“INSANE THINGS YOU PROBABLY FORGOT HAPPENED IN 2020” #WeirdDarkness

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IN THIS EPISODE: 2020 in the minds of most will be forever remembered as the worst year in modern history. And granted, the pandemic and resulting quarantine, the horrible world leaders (all of them), the economy, Australia’s wildfires, racism, social unrest, and… well, you get the idea… they did make for a horrible year. There were also a lot of other strange things that happened – albeit mostly in the background thanks to the headline-stealing news items. We’ll look at some bizarre things that took place in 2020 that will hopefully take your mind off of the coronavirus, quarantine, and the bill collectors – at least for a little while.

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STORY AND MUSIC CREDITS/SOURCES…
(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in the show notes immediately.)
“58 Things You Probably Forgot Happened in 2020” by Jess Joho for Mashable: https://tinyurl.com/ycbhl6fe
“10 Weird Things That Happened in 2020” by Estelle for ListVerse: https://tinyurl.com/ybrb6j9h
“20 Of The Weirdest Things That Happened In 2020” by Greg Evans for Indy 100: https://tinyurl.com/ycxca4p5
“12 Wild Things You May Have Forgotten Actually Happened in 2020” by Abigail Rosenthal for Chron: https://tinyurl.com/y8d3zqfh
Weird Darkness theme by Alibi Music Library. Background music, varying by episode, provided by Alibi Music, EpidemicSound and/or AudioBlocks with paid license. Music from Shadows Symphony (https://tinyurl.com/yyrv987t), Midnight Syndicate (http://amzn.to/2BYCoXZ), Kevin MacLeod (https://tinyurl.com/y2v7fgbu), Tony Longworth (https://tinyurl.com/y2nhnbt7), and/or Nicolas Gasparini/Myuu (https://tinyurl.com/lnqpfs8) is used with permission.

“I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.” — John 12:46

Find out how to escape eternal darkness at https://weirddarkness.com/eternaldarkness

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TRANSCRIPT:

Congratulations! You’ve survived 2020! Does the idea of that godforsaken year’s end bring you little comfort because you know the horrors it wrought will outlast December? Yeah…me too. Emotionally speaking, 2020 lasted approximately 12 months and 487 years.

Quarantine time distortion is a real thing. That’s why I’m willing to bet you will not believe many of the events I’ve included in this episode actually took place in the year of our lord 2020. Time is a human construct that’s lost all meaning forever, whether due to isolation or just the unending onslaught of world-ending news.

In all likelihood, you’ll experience the memory of events from earlier in the year like they’re from a bygone era, a time when humanity was more innocent and naive and less, you know, on the brink of total societal collapse and whatnot. Or maybe you were just bombarded by so many unfathomable news stories — or, let’s be honest, too busy spiraling to pay attention — that you missed some or deleted others from memory to make room for…everything else that happened.

As strange and unbelievable as some of these seem, they all indeed did occur in just the last 365 days. So get ready to dive headfirst into the wormhole, friends! Let’s defy the laws of physics and logic together as we walk down a memory lane located in the bowels of hell!

I’m Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness.

SHOW OPEN==========

Welcome, Weirdos – I’m Darren Marlar and this is Weird Darkness. Here you’ll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you’re new here, welcome to the podcast – and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes! If you’re already a Weirdo, please share the podcast with others – doing so helps make it possible for me to keep doing the podcast! While listening, be sure to check out the Weird Darkness website so you can find me on social media and drop me an email.

Coming up in this episode… I’m veering away from the normally dark and brooding subject matter. Just today though. 2020 in the minds of most will be forever remembered as the worst year in modern history. And granted, the pandemic and resulting quarantine, the horrible world leaders (all of them), the economy, Australia’s wildfires, racism, social unrest, and… well, you get the idea… they did make for a horrible year. There were also a lot of other strange things that happened – albeit mostly in the background thanks to the headline-stealing news items. We’ll look at some bizarre things that took place in 2020 that will hopefully take your mind off of the coronavirus, quarantine, and the bill collectors – at least for a little while.

Now.. bolt your doors, lock your windows, turn off your lights, and come with me into the Weird Darkness!

With all the constant news, it felt like 2020 lasted at least a decade and well-overstayed its welcome. And amid all the nightmarish headlines, there were some weird things that happened. No one’s blaming you if you don’t remember all the bizarre happenings of 2020.

A PAIR OF GAY PENGUINS STOLE AN EGG FROM A PAIR OF LESBIAN PENGUINS. If you had ‘drama in the Dutch LGBTQ+ penguin community’ on your 2020 bingo card then congratulations, your luck has come in. Over at the Amersfoort’s Dierenpark zoo, a pair of supposedly gay penguins (I’m not exactly sure how you determine that for sure without sitting them down with a sex therapist) stole an entire batch of eggs, to hatch as their own – and they stole them from a supposedly lesbian couple of penguins. The gay penguins, named ‘Tux and Flipper’ have a reputation for causing trouble having previously stolen a single egg in 2019, which failed to hatch. They clearly didn’t want to be foiled again and this time stole an entire batch of eggs and also took over two enclosures. Although the pair seem determined to get their own little penguins, it is unlikely to happen. Zookeeper Sander Drost explained to RTV Utrecht that because the eggs were produced by a lesbian couple they won’t have been fertilized and are unlikely to bring any baby penguins into the world. Drost does believe that one day a same-sex penguin couple could conceivably lay an egg that hatches… which in itself is weird, because you’d think a zookeeper would understand how animal biology works, and that you need both the male and female contributions to make an egg with a living bird in it.

THE TERRIBLE TUMBLEWEEDS! As the hours ticked by on New Year’s Eve 2019, some drivers near Yakima, Washington, saw in the new year trapped on a highway. A massive wall of tumbleweed left them stranded in their vehicles for about 10 hours while workers tried to uncover cars that had been completely buried beneath the invader plants. Two snowplows were used to clear the tumbleweeds after they were blown onto the State Highway 240 during strong winds. One of the state patrol troopers, Chris Thorson, told The Seattle Times, that in twenty years on the job he had never seen anything quite like the sight of the giant tumbleweeds blocking cars. Tumbleweed is usually linked to the American West but originated in the Ural Mountain steppe in Russia. Nowadays it is found all over the world including Afghanistan and even New Zealand.

MURDER HORNETS – REMEMBER THEM? Animals have had quite a year but no creature grabbed more headlines than the so-called ‘murder hornet.’ This pesky insect, also known as the Asian giant hornet made their way into the United States in May and quickly alarmed people, as stories about them taking over honeybee hives, decapitating their less aggressive winged friends and taking their corpses home to feed their young swarmed the internet. It sounds like something from a horror movie but for a brief moment the idea of ‘murder hornets‘ running rampant in the US, combined with a pandemic had people fearing the worst. Thankfully, nothing too serious happened in regard to these little fellas and people calmed down a little when videos began emerging of bees working together to kill off one of the hornets. When it was all said and done all it took to kill a murder hornet was a vacuum.

ANIMALS RECLAIM THE WORLD! As the world began to go into lockdown in March and face the consequences of Covid-19, animals who had no idea what was going on began to reclaim their rightful place on Earth. Soon enough the internet was awash with videos of marine life returning to the canals of Venice and deer venturing into towns in Japan. Some of these videos remain pretty unclear regarding whether they were actually a result of lockdown or not. However, footage of monkeys swarming and taking over a city in Thailand was undeniable and quite frankly terrifying. A few months later the local police claimed that the monkeys had well and truly taken over and that trying to stop them was ‘hopeless.’

CELEBRITIES BECAME PANDEMIC PATHETIC. Remember when the pandemic was in its infancy and it was like every single celebrity forgot how to act? Gal Gadot and her pals recorded an unearthly cover of “Imagine,” Jennifer Lopez turned her kids into waiters and Vanessa Hudgens fluffed her hair and pondered on Instagram Live how it was “inevitable” people would die from the coronavirus. Someone at one point called the pandemic “the great equalizer.” Celebrities quickly showed us how untrue that was.

THE MYSTERY BOX WAS OPENED! In October 2020 it was reported that a carved wooden box had been found at the infamous Boleskine House. The property was once owned and inhabited by occultist Aleister Crowley as well as Jimmy Page, guitarist and founder of Led Zeppelin. The box was rumored to have been sealed with melted wax and was bought via online auction by Rik Spencer, a resident of Grimsby. The person who sold the box to Spencer claimed that he had found it under the floorboards of the Boleskine House after a fire ripped through it in 2015. In November 2020, Spencer worked up the nerve to open the box, after sprinkling a circle of salt around it. Inside he found something resembling a voodoo doll, a sketch that is reminiscent of the Sinister film DVD cover, as well as coins and what seemed to be vegetation. Spencer believes that the box might in fact be a Dybbuk box and asked for anyone with information on the owner of the house between 2012 and 2015 to contact him. The owner at that time would have been millionairess Trudy Piekaar-Bakker.

LORI LAUGHLIN WAS SENT TO PRISON: For her role in the college admissions scandal, the actress widely known as Aunt Becky from “Full House” was sentenced to two months in prison for committing fraud to get her two daughters into the University of Southern California. She served her time in prison from Oct. 30 until Dec. 28. Her husband, fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli, is currently serving five months in prison.

PENTAGON RELEASES UFO VIDEOS: In any other year this probably would have been the biggest story on the planet but it happened to occur in 2020 so it was reduced to just something a bit weird. Even with that in mind, it is still staggering that the Pentagon released actual footage of a UFO and now it’s just out there in the public realm for everyone to see. UFO enthusiasts didn’t know whether to cry or be completely elated.

TIGER KING BECAME A LIVING ENTITY. The first major cultural sensation of 2020 was a Netflix series about unusual big cat enthusiasts in Oklahoma. Joe Exotic and Carole Baskin became legit stars almost overnight as their bitter feud which almost resulted in murder and Exotic being incarcerated captivated viewers both sides of the Atlantic. You couldn’t open up a social media app without seeing a story, opinion, or a meme referencing the show. Trump hinted at pardoning Joe Exotic for his crimes. And then in a weird combination of pandemic beginnings and pandemic… laters, Carole Baskin made it on to “Dancing With the Stars.” Ironically enough, she was sent home on a dance based on “The Lion King.”

THEN THERE’S JETPACK GUY. On 1 September 2020, an American Airlines flight crew reported a ‘guy in a jetpack’ flying at the plane’s altitude of 3,000 feet above LAX (Los Angeles International Airport). Another plane’s crew reported seeing the man as well, around 10 minutes later. In October 2020, a flight crew yet again spotted a person in a jetpack at an altitude of around 6,000 feet, seven miles northwest of LAX. The FAA alerted the FBI who were investigating the sightings at the time. To date it remains unclear who the person is that went flying around in a jetpack or whether the pilots and crew of the different planes simply mistook another object for a jetpack-wearing man. Some also believe that the flying object may have been a drone with a mannequin attached to it.

PRESIDENT TRUMP’S TWITTER GOT HACKED: The president of the United States apparently didn’t have two-factor authentication on his Twitter account, and a Dutch hacker guessed the password to the @realDonaldTrump account: “maga2020!” The White House denied it, but the Washington Post’s Miriam Berger reported that Dutch prosecutors said the hacker really did guess Trump’s password on only his fifth try. I want to know what the other four tries were! I guess I should change my Twitter password to something other than darren123.

THE WEMBLEY STADIUM LASAGNA: Another weird sensation of the first few weeks of lockdown was memes and videos going viral on WhatsApp. Most of the stuff was utter nonsense and scams designed to catch people out but one will undoubtedly live on in infamy and that is the Wembley Stadium-Lasagne voice note. To get this full scope of this story, you have to hear the audio that launched it – here it is: <AUDIO CLIP>. We can only take a guess as to how many times this was shared and listened to by people who either found it hilarious or genuinely believed it to be true and that the Ministry of Defence was turning Wembley into a giant oven. It was all the work of a man named Billy McLean who initially did it as joke to cheer people up before things got out of hand. He told ITV News: “Initially, it was just a joke amongst my friends but quickly it became apparent how worrying it is that something shared just among friends in a living room with a mobile phone can quickly spread. Obviously, this joke was fine, but sort of the information that people could believe to be true could be quite dangerous. One of the things it’s shown me is that people have a sense of humour even in difficult times. It’s good that people can have a laugh and a joke with it. Overall, its had a positive impact.”

FORMER COP HOLDS MAN AT GUNPOINT FOR BEING INVOLVED WITH ELECTION FRAUD. On Oct. 19, former Houston police captain Mark A. Aguirre held an air conditioning repairman at gunpoint after he rammed the back of the repairman’s truck with an SUV. Aguirre believed the repairman was part of voter fraud scheme and had more than 700,000 ballots in the back of his truck. Police only found air conditioner parts and tools. Aguirre was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a felony, on Dec. 15, the Houston Chronicle’s Zach Despart and Jasper Scherer reported.

JADE DODD RENEWED HER DRIVER’S LICENSE. That may not sound odd to you, but keep listening. Jade Dodd from Tennessee renewed her driver’s license online in the middle of 2020 and received her new license card not long after. She was astonished however, when she saw that her face didn’t appear on the license. Instead, it sported an empty chair. She contacted the DMV who was sceptical of what Dodd was telling them at first. But once they checked their records, they couldn’t help but laugh. It turned out that the chair was the last photograph taken and saved to Dodd’s file. Also, the photograph was reportedly accidentally taken before it was saved, which is how it made its way onto the license. As expected, after Dodd posted the funny photo to Facebook, it became the focal point of several memes. Fortunately, she didn’t have to wait long for the mistake to be rectified and received a fixed-up license card without the chair in August.

EBOLA DECIDED TO COME BACK AND THE WORST TIME: At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, people pointed to the media “fear-mongering” around Ebola spreading in the U. S. as a reason why we shouldn’t take this new coronavirus seriously. Like a monkey’s paw wish, a new Ebola outbreak was detected in the Congo in July — though it is thankfully over (for now). Please, just no one give H1N1 any ideas in 2021.

PEOPLE THOUGHT KIM JONG-UN WAS DEAD. For the record: at the time of this posting, the supreme leader of North Korea is not dead – at least not to my knowledge. However, for a short period in April of 2020 people genuinely believed that Kim Jong-un had passed away thanks to a lot of misinformation that was being spread about the dictator. Despite there being no confirmation about Kim’s death, the internet still went ahead and made lots of memes as others were speculating that his sister Kim Yo-jong, was set to replace him.

THE DOCTOR WHO BOUGHT A GENIE: Earlier this year, Dr Laeek Khan from Uttar Pradesh in India started treating a woman for an undisclosed ailment and met her two ‘sons’ during the woman’s visits. The two men gradually started telling the doctor about a ‘baba’ (priest or ‘godman’) who would visit their home, and eventually got the doctor to come to their home and meet the baba. The two men also had a lamp in their possession that they claimed could produce a ‘jinn’ (or ‘genie’) which brought good luck and wealth. At one point, Dr Khan asked if he could take the lamp home after one of the men made a ‘jinn’ appear from the lamp. The men refused, saying that the lamp could bring harm to the doctor, but they gave in when he said he would pay for it. Dr Khan paid $93,000 (around 7 million rupees) for the lamp, but soon realized there was nothing magical about it. The doctor then approached the police and filed a complaint after he also realized that the ‘jinn’ he had seen was most likely one of the two men in disguise. The two men were arrested in November 2020 and were being held in custody ahead of charges being filed. The woman who was believed to be their mother, is in fact the wife of one of the men and is on the run as she too was involved in the scam.

KANYE WEST RAN FOR PRESIDENT: While it feels like all the other presidential contenders didn’t even exist in 2020, Kanye West made himself heard when he announced his candidacy in a late bid over the summer. He even received endorsements from Chance the Rapper and (briefly) Elon Musk. He also got enough votes to show up in some states’ early voting tallies. Even if he didn’t win, that’s something.

Speaking of Elon Musk… ELON MUSK SUCKS AT NAMING BABIES: The musician, Grimes, and the South African entrepreneur are one of the most unlikely celebrity couples in the world today and keeping true to their surreal relationship they welcomed their first child into the world in 2020. Their choice for the child’s name was X, a symbol that looks like a capital A and E glued together (Æ), A-12 Musk. This gave mom Grimes the opportunity to give a full and clear explanation behind the name. You see, X is the unknown variable. The symbol that looks like a scrunched up A and E (Æ), is their elven spelling of Ai (love &/or Artificial intelligence). A-12 is the precursor to the SR-17 (the couple’s favorite aircraft) because it had no weapons, no defenses, just speed; great in battle, but non-violent. Plus, the A in A-12 kinda represents “Archangel”, Grimes’ favorite song. Oh, well that does give us a full and clear explanation of the name – thanks, mom! Well, there was some dispute as to whether the baby’s name was legal because the use of numbers in a name is outlawed by California law, so, the proud parents opted to call the child X Æ A-Xii instead. Oh yeah, that’ll keep him so much safer from the playground bullies.

ACTUALLY, ELON MUSK KIND OF BECAME A SUPERVILLAIN IN 2020: Elon Musk pulled more shenanigans in 2020 than anyone can be bothered to remember. So let’s run through a recap of some of Musk’s greatest 2020 hits: first,naming his and Grimes’ daughter after a plane or something, making a reference to taking the red pill and getting pounded for it by the Matrix creators, predicting the COVID-19 panic was overblown and cases would be down to zero by April of 2020, raging against stay-at-home orders to put his employees’ health at risk, vowing to sell all his possessions, continuing to cast unfounded doubt on COVID testing, getting COVID despite calling it bogus, and he blew up his rocket launch. Hope things get better for you next year, bud! Don’t worry, he’s actually even richer now than before the pandemic, so he’ll be just fine.

A PUPPY NAMED HULK. On 10 January Shana Stamey and her family were keeping an eye on their white female German Shepherd who was in the process of giving birth to eight puppies. When the fourth puppy started making his way out, Stamey was shocked to see that his fur was lime green. The other seven puppies all sported white or black fur. Fortunately, the color caused no harm for the little pup. He had simply been stained with meconium before being born. Meconium being a dark green substance that forms the first feces of a newborn puppy. The family checked with a local vet to see that all was well with the puppy and were reassured that he wouldn’t stay that color forever. They also decided to call the little doggy Hulk, and believe that he is their good luck charm.

GREEN EGGS AND HAM. From green puppies to green food, it is always a bit strange when things don’t come in the color you expect them to. In the middle of 2020, a farmer decided to post some pictures of freshly laid eggs on Facebook. He had noticed that the eggs his hens had been laying had dark green yolks since 2019, but he only shared pictures of it nine months later. These pictures went viral and attracted the attention of experts at the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University. They contacted the farmer and collected one of his hens as well as a few eggs to try and determine the cause of the green yokes. Researchers found green pigment in fat deposits below the skin of the hen and quickly cracked the case, determining that the feed given to them was causing the strangely colored eggs. They provided the farmer with alternative poultry feed and within two weeks the yolks of the eggs laid by all the hens were back to their normal yellow color.

A STAR WENT MISSING: And I’m not talking Hollywood. Stars, as in those in outer space, don’t traditionally vanish without a trace. It’s just not something that they do. However. that’s exactly what happened to a star that was 2.5 million times brighter than the Sun. The blue star, also known as a ‘Luminous blue variables’ was in the Kinman Dwarf galaxy, is a staggering 75 million light-years away from Earth and had began to be observed by astronomers between 2001 and 2011 but now it’s not there. Weirdly the star didn’t even supernova which is what usually happens when a star vanishes. In a statement released by the European Southern Observatory, Andrew Allan, a PhD student at Dublin’s Trinity College and the lead researcher on the study said: “It would be highly unusual for such a massive star to disappear without producing a bright supernova explosion. Instead, we were surprised to find out that the star had disappeared. If true this would be the first direct detection of such a monster star ending its life in this manner.” Data has since shown that the star likely lost its luminosity in 2011 and faded from view altogether following a mass spike.

THE AURORA BOREALIS AND THE TITANIC. 108 years after the sinking of the Titanic, the world remains fascinated by the tragedy and every piece of news that surrounds it. Ongoing studies have led to news reports in September 2020 announcing that a solar storm which sparked the Aurora Borealis may have caused interference with the ship’s navigational equipment. There was no moon on the night the Titanic sank but the Northern Lights had illuminated the sky overhead, as seen and reported by many survivors. Independent Titanic researcher, Mila Zinkova, published a paper in 2020 in which she detailed evidence that the solar storm and Northern Lights may have ultimately messed with the ship’s compass and cause it to veer into the path of the iceberg. She also posed the likelihood that the Carpathia compass too, was affected by the solar storm. Zinkova’s study, also posited that the Titanic’s radio transmissions would have been affected by the solar storm. This would then explain why the Titanic’s SOS signals went unheard and why responses were never received. Historian Tim Maltin agrees with Zinkova that a solar storm took place that night, but he doesn’t believe it could have contributed to the disaster, instead holding on to the initial findings that the ship sank due to failures in its design and a lack of effective crew protocol.

MILEY CYRUS WAS CHASED BY AN ALIEN: More UFO madness here as musician Miley Cyrus claimed to have had an ‘experience’ with an alien in front of a taco shop. Speaking to Interview magazine she said: “I’m pretty sure about what I saw but I’d also bought weed wax from a guy in a van in front of a taco shop so it could have been the weed wax. It looked at me and we made eye contact and I think that’s what really shook me, looking into the eyes of something that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around. I was shaken for like five days. It f***ed me up. I couldn’t really look at the sky the same. I thought they might come back.” Cyrus wasn’t the only celebrity running into aliens like it was nothing. Rapper Post Malone said that he has seen aliens and UFOs ‘more than once.’ Sounds like a case for the Men in Black.

THE EVERLASTING VIRGIN MARY OF THE PARKING LOT: During the 2007 Bella Via festival in Monterrey, Mexico, a drawing of the Virgin Mary was added to the asphalt of an outdoor parking lot in the city. The drawing was meant to last around three weeks, considering it was drawn in chalk. Fast forward to October 2020 and images of the drawing starts making the rounds on the internet. But these are not images taken during the 2007 festival. Instead, they are new photographs taken after the drawing mysteriously reappeared on the asphalt in 2020. Believers started flocking to the site, believing the reappearance of the drawing to be a miracle. The unnamed artist also visited the parking lot and confirmed that the drawing was the one created 13 years ago. Officials cordoned off the site and let water run over the drawing several times to make it more visible. Not everyone was on board with the ‘miracle’, however, with some saying the talk of miracles is what is keeping Mexico from moving forward.

AN AIRLINE OFFERED A FLIGHT TO NOWHERE – AND IT SOLD OUT: With the pandemic restricting people’s travel this year, airlines have been forced to improvise to at least give passengers the feeling that they are allowed to fly around the world. The Australian airline Qantas offered customers the chance to fly around the sights of Australia and even travel to Antarctica without even leaving the plane before touching down right where it had left off in Sydney. It doesn’t sound that thrilling and with prices ranging between $575 (£445) and $2,765 (£2,145) you could understand if people passed on it. Bizarrely, it become one of the airline’s most popular flights ever and sold out in just 10 minutes. A spokesperson for Qantas said: “It’s probably the fastest-selling flight in Qantas history. People clearly miss travel and the experience of flying. If the demand is there, we’ll definitely look at doing more of these scenic flights while we all wait for borders to open.”

BREXIT HAPPENED. As Americans trying to deal with our own dumpster fire of a country, it can be hard to keep track of what’s happening across the pond. But as recently as a year ago the UK thought it was a good idea to officially break up with the European Union. Then the pandemic hit. Then, even worse… After Brexit, came MEGXIT! A year or so ago, we actually cared that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were moving out of a British castle and into a McMansion somewhere else. Who even were we? Does anybody even care about that now… even in the UK?

20 MILLIONAIRES AT THE SAME TIME: Who doesn’t want to win the lottery? Imagine winning millions and then finally getting to buy your dream home or going on that long-wished-for vacation to exotic locations. In December 2020, 20 people in South Africa had their dreams come true when they became instant millionaires after sharing a jackpot of $7.8M. The kicker? The winning numbers were 5,6,7,8,9,10. People on social media immediately cried foul, saying the result was rigged and that the entire lottery process was just a scam. South Africa’s National Lotteries Commission vowed to investigate the ‘unprecedented’ draw and would make its findings known in due time. In the meantime, some of the unnamed winners stated that they picked the sequential numbers ‘out of instinct’ while others just wanted to ‘try something different.’ This kind of makes me feel okay about my online passwords all being 1,2,3,4,5.

ARMED PROTESTORS ANGRY ABOUT HAIRCUTS STORMED MICHIGAN’S STATE CAPITOL: Who needs race or politics to raise arms against? Less than a month before the Black Lives Matter protests, anti-lockdown protesters armed with automatic weapons stormed Michigan’s state capitol. How dare you force all the businesses to close so we can’t get our tattoos and buzz cuts!

A WATERFALL FLOWED IN REVERSE IN AUSTRALIA: There have been plenty of weird weather-based phenomenons this year like that heat-wave that just didn’t want to end and the fire tornado in California. However, we’re not sure anything was stranger than the waterfall that went backwards in Australia. As wind gust reached 70km/h, several waterfall in the Royal National Park near Sydney actually started to be blown backwards creating a literally reverse waterfall.

A WHOLE BUNCH OF CELEBRITIES GOT COVID-19 THAT YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T HEAR ABOUT OR FORGOT ABOUT. We all remember when Nicest Guy in Hollywood Tom Hanks came down with the virus early on. And I already mentioned Elon Musk coming down with the Covid. But you probably don’t remember a lot of the other famous people who did too, like: Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Prince Charles, Andy Cohen, Pink, Doja Cat, Lena Dunham, Bryan Cranston, Antonio Banderas, Alyssa Milano, Kevin Hart, Brian Cox, Robert Pattinson, Tiffany Haddish, Jim Parsons, Kanye West, Boris Johnson, Rand Paul, Chris Cuomo, and Harvey Weinstein. And that just scratches the surface.

And a few more bullet point entries before I go…

We thought stockpiling on toilet paper would somehow save us from the virus. Seriously, what did people think coronavirus did to your buttocks back in March to warrant this particular panic buying?
The greatest thing since Instagram and Snapchat… Quiby, was launched, founded by Jeffrey Katzenberg with the support of numerous celebrities posting short videos to help it explode in popularity. It didn’t and shut down less than seven months later.
J-Lo and Shakira did a concert together… sorry, I mean the Super Bowl happened. I couldn’t tell you who competed over the football during The Big Game in 2020. But J-Lo and Shakira put on a halftime show performance worthy of praise on one side and scorn from the other. Unfortunately, this sporting event also birthed Baby Nut, which most people want to crush into peanut butter to serve to Baby Yoda.
Due to the isolation aspect of the show, Jared Leto and the contestants of the reality show “Big Brother” had no idea the Coronavirus pandemic was taking place until weeks after it had already started.
A Houston doctor had thousands praising her opinions on coronavirus and how to deal with – until we found out she also believes sexual visitations by demons and alien DNA are at the root of Americans’ common health concerns. Oops.
A Bolivian orchestra was stranded in a German castle surrounded by packs of wolves for 73 days during the pandemic.
For a short time conspiracy theorists were purporting that the furniture site Wayfair — or third-party sellers on the site — were secretly part of a child trafficking ring. This theory appears to have started, as many do, on Reddit’s r/conspiracy subreddit. Turns out there is no hard evidence to support that this far-fetched theory is even remotely true. Much like Pizza Gate from 2016.
Macaulay Culkin turned 40. Nothing weird about that, but it does make you feel old, doesn’t it?
The NFL announced it would be stenciling the words “End racism” and “It takes all of us” in the end zones at each stadium for the 2020/2021 season. And obviously it has worked, as I’ve not seen a hint of racism anywhere since the beginning of football season, have you?

SHOW CLOSE, CREDITS, A LITTLE LIGHT, AND A FINAL THOUGHT==========

No doubt, 2020 was a roller coaster of a year. Here’s to hoping 2021 has fewer twists.

Thanks for listening. If you want to help the podcast, be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already done so, and leave a review of the show in the podcast app you listen from! But more important than anything, please share the podcast; tell someone about it – someone who loves paranormal stories, true crime, monsters, or mysteries like you do! You can also vote for Weird Darkness in the HOT 50 countdown in Podcast Magazine every day I upload an episode! Click the HOT 50 link in the show notes or visit WeirdDarkness.com and click on “VOTE”.

Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, click on “Tell Your Story” on the website and I might use it in a future episode.

All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true (unless stated otherwise), and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes.

Now that we’re coming out of the dark, I’ll leave you with a little light… “May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed.” – Psalm 20:4

And a final thought… “Prove yourself to yourself not others.” – Unknown

I’m Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the Weird Darkness.