ISSUE #4 — DON'T LOSE YOUR HEAD |
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Welcome to Anthology of Intrigue, a weekly newsletter exploring the darkest, weirdest corners of Wikipedia. This week's issue features the future, a miracle chicken, a missing pilot, and a broadcast intrusion. |
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This predictive timeline gives you a slightly terrifying glimpse of what lies in store for Earth, the galaxy, and the entire universe in the far future. In 10,000 years, for example, the constellations as we know them will become unrecognisable. In 25 million years the San Andreas fault will have shifted and created a new inland sea on the West Coast of America. And as if that wasn't exciting enough, in a mere 7.59 billion years the Earth and Moon will have almost certainly been destroyed by falling into the Sun. Well, it's nice to have something to look forward to.
Read more → |
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Mike the Headless Chicken, also known as Miracle Mike, was a Wyandotte chicken who lived for eighteen months after having his head cut off. In September, 1945 a farmer, Lloyd Olsen, tried to kill the bird for dinner, but botched an attempt to behead it. Instead of dying the chicken continued to run around, making a strange gurgling sound, and Olsen kept it alive by feeding it a mixture of milk and water via an eyedropper. Miracle Mike became a sensation, touring in sideshows and even appearing in Time magazine, but later died in March, 1947. Read more → |
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Frederick Valentich was an Australian pilot who disappeared during a 125-mile training flight over the Bass Strait. Flying in a Cessna 182L light airplane, he contacted Melbourne air traffic control and informed them that he was being followed by an another aircraft flying about 1,000 feet above him. He claimed to have seen a shiny metal surface with a green light on it, and thought that the craft might be toying with him. When asked to identify the unidentified object his final message to the flight control officer was "It isn't an aircraft." Metal scraping sounds were heard, then the transmission ended. His body was never found. Read more → |
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Late one night in 1987, during an episode of Doctor Who, the Chicago TV station WTTW was interrupted by sudden static, followed by an illegal broadcast of someone wearing a Max Headroom mask. The masked person rants, screams, and makes bizarre noises for just over a minute in a garbled, digitally altered voice. The station was broadcast from an antenna on the Sears Tower, and engineers claim the signal intrusion happened because no engineers were on site at the time to prevent it. To this day the identity of the culprit remains a compelling mystery. Read more → |
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In the previous issue we had a list of unusual deaths, and it was pretty grim, so let's go for something a bit more innocuous this week. This list, as you might have guessed, is of the planet's most northerly things. Reykjavik is, for example, the most northerly capital city in the world. The most northerly coral reef is located near Norway. And the most northerly newspaper is published in Rovaniemi, Finland. Maybe this knowledge will come in handy in a pub quiz one day. Read more → |
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Anthology of Intrigue is delivered every Friday, life permitting, and curated by @ultrabrilliant. Like it? Tell a friend! They can subscribe here. Thanks for reading. |
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