Truth is Stranger than Fiction

[Glider]

We have all come across things which are so crazy they couldn't be made up and are true.
I thought it might be a good idea to have somewhere to put these strange examples.

To kick it off, I attach the following and in case anyone is wondering, the chickens were part of the final design.

I give you the Blue Peacock

Blue Peacock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Matt308]

Christ it is a wonder we survived the cold war.

 

[ccheese]

This is, indeed, stranger than fiction. Wonder if MI-6 knows about this ?

Charles

 

[Gnomey]

Haha, there was also the pigeon guided bomb (or was it missile).

 

[timshatz]

Man, the crap a couple scientist can think up. Amazing.

 

[Glider]

The strange thing is that although the project was cancelled at least one of these things were built. My son saw it today and had to tip me off as it was such an amazing development, he did describe it as being huge.

 

[Graeme]

Man, the crap a couple scientist can think up. Amazing.

Speaking of crap, this is from 'What a Way To Go' by Bowler and Green.
I have doubts. Did early post war airliners really dump crap?

 

[Konigstiger205]

Yeah well I have lots of ideas but nobody pays me for them...I think those boys just had too much free time on their hands...

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Speaking of crap, this is from 'What a Way To Go' by Bowler and Green.
I have doubts. Did early post war airliners really dump crap?

This has happened numerous times. There have been cases where it has fallen through roofs of houses and so forth.

 

[Konigstiger205]

Thats an "original" way to die...

 

[Aggie08]

"Impaled by frozen spear of ****..."

Yeah, I'd agree with you Konigstiger.

 

[Graeme]

The Mutter Museum. I liked the 'Woman who turned to Soap' and 'The Big Colon'.

Mutter Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

 

[Konigstiger205]

The Mutter Museum. I liked the 'Woman who turned to Soap' and 'The Big Colon'.

Mutter Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Interesting stuff Graeme....I liked also those things.

 

[Matt308]

Speaking of crap, this is from 'What a Way To Go' by Bowler and Green.
I have doubts. Did early post war airliners really dump crap?

I can't vouch for the glory days of flying (1930-1950). But I suspect the answer would be yes they did dump waste overboard. Since the early regulations for aircraft operations were heavily steeped in railroad regulations, I suspect that dumping of waste was a common occurrence. For all of you who have hunted for interesting objects on rail tracks, think about that. To this day, rail operators dump their waste while underway... but only in discrete locations.

Modern aircraft lavatories have waste tanks that are pumped while at the gate. However, the plumbing between the aircraft skin and the tank valve are known to contain waste that freezes and falls away at altitude. The latter is what Adler is referring to.

An example of a WWII sort, is that the B-17 had a "piss tube" located fore of the ventral turret. I have read of the ball turret gunner complaining that his shipmates would relieve themselves at altitude and the "piss tube" would spray urine all over the plexiglass, freezing instantly.

That's my toilet knowledge for the day.

 

[Graeme]

To this day, rail operators dump their waste while underway... but only in discrete locations.

No denying that fact. I remember in the 70s, that looking down toilets on Interstate trains in Australia, you could see the railway sleepers. Signs were posted asking passengers to "refrain from using the toilet while the train is stationary".

Interesting post Matt!

 

[Graeme]

From 'Old Wives Tales-Fact or Fiction?' by Thomas J. Craughwell. (The discussion surrounds the 'myth' that, a severed head stays alive for several minutes after it's separated from the body).

Mechanical head-chopping devices have been around at least since 1307, when a beheading machine was set up near the town of Meron, Ireland, to execute a scalawag named Mucod Ballagh. But the Cuisinart of head removers was the guillotine, named after Doctor Antoine Louis Guillotine, who designed the sleek, efficient gadget that decapitated King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, and thousands of less distinguished victims during the French Revolution's reign of terror.

Although the guillotine is almost universally regarded with horror these days, Dr Guillotine intended it as a swift, tidy, and humane form of execution. He and the leaders of the Revolution were determined to have a mode of capital punishment in keeping with the principles of the Age of Enlightenment. Compared to the unspeakable agonies of being burned at the stake, or having one's bones smashed while being bound to a wheel, the guillotine was a genuinely merciful step forward. Dr Guillotine himself described his device as "philanthropic."

Soon after the Guillotine was in regular operation, executioners and others on the scaffold began to notice that the severed heads often seemed to still be "alive." The eyes opened or twitched. The lips trembled, or the mouth opened as if the victim were trying to speak.

The most famous case is that of Charlotte Corday, the young woman who stabbed to death the French revolutionary Murat while he soaked in his bath . After she was guillotined, the executioner lifted her head out of the basket and displayed it to the crowd as he slapped its face. Corday's cheeks reddened and her face took on an angry expression. The old wives said that the guillotine worked so swiftly that for several minutes after the head was separated from the body it remained alive and conscious. The idea was terribly unsettling, to say the least.

This notion hung on so long that in 1905 a French physician named Beaurieux decided to settle the matter by studying the head of a criminal named Languille who scheduled to be guillotined at 5:30 am 28 June 1905.

After the blade of the guillotine fell, Dr Beaurieux observed, "The eyelids and lips of the guillotined man worked in irregularly rhythmic contractions for about five or six seconds." Beaurieux waited a few seconds more until he saw the muscles of the face relax and the eyelids half close.
Then he says. "I called in a strong, sharp voice, 'Languille!' I saw the eyelids slowly lift up, without any spasmodic contractions-I insist advisedly on this peculiarity-but with an even movement, quite distinct and normal, such as happens in everyday life, with people awakened or torn from their thoughts…Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focussed themselves. I was not , then, dealing with the sort of vague dull look without any expression, that can be observed any day in dying people to whom one speaks: I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me."

After several seconds, the eyelids closed again. Once again the doctor called out the "dead" mans name. "Once more, without any spasm, slowly, the eyelids lifted and undeniably living eyes fixed themselves on mine with perhaps even more penetration than the first time." The eyelids closed again, and when Beaurieux called Languille's name for the third time there was no reaction. He lifted the lids with his fingers and recognised that the eyes had taken on "the glazed look which they have in death".

According to Dr Beaurieux, the whole scene took about 25 to 30 seconds.

Languille may have remained conscious for a few seconds after being beheaded. However, his remaining conscious for 25 to 30 seconds seems unlikely. When the head is severed from, the body, both parts quickly lose enormous amounts of blood. Blood loss leads-in rapid succession-to a massive drop in blood pressure, oxygen deprivation (cerebral hypoxia) unconsciousness, and brain death.

 

[Konigstiger205]

That's creepy....

 

[DOUGRD]

Modern aircraft lavatories have waste tanks that are pumped while at the gate. However, the plumbing between the aircraft skin and the tank valve are known to contain waste that freezes and falls away at altitude.

You're pretty close there Matt. All the modern airliners (The ones I'm familiar with anyway) have a Dump valve in each lav tank. When the rampers go to empty the shitters they attach the Lav Truck hose to the aircraft, open the Aircraft Dump Valve ,usually a flapper or butterfly valve, and then pull the "T" handle that actuates the lav dump valve and the waste transfers from the lav tank thru the dump tube, thru the butterfly valve and out into the Lav truck. Then the lav tank is refilled with 5 gals of "Blue Juice" By the way folks, this "Blue Juice" is NOT a disinfectant and it does get recirculated in the tank. So anyway, what happens sometimes is that after the lavs are serviced the Aircraft Dump Valve doesn't close completely and that leaking "Blue Juice" is what forms the "Blue Ice" that usually causes such mysterious events. One such event I heard of while I worked for Northwest Airlines was back on the old B727. The lav dump valve leaked and the resulting "blue Ice" bomb broke loose and was ingested by #1 Eng. The vibration was so intense that the engine broke loose from its mounts and departed the aircraft.

 

[jkworld]

I am an imbecile

 

[jkworld]

I pee my pants