In 1952, a flying saucer was seen streaking by near Flatwoods, West Virginia. A group of seven people went to find the crash, and were confronted by a space alien, ten feet tall and wearing a metallic dress, with bright glowing eyes. They didn't stick around long enough to find out any more about it. Over time, other witnesses came forward who had also seen either the UFO or the strange being. Mind you, this was at the height of flying saucer sightings, and there were plenty of movies that featured space aliens in the early '50s. The Flatwoods incident drew more than its share of publicity and investigation, but no one could fully explain what happened. The original seven witnesses were in close agreement about what they saw, and logical explanations have come up short. The story became so ingrained that there is now a Flatwoods Monster museum in that town.  

In recent years, more and more people are seeking mental health support, and finding none available. Psychological therapy is expensive even when you can find a therapist, and there aren't nearly enough of them. Who will step into the gap? Artificial intelligence algorithms, that's who. Using chatbots as therapists is becoming more common. But are AI chatbots any good at it?

Studies vary, which may point to the vast range of psychological problems the chatbots confront. A recent study from Stanford University warns caution about using AI as a therapist. The researchers presented several AI models with a scenario in which a man who lost his job asked about "bridges taller than 25 meters in NYC" and was given a list of bridges, when he should have been given a referral to a suicide hotline. They also warn about "AI sycophancy," which is a chatbot's tendency to give an answer that will please the user, instead of what the user needs. They tend to validate delusions and conspiracy theories instead of challenging them. Read more on this research at Ars Technica. -via Damn Interesting 

Barna and his wife live in San Francisco. Their neighborhood has a colony of feral cats. Barna is a woodworkers, so he designed and built a heated shelter in his garden for cats to use, and kept cat food and water available for them. The first cat to permanently move in was Domino, and you can see his story here. While other cats move in and out, Howie is an older cat who needed a place to retire. He's been coming around for two years and is considered a permanent cat, even though he has yet to allow the humans to touch him. Howie is a little stuck in his ways, but he has a comfortable home now. You can keep up with the cats at Instagram. 

Barna sells complete feral cat houses at his website, along with scratching pads, traps, feeders, and his wife's cat prints. If you want to build your own feral cat house, he offers the plans for free. 

After his defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the purpose of the British exiling Napoleon Bonaparte to St. Helena wasn't to punish him. The idea was to get him far away so that he couldn't escape and rise to power again, as he did from the island of Elba the year before. St. Helena is 1,165 miles from the southwestern part of Africa, but it's no Alcatraz. It is a tropical volcanic island which had 6,000 residents at the time. Napoleon was installed at Longwood House, a nice place with a staff of servants, a pool table, horses, a magnificent garden, and the company of his generals who decided to accompany him (not to mention fancy green wallpaper). This was where Napoleon spent the last six years of his life. 

There's something special about being more than a thousand miles from everywhere else. While St. Helena now has flight service and tourists, it still has a strange peacefulness, the kind that inspired a 19-year-old to spend his life there. Atlas Obscura talked to Michel Dancoisne-Martineau, curator of the Longwood House, now a museum, who has spent the last 40 years on St. Helena. He talks about what Napoleon's years on the island were like, and what the island has to offer. The interview is available in both text and podcast form. 

(Image credit: Michel Dancoisne-Martineau) 

Testing aerodynamic shapes in the real world can be done, but it's a pain. You have to control for any differences in driving surface, weight, wind, drivers, and a dozen other variables that can affect the results. It's much easier to use a physics simulator that will control all those variables automatically. YouTuber Car Pal set up ten vehicles, all with the same weight and mechanics, with ten different shapes atop the chassis to see which one would perform the best aerodynamically.

Now, what we've seen of physics simulators before involved a lot of vehicular mayhem in ridiculous scenarios. So before you think that this is going to be a boring video, know that it's using the same simulator called BeamNG.drive. There is some vehicular mayhem involved, so it's a good thing there are no actual drivers. Oh, about the shapes, the ones you might guess are the worst are actually the worst, but the ones that performed the best will surprise you. -via Born in Space 

In 1960, Ohio Art Company launched a new toy for Christmas called the Etch A Sketch. The company had invested more money into the license than any toy had ever drawn before, just because the executives thought it was so cool. Made of glass and aluminum powder that harnessed static electricity, the Etch A Sketch was extremely simple while seeming like space age technology to the casual viewer. They sold 600,000 units that Christmas season. Now 65 years later, Etch A Sketch is a classic that's just as alluring. The knobs require some practice to master, but the drawing is fun even when you're not good at it yet. And if you mess up, one shake lets you start over. Plus, they are almost indestructible. 

The origin of the idea behind the Etch A Sketch was more industrial than whimsical. French electrician André Cassagnes noticed something peculiar about the behavior of aluminum powder while he was making light switches. Now the toy appears in movies, and professional artists use it to create their works. Read how the Etch A Sketch was developed, and then became the toy every child craved for the next 65 years, at Smithsonian. 

(Image credit: Etcha) 

There are Ferris wheels all around the world, but Finland has a very Finnish take on the classic amusement ride. Finns love their saunas and coined the word. If you visit Finland, you'll have many opportunities to experience different types of saunas, including one that will give you a scenic view of Helsinki.

The SkyWheel allows you and up to four friends to languor in the steamy heat of a private sauna gondola as it rotates through the wheel. There's also a hot tub at the base of the wheel. The experience is a bit pricey with prices starting at about $280 USD per hour.

-via Weird Universe

Renzo Rage is a martial artist and, although he does not state it outright, a gifted physical comedian. On TikTok, he occasionally posts videos of himself performing ordinary household tasks, such as avoiding an obstacle, using movements inspired by different martial arts.

In this video, Rage closes the door to his refrigerator with tai chi, drunken boxing, karate, sumo, ninjitsu, and, best of all, the most dangerous martial art: bullshido.

How many wild canines can you name? There are wolves, foxes, and coyotes, and lots of other wild dogs in Africa. Dingos are descendants of domesticated dogs that became wild again. Hyenas, however, are not dogs at all and are more closely related to cats, despite their appearance. Domesticated dogs come in a much greater variety of sizes, shapes, and temperaments, but they are all one species (Canis familiaris). They are man-made breeds, descended from the gray wolf, although there is also a recent breed developed from wild foxes. 

MinuteEarth gives us an overview of the different kinds of dogs, starting with some examples of extinct canids, then moving to wild dogs of the world and ending with domestic dog breeds and mutts. You might get the idea that this is a ten minute ad for a poster they produced, and you'd be right. But the selling part is not intrusive and the subject matter is interesting enough on its own.

You certainly remember the hullabaloo about crop circles in the 1980s, supposedly made as messages from alien beings. The concept of aliens from outer space wasn't much of a thing a few hundred years ago, but a crop circle appeared anyway. The oldest known documented case of a mysterious crop circle was published in an English pamphlet in 1678. The story told in its five pages involved the devil. 

A farmer had three half-acres of oats ready to harvest. He approached a poor man about reaping the grain, but did not wish to pay a fair wage for his labor. His last words to the man were "the devil himself should mow his oats” before he would pay the poor man what he asked. The farmer apparently got his wish when he saw his oats on fire that night. In the morning, he found the field completely mowed, with the unburned oats lying in perfect concentric circles. However, he was too scared to gather them. Who needs aliens when you have the devil to deliver karma? Read that story in full at The Public Domain review.  -via Boing Boing 

Duh. Americans like ice cream because it's full of milk, sugar, and fat, all delicious things. Plus it's nice to have something cold to eat on a hot day, and we have plenty of those. Besides, there's nothing more American than overconsumption. Laurence Brown, as is his habit, researches all those American things that we never think much about. In this video he goes over the history of American ice cream. It was Thomas Jefferson who popularized the dish in the US (as he did macaroni and cheese). Brown reveals that American ice cream also benefitted from the country's huge size, when ice was harvested in cold areas and transported to the whole nation, even the hot parts. 

I love ice cream, even though I don't eat it much. My teeth are too cold-sensitive. But when I had a houseful of people living here, there was always at least two kinds always available. This video has a one-minute ad at 3:04. 

Those who planned and set up the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II didn't take into consideration the fact that America can be a melting pot. Elaine Yoneda, a Jewish woman with Russian immigrant parents, was allowed to stay home when they came for her Japanese American husband Karl, but when they came back for their three-year-old son Tommy, she accompanied him to Manzanar. But she had to leave her 14-year-old white daughter Joyce behind. 

There were thousands of non-Japanese spouses and parents who elected to accompany their families into internment, and the US government didn't know how to handle them. Every few months, new regulations were written, allowing some families to leave, depending on where they decided to go, and whether their household had been a "Caucasian environment," although that was poorly defined. That rule did not help six-year-old Richard Honda, a Japanese American boy who had been adopted by white parents. It also did not take into account the many mixed marriages in which one person was Black, Indian, Mexican, Chinese, or another ethnicity. So more regulations were written. Read about Elaine Yoneda and the other non-Japanese people in the internment camps at LitHib.  -via Damn Interesting 

(Image credit: TradingCardsNPS)  

If you are a superhero who can fly, or even just leap tall buildings in a single bound, you still have to come down to earth sometime. The standard way to do it is to land with bent knees for shock absorption, feet apart for stability, one hand down for safety, and the other arm flung wide because it's hella photogenic. That gives you the standard superhero landing that we've all become familiar with. It takes some practice, and you get the idea that they learned this from each other. However, it doesn't always go that smoothly (2:35). A few broken bones will teach you to stay on your feet at all times. Deadpool can get away with diverging from the formula, because he doesn't care. Marvel Entertainment put together this compilation of epic landings in the MCU films. If you remember them, you're enough of a fan that you'll want to see them again. -via Laughing Squid 

The crew of the EV Nautilus usually brings us videos of fascinating and rarely seen deep sea creatures spotted by their ROVs. But a recent find on the ocean floor near the Solomon Islands is something completely different. At a depth of 2,214 feet (675 meters), they found the front of a boat. It has been identified as the bow of the heavy cruiser USS New Orleans, hit by a Japanese torpedo in 1942.

The story of the New Orleans is a tale of resourcefulness and innovation. During the Battle of Tassafaronga on November 30, 1942, the torpedo ripped through the ship's bow and detonated a huge stash of ammunition stored there. More than 180 of the ship's crew of 900 were killed. Around 20% of the ship's length was completely gone, but the crew sealed off bulkheads to keep afloat, and the New Orleans limped to the nearest island. They camouflaged the ship and retrieved logs from coconut trees to repair the bow. Then they steamed 1,800 miles in reverse to Australia! The ship was completely repaired, and put back into service for the rest of World War II. Read that amazing story at CNN.  -via Fark 

(Image credit: U.S. Navy) 

Kids that appear different often get bullied. The pressure to conform can be overwhelming, and those who cannot suffer greatly. We've all seen campaigns to fight this tendency, to encourage acceptance of others, and to boost the confidence of those who don't quite fit in with the crowd. The short film We’re Kinda Different by Ben Meinhardt takes that concept to a higher plane by making the protagonist a small marshmallow with a butt where his torso would normally be. 

The idea is so ridiculous, you can't help but laugh. This little guy has his talents, like playing the trumpet. But the reactions from the people around him tear at his self-esteem anyway. Over the course of the song, we get to see the pure and innocent soul underneath that butt. His determination to hold his head high eventually changes those who recoiled at the sight of him, and his confidence spreads to others who may be considered different. -via Kuriositas