1-Ton Asphalt Roller Joyride; RFK Jr.’s Bear [Weird News & Oddities]

ACROSS AMERICA — A 2,000-pound asphalt roller left overnight in Middletown, New Jersey, by construction workers apparently offered tantalizing possibilities for a 13-year-old boy last week.

He got in the heavy-duty construction equipment and took it for a spin around town, perhaps just living the best summer of his young life.

Police didn’t see it as youthful hi jinks but as theft. No one was hurt, and it doesn’t appear the teen hit any cars or other fixed objects with the 1-ton asphalt roller, but police still urged residents of the area to check for bent fenders or other damage.

The teen was taken into custody, with Police Sgt. Michael Davis warning, “This could have had a very different ending.”

• Read the full story: 13-Year-Old Takes Joyride On 1-Ton Asphalt Roller

RFK Jr. And His Dead Bear

When we talk about “weird” news at Patch, it’s not political — although how weird is it that “weird” became the internet’s greatest political insult? We’re mostly staying out of the fray. But this week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tested that resolve when he confessed to driving a dead bear cub around in his car before disposing of it under an abandoned bicycle in New York’s Central Park 10 years ago.

The We The People presidential candidate was taking a group of people falconing in the Hudson Valley when a driver in front of him fatally struck a bear cub. The carcass was in good shape, and Kennedy said he planned to skin it and put the meat in the refrigerator of his home in Westchester.

Both the falconing and a dinner in the city ran long and Kennedy didn’t have time to run the carcass to his home before catching a flight. Leaving it in his car “would have been bad,” he said.

“It was a little bit of the redneck in me,” Kennedy said of his decision to out the dead bear on a warn-out bicycle he also had in his car and leave both in Central Park. “It’ll be funny for people,” he thought at the time. That’s not weird, is it?

• Read the full story: RFK Jr. Solves Years-Long Mystery Of Dead Bear Cub In Central Park

Incoming! Incoming!

Some people were enchanted and others were terrified recently when swarms of thousands of migrating dragonflies descended on the Rhode Island shore after apparently getting caught in a sea breeze front.

Some videos showed expletive-laced reactions, shrieks and screams as the insects buzzed around beachgoers. “Oh my gawd,” one person commented on a TikTok video. “I would literally disintegrate.”

Others were charmed. “A dragonfly migration passed over South Shore beach in Rhode Island today. Some paused to rest with the beachgoers before continuing on their journey. It was so beautiful,” someone else noted on TikTok.

“So happy to see someone who enjoyed the experience instead of being scared by it,” another commenter chimed in. “I would've enjoyed this magical moment so much.”

• Read the full story: Some Enchanted, Some Terrified By Dragonfly Migration

Princess Leia Bikini’s Eye-Popping Price

A bikini Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia wore in “Return of the Jedi” sold for a not-so-itsy-bitsy price at a toney Hollywood auction house that also sold props from Star Wars, Stark Trek, Harry Potter and Home Alone movies.

The winning bid was as eye-popping as the golden “Slave Leia” bikini itself: $175,000 at the Hollywood Entertainment Signature Auction hosted by Heritage Auctions.

The seven-piece outfit, donated by the late actress, was designed by artist Nilo Rosis-Jamero and created by Industrial Light & Magic chief sculptor Richard Miller.

• Read the full story: Eyes Pop Over Star Wars Bikini Price At Auction

Compact Accommodations

Polly Pocket, Mattel’s original micro doll that lives in a compact-shaped house, is celebrating her 35th birthday by giving fans a once-in-a-lifetime chance to stay in a Massachusetts Airbnb modeled after Polly’s pocket-sized accommodations.

The rental in Westford becomes available after Aug 21 for the ultimate ’90s sleepover. The two-story compact has a vanity full of hair and nail accessories, a retro fridge, a closet full of Polly’s iconic outfits, a friendship-bracelet making station and more to make guests fell they’re “still actually in the ’90s,” according to the listing.

“Try on my most iconic outfits — yes, the ones you used to chew on when you were younger — in my closet,” the Airbnb listing reads, with a reference to the chewable rubber clothes in Polly Pocket’s wardrobe. “They slip on right over your clothes and are extremely chic. No bite marks, please!”

• Read the full story: You Can Stay In A Giant Polly Pocket Compact In Massachusetts

Mystery Of The Bones

A bag of bones found hanging from a tree near the Cal-Sag Channel in Palos Heights, Illinois, in December 2022 is now in the hands of a Texas lab specializing in forensic genetic genealogy.

The bones were found a few days after Christmas, when passersby walking a bike path noticed something suspicious hanging from a tree adjacent to the canal. Curious, the person took the back off the tree and looked inside, finding bones and an asphalt rock.

“The assumption was that a moving car had tried to throw the bag into the canal from the Southwest Highway overpass but missed the water,” Palos Heights Police Chief Bill Czajkowski said. “The bones ended up hanging from a tree instead, adjacent to the water.”

Anthropologists with the medical examiner’s office in Cook County determined the bag contained a mix of human and animal bones.

The bones were turned over to forensics experts with Woodland, Texas-based Othram, which uses DNA technology in its work with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies across the United States to close previously unsolved cases.

• Read the full story: Bag Of Bones Turned Over To Forensics Experts

Passenger Tries To Open Door

A New Jersey man faces multiple charges for trying to open the exterior doors of an American Airlines flight from Seattle to Dallas, and also propositioned a flight attendant for sex, according to officials with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Salt Lake City, Utah, where the flight was diverted for an emergency landing.

Flight attendants and other passengers used “flexible restraints” on 26-year-ld Eric Nichols Gapco’s hands and feet after he “failed to follow instructions from flight crew to remain in his seat, used a vape pen on board in contradiction of crew instructions, locked himself in a lavatory for a time, screamed, and attempted to open the aircraft exterior doors (forward and aft)” while the plane was in the air, according to a criminal complaint.

• Read more: ‘Unruly’ Passenger Tried To Open Aircraft Doors In-Flight: Feds

Debby Delivers Dope

Hurricane Debby, the Category 1 storm that pummeled parts of Florida Monday, washed ashore at least $1 million worth of cocaine in the Florida Keys, the U.S. Border Patrol said.

The person who found the approximately 25 packages of cocaine turned it over to authorities, officials said.

That wasn’t the first time drugs have washed ashore on Florida Keys and other beaches. On July 24, someone diving for lobster found a cocaine brick. In mid-July, someone found 70 pounds of coke that washed ashore in Palm Beach and notified authorities. Authorities said in June that 260 pounds of cocaine had washed ashore along the Florida months.

• Read the full story: Debby Delivers $1M Worth Of Cocaine

Facelift Facepalm

Preparations for potential flooding in Hoboken, New Jersey, from a downgraded Tropical Storm Debby included some fast work to correct a big mistake road workers made when giving a country road that runs through town a facelift.

They paved over the storm drains in front of some houses in the low-lying city. A city spokesperson confirmed to Patch that the county was made aware of the need to unearth the newly buried sump pump drains and “they are working on a resolution.”

• Read the full story: County Accidentally Paves Over Hoboken Storm Drains