An FBI agent was sent an anonymous tip about a real-life Indiana Jones. The man in question was Don Miller, an amateur archaeologist who’d amassed a vast collection of artifacts. According to the tip, the Indiana resident (what a coincidence, huh?) had skeletons in his home. Spooky. 

To confirm the validity of the tip, an FBI agent named Tim Carpenter was sent to investigate. He was assigned to the organization’s Art Theft Program, typically known for investigating fine art. Learn more about this mysterious Indiana Jones at Vanity Fair! 

Image credit: Audrey Amaro

Pay an extra $15 for a chance to skip the long lines in Walt Disney World! Formerly known as FastPass, the Lightning Lane is an unlockable feature in the Disney World app that lets users get into a shorter queue for rides. 

If you think that this paid function will let you ride the most popular rides at Disney World with ease, think again. According to Frommers, you need to cough up another $15 (yikes) to access the Individual Lightning Lane, a separate queueing system for these rides. Check out Frommers’ full article on these systems and how visitors are currently enjoying them.   

Image credit: Disney Parks

At first glance, the Twix logo looks like fancy lettering made to stand out from the chocolate’s shiny gold wrapping. The 3D rendering of the letters that spell Twix in red and white with brown shadows looks simple. 

However, upon a closer inspection, fans noticed a few interesting details! The dot on the letter ‘i’ actually has two lines on it, which is believed to represent the two candies within. Learn more about it here! 

Image credit: Midas Hofstra

Can you believe it? The movie Halloween Kills has been in theaters for eleven days now, and we've already got an Honest Trailer. I guess Screen Junkies wanted to give us a thrill in time for Halloween. This is only possible now that paid streaming and theatrical runs are simultaneous. Let me guess- it's about Jamie Lee Curtis being menaced by and ultimately defeating a masked serial killer named Michael Myers. Since this is the 12th Halloween movie, that's a safe bet. The Honest Trailer finds all the plot holes and stupidity in Halloween Kills, but can't decide if this is an intentional parody or just a lazy retread of a 40-year-old story that worked once upon a time.

Warren Bayley owned the Hacienda, a family-style resort in las Vegas, that had a hard time competing with the big casinos with flashy shows. He needed a promotion. Slot machine repairman Bob Timm, who was also a pilot, suggested they break a world record. Pilots had been setting endurance records for decades by the 1950s, and the longest time a plane had stayed in flight was 46 days. Even approaching that limit could fill a lot of room-nights and make the Hacienda a household name.

So Timm bought a used Cessna and altered it for an endurance flight, which began on December 4, 1958, with Timm and John Wayne Cook piloting. Now, a small plane flying for days would need to refuel without landing, and they did not have the Air Force to fly in with a hose. So the fuel came from a truck going as fast as it could while the plane flew low and as slow as it possibly could without stalling. Filling the plane's tanks took about three miles of synchronized travel, and they had to do it every 12 hours. And the world record was 50 days by then.

A lot can go wrong in 50 days. The autopilot feature saved their lives once when Cook fell asleep, but then quit working a few days later. Then the electrical generator quit, making nighttime refueling more hazardous without lights. Other parts of the plane failed as they reached their maintenance limit, and there were quite a few close calls. When the specially-designed fuel truck broke down, they used a T-bird with gas cans to refuel.

Despite all the problems, the Cessna broke the record and added another two weeks! Read about the amazing small plane that finally landed on a wing and a prayer at Damn Interesting. You can also listen to the story in podcast form.

Alexander Keith Jr. of Halifax, Nova Scotia, led a short but eventful life that shortened the lives of many others. Keith started his criminal career by selling gunpowder for his uncle, but making an extra profit by cutting it with lesser material. His first bombing is assumed to have been an attempt to destroy the evidence. This appeared to be the inspiration for several different later crimes. When the US Civil War broke out, Keith fell in with Confederate spies who operated out of Canada.

Keith's crimes included spying, firebombing, arms smuggling, counterfeiting, hijacking, murder, attempted germ warfare, theft, arson, and insurance fraud. Some these crimes were committed against the Union, others against the Confederacy. It didn't matter as long as Keith could profit somehow. His final bombing was well after the war, in which between 40 and 80 people were killed in Germany, all so that Keith could collect an insurance settlement. In doing so, he became a pioneer of what would come to known as the time bomb. Read the story of Alexander Keith Jr. at Cracked.

In 2014, Dylan got an internship at an engineering firm in Santa Clarita, California. The view from his office included Six Flags Magic Mountain. He looked up the price of admission, and found a deal for a year-round unlimited pass for just $150. The kicker is that the deal included free parking and two meals a day! He jumped on that. Since his office was so close, he would pop into the park for lunch every day, and then again for supper on his way home. He would also occasionally enjoy one of the thrill rides. He did this every day for a year, which puts his cost per meal at less than 25 cents.

Dylan did the same thing the next year, and the next. You might think that someone would get fat or put their health at risk by eating that much theme park food, but you can't argue with saving money. Dylan was able to pay off his student loans, get married, and buy a house! He's still eating at the park by purchasing the year-round pass, which is still available even though the menu has expanded greatly. He doesn't eat there twice every day anymore, so he figures he's spent around 50 cents a meal over the years. What did he eat in all that time? Dylan explains his gastronomic adventures at Six Flags at Mel magazine.  -via Digg

(Image credit: Jeremy Thompson)

Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem perform the 1977 hit song by Electric Light Orchestra for the Dear Earth special that premiered Saturday. In this video, Zoot gets the vocal honors, and even uses a talk box to recreate the original sound. The band is joined by a field of flowers, which would sound weird if this were anyone else but the Muppets. -via Boing Boing 

Norsonic Nor277 tapping machine for generating footstep sounds for building sound transmission testing. pic.twitter.com/SQdx1yFd3T

— MachinePix (@MachinePix) October 24, 2021

*slaps fender*

Yessir, this here is a top-of-the-line tapping machine. Barely any taps on it. The previous owner would just use it to tap a few beats on Sunday. You’ve picked the best bargain on the lot.

Why do you need a tapping machine? And, specifically, why do you need the Nor277 tapping machine? Because you need to test the acoustics of an area using a realistic simulation of footfalls with hard-soled shoes. It’s equipped with 5 tapping hammers tapping up to 10 taps per second. It weighs only 22 pounds and can be run from a battery for the off-road adventures that you’re so fond of.

The price? Step into my office. Let’s make a deal.

-via @lazerwalker

When Robert Baden-Powell founded the scouting movement in the early years of the Twentieth Century, it was directly inspired by his military career and the sense that some paramilitary training was proper for patriotic British boys.

This martial flavor is especially evident in the movement’s early literature, such as this 1925 instruction manual that teaches scouts in the tasks necessary to earn the master-at-arms badge. The first section addresses the use of the saber, while using wooden sticks as training implements. Next is the quarterstaff, which is a useful choice, as the most accessible of improvised weapons is surely a broomstick. Leaving aside the weapons, the scouts then train in the basics of boxing, ju-jitsu, and wrestling. The result is a well-rounded combatant.

-via reddit

An obscure scholar decodes some hints from the Bible and believes he's discovered the location of Solomon's treasure and the Ark of the Covenant. He assembles a diverse crew from various nations, people who have varied goals such as knowledge, fame, fortune, adventure, and the hand of a beautiful woman. They set off to Jerusalem, which was under the rule of the Ottoman Empire at the time. Through bribes, they obtain permits to dig for artifacts. Eventually, they begin to dig underneath an extremely sacred site- the Dome of the Rock, built over the site of the Hebrew Temple of Jerusalem. As their permit is about to expire, they get careless, and are spotted by outraged Muslims. They escape, leaving an international incident in their wake.

You might recognize the story as very close to the plot of the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark. There are differences: no Nazis were there in 1909, they did not find the Ark, and the story is completely true. The expedition was led by Captain Montagu Brownlow Parker of Britain, and you can read about the secret excavation of Jerusalem at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: pop culture geek)

Many navies maintain large sailing vessels in order to train naval officer cadets how to travel the seas the old fashioned way. Although the US Navy doesn’t, the US Coast Guard has an impressive three-masted barque for this purpose. Ecuador’s Guayas is a similarly built and equipped vessel. Such training vessels rarely engage in combat or even maritime law enforcement.*

Nonetheless, the cadets of the Ecuadorian Navy answered the call intrepidly when it fell to their ship to intercept a customized drug-smuggling vessel. The US Naval Institute news service describes the smugglers’ vessel as a low-profile boat painted gray and packed with potentially tons of cocaine. The crew of the Guayas captured it with their utility boat.

-via Super Punch | Photos: Ecuadorian Navy

*Though, you’d like to read about such a foray in fiction, consider S.M. Stirling’s excellent Nantucket trilogy in which the USCGC Eagle is transported back in time.

It’s the spooky season, and folks from the History Center of Olmsted County in Minnesota have announced the opening of this year’s creepy doll contest, a terrifying yet season-appropriate pageant. Multiple cursed dolls of different designs are now displayed at the center for appreciation (and nightmare fodder, let’s get real). Check out more photos of the dolls here! 

Image credit: History Center of Olmsted County

Rick Garza came up with the idea of painting a set of doors in Pilsen, Chicago with images inspired by Loteria, a classic Mexican game. One of the nine doors features a painting of a ladder that accompanies the card La Escalera, which can be seen in the game. Other doors show a creative spin on other classic Loteria images. Garza started and funded the project in 2017 in order to combat the graffiti and gang activity in the neighborhood.  “It was mostly to combat gang graffiti, which was a problem on our doors,” Garza said. “The gangbanging culture was so thick. It was just a detriment to all the young people in the community,” he said.

Image credit: Maggie Sivit / WBEZ

Récita architecture has designed a three-story home in Dallet, France -- and it certainly pops out in the countryside! The dwelling features a slender silhouette, and black paint finish all over, which makes it detached from the suburban buildings near it. According to the architects, the design choices made for the home are deliberate, making ‘the house look like an isolated object and give rise to an immediate experience in the landscape.’ Learn more about the unique home here. 

Image credit: Récita architecture