The Odd Truth, July 31, 2003
The Odd Truth is a collection of strange but factual news stories from around the world compiled by CBSNews.com's Brian Bernbaum. A new collection of stories is published each weekday. On weekends, you can read a week's worth of The Odd Truth.
Wingin' It
CALAIS, France - An Austrian who specializes in high-risk parachute jumps flew across the English Channel on Thursday with a sleek, aerodynamic carbon fiber wing.
A plane dropped Felix Baumgartner into the sky at an altitude of more than 30,000 feet, letting gravity and the wind shoot the wing through the air and over the Channel.
Baumgartner made the 21-mile trip in 14 minutes reaching up to 217 mph, said spokeswoman Sarah Christofi.
"It's very cold up there," the 34-year-old skydiver said after landing at Cap Blanc-Nez, near the Channel port of Calais. "I still can feel nothing."
Baumgartner was fitted with a parachute as he rode the metallic blue wing, which has a span of nearly 6 feet and is similar to a hanglider, but with a much more modern design.
Clouds obscured Baumgartner's vision, forcing him to follow two lead planes as he glided through the sky in an aerodynamic suit equipped with cameras and monitoring equipment.
Baumgartner was the first person to parachute from Malaysia's Petronas Towers - the world's tallest building. The extreme sports fanatic said he was following the tradition of historic flight.
"It's exactly 100 years ago that the Wright Brothers were doing the first flight with a plane," he said. "And now I'm here, with my little wing."
Suspicious, Vibrating Package
LILBURN, Ga. - A post office and surrounding area were evacuated after a mail carrier came across a suspicious, vibrating package. X-rays soon revealed the box to be X-rated.
U.S. Postal Service spokesman Michael Miles said the package aroused suspicion from a carrier and his supervisor, who took the priority-listed mail into the parking lot and called police.
The Gwinnett County bomb squad, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Gwinnett County Fire Department evacuated the building and the parking lot Wednesday and shut down a nearby street.
A high-tech robot was sent in to pick up the package and X-ray it. The X-ray showed wires and objects, Miles said. When it was opened, authorities found adult toys, including a vibrator and massage oil.
The resident to whom the package was addressed will be notified of what happened, but will not be prosecuted.
"Since these are all legal items, we won't be doing any follow-up investigation," police spokesman Cpl. Dan Huggins said.
Canine Conflict
LONDON - A judge was forced to forced to bow out of a dangerous dog case Thursday after learning his own pet mongrel was appearing for the defense.
Justice Barrington Black had been scheduled to preside at the trial of Geraldine Green, 53, whose dog allegedly bit a jogger. She was charged with having a dog "dangerously out of control."
Court officials said Thursday that the judge learned that his dog Vinnie had been filmed frolicking on Hampstead Heath in north London with the defendant's dog, Zak, and that the video would be offered in evidence.
Black told Harrow Crown Court in west London that he had to declare a "four-footed interest" and asked for the case to be heard by another judge.
Green was subsequently found innocent by a jury.
'Living Dead' Protest In India
LUCKNOW, India - Two dozen people who call themselves "the Living Dead" held a Hindu last rites ceremony outside a state assembly this week to protest their plight: being wrongly declared dead and losing their property to conniving relatives and officials.
They said tens of thousands more share their problem in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh.
"My son produced a fake death certificate to revenue officials and grabbed my 12 acres of property. The government still refuses to recognize me as alive," said Rashida Bibi, 62. She was declared dead in 1993.
"We have knocked on doors of government officials and police. No one is ready to recognize us as living persons because revenue records declare us dead," said Lal Bihari, president of the Association of The Living Dead.
"We wanted to tell the world that we are alive," Bihari said during the protest Wednesday.
Bihari's uncle reported him dead 18 years ago. Despite many public protests, he's been unable to reverse the declaration. He ran in two elections against Indian prime ministers - and appeared on the ballot - but says he still hasn't been able to get his property back.
There are 35,000 people in Uttar Pradesh state who been falsely declared dead, he said.
Some protesters shaved their heads. Others conducted rites that Hindus perform after a relative has been dead for 13 days.
Most "Living Dead" cases involve family members who pay corrupt revenue officials to record the false death certificates, said the state's revenue minister, Ghanshyam Shukla.
Bare-Breasted Bogey
CALEDONIA, Wis. - Police in Caledonia, Wisconsin, are investigating reports of a topless golf outing. A Milwaukee TV station has video of strippers and duffers at the South Hills Country Club. Police say club president Tom Jensen has told them that he knew the strippers might take off their clothes for a tip. The topless golf outing was sponsored by the Heart Breakers strip club last month. The video shows the strippers letting male golfers drink shots of booze from between their bare breasts for money. Authorities say the golf club could face fines for liquor violations - or even loose its liquor license.
Spittle Bug Leaps Over Flea As World's Best Jumper
NEW YORK - A common farm pest appears to have leapfrogged over the flea to claim the unofficial title as the world's best jumper.
British researchers say experiments show the spittle bug - a tiny, green insect that sucks the juice from alfalfa and clover - can leap more than 2 feet in the air.
That's more than twice as high as the flea, and equivalent to a man jumping over the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, scientists said.
The findings appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Malcolm Burrows, a zoologist at the University of Cambridge and the study's lead researcher, said the finding is remarkable because the 6-millimeter-long spittle bug - about the size of a pencil eraser - is bigger and heavier than the bloodsucking flea, yet still able to outjump its tiny rival by accelerating faster.
The spittle bug reaches its heights by unleashing the large amount of stored energy in its muscular hind legs.
During takeoff, the spittle bug accelerates at more than 400 times the force of gravity, versus 135 times for a flea.
In an American experiment carried out in 1910, a flea jumped nearly 8 inches in the air and performed a long jump of 13 inches.
Some insect experts who did not participate in the study said the British results reflect the evolutionary lesson that all human athletes eventually must learn.
"There's always someone out there who's bigger, faster, meaner, tougher and can do things better," said Iowa State entomologist Ken Holscher. "Maybe the flea has been replaced by something a little bit better."
7,000 Onions Stolen
CRYSTAL, N.D. - It's enough to make Lorraine Martinson weep.
More than 7,000 onions were picked from her field and pocketed by thieves, Pembina County Sheriff Wayne Samdahl said.
Seven rows of onions, worth about $4,000, were taken from the field where Martinson grows a variety of vegetables.
The theft apparently happened over the weekend. Martinson discovered it Monday, when she was picking peas.
"I looked down and there's no onions," she said. "I was like, 'Where's my onions?"'
Authorities took pictures of footprints and tire prints.
Samdahl said the thieves must have spent considerable time in the field, which has about 1,000 onions for each of the seven rows. He believes more than one person was involved.
Martinson says onions are her major source of income in the summer.
"This is what I make my pickup payment and taxes with," she said.
Martinson is offering a $500 award for tips that lead to an arrest in the case.
Name Changed From Karin To GoVeg.com, No Kidding
CHICAGO - She knew her new name might finally stick when she got a phone message recently: "Hi, GoVeg.com. This is your mother. Please call me."
It might sound more than a little odd - but it's true. A young animal rights activist from Indiana once known as Karin Robertson has legally changed her name to that of a Web site run by her employer, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
It's not a first name or a last name - just one name. And don't call her "Veg" or "Dot," as some have tried to do.
"I like the whole name together," says the 23-year-old woman who is a youth educator for PETA and living in Norfolk, Virginia, where the organization is based.
She says she made the switch to get people talking about vegetarianism and animal rights wherever she pulls out her new driver's license - at the airport, the bank or anyplace else.
People usually laugh - and so does she.
"Every time I go to the bank, the tellers will report back about vegetarian food they've tried," she says, gleefully.
Now those in the agriculture field are rolling their eyes over GoVeg.com's name change.
"It sounds like she needs to get a life," says Kara Flynn, a spokeswoman for the National Pork Producers Council, a lobbying group in Washington. "If she actually went on a farm and saw what was happening there, she might be pleasantly surprised."
Camels Unresponsive To High-Volume Opera Music
SYDNEY - A herd of nonchalant camels are being blasted with high-volume opera music in Australia's Outback in preparation for their walk-on role in a lavish opera production in South Korea, the owner said Thursday.
But they've so far been unimpressed, with "no reaction whatsoever" to the music, owner John Geappen told The Associated Press.
The animals are to be part of an $5.3 million production of Verdi's Aida to be staged over two nights in Seoul this September by Italy's Parma Theater.
They will appear during the opera's most famous moment, the Triumphal March and chorus in the second act, featuring alongside other camels, horses pulling 12 chariots and an elephant.
"They walk on stage tethered together with singers on their back, for about 10 minutes, then walk off," Geappen said.
His company, Red Sun Camels in Broome, Western Australia State, won an international tender to supply the animals, which are to be flown to South Korea via Hong Kong in specially constructed crates.
They will have to be quarantined for 15 days before their role in Aida - the tragic love story of the young warrior Radames and the Ethiopian princess Aida, taken prisoner by Egypt.
Large numbers of wild camels roam Australia's Outback deserts. The camels are descendants of animals brought from the Middle East to Australia by colonial explorers and pioneers in the 19th century.
The camels are not likely to return home from the opera.
Geappen said after the production, they are to remain in Korea they are likely return to their old job - giving tourist rides.