A 'ghost bike' filmed in Britain, a bizarre meat mystery in New Zealand, and a man in Belgium who enlisted a lookalike to take his driving test were among the weird and wondrous stories to cross our desk this week.
This past week featured a pair of particularly weird mysteries that left us scratching our heads, beginning with an incident in Arizona wherein a woman felt her home shake when something fell from the sky and struck the top of the house. While there was considerable damage to her roof, she could find no sign of the seemingly sizeable object that plummeted from above and caused the commotion. Later in the week, authorities in New Zealand expressed dismay over a mischievous individual who has been dumping hundreds of pounds of meat into the public trashcans of two neighboring communities. To date, the mysterious miscreant has disposed of nearly 1,500 pounds of unwanted beef and lamb chops over the course of three weeks.
With spooky season right around the corner, it would seem that the spirit world has already begun to celebrate as this past week featured several stories centered around ghosts. First, in Britain, an peculiar piece of security camera footage featured a bicycle that appeared to move on its own across a medieval market street. Later in the week, a guest staying at a notoriously haunted hotel in Malaysia was forced to abandon his room after a mere 20 minutes due to unsettling paranormal activity that began as soon as he walked through the door. Meanwhile, in Virginia, a unique new store selling ghost-hunting equipment opened for business and a rather odd study determined which American cities one might wish to 'live' in if they were a ghost.
By far the weirdest story of the week emerged out of Belgium where a man grew so fed up with failing his driving exam that he actually enlisted an impersonator to take the test for him. Upon moving to the country, Ghanaian national Serge discovered that his license was not recognized there and so he set about obtaining the proper paperwork. However, for reasons unexplained, the would-be motorist somehow failed his test a staggering 12 times. Desperate to get out on the road, he concocted a scheme wherein a friend who looked like him would take the exam for him, however it would seem that their resemblance was not as striking as Serge thought, since a worker at the Belgium DMV quickly sussed out the switcheroo and reported the pair to police.
For more strange and unusual stories from the past week, check out the Coast to Coast AM website.