A talking weasel on the Isle of Man was an international media sensation back in the 1930s. It was known as "the Dalby Spook" locally, but the weasel called itself Gef. The weasel -or possibly a mongoose- lived on the farm of James and Margaret Irving.

The strange events began in autumn 1931, when the Irvings noticed an unusual animal in their farmyard, being, as Price’s correspondent described: “similar in appearance to a weasel, with small body, long bushy tail, flat nose, and yellow in colour”.[3] Oddly, this animal did not appear to alarm the chickens. Later, it was seen inside the house, as James Irving described: “This eerie weasel, as I thought he might be, then began to keep us awake at night by blowing, spitting and growling behind the matchboard partition of the lower rooms…”[4]

The entity quickly progressed to something more sophisticated. Having learned to mimic various animal noises, it then began to repeat nursery rhymes, and within a short while – having built up a sufficiently wide vocabulary – it could converse with the family. Its voice is said to have been loud, clear, and one or two octaves higher than a human’s. Other witnesses describe it as a “very high, screechy sort”.[5]

Initial news reports spoke of the ‘man-weasel’ farm,[6] and indeed, the entity itself, when asked who or what he was, would frequently reply: “I am the ghost of a weasel, and I will haunt you with weird noises and clanking chains.”[7] It was only later on that he described himself as “just a little extra, extra clever mongoose”.[8]

Newspapers printed stories about Gef, although when reporters visited the farm, he tended to disappear. Some considered him a poltergeist or a shape-shifter. It was later thought that the Irving's teenage daughter, Voirrey, provided the voice of Gef, but she never admitted to a hoax. Link

(YouTube link)

I thought this was neat -someone edited the film The Matrix to the tune of "Mambo #5" by Lou Bega. But the video is not edited at all. This gunfight scene just syncs up very well! -via Buzzfeed

Plunge waterfalls are those that fall so forcefully they completely lose contact with the cliff face. Not something you'd want to get too close to! Environmental Graffiti found 15 of these falls, and will take you on a tour of them through a photo gallery.  Shown here is Waireinga Falls in New Zealand. Link

(Image credit: Vinnie Hall)

We told you the story of Joseph Pujol, who made a good living by farting onstage in Paris over a hundred years ago. Now that story is a off-Broadaway musical! The Fartiste opened last week at Sofia’s Downstairs dinner theater.

It might be lowbrow humor at its lowest, but it gets laughs. Why? Unfortunately the cast and crew can't say. You just have to have an open mind ... and open nostrils.

"I love fart jokes and I think that everyone should," said Charlie Schulman, who wrote the show's book. "It's one of those things in life that makes people laugh, but I don't know why."

More flatulent sound effects fill the air of the Manhattan dinner theater where the show opened last week than at a Whoopee cushion factory.

"You could be at a funeral, and if somebody farts, people will laugh," said Steven Scott, a standup comedian who produces every gassy sound in "The Fartiste" with his mouth. "There's just something funny about it."

So far, the show has received good reviews. Link

(Image credit: Carol Rosegg)

The most detailed moon map yet has been constructed from images by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Technicians from Arizona State University compiled the map which shows elevation changes as small as 100 meters.

The near-global topographic map was constructed from 69,000 WAC stereo models and covers the latitude range 79°S to 79°N, 98.2% of the entire lunar surface. Due to persistent shadows near the poles it is not possible to create a complete stereo based map at the highest latitudes. However, another instrument onboard LRO called LOLA excels at mapping topography at the poles. Since LOLA ranges to the surface with its own lasers, and the LRO orbits converge at the poles, a very high resolution topographic model is possible, and can be used to fill in the WAC “hole at the pole.” The WAC topography was produced by LROC team members at the German Aerospace Center.

Read more about the map at NASA. Link -via Laughing Squid

The airline industry will have to put together a new set of procedures to cover the event of a pilot getting stuck in the toilet. A Delta Airlines flight from Asheville, North Caroline to New York City was the scene of a security alert yesterday. While the pilot was in the lavatory, the door latch became stuck. Unable to alert a flight attendant, the pilot asked a passenger to go to the cockpit and use a secret code to alert the co-pilot. The co-pilot did not believe what he heard and called ground control.

“The captain has disappeared in the back and, uh, I have someone with a thick foreign accent trying to access the cockpit right now…,” the co-pilot reported.

“What I’m being told is he’s stuck in the lav,” the co-pilot continued.  “Someone with a thick foreign accent is giving me a password to access the cockpit, and I’m not about to let him in.”

Not willing to take any chances themselves, air controllers on the ground ordered the plane, operated by regional carrier Chautauqua Airlines, to make an emergency landing.

Before the co-pilot was forced to make that emergency landing, however, the pilot was able to open the bathroom door, and calm his anxious colleagues.

The plane landed safely and no one was charged in the incident. http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Pilot-Locked-in-Bathroom-Chatauqua-Airlines-Asheville-LaGuardia-134052053.html -via The Daily What

An abandoned way to frighten a frightening animal
by Nan Swift, Improbable Research staff

These drawings tell the purpose and the workings of a machine called a “pop-up device for deterring an attacking animal such as a bear,” invented by Adam Warwick Bell of San Francisco and Anthony Victor Saunders of London. Mr. Bell is a patent attorney and a biochemist. Mr. Saunders is a mountain climber who walked atop Mount Everest (which, let us be clear, does not have bears at its summit) and other mountains, and often returned in reasonably good health.

The drawings are part of Bell and Saunders’s U.S. patent application (#10/634719), which they filed on August 5, 2003, and which, on June 7, 2005, the Patent Office declared to be “abandoned.”

The application includes this summary:

A device carried by the human hiker that comprises a pop-up (preferably inflatable) figure that is large and may be rapidly deployed by the user. The figure is meant to scare away an attacking or aggressive animal such as a bear. The activation of the pop-up figure may be accompanied by noises and/or smells and/or projectiles and/or smoke.The inventors say that their methods “may be applied to many different kinds of animal such as elk, moose, mountain lions, buffalo, hippopotamus, rhino, elephant, boar and other animals that are known to be dangerous to man.”

“The Invention,” they explain, “works on the principle of maximizing the apparent size and ferocity of the human, intimidating the bear (or other animal) and making it retreat from an encounter it fears losing.”

Bell and Saunders see quickness as being important:

The device increases rapidly in size, thereby scaring the animal and deterring the attack upon the user…. Inflation should be very rapid… the figure should be fully inflated within less than 1 minute, or within less than 30 seconds or preferably within less than 10 seconds or most preferably within less than 5 seconds.

(YouTube link)

A camera was installed on the roof of the Exploratorium in San Francisco to record the sky every ten second, every day, for a year. At 24 frames per second, that's a six-minute time-lapse movie every day. Ken Murphy arranged 360 of those videos onto a grid in this video, so all those days play simultaneously. You should watch this in full-screen mode, then you can keep up with the time in the lower right corner. Apparently the bars just above the middle represent winter. Read more about the project at murphlab. Link -via The Daily What

(YouTube link)

This is one movie parody trailer that is not for children. -via Buzzfeed

Imagine receiving a cake in your honor that's shaped like a foot! Cake Wrecks found five of them. One is for a podiatrist, one is a groom's cake, and the others? Who knows! The cake shown here may be a commemoration of some sort of injury, but at least it doesn't have a fungus or a toe-tag! http://www.cakewrecks.com/home/2011/11/16/wrecky-replay-thisll-cure-that-freaky-fetish.html

(YouTube link)

A Canada goose ships a gift to a puppy in America by FedEx. This is illustrated with an overly-complicated domino fall using boxes in this extended ad from FedEx Canada. -via the Presurfer

From the eruption in the background and the weapon of choice, you can see that being a park ranger at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is not like the job your local park ranger holds. These rangers must protect themselves and the park's mountain gorillas from both poachers and warring factions. And now the huge eruption of Nyamulagira volcano has opened up opportunities for the park. They've set up a camp from which tourists can get a good view of the volcano's activities! Read more about it and see a gallery of pictures at National Geographic News. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!

(Image credit: Cai Tjeenk Willink, Virunga National Park)

This fetching praying mantis looks like she is flirting with the camera! But the orchid mantis may be a male. An orchid mantis is one of the many flower mantis species that have camouflage to match the type of flower they live among. See a variety of flower mantises at Environmental Graffiti. Link

(Image credit: Luc Viatour / www.Lucnix.be)

(YouTube link)

Besides being cute, Purin the Super Beagle plays catch a bit differently from the way most dogs do it. And she gets better at it as the video goes along! -via Arbroath

The possibilities of Photoshop are only limited by one's imagination. I don't know who originally had the idea to swap facial features in pictures of more than one person, but the results can be freaky! Sometimes the whole face is swapped; sometimes it's hard to tell where each part came from in this selection of images from the Something Awful forums posted at Unreality magazine. Link