They say that the truth is often stranger than fiction. It would seem that there have been many examples of this throughout modern times. Some are more memorable than others.

Here is a selection of true tales, all of them from 1991, sure to bemuse. In January 1991 in Indonesian man was arrested for selling "magic pencils" to students. It was claimed the pencils would send electronic signals that confused the computer marking system and thus ensured that they would pass. He sold the pencils for about 300 dollars. Many of the students complained because the pencil magic did not work!

Three months later in Bangladesh a cyclone had swept through a coastal village. The waves had washed a young child out to sea. Fearing the worst, rescuers were amazed to see the boy, being held above the water, in the mouth of a dolphin. The dolphin returned him to shore. The boy was unharmed, apart from leg injuries sustained from the dolphins grip.
Also in the same year but the following month, in Poland, at a local election, one candidate decided to vote for his opponent. This magnanimous act costs him his seat. Of all the 595 electors he had been the only one to vote and so his opponent got the seat!

Meanwhile, in Colorado, America, a man was sued for threatening a woman. She worked as a waitress and had mistakenly forgotten his order of an omelet. Infuriated the man had screamed: "I will crush you like an egg! " at the waitress. The judge ruled that although this was a ridiculous threat - because humans have neither shell nor yolk - it was said violently enough to be traumatic and awarded the woman 12,000 dollars.

The next month, in Victoria Harbour, Australia, many townsfolk complained about a pod of whales. The whales had taken to sleeping in the shallow water near the beach. The locals could not sleep because the whales snored so loudly! Now I think you will agree there are some pretty strange things going on . . .