|
|
|
The JATO/Impala Story
|
The former front-runner was the mystery owner of a jet-propelled Chevy Impala. The Arizona (USA) Highway Patrol came upon a pile of smoldering metal embedded in the side of a cliff rising above the road at the crest of a curve. Wreckage resembled that at an airplane crash, but it was a car--make and model unidentifiable at the scene.
A lab figured out the story. It seems the driver had somehow gotten hold of a JATO unit (Jet Assisted Take Off--actually a solid fuel rocket) that's used to give heavy military transport planes an extra "push" taking off from short airfields.
He drove his Chevy Impala out into the desert and found a long, straight stretch of road. Then he attached the JATO unit to his car, jumped in, got up some speed and fired off the jet device. The cops calculate that the driver of the car...hit JATO ignition at a distance of about 3 miles from the crash site. Ashphalt was scorched and melted there.
Reaching maximum thrust within 5 seconds, causing the Chevy to reach speeds well in excess of 350 mph and continuing at full power for an additional 20-25 seconds, the driver, soon to be pilot, most likely would have experienced G-forces usually reserved for dog fighting F-14 jocks under full afterburners, basically causing him to become insignificant for the rest of the event.
The individual remained on the highway for about 2.5 miles (15-20 seconds) before the driver applied and completely melted the brakes, blowing the tires and leaving thick rubber marks on the road surface.
Became airborne for an additional 1.4 miles, impacting the cliff face at a height of 125 feet and leaving a black crater three feet deep in the rock. Most of the driver's remains were not recoverable; however, small fragments of bone, teeth and hair were extracted from the crater and fingernail shards were removed from a piece of debris believed to be a portion of the steering wheel.
wiener choke up
Robert Puelo, 32, was apparently being disorderly in a St. Louis market. When the clerk threatened to call police, Puelo grabbed a hot dog, shoved it in his mouth, and walked out without paying for it.
Police found him unconscious in front of the store: paramedics removed the six-inch wiener from his throat, where it had choked him to death.
|
|
|
|
|
Archangelsk Naval Base explosion
|
Alas, this story doesn't qualify, the video tapes are still classified (God knows why).
That explosion at the Archangelsk Naval Base in 1989? The securicam video shows that a guard inside the ammunition bunker was (a Drunk) Shooting Rats.
Estimates I've seen from the Federal German Navy showed the resultant chain reaction of explosions was between 200 and 250,000 tonnes. Basically, it was the entire Northern Red Banner War Stocks for WW3 (minus the physics packages for the specials).
Stooooooped!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
An lady in her 30's had a callous on her big toe tried getting it off by
burning it, then by a razor blade. Neither worked. After about a gallon of
vodka and 2 beers, she decided on a better method. She went out behind the
barn with a shotgun and shot it off.
A man was driving across the Bay Bridge with his wife or girlfriend, forget which. He was despondent--seems he'd been a failure his whole life and could do nothing right. As he drove farther across the bridge he became more and more upset until at one point he stopped the car, got out--and jumped.
Turns out he couldn't even commit suicide right. First he survived the fall, which in itself is amazing, but even the choppy waters didn't kill him. He happened to land right next to the sailboat of a man...who *happened* to be a trauma doctor specializing in people who fall from great heights...who *happened* to have an extra life jacket *and* a cell phone from which to call 911. And in minutes the man was rescued.
At least he was consistent....can't do *anything* right. True story!
In 1982, Walters floated three miles above Southern California in a lawn chair rigged with 42 helium-filled weather balloons. Walters, then a 33-year-old North Hollywood truck driver, had no aviation experience but had always wanted to fly. Armed with a two-way radio, a parachute, a pellet gun and some jugs of water for ballast, he expected to rise gracefully into the sky from his girlfriend's back yard in San Pedro, Calif., then shoot the balloons down to make a gentle landing.
When the mooring was cut, however, Walters shot up into the sky unexpectedly, soon reaching the 16,000-foot level. He passed a few private planes on the way up and was spotted by baffled jetliner pilots. The dizzy balloonist managed to shoot out about 10 of the weather balloons before his gun fell overboard 90 minutes into the flight. His craft then drifted back toward earth. The balloons eventually became entangled in power lines near Long Beach Airport, and Walters was able to hop down from the lawn chair into the waiting arms of the law.
|
|
|
|
|
The Gucci Kangaroo
|
Two crew members from the yacht Italia, in Australia to compete for the America's Cup in 1986, went out one lay day to see a bit of the bush around Fremantle. A kangaroo jumped in front of their hire car and they couldn't avoid hitting him. The Italians were mortified and so was the roo, apparently. As they were examining the carcass, they decided that a couple of shots of Australia's national symbol dressed in one of the crew member's Gucci blazer would be fun. The Italians posed beside the dressed up kangaroo for the folks back home.
They had only taken a few photographs when the kangaroo, which had merely been stunned, came to and hopped back into the bush, taking with it the Gucci blazer and, in its pockets, two hundred dollars in cash, a passport and a membership card to an Italian nightclub!
It's raining cats and COW'S???
Earlier this year, the dazed crew of a Japanese Trawler was plucked out of the Sea of Japan clinging to the wreckage of their sunken ship. Their rescue, however, was followed by immediate imprisonment once authorities questioned the sailors on their ship's loss. To a man they claimed that a cow, falling out of a clear blue sky, had struck the trawler amidships, shattering its hull and sinking the vessel within minutes.
They remained in prison for several weeks, until the Russian Air Force reluctantly informed Japanese authorities that the crew of one of its cargo planes had apparently stolen a cow wandering at the edge of a Siberian airfield, forced the cow into the plane's hold and hastily taken off for home.
Unprepared for live cargo, the Russian crew was ill-equipped to manage a now rampaging cow within its hold. To save the aircraft and themselves, they shoved the animal out of the cargo hold as they crossed the Sea of Japan at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
