incredible,” Soskin said in the NPS’s statement.

According to CNN: “As a park ranger, Soskin led public programs with visitors and shared her own personal experiences of World War II. And she worked to highlight the untold stories of African Americans and other people of color during the war. “Being a primary source in the sharing of  that history — my history — and giving shape to a new national park has been exciting and fulfilling,” said Soskin. “It has proven to bring meaning to my final years.”

Soskin founded one of the first Black-owned music stores, Reid’s Records, with her husband, which was in business for 75 years, before joining the NPS. –  WTF fun fact

Source: “America’s oldest national park ranger retires at age 100” — CNN

WTF Fun Fact 12666 – Unearthing An Ancient Underground City

In the Midyat district of Mardin, Turkey, there is an archaeological site tunneling beneath the residents. The older residents have long been told of the city underneath, but archaeologists still had no idea what they were in for when they discovered a hidden entrance to a cave a few years ago.

The cave led to a series of corridors and rooms. But further excavation found that there was an entire subterranean city down there. And it wasn’t a city lost to time as sand and dirt piled on top of it – this city had ALWAYS been underground!

In fact, the site is so big that they will never be able to uncover all of it (partly so as not to disturb the residents living above). (You can see more of this in the video at the bottom of the page.)

Historians have found evidence in archival material that the modern city of Midyat got its name from the word Matiate, meaning “City of Caves.” Matiate’s name is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions from the 9th century BCE.

But this underground city isn’t just some dusty old tunnels. There are places of worship, water wells, and other community necessities within them, indicating that people lived in this underground city much like that would have above land.

While other underground cities have been found throughout the Anatolian region, Midyat’s is different. There is evidence that it was used to house people for nearly 1,900 years straight.

Gani Tarkan, the head of excavation for the site, explained:

“Matiate has been used uninterruptedly for 1,900 years. It was first built as a hiding place or escape area. As it is known, Christianity was not an official religion in the second century. Families and groups who accepted Christianity generally took shelter in underground cities to escape the persecution of Rome or formed an underground city. Possibly, the underground city of Midyat was one of the living spaces built for this purpose. It is an area where we estimate that at least 60-70,000 people lived underground.”

He continued:

“There was no a life above the underground cities in Nevşehir and Kayseri. But he stated that all the structures above the Midyat underground city were registered.”

“Underneath is a different history, a different period, and above it is a different date. While the houses on the top are dated to the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, there is a completely different city underneath. That city is 1900 years old.” –  WTF fun fact

Source: “The excavation, which started in a cave in Turkey’s Mardin, turned into a huge underground city” — Arkeonews

WTF Fun Fact 12665 – The Initials On the Moon

Eugene Cernan walked on the moon twice, during the Apollo 10 and Apollo 17 missions. The Apollo 17 mission, which took place from December 7–19, 1972 was NASA’s final Apollo mission and the last time a human was on the moon. Cernan boarded last, making him the last man to set foot on the moon’s surface.

During Apollo 17, Cernan and his fellow astronaut, Harrison Schmitt spent 22 hours and 6 minutes outside, and they still hold the record for the longest extravehicular activity on the moon.

Cernan then drove the lunar rover about a mile away from the takeoff site so it could photograph the ship’s take-off the following day. Before he walked back to the lunar lander, he wrote in his autobiography that he knelt by the rover and drew his daughter Tracy’s initials into the moon dust.

Cernan spoke these words as he climbed into the lunar lander and left the moon:

“As I take man’s last step from the surface, back home for some time to come – but we believe not too long into the future – I’d like to just (say) what I believe history will record. That America’s challenge of today has forged man’s destiny of tomorrow. And, as we leave the Moon at Taurus–Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind. Godspeed the crew of Apollo 17.”

The crew returned safely to Earth on Dec. 19, 1972. –  WTF fun fact

Source: “Eugene Cernan: Last Man on the Moon” — Space.com

WTF Fun Fact 12664 – Mushrooms Talk To One Another

A study published in the Royal Society Open Science journal suggests that mushrooms are pretty chatty. In fact, the electrical signals fungi emit toward one another when they encounter food or danger bear a striking resemblance to human speech, at least in terms of the patterns they use.

Andrew Adamatzky of the Unconventional Computing Laboratory at the University of the West of England noticed that fungi electrical signals spiked in certain situations.

Now, you can’t hear mushrooms speak, of course. Many mushrooms grow as part of a network with tiny roots and filaments connecting them underground, called hyphae – and that’s where the signals are passed.

Adamatzky admits that his experiment is a far cry from finding a secret “mushroom language,” but making the comparison allows us to understand the possible purpose of these electrical signals. In the end, they may mean nothing, but the fact that we can distinguish patterns of electrical activity in certain situations would suggest something interesting is going on.

The article reminds us:

“This is indeed quite a primitive classification akin to interpreting binary words only by sums of their bits and not exact configurations of 1s and 0s. That said, we should not expect quick results: we are yet to decipher language of cats and dogs despite living with them for centuries, and research into electrical communication of fungi is in its pure infant stage.” 

– WTF Fun Facts

Source: “Mushrooms communicate with each other using up to 50 ‘words’, scientist claims” — The Guardian

WTF Fun Fact 12663 – The Harlem Hellfighters

Plenty of history buffs think they know all there is to know about WWI, but it’s rare to meet someone who can tell you much about the all-Black 369th Infantry Regiment of the New York Army National Guard. Despite facing racism at every turn, they still fought for their country.

They called themselves the “Black Rattlers.” Even the French had a nickname for these brave heroes – the “Men of Bronze.”

Interestingly, it was the name the enemy forces in Germany gave them that stuck – the “Harlem Hellfighters.” They fought in the most hellish places on earth – down in the trenches – and they fought there longer than any American fighters.

And while stories of their heroism spread throughout the world, they were never genuinely rewarded for it. They came home to the same racism they left.

All-Black regiments were rare at the time – the military needed men but was hesitant to work alongside Black men. But New York’s governor at the time, Charles Whitman, agreed to form a unit, something Black political leaders had to fight for! Whitman put them under the command of his former campaign manager and former Nebraska National Guard colonel, William Hayward.

First known as the 5th New York National Guard Regiment, the youngest member was just 16. Hayward recruited both black and white officers to the unit, ensuring the white soldiers were ready to act as teammates, despite the potential for racial tension.

But in the eyes of the larger National Guard, they were not equal. They were given no resources to train with – no uniforms and no weapons. They practiced in their street clothes and with broomsticks.

Then, their real training began at a training ground in the Deep South – the most unfriendly place for Black soldiers, even if they were helping to fight for democracy in the same country as the white soldiers by their sides.

In Spartanburg, South Carolina, they were asked to deal with racism without regard or retaliation as they trained to potentially give their lives. At the same time, the mayor of Spartanburg declared:

“If any of those colored soldiers go in any of our soda stores and the like and ask to be served, they’ll be knocked down. We have our customs down here, and we aren’t going to alter them.”

The unit was forged in the fire of those racist taunts and threats in the Deep South. When they set for Europe in January 1918, they became the 369th Infantry Regiment.

At first, they were given no combat duties, only menial tasks. But the French needed more soldiers. The “Black Rattlers,” as they had named themselves, went into battle under French command and before any white unit, on April 15, 1918. Their heroics earned them accolades in France, including the Croix de Guerre.

There are dozens of stories of their bravery, and more are coming out as historians begin to focus on the evidence of what they ensured. The “Harlem Hellfighters,” as the Germans named them, spent 191 days in combat, which is longer than any other American unit.

But they didn’t all come back alive – over half of them were killed or wounded defending their country. – WTF Fun Facts

Source: “The Story Of The Harlem Hellfighters, The Overlooked Black Heroes Of World War I” — All That’s Interesting

WTF Fun Fact 12662 – Cleopatra Was Not An Egyptian By Birth

Some think of Cleopatra as the quintessential Egyptian. After all, she ruled for 21 years, and both her skills of seduction and political prowess on behalf of her territory were known throughout the world.

However, Egypt belonged to the empire created by Alexander the Great (who, incidentally, had a sister named Cleopatra) and was subsequently ruled by a family called the Ptolemys. The Ptolemaic dynasty was Macedonian, so while Cleopatra was born in Egypt, she likely had no Egyptian blood.

In the end, her ethnicity makes very little difference other than to note that the Egyptians were not being ruled by their own people at the time. There is at least some slight chance that because the ethnicity of mothers was not recorded after the time of her great-grandfather, Cleopatra could have conceivable had some Egyptian blood in her if she had been born of a concubine to the king. But we will never know for sure. The recorded wives of Macedonian kings were all of Macedonian descent.

Among the many amazing things about the powerful ruler is that Cleopatra was the only ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty ever to bother to learn the Egyptian language.

Cleopatra herself did not maintain the Macedonian bloodline since her children were fathered by two famous Romans, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.

Egypt became part of the Roman Empire shortly after Cleopatra’s death. – WTF Fun Facts

Source: “Cleopatra’s true racial background (and does it really matter?)” — Oxford University Press Blog