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 12446 – Lady Gaga’s Ghost

While we don’t quite know when or why “Ryan” the ghost chose Lady Gaga to haunt, it seems plausible that rumors of her purchase of machinery to detect him is true based on past interviews.

Apparently, Ryan followed Gaga around wherever she went, which she found pretty “annoying.” She tried contacting a medium to stage a séance and communicate with him, but apparently, that wasn’t enough.

Now, granted, if we were convinced we had a pestering ghost, we’d probably try to get rid of it too. But we don’t exactly have Lady Gaga’s funds, so we’d have to pass on the $50,000 state-of-the-art Electro Magnetic Field meter. We’re not sure if that got rid of Ryan, but sources also told celebrity news magazines that she would have a team of paranormal investigators on hand to assess each concert venue she was about to perform in.

Frankly, we’d like to know more about what they thought they found. How many ghosts hang out at Madison Square Garden, for example?

Lady Gaga is also rumored to believe that she’s is the reincarnated spirit of a dead aunt.
– WTF fun facts

Source: “Lady GaGa calls in the ghostbusters” — Glamour

WTF Fun Fact 12445 – The Sprinkle Police

In what can only be described as an absurd abuse of the country’s emergency police services number, a woman called 999 (the English version of 911) to report her ice cream man.

He didn’t steal anything from her or harm her in any way. She was just really upset that he hadn’t given her enough sprinkles. Yes, she was a grown woman at the time.

The police declined to give her name but did release the audio from the absurd 999 call.

During her full minute of complaining, she told the operator: “It doesn’t seem like much of an emergency, but it is a little bit.” In fact, it is not.

In light of the call, police warned citizens of the dangers of abusing the emergency system.

There’s no word on whether the woman got justice following the grave insult of getting a mere sprinkle of sprinkles. – WTF fun facts

You can listen to the call here:

Source: “Woman Calls Police Because There Aren’t Enough Sprinkles on Her Ice Cream” — Time Magazine

WTF Fun Fact 12444 – Roosevelt’s Pet Hyena

There’s an official Presidential Pet Museum dedicated to all the furry and feathered friends that have roamed the White House halls (and lawns).

Theodore Roosevelt has quite a few pets, and he and his family were animal lovers. However, he wasn’t terribly fond of hyenas. And that turned out to be a bit of a problem at first when Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia gifted him a male hyena in 1904.

It was reported by the captain of the ship that brought him to America that the hyena, plainly named “Bill,” “laughed all the time.” Apparently, this grew on Roosevelt, who became fond of the creature. In fact, he even let it into the White House and gave it scraps from the dinner table!

It has always been common for world leaders to give exotic pets as animals, but a hyena seems like a bit of an odd choice. Then again, what do you get the man who has everything?

Roosevelt reportedly was able to teach Bill a few tricks before he was sent along with his White House pal Joe the Lion to the National Zoo to live out his life. After all, Roosevelt was a busy man. – WTF fun facts

Source: “Theodore Roosevelt’s Hyena” — The Presidential Pet Museum

WTF Fun Fact 12443 – Immortal Billionaires

You know what they say about money – “You can’t take it with you.” That saying is supposed to remind us to live our lives and discourage us from hoarding money since it won’t do any good after death.

But what if you have a fortune and you really can’t bear to think of the world without you? Well, if you’re a tech billionaire, you invest some of that money in your immortality.

There are multiple projects underway to study human immortality and extend life led by the likes of Jeff Bezos, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, and Russian Internet tycoon Dmitry Itskov. Now, not all of them want to live forever, exactly, but they do think that extending life by a decade or so sounds just about right.

We suppose being able to afford everything in life tends to make a person enjoy it more and want to keep the party going. But is it ethical? Will these billionaires share this tech with the rest of us, or will it only be for the rich?

Can the planet really handle a bunch of immortal billionaires? – WTF fun facts

Source: “The Men Who Want to Live Forever” — The New York Times

WTF Fun Fact 12442 – The Power of Forest Bathing

In Japan, it’s called Shinrin-Yoku. The act of “forest bathing” may have started there, but people around the world are starting to see the benefits of not just spending time in nature, but doing so intentionally (and, importantly, not through the lens of a smartphone).

Forest bathing studies have been shown to have measurable beneficial effects. Much of this research has been conducted by Dr. Qing Li, physician and immunologist at Nippon Medical School Hospital in Tokyo. In his studies, participants are not asked to jog or even kike, but merely practice awareness while out in the woods.

His studies have found forest bathing can decrease stress and blood pressure, slow the heart rate, speed up digestion, help with insomnia, and reduce fatigue. Perhaps more surprisingly are its effects on immunity, particularly NK (or natural killer) cells, which play a role in helping the body fight off the growth of cancerous cells.

Trees release volatile organic compounds known as phytoncides. When we breathe these in, we get more of these beneficial effects.

So next time you find yourself in nature, take a mindful walk, listen to the sounds, notice the colors and textures, and breathe deep amongst the trees. – WTF fun facts 

Source: “Cancer and Canopy: The Healing Power of Forest Bathing” — Spirituality & Health

WTF Fun Fact 12441 – The National Hotel Disease

Once the poshest hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, the National Hotel was at the center of a nationwide mystery after a disease outbreak among its guests in 1857. According to records from the U.S. House of Representatives, almost three dozen people died and 400 people were sickened by a mystery ailment that continued to plague guests (and lead to their deaths) years after their 1857 stays at the hotel.

Founded in 1827, the National Hotel was located between the White House and the Capitol, catering to Members of Congress. “Apart from the Capitol and the White House, there is no building in this city so historic as this,” remarked the Washington Post in 1930. “For more than half a century the history of the Nation was made there.” 

But in 1857, President-Elect James Buchanan was staying at the hotel prior to his inauguration, as were many other politicians due to attend the event. Even he was sickened but made a speedy recovery.

At the time, some reported that the outbreak was actually the result of arsenic poisoning in the water. Buchanan was from Pennsylvania but held so-called “Southern beliefs” at the time when it came to slavery. After sensationalized news stories were published, people suspected a murder plot by radical abolitionists, but there was never a speck of evidence that it was anything other than an infectious disease outbreak.

These days, we understand a lot more about how infectious diseases work, and those who have examined records of the symptoms think it was likely mild cholera or (more likely) dysentery.

Dr. D.H. Storer was a National guest and victim who shared his symptoms with the National Intelligencer: “A dreadful nausea has been, in my case, the very worst and most miserable attendant upon this complaint. I have felt it almost all the time from the first till now. If I were even to-day to take an ounce of beef steak, or that amount of any animal food into my stomach, my experience thus far is that I should suffer for hours from this horrid nausea.”

Most guests were infected in March, around the inauguration. However, that’s when the hotel was most crowded. It disappeared soon after guests from that event went home and never happened again. However, among those who died were Rep. John Montgomery of Pennsylvania and Rep. John Quitman of Mississippi.

The hotel continued to operate for years until it could no longer compete with the grander establishments being built around it. The building was demolished in 1924. – WTF fun facts 

Source: “The Mysterious National Hotel Disease” — United States House of Representatives Archives

WTF Fun Fact 12440 – Professional Mattress Jumping

There are hundreds of mattress companies flooding the market today, and many can even be delivered by mail. However, there are still some artisan mattress makers out there and McRoskey Mattress Works in San Fransicso is one of them. Their classic mattress may run you anywhere from $1,600 to $4,500, but you can be sure it’s been tested well – by a pair of human feet, in fact.

The world took an interest in the factory back in 2012 when SFGATE published a story about them and one of their employees, Reuben Reynoso. Reynoso is the man who jumps on the mattresses to ensure they can stand up to everything from child’s play to…well, whatever else it is you do on your mattress.

While a grown man being paid to jump on mattresses for a living might elicit a chuckle, Reynoso wanted people to understand that his job was an important one. “It’s work,” he told SFGATE in 2012. “It’s not for everybody. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it.”

While we didn’t know there was a “right” way to jump on the bed, Reynoso isn’t doing this for fun and games. It’s his job. “This is not a game. Not to me,” he insisted. And we believe him. After all, even if you were living your dream at your job, after a while it all becomes a serious task. But that doesn’t mean we’re not a little jealous of the free and knee-friendly cardio he gets at work.

To be fair, the task does sound like it can get tedious. As SFGATE noted in their article:

“Jumping on a mattress is one of the final steps in making a handmade mattress…a machine cannot do what Reynoso and his toes can do, which is to expertly compress no fewer than 28 layers of fluffy cotton batting while seeking to detect pea-size mattress lumps or other imperfections…”

While it’s unclear if Reynoso is still with McRoskey or if they still employ a person to test their mattresses “by foot,” we’d like to think it’s all still going strong. The mattress company sure is. They’ve been in business since 1899, surviving the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906 and everything that’s come after. – WTF fun facts 

Source: “McRoskey mattress jumping is serious work” — SFGATE

WTF Fun Fact 12439 – Alien Abduction Insurance

After noticing his homeowners insurance didn’t cover alien abduction, Florida insurance agent Mike St. Lawrence (of the St. Lawrence Agency) decided to offer it. You can purchase limited coverage for $19.95 or comprehensive alien abduction insurance for $24.95.

St. Lawrence has sold over 6000 policies to those who “want to believe.”

According to WFLA News, “Each policy includes $10 million worth of coverage as well as outpatient psychiatric care, sarcasm coverage, and double identity coverage. Policyholders can claim to be eligible for double the standard coverage, but that payout would be based on verifiable and extreme circumstances.”

“I take a very opened mind approach to this, whether it’s happening or not. But if you get one of our policies, show you have a sense of humor about it,” said St. Lawrence. 

In order to start the process of filing a claim, a person will have to obtain a signature from an “authorized, on-board alien.”

“Some way, you have to be able to prove it, and I have had a couple exceptions where they didn’t get a signature,” St. Lawrence told WFLA.

Alas, there’s another downside hidden in the fine print. The payout to you or your beneficiaries comes in the form of $1.00/year for 10 million years.  

Believe it or not, St. Lawrence has paid at least two claims. He told WFLA that a policyholder submitted a Polaroid picture with alleged aliens as proof.  – WTF fun facts 

Source: “Don’t sweat alien threat” — SF Gate

WTF Fun Fact 12438 – Rome’s Sacred Chickens

Ancient Roman priests raised sacred chickens that were used to interpret omens. For example, the chickens were used to predict the outcome of military battles.

Here’s how it worked: The chickens were let loose from their cages and had feed sprinkled in front of them. If they ate their food with gusto, stomping their feet, it was assumed that the gods were telling the naval leaders that it was ok to go to battle because the outcome would be favorable. If the chickens did not eat, the Romans assumed they were being told by the gods that they were destined to lose.

Of course, plenty of generals wanted to undertake battles with the permission of chickens, so one way they got around it was to deprive the chickens of food for a few days leading up to the decision. That way, the chickens would be hungry enough to eat regardless.

It was thought that no soldiers would willingly follow a general into war if the sacred chickens hadn’t given the right omen.

In 246 BCE, naval commander Publius Claudius Pulcher wanted to lead his fleet into battle with the Carthaginians during the First Punic War (264–241 BCE). However, his sacred chickens didn’t eat their grain. That’s when, according to legend, he made a fatal error in 249 BCE.

Seeming to mock the gods’ obvious omen, Claudius threw the chickens overboard into the sea, proclaiming that if perhaps they weren’t hungry, they were thirsty. A sacrilegious move like this would have likely horrified the troops.

Claudius and his fleet paid the price, suffering the only naval defeat of the entire war at the Battle of Drepanum. And it was a significant loss, with 93 of his 123 vessels destroyed.

Claudius was accused of treason and fined as a result. Variations of the story appear in the works of ancient writers Valerius Maximus, Suetonius, and Cicero. – WTF Fun Facts

Source: “Publius Claudius Pulcher, Roman commander,” — Encyclopedia Britannica