Community Corner
22 Offbeat Stories That Made Us Face-Palm In 2025: Weird News & Oddities
We took a look back weird 2025 headlines, found some surprising themes, and even answered the question, "Where does the lone sock go?"
You can’t talk about weird news headlines in 2025 without talking about “Drunk Raccoon,” the masked bandit who broke into a Virginia liquor store, got into the hooch, and then passed out drunk on the bathroom floor, where he remained sprawled out like roadkill until found the next morning.
There were plenty of other head-scratching headlines in 2025. A Pennsylvania woman defecated on another motorist’s car in a fit of road rage, and no, she wasn’t on Farfrompoopen Road, although there are two of them in the United States.
2025 was a year for rabies.
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A Michigan man died of rabies after he contracted the deadly disease from an organ transplant. Fearful that she might have contracted rabies, a Massachusetts woman racked up thousands of dollars in uninsured medical debt after a bat flew into her mouth while she was photographing the night sky. And a Georgia man’s humanitarian act of rescuing an injured raccoon later found to be rabid was honorable but foolish, officials said in so many words.
Also, people keep trying to sneak on airplanes with turtles stuffed in their pants and bras; a citizen scientist invited some of the world’s deadliest snakes to bite him 200 times; and some hikers who ate psilocybin mushrooms before setting out on a hike in New York’s Adirondack Mountains may have hallucinated their friend’s death.
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And that’s just the start of the weird news and oddities that occurred in 2025. Before we get to these stories, let’s talk more about Drunk Raccoon.
Drunk Raccoon Does Community Service
Drunk Raccoon is doing community service of a sort after police discovered the scoundrel had ransacked several shelves of the Ashland, Virginia, liquor store in late November, leaving in his wake an aisle littered with broken booze bottles.
As one person wryly pointed out in the thread on the Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter post about the incident, “This raccoon heard ‘drunk as a skunk’ and said ‘hold my beer.’”
Drunk Raccoon became an internet sensation, providing fodder for late-night hosts and cable news hosts for days, and serving as a metaphor for many about poor life choices.
He’s repaying his debt to society with a “Trashed Panda” T-shirt bearing a picture of his wasted self, and money will go to the shelter where he sobered up.
- Read more: ‘Very Intoxicated’ Raccoon Ransacks VA Store In Liquor-Fueled Rampage and ‘Trashed Panda’ Immortalized On T-Shirt
‘Delco Pooper’ Seeks To Flush Charges
The notorious “Delco Pooper,” the Pennsylvania woman who doo-doo’ed on another motorist’s car in a road rage incident in April, is using what might be called the “bidet of justice” to flush the charges against her.
Christina Solometo, 44, was charged with indecent exposure, disorderly conduct, depositing waste on a highway, criminal mischief, and harassment. Then, she had an open lewdness charge added to her docket.
Solometo will be on probation for two years. In addition, she will be required to log community service hours, take anger management classes and avoid posting about her case online.
- Read more: Woman Defecates On Another Motorist’s Vehicle During Road Rage and ‘Delco Pooper’ Takes Swipe At Wiping Record Clean
11 Weird Street Names
There are two Farfrompoopen Roads in the United States. We understand the mental constipation here is palpable, so we’ll try to wipe away the confusion as best we can: Farfrompoopen is the name given to at least two roads in the United States.
One Farfrompoopen Road is in Arkansas and the other is in Tennessee. We can only guess at the reasons. We’ll let your seventh-grade self’s mind go where it will go on that one.
At least Bucket of Blood Street has an origin story — a colorful one from the “roughest, toughest, most lawless town of the Old West.” It makes sense when you understand the truth behind the street’s name, and it is cool that it has endured all these years in its unedited g(l)ory.
Farfrompoopen and Bucket of Blood aren’t the only street names that’ll make you scratch your head and wonder who comes up with this stuff.
- Read more: 11 Of The Weirdest Street Names In America
Bat Flies Into Photographer’s Mouth
Erica Kahn, 33, of Massachusetts, incurred nearly $21,000 in uninsured medical debt after a bat flew into her mouth while she was trying to photograph the night sky in Arizona last summer.
Kahn lost her health insurance when she was laid off from her job. Still, a bat, part of it anyway, flew into her mouth, and she had it checked out. Her treatment included precautionary rabies shots.
It was a freak accident. The bat flew toward her and somehow got tangled between the camera and her face.
“She screamed, and part of the bat went into her mouth. She doesn’t know which part or for how long, though she estimates it was only a few seconds,” KFF Health News reported.
“It seemed longer,” Kahn reportedly said.
It would.
Speaking Of Rabies …
A 175-pound black bear has been euthanized after it bit a 90-year-old woman shopping at a Dollar General store in Vernon, New Jersey.
The bear had wandered into the store from the Mountain Dispensary next door. There, the bear attacked the owner’s dog and chased away two of his employees.
The same bear had been seen two hours earlier “behaving erratically and moving in and out of traffic” and police shot it with rubber bullets and sent it back into the woods, authorities said.
Police euthanized the bear after the attacks at the dollar store and dispensary. The 90-year-old woman whose leg was bitten was treated at a nearby hospital for minor injuries, and the dog was taken to a veterinarian. The bear was tested for rabies.
The incidents sparked an online conversation about the township’s dumpster policies. In a video, one resident said restaurants and businesses that leave their dumpsters open and unlocked should be ticketed and fined.
“It’s not fair to the bears — or the people who live here,” the person said.
- Read more: Bear Killed After Biting Woman In NJ Dollar Store and Rabies Tests Results Reported On Bear That Bit Woman
Well-Meaning Yet Foolish Rescue
Chattahoochee Nature Center officials give a Georgia man’s “heart was in the right place” when he rescued an injured raccoon, later found to be rabid. But everything else about this man’s 50-mile odyssey with a rabid raccoon clutched to his chest put many lives at risk, including children attending a Thanksgiving break day camp at the nature center.
The good Samaritan wrapped the injured critter in his coat and drove it to the Roswell wildlife center. En route, the animal escaped and bit his hands and face. Undeterred, he returned home, bundled the raccoon tightly in a blanket and duct tape to prevent further bites, and set out again.
The kids were just getting to the nature center when he arrived. The rehabilitation center, which isn’t certified to care for raccoons, wasn’t open. Wildlife officials were summoned, and they kenneled the rabid animal before it could attack anyone else.
It all worked out OK, even for the hapless rescuer. “After much forceful insistence on our part,” the man agreed to get treatment at a hospital, officials said. He gave a fake name, though.
This Rabies Story May Give You Pause
A Michigan man died in early 2025 after contracting rabies from an organ transplant — an extremely rare but not unheard of occurrence.
How this happened is unclear.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has guardrails to prevent “sick” organs from winding up in the organ bank. A screening process includes questions about changes in donors’ mental health states — one of the symptoms of rabies — and also testing for viruses and infections.
- Read more: Man Dies Of Rabies After Organ Transplant
He Let Deadly Snakes Bite Him 200 Times
Would you let some of the world’s deadliest, most potent venomous snakes, including black mambas, taipans and cobras, bite you 200 times?
No? What if the risk of death was almost zero — save a stint in the ICU after lapsing into a coma — and your sacrifice would improve the odds of survival for about 120,000 people who die every year from snake bites?
Tim Friede, 57, a Two Rivers, Wisconsin, resident and lifelong snake enthusiast, is a citizen scientist attempting to gain immunity to 16 species of venomous snakes. He does this by injecting himself with carefully measured doses of venom over time.
It worked, and the results are promising for the development of a powerful antivenom. Deadly snakes aren’t a big problem in Friede’s corner of the world, but he told a New York Times reporter that he is proud “to make a difference for people that are 8,000 miles away, that I’m never going to meet, never going to talk to, never going to see, probably.”
TSA: Stop Stuffing Clothes With Turtles
The TSA would like for people to stop stuffing turtles where they don’t belong in an attempt to sneak them past security and onto airplanes.
It happens more often than you might think. In July, Transportation Security Administration screeners at Miami International Airport found two turtles hidden in a woman’s bra.
“OK, friends, please — and we cannot emphasize this enough — stop hiding animals in weird places on your body and trying to sneak them through security,” the TSA said in a July 24 social media post.
A Pennsylvania man was caught trying to sneak a red-eared slider turtle through Newark Liberty International Airport security by stuffing it in his pants earlier in 2025.
In 2024, TSA agents in Miami prevented a man from smuggling snakes in his pants. A year before that, officials in Miami confiscated Amazon parrot eggs and live birds after hearing chirping from an international traveler's carry-on baggage during a layover.
- Read more: FL Woman Busted For Turtles in Bra. Prompting Unusual TSA Warning and TSA Stops Man With Turtle In Pants
Tom Brady Clones Pet
Even if you could afford it, would you have your dead dog cloned? NFL legend Tom Brady spent $50,000 for a genetic replica of Lua, the pit bull mix he adopted with his ex-wife, cloned after the dog died in December 2023. The clone, Junie, gives Lua “a second chance” at life, he said.
Brady is reportedly an investor in Colossal Laboratories and Biosciences, which cloned the dog. The company recently acquired Viagen Pets and Equine, a pet-cloning company that has cloned pets for celebrities such as Barbra Streisand and Paris Hilton, prompting Brady’s announcement.
An Unbearable Squatter
An Altadena, California, man has found himself in an, ahem, unbearable situation in November. A 500-pound black bear is squatting in the crawl space under his home and so far has shown no inclination to leave.
Ken Johnson, the homeowner, told local television stations that after installing a security camera, he’s seen the bear coming and going. The bear appears to be holding its ground, as if Johnson is the trespasser.
“I went around to put batteries in the camera, and this huge growl comes out from under the crawlspace, and I just went running,” Johnson told NBC Los Angeles. “I mean, it was the most amazing roar you’ve ever heard. Like a lion with a hiss on top of it.”
Where The Lone Sock Goes
Ever wonder where that one sock went? For a Riverside County, California, family, it wasn’t one sock but two dozen that disappeared, and where they went was into the dog’s intestines.
The 7-month-old Bernese mountain dog named Luna had a 44-course meal in all — along with the socks, a scrunchie, hair ties, a shoe insert, a small onesie and other partially digested pieces of cloth.
Luna survived “against all odds and is now wagging her tail again!” the vet clinic said on Instagram.
Veterinarians called the x-ray results “jaw dropping” and said the dog had a “serious obsession” with eating cloth. As it turns out, Luna’s behavior wasn’t all that out of the ordinary for a Bernese mountain dog.
- Read the full story: 2 Dozen Socks Among 44 Items Family Dog Ate
Otters Are Stealing Surfboards Again
Could it be that Otter 841, the mischievous female sea otter who made international headlines with her surfboard-stealing antics off the coast of Santa Cruz, California, in 2023, is at it again?
Or has the sea otter infamous for her unmitigated moxie schooled other otters in the art of hijacking boards?
College student Isabella Orduna, 21, was surfing at Steamer Lane when she felt a nip on her foot. She rolled off her board, only to find it occupied by a “big, fuzzy, chunky bear of an otter” that refused to leave. Marine safety officials took Orduna to shore and retrieved her board after a brief struggle with the persistent otter.
Another surfer reported the same thing happened in what locals say felt like déjà vu.
‘It’s Raining Monkeys’
A couple kayaking along a river in Silver Springs State Park near Ocala, Florida, caught a spectacular sight of “raining monkeys” as dozens of rhesus macaque monkeys dive from trees into the river. Trenda Kitchen thinks a monkey on the shore acting aggressively “got them all fired up,” prompting the jump.
In 1938, a tour boat operator named Colonel Tooey released six monkeys on a small island, hoping for a Tarzan-like attraction. The island later became a state park, but the monkeys quickly escaped, proving to be excellent swimmers and creating a problem for Florida officials.
The current troop is estimated at 300 monkeys. An earlier culling of 1,000 was stopped due to animal welfare concerns when they were reportedly slated for biomedical research. Locals enjoy the monkeys, and officials are managing the population by sterilizing about half the females.
But, “no matter how cute and calm they appear,” the monkeys “can ambush you out of nowhere and might even pass on Herpes to you,” park officials warn.
Fish Travels On Land, Eats Birds
An invasive northern snakehead, a fish native to Asia and Africa, was caught this summer in Pennsylvania’s Schuylkill River, prompting officials to warn anglers they “must immediately kill the fish onsite” to curb its spread.
This torpedo-shaped fish can survive for days out of water, move across land, and prey on birds and mammals, allowing it to rapidly expand its range.
Found in more than a dozen states’ waterways, its spread is “alarming, according to the National Invasive Species Council. Growing up to 3 feet and 20 pounds, their strength and teeth allow them to consume prey up to a third of their size. They seriously threaten native fish like largemouth bass and stocked trout by outcompeting them and disturbing the ecosystem.
Ginormous Goldfish Surfaces
“Call me Megalodon,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a social media post sharing a photo of a goldfish that had grown to ginormous proportions after two years in the wild.
The fish the size of a football was found during an electrofishing survey in Presque Isle, Pennsylvania, and authorities shared a photo to raise awareness of what can happen when small, aquarium-sized goldfish are tossed into a stream or lake.
“Goldfish grow massive in the wild, where they can turn lakes and waterways into murky messes, steal food from native fish, and wreck water quality,” the agency said. “If you can’t keep your fish, re-home it. Just don’t let it loose.”
- Read the full story: Football-Sized Goldfish Surfaces in Pennsylvania
Don’t Hike High Peaks While High
It was one of those Mark Twain “reports of my death are greatly exaggerated” moments that some day trippers in New York’s Adirondack Mountains may never live down.
And by day trippers, we mean the hikers had taken hallucinogenic mushrooms before their May 24 trek up a mountain, according to a news release from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
The hikers were summiting Cascade Mountain in the Adirondack High Peaks when they called 911 to report a member of their party had died.
They told a steward they encountered along the way that they were lost. The steward “determined the hikers were in an altered mental state,” then escorted them down the mountains to an ambulance, which took them to a hospital to be evaluated.
But what of the supposedly dead hiker? The person called authorities and gave them proof of life, then was escorted back to the campsite, where everyone was eventually reunited.
- Read the story: 1 Reason Not To Hike High Peaks While High
He Wasn’t Smoking Grass But Eating It
A twist on the Boomer chant “Get off my lawn!” could have been invoked last spring when a 34-year-old man caused a spectacle at a Fredericksburg, Virginia, hotel.
The guy was rolling around on the lawn eating grass, according to the Stafford County Sheriff’s Office.
Such frolicking is not a crime. But the cops also found multiple cans of Mike’s Hard Lemonade and determined the grazer was drunk. He was arrested on public intoxication charges and held until he sobered up, the sheriff’s office said.
- Read the full story: Guy Eating Grass Outside Hotel Arrested
Coyote Hides In Grocery Store Lettuce
Stop what you’re doing and picture yourself pushing a cart around the Aldi store in Chicago. Nothing mind-boggling to see here beyond the price of beef, right? Wrong. So wrong. And so wild, as shown in a video you have to see to believe.
A police officer was prodding at something in the produce case with a broom handle as his partner leaned on his broom, ready to assist. The first cop poked around some more, then reached in and tugged hard, revealing first a bushy tail.
It was a full-grown coyote, right there in the Aldi store.
The coyote escaped and slid back into the refrigerated shelves somewhere near the lettuce. Eventually, the coyote was captured without injury.
- Read more: Video: Coyote Yanked By The Tail From Aldi Refrigerator Shelves, and What’s Next For The Aldi Coyote?
A Fight To The Ground
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Here’s something you don’t see every day: Two bald eagles, their vice-like talons sunk into each other, exhausted after a battle that began in the sky and, surprisingly, didn’t end when the two massive birds hit the ground outside a home in Tinley Park, Illinois.
Even then, they either wouldn’t, or maybe couldn’t, let up. It was a moment of either relentless fight or hopeless surrender; the birds captured on video were apparently winded from their efforts.
“Usually it’s a territorial thing, but this seemed like it was a little more adversarial,” Annette Prince, director of Chicago Bird Collision Monitors, told Patch.
John Stoddard, who answered the call about the entangled eagles, said neither seemed to be willing to let go. One of the pair was so strong it fought Stoddard’s grasp and flew away once freed from the tussle.
Stoddard, who has volunteered for the bird-collision monitoring group since 2013, said the call was one for the books. “The most interesting to date,” he said.
- Read more: Entangled Battling Eagles Fall From The Sky
How Much Underwear Can 1 Man Wear?
Jaii Xander wasn’t an ordinary man who put his underpants on one leg at a time on Oct. 12. He put them on again and again, layering one pair over the other, hoping to wear 300 pairs, enough to set a Guinness World Record.
While the Morristown, New Jersey, man was unable to complete his underpants feat the first time around, he intends to try again.
Xander used the stunt to raise money for Morristown-based charity Market Street Mission. He had been homeless and living in his car for 10 months, and keeping his laundry clean was a struggle.
“Now I just want to be able to be an advocate for people who are in my situation, and maybe help someone out of their situation by bringing awareness to this,” he said.
Bear Free Of ‘Cone Of Shame’
A young bear was finally freed after ambling around northern Michigan wearing the equivalent of the “cone of shame” veterinarians fit on dogs and cats to prevent them from licking, biting, or scratching at wounds, surgical incisions, or irritated areas.
Wildlife biologists aren’t sure how the cub got its head stuck in a 5-inch hole in a plastic lid to a 55-gallon drum, but it was his necklace for about two years.
Wildlife officials learned of the bear’s conundrum in 2023. In May, a landowner reported seeing the hapless bear in the woods to wildlife officials, who set up a baited trap and safely caught him.
Officials anesthetized the 110-pound bear, cut off the lid, and found it healthy except for a back abscess.
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