The 16 Weirdest News Headlines That We Saw In 2018

Published December 26, 2018
Updated August 15, 2019

From googly-eyed fish to mysterious ocean creatures, there's been no shortage of weird news this year.

Weird News 2018

Jam Press/The Straits TimesAdam Curlykale started tattooing his entire body after he survived cancer.

Weird news is always welcome, whether it be for comic relief or simply a story to marvel at. In the age of viral content, these strange stories tend to pick up a ton of traction on the internet. As such, here are the weird, obscure news stories that got the most attention in 2018.

Video Of A Woman Swallowed Whole By 23-Foot Python Found In Its Stomach

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kc_LimfrPjM

Weird news hit Indonesia hard when on June 15, a 54-year-old Indonesian woman was found dead on the island of Sulawesi after being swallowed whole by a 23-foot python.

The night before, Wa Tiba left her village, Persiapan Lawela, to tend to her garden located about half a mile from her house. Tiba’s family reported that she wanted to check on the garden because wild boars often destroyed its crops.

When Tiba didn’t return home by sunrise, her sister went to look for her near the garden. She could only find some of her sister’s belongings, including a flashlight, her machete, and her sandals.

Soon, about 100 worried locals including Tiba’s relatives, launched a search party. Then they came across a 23-foot reticulated python with a bloated midsection about 100 feet away from where her belongings were found.

“Residents were suspicious the snake swallowed the victim, so they killed it, then carried it out of the garden,” said the local police chief, identified as Hamka.

After carrying the python back to the village, the villagers sliced open its carcass. Inside they found and extracted the body of Wa Tiba, who’d been swallowed head first.

Reticulated pythons like this one are the longest snakes in the world and are widespread in Indonesia as well as other parts of Southeast Asia. These creatures, which can reach lengths of more than 25 feet and weigh more than 120 pounds, use their incredible size to squeeze their prey to death before swallowing it whole and digesting it over the course of days or even weeks.

They regularly kill and eat creatures about a quarter of their own size, including monkeys and pigs, but reports of humans being killed by these pythons are rare. However, this was the second attack of a human by a python in Indonesia in a little over a year.

Weird News Of 2018: Couple Arrested For Interspecies Love Triangle With Husky

Colorado Manzanares

Aurora Police DepartmentFredrick Manzanares

A couple from Aurora, Colo. was arrested for four counts of animal cruelty. Police alleged that Frederick Blue Manzanares, 50, and Janette Eileen Solano, 48, converted a backyard motorhome into a chamber used to have sex with their dog, a Siberian husky mix named Bubba.

Charges brought against Manzanares and Solano included neglect and mistreatment.

Police had been investigating the alleged crime for almost a year, starting in March 2017 after Solano called the Aurora Police Department to report an incident of domestic violence and some dark, weird news. When an officer met her at a local gas station, Solano informed him that she was leaving Manzanares because he had been pressuring her into having sex with their dog.

Solano confronted Manzanares after she discovered bestiality pictures and videos on their shared laptop. He responded by asking her to keep an open mind. Then, according to the arrest affidavit, he spent the following six months “introducing her to bestiality videos, bestiality forums, as well as providing her different literature on bestiality.”

The homemade chamber included a customized bench with red padding and a dog hormone spray to arouse the dog. Manzanares would take pictures and videos during the sex acts, which the police have now obtained.

Solano also told authorities that Manzanares sent her pictures of Bubba while she was at work, along with text messages such as, “He’s thinking of you. ;)”

Bestiality is considered animal cruelty, a misdemeanor crime in Colorado.

author
Bernadette Deron
author
Bernadette Deron is a digital media producer and writer from New York City who holds a Master's in publishing from New York University. Her work has appeared in Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Insider.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.