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Funny Story: Offbeat News From Around the Globe

A selection of the most amusingly disruptive headlines of late, including the possibility of 52 U.S. states and human contact with aliens.

A North Korean gymnast turned himself in after the South Korean military discovered a border security breach. According to reports, the man, who is in his 20s, vaulted himself across a three-meter fence into Goseong, South Korea without triggering sensors. The man was detained and he subsequently asked for asylum.
According to the BBC’s Seoul correspondent, South Korean officials were astonished at his feat and also asked him to recreate his jump. They are looking into how he managed to get past the high-tech security which includes “fences, minefields and armed sentry posts.”
Following the results of the US presidential elections, state separatist movements filed an amicus brief with the intention of creating a “New California State” and “New Nevada State.” The brief supplements an earlier Supreme Court lawsuit that seeks to overturn the results of the election in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia, where Joe Biden was declared the winner.
According to the brief, the movements arose as a result of “lawless actions” on part of the Democrat governors of Nevada and California, referring specifically to “the expansion of mail-in voting due to Covid-19.” The defenders claimed that the measure contributed to “fraud and irregularities,” which courts have repeatedly rejected.
The brief consists of several typos, including “New Nevada Sate” and a misspelling of California Governer Gavin Newsom’s name as “Newsome,” which Forbes believes to be characteristic of pro-Trump filings.
According to Forbes, the case is unlikely to succeed as the court recently rejected a similar case filed by Pennsylvania Republicans.
An Australian family discovered that a koala had entered and climbed up their Christmas tree upon returning home. Amanda McCormick, posting on Facebook about the incident, explained that the family had left the back door of their house open so the dog could enter and exit in the morning.
“Little lady must have just wandered in and made herself at home!” she remarked.
McCormick reported the koala, who is nicknamed Daphne, to a volunteer-run koala rescue organization, 1300KOALAZ. Dee Hearne-Hellon, the organization’s co-founder, explained that although it isn’t common for koalas to wander into human homes, it occurs on occasion. She added, “We have never had a koala in a Christmas tree before, certainly a first for us.”
Police in Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan, recently announced the arrest of a 64-year-old woman who allegedly poked holes in 13 melons with her bare finger. The alleged crime was committed months earlier, on July 28 at about 1:30 p.m. in a supermarket. According to Sora News 24, the victimized melons “[weren’t] just ordinary melons, but the renowned Yubari King” which regularly made the news for their exorbitant prices. The 13 melons in question were combinedly worth 14,000 yen or 135 U.S. dollars.
The woman’s actions were not recorded on security cameras, leaving her intentions up for debate. Some posit that she was simply checking for freshness whereas others believed that she was practicing the ancient Japanese martial art Hokuto Shinken, which involves poking someone so fiercely that their brain explodes, on the melons.
Haim Eshed, former head of Israel’s Defense’s Ministry’s space directorate, recently claimed that extraterrestrial beings from a “galactic federation” are already in contact with humans. He explained that the U.S. government had signed a contract with the extraterrestrials, allowing the latter to conduct experiments on earth. The contract extends both ways and includes an “underground base in the depths of Mars” where both American astronauts and extraterrestrial representatives reside.
U.S. President Donald Trump is reportedly aware of extraterrestrial existence and “was on the verge of revealing” related information but avoided doing so to prevent “mass hysteria.”
“The Unidentified Flying Objects have asked not to publish that they are here, humanity is not ready yet,” Eshed explained.
He added that the extraterrestrial beings were curious about humanity as well as the nature of the universe. “They have been waiting until today for humanity to develop and reach a stage where we will understand, in general, what space and spaceships are,” he said.
Naeema Mohammed Sageer is Deputy News Editor. Email her at feedback@thegazelle.org.
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