Twins Samuel and Ronan Peterson were born in Cape Cod Hospital on November 6, 2016, to parents Emily and Seth, of West Barnstable, Massachusetts. Samuel was born at 1:39 am and Ronan arrived 31 minutes later, but by the time Emily had given birth to Ronan, the clocks had gone back one hour due to daylight savings time. So Ronan’s official time of birth became 1:10 am, making him the older brother even though he was born half an hour after Samuel. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Today I Learned …
Twin brothers Jeremy and Nick Hart retired as British Airways pilots by landing their final flights thirty second apart at London’s Heathrow airport on September 28, 2017. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Today I Learned …
In 2017, an 81-year-old man called the police to tell them he had found an unexploded World War II bomb in the garden of his home near Karlsruhe, Germany, but when the officers arrived, they found it was a 16-inch-long zucchini. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)
Today I Learned …
In 2017, a food bank in Cardiff, Wales, received a 46-year-old can of soup as a donation. The flavor — Heinz kidney soup — had been discontinued more than 35 years ago. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)
Today I Learned …
Francisco Rios, of Hartford, Connecticut, won $100,000 on the state lottery in 2018 by using numbers taken from a classic 1958 episode of the TV western series Bronco. He used the numbers 22, 2,18,12, and 28 because the episode was about a man who had been buried in a glacier for 22 years, 2 months, 18 days, 12 hours, and 28 minutes. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)
Today I Learned …
In the latter half of the eighth century, the Japanese began using incense to mark time by placing a stick of it horizontally in a wooden box with holes marked at specific intervals. You could tell how much time had passed by noting which hole the smoke was coming from. An incense stick could be made with a number of different scent blends, so that simply sniffing the air would indicate the time. (This scented method of keeping time was so efficient that until 1924, geishas were still paid by the number of incense sticks lit during their time with a client.) (From The Elements of a Home: Curious Histories Behind Everyday Household Objects, by Amy Azzarito)
Today I Learned …
During Hurricane Ophelia, tens of thousands of apples were blown off of the trees in an orchard in Clonmel, Ireland — but the fruits landed unbruised and ready for cider processing. The nearby River Suir flooded at the same time the apples were stripped from the trees, and when the water receded, the apples were laid to rest gently, blanketing the ground under the trees. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Today I Learned …
Shuttlecocks used in badminton games at the Summer Olympics are always made of feathers from one wing (left or right) of a goose or duck. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Today I Learned …
Author Ray Bradbury was a descendant of a woman convicted in the Salem Witch Trials. Mary Perkins Bradbury was sentenced to be hanged in 1692 but managed to escape before she could be executed. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Today I Learned …
For an art festival in Kassel, Germany, Argentine artist Marta Minujin built a full-size replica of the Parthenon using 100,000 books that have been banned at one time or another. Constructed with a steel framework, the sculpture was made with books donated by the public from a list of over 170 titles, including The Da Vinci Code, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and The Catcher in the Rye. And the coolest part? It was built on a former Nazi book-burning site. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Today I Learned …
In April 1935, the Titanian, a tramp steamer carrying coal from Newcastle, England, to Canada, encountered an iceberg in the same area as the Titanic had done 23 years earlier. Crew member William Reeves had a premonition seconds before the iceberg came into view and yelled “Danger ahead!” to the navigator, who quickly reversed the engines and brought the ship to a halt. Reeves was born on April 15, 1912 — the date on which the Titanic sank. (From Eyewitness: Titanic)
Today I Learned …
During his lifetime, Edgar Allan Poe’s best-selling book was The Conchologist’s First Book, a textbook about seashells. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Guess Whose Book Won First Place?
I have news! Good news! I’ve just found out that Days of the Dead: A Year of True Ghost Stories has won First Place in the Bookfest Awards. How about that? And you can go here to get your very own copy, if you haven’t already: https://bookshop.org/…/days-of-the-dead-a…/9781735668987
You can also get it here: Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735668982?ref=exp_hauntedroadmedia_dp_vv_d&fbclid=IwAR3sWUj9_YTBlM–2kxKyMMQo92XiWTOcAYgaBq8f6lHfINp-He4oeOQyH8
And here: Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GJ1XVMN?ref=exp_hauntedroadmedia_dp_vv_d&fbclid=IwAR1zCffiZI4zEu9_leHa_5mAplDFfEE-YvOsqpIu5cSu_haa0zwgcm6-Nf4
Today I Learned …
At one point in his career, actor Gary Oldman had played so many American characters in movies that he lost his British accent and had to go to a speech therapist to get it back. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Today I Learned …
The app RunPee advises users on the best time to take an urgent toilet break during a trip to a movie theater so that they do not miss a crucial moment. It picks out three- to five-minute-long movie scenes that do not contain essential plot twists, exciting action, or laugh-out-loud moments. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Lights Out: Return to Malvern Manor
What’s even better than exploring a haunted location all evening? Getting to spend the rest of the night there! And when the spirits come out to play, that’s when things get REALLY interesting … join me for another visit to one of my favorite haunted places, Malvern Manor. https://youtu.be/AoqSaueVit8
Today I Learned …
The naked mole rat can survive for nearly twenty minutes without oxygen — by effectively turning itself into a plant. It is able to change its normal metabolism so that its body cells are powered by fructose rather than glucose, a process that requires no oxygen. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Today I Learned …
Cows produce three times as much saliva as milk. On average, they produce around twenty gallons of saliva every day, compared to six gallons of milk. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: A Century of Strange)
Today I Learned …
A typo helped the Allied forces crack the famous Enigma code and ultimately defeat the Germans in World War Two. The UK Ministry of Defense recruited Geoffrey Tandy to work at its top-secret Bletchley Park headquarters in Buckinghamshire, England, in the belief that he was an expert cryptogramist — someone who deciphers codes — when in fact he was a cryptogamist, an expert on mosses, algae, and seaweed. Despite the mistake, he stayed, and when a German U-boat was sunk in 1941 and its cryptic documents captured, his knowledge of preserving water-damaged specimens proved invaluable in making the papers readable. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not: Beyond the Bizarre)
Today I Learned …
George Romero, famous for his Living Dead zombie movie franchise, also made videos for Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
When Romero got out of college, he and a few friends started a movie company called The Latent Image, and billed themselves as “Producers of Industrial Films and Television Commercials.” Some of Romero’s earliest jobs were short films commissioned by the show, shown on Picture Picture: “Things With Wheels”, “Things That Feel Soft”, and “How Light Bulbs Are Manufactured”. (Romero still jokes that the scariest film he ever made was “Mr. Rogers Gets A Tonsillectomy.”) With the experience he got on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, Romero scraped up $114,000 to make Night of the Living Dead, helped by volunteers and free entrails from a local butcher shop. He really wanted Betty Aberlin, the human actress in the Land of Make-Believe, to play Barbara, the lead in Night of the Living Dead, but Mr. Rogers put his foot down and said NO. (And by the way, Mr. Rogers saw Night of the Living Dead — and loved it.) (From Kindness and Wonder: Why Mr. Rogers Matters Now More Than Ever, by Gavin Edwards.)
Lights Out: The Watseka Wonder
I KNOW, I know, it’s been positively AGES since you guys have enjoyed an episode of Lights Out! (Unless you’ve been watching or listening to past episodes, in which case, good for you!) I’ve got a great excuse — I’ve been putting the finishing touches on a new book for you all, so that’s why I’ve been slacking off a bit on the podcast/YouTube front. But fret not! Here is a brand-spanking-new episode of your virtual campfire.
We’re headed to the town of Watseka, Illinois, for a bit of Victorian-style ghost hunting at the Roff House. https://youtu.be/4UPCovpLzyg Enjoy!
Today I Learned …
When King Louis XVI of France was a child, an astrologer warned him to be on his guard on the 21st day of each month. Consequently, he never conducted any business on that date. Even so, on June 21, 1791, following the French Revolution, Louis, and his queen, Marie Antoinette, were arrested in Varennes while trying to flee France. Then on September 21, 1792, France abolished the monarchy, and finally on January 21, 1793, Louis was executed by guillotine. (From Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Beyond the Bizarre)
Today I Learned …
Zookeepers at the San Antonio Zoo will name a cockroach after your old flame and serve it to a bird or lizard, for the low price of $5. For $25, a frozen rat named after your most coldhearted ex will land a date with a snake. Happy Valentine’s Day! (From Reader’s Digest, February 2021)
Today I Learned …
Salmonella is a bacteria in the Enterobacter family that causes food poisoning — we all know this. But here’s something you might not know: salmonella lurks not only in raw chicken, but also on the skin of reptiles. Which is why you really should wash your hands after handling, say, a red-eared slider turtle or an iguana. It’s also why the FDA came up with the “4-inch law” in 1975. It says that any turtles sold in the US have to have a shell length of at least four inches, because that makes it harder for a child to stick the turtle in his or her mouth. (Do you need to sit down for a minute? It’s okay, take your time…)
Today I Learned …
James Patterson, the mega-uber-bestselling author, used to work in advertising. He came up with the line “I’m a Toys-R-Us kid.” (from Mental Floss: The Book)
Sylvia Shults, author 