Great Finds / strange stuff The Weirdest News of 2016 Kangaroo terror and falling catfish By Rob Quinn, Newser Staff Posted Dec 31, 2016 11:17 AM CST Copied An athlete dressed as a clown jumps into the Mediterranean sea as he takes part in the annual Christmas Day swimming race in Barcelona. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez) Strange days, indeed: Every year has its oddities and 2016—a year in which it snowed in the Sahara, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, and Donald Trump was elected president—was certainly no exception. Some of the year's weirdest stories: This was an unlucky year for many, but only one person was unlucky enough to be hit by a falling catfish in Philadelphia—or to be trapped in a toilet while trying to retrieve a phone. There were more drones in the skies than ever, one of which was brought to the ground with a throw of a medieval knight's spear. Creepy clown sightings, most of which turned out to be hoaxes, caused such an uproar that one mayor vowed to have clowns arrested on sight. In New York City, a fake memorial popped up for Staten Island ferry passengers who were supposedly dragged to their doom by a sea monster in 1963. The roads were no escape from the the weirdness: Some of the more unusual crashes included March's collision of a beer truck and a Frito-Lay chip truck, and a June crash involving a bread truck and a truck carrying deli meats. Police in Australia thankfully foiled a terror plot involving an exploding kangaroo. In other wildlife news, a Latvian man swears he was taken hostage by a beaver, and Seattle Aquarium had to cancel its annual giant Pacific octopus sex exhibition. In Norway, the frontman of "black metal" band Darkthrone accidentally got himself elected to his town's council. Snoop Dogg, meanwhile, accidentally gave a Transylvanian village a big PR boost. Scientists investigating a strange humming noise emanating from the depths of the Pacific Ocean concluded that they may have been listening to millions of fish farts. A toddler was ticketed for littering, a teenager was arrested for burping, but cops decided that an Alaska woman who put her dead husband on ice for a "traveling wake" hadn't broken any laws. A British man was another person to get an unusual send-off in 2016: His fishing buddies turned his ashes into bait—and caught a 180-pound carp. (Polls show most Americans want 2017 to hurry up and get here.) Report an error