Washington, December 31 (ANI): The top strange-but-true news story of 2008 was about a Pennsylvania cat lover, who got a smelly surprise when a neighbour’’s cat turned out to be a frightened skunk.
Not only did the cat spray the woman, but it also ran into her Mount Carmel home, and it took about several hours for emergency services officials to get the putrid pest out of the house.
Second on Fox News list of top 10 news was a story about two grammar-conscious vigilantes who were sentenced to probation and banned from national parks for a year, after they defaced a six-decade-old, hand-painted sign at Grand Canyon National Park, while fighting against typos everywhere.
Third top story was about Adolf Hitler’’s plan to transform Berlin into the capital of the world, that is a super city dubbed Germania, which would have come complete with a vast underground network that would have included roads and a rail system. Above the surface, were plans for a series of huge buildings that would have rivalled the architecture of cities like Paris and Rome.
A standoff between police and a slippery wild simian monkey at Tokyos Shibuya Stationwhen commuters snapped photos with their cell phones as about 30 cops made failed attempt to catch the monkeymade the fourth top news.
The fifth strangest story was about a 24-year-old dead man propped upright in the living room of his mother’’s San Juan home, when a local funeral home used a special embalming treatment to keep the body standing for his three-day wake.
Sixth on the list was a news item about a German candy that revealed how a 23-year-old shop owner was nabbed by police after it was discovered that the shop’’s treats were laced with hallucinogenic mushrooms and marijuana.
That was followed by a story about an elderly woman who fell down a baggage chute after placing herself, rather than her bags, on the baggage belt.
The woman, preparing to depart from Stockholms Arlanda Airport for Germany, misunderstood instructions and lied down on the belt and was swept off to the baggage handling centre.
The year also saw the publication of a news report about a Western man who decided to go skinny dipping in a moat ringing Japan’’s Imperial Palace.
He attracted a huge crowd in a busy Tokyo business district, and also the ire of two policemen who had to chase him in row boat and deflect the rocks and water the skinny dipper threw their way.
World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko made the ninth top news when he admitted wrapping his hands with his 3-year-old’’s urine-infused diapers to reduce swelling, an idea he got from his grandmother.
Wrapping up the top 10 was a story about 16 graduates from the San Francisco’’s Clown Conservatory who unveiled their 2009 naked clown calendar, featuring them in nothing but their birthday suits, in order to raise money for multiple sclerosis.
All these news were selected on the basis of Fox News readers votes. (ANI)