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Lost & Found

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'Anyone for goat's cheese' - disturbing discover in park

From the Daily Southtown, 1st May, 2002:

Strange cargo found in forest

Stumped officials try to find out who dropped off 55 gallons of goat semen in Cook County preserve

Wednesday, May 1, 2002

By Jennifer Martikean
Staff writer
It wasn't nearly as much fun as a barrel full of monkeys, but the barrel firefighters found was just as weird.
It was full of goat semen.
Or maybe it was pig semen.
"We're still in disbelief," said a firefighter who did not want to be identified. "I have never heard of anything like this ever happening. We have no idea who did this."
The mysterious barrel was discovered Monday night by a passerby at the Arie Crown Woods near Countryside, Cook County Forest Preserve Lt. Michael Albrecht said.
When the police came out to take a look, they found a white, 55-gallon container with a black plug on top and hazardous materials markings on the outside.
They called in the hazardous materials team from Pleasantview Fire Protection District.
"The firefighters came, they saw the barrel, and the cleared out the area," Albrecht said.
Firefighters spent some time trying to figure out what kind of substance they were dealing with. All they knew was the barrel had some liquid in it.
After a careful inspection, firefighters found a phone number on one of the stickers. They radioed the number to dispatchers, who traced it to an Iowa company called Swine Genetics.
The company ships pig and boar semen in canisters, which in turn are placed in large drums filled with liquid nitrogen. The liquid nitrogen keeps the semen at the optimal temperature so it can be shipped long distances and used for artificial insemination.
No one has any idea how the semen ended up at the forest preserve.
"We get calls about illegal dumping all the time, but never anything like this," Albrecht said.
The police department "properly disposed" of the semen, but declined to say how.
There was some conflicting information about what kind of semen was in the canister. Albrecht said police believe it was goat semen, but Swine Genetics only deals in pig semen. A worker at the company said the barrels are expensive, costing as much as $1,100, and they are often reused by farmers to ship other types of semen.
Pleasantview firefighters were a little embarrassed about the big fuss. They were still laughing about it Tuesday and could hardly comment.
"It is just so bizarre that that would be out there," a firefighter said. "We've had all kinds of guesses at the station all day. But I'm not going to tell you what they were."
A worker at Swine Genetics said the company hasn't had any reports of missing semen, and police said no one has reported anything like it missing.
The company ships internationally out of O'Hare International Airport, so it is possible one of the barrels could have come from the airport, he said.'
Jennifer Martikean may be reached at [email protected] or (708) 633- 5962.'http://www.dailysouthtown.com/southtown/dsindex/01-ds5.htm
 
There was some conflicting information about what kind of semen was in the canister. Albrecht said police believe it was goat semen, but Swine Genetics only deals in pig semen. A worker at the company said the barrels are expensive, costing as much as
There was some conflicting information about what kind of semen was in the canister. Albrecht said police believe it was goat semen, but Swine Genetics only deals in pig semen. A worker at the company said the barrels are expensive, costing as much as $1,100, and they are often reused by farmers to ship other types of semen.
,100, and they are often reused by farmers to ship other types of semen.

You'd think the police would assume it was pig semen really... :D

The idea that the barrels are used for different types of semen is a bit worrying. Should we be expecting bizarre Pig/Goat hybrids soon? Or, if a bored company worker decides to add his own contribution... No, I really don't want to finish that thought!

Jane.

(I'm in a bit of a silly mood today for some reason. I'll go back to my corner now)
 
Hmm, so that's why it has taken three weeks now. Delivery services just aren't what they used to be. I'm off to write an angry letter to the manager :D
 
Would anyone like to hazard a guess exactly how many hours and how many goats it would take to produce 55 gallons of goat semen?

I've had some really bad summer jobs in my time, but nothing that has ever come close to that.
 
Do we get a prize for it? Sort of like "Guess how many pretzels are in this jar and win a years supply."
 
Well, if you really want a years supply of goats semen, I guess I could make a few calls.
 
Chatsubo, are you telling us you have connections to the black market on goat semen? :blah:
 
I found it funny that they were coy about the way they disposed of it.

Get the feeling someone just won the grossest bet in the world? Or there again, maybe some one lost a bet....

8¬)
 
At last, concrete proof of the Night Hags! I had hoped for
something less Industrial, but I guess nothing is what it
used to be! Can I claim mine back? :p
 
Ho Ho Ho!

I posted this story on the "Good Laugh" thread yesterday, but somehow it seems to have got lost in the post..

(Actually, I'm starting to get paranoid about the posts I make that disappear - fuel for another comspiracy theory here, methinks.)
 
"The police department "properly disposed" of the semen, but declined to say how. "

That quote makes the article XD
 
Human brain found in middle of road

Two Norwegian teenagers found a human brain in the middle of the road as they walked home from a night at the pub.

Kristin Grue and Ruben Steinung stumbled across a box in a residential street in Oslo in the early hours of the morning.

The 18-year-olds opened the box and found it contained a human brain inside a plastic bag.

Ruben said: "We realised immediately what it was. It gave me a real fright."

They rang the number of Ullevaal Hospital, which was printed on the box, and the hospital sent someone to collect it.

A spokesperson from the hospital said some keys had disappeared recently and, since then, computers and other electronic material had vanished.

But it was the first time the hospital had experienced this kind of theft. It's thought the thieves may have thrown the box away when they saw what it contained.

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_665408.html?menu=news.quirkies
 
I can just see the two burglar chappies' faces when they opened the box. Har har.
 
I wish my ex had found that box about 10 years ago.
Might have come in useful.
 
Chriswsm said:
somewhere in Norway is a very hungry pacifistic Zombie
You've got to feel sorry for them. After all, it's a simple mistake to make: "Pathology" and "Take-Away". Especially in Norway. When you're eyes aren't quite in the sockets properly. And it's been a few days since you last tasted human flesh.

Actually, when I first saw the subject, I thought they'd finally found the collective mind of the Australian Democrats. (A political party that was once described as a Monty Python sketch gone horribly wrong - an image not helped by the interim leader referring to dead parrots in a press conference recently.)
 
Igor, you peasant oaf! Not again!

If Igor lost the good brain in the middle of the road, then what brain did I just put into the Monster?
 
Poetic irony in this!

i can't help but find poetic irony in the phrase "Human Brain Found In Middle Of Road". the mass's tastes and values usually gravitate towards the middle of the road. creatively, the majority of musicians and artists in general are "middle of the road" types. i also find that as a whole, no one can make a quick "yes" or "no" decision anymore...it's always "Well...um..."

add your own "brains are mainly mundane" observations here :D
 
A friend of mine told me a similar story today. He knows somebody who was driving down an Interstate freeway near here, not very well lit when out of town, when she suddenly drove over a human head! She kept going before pulling in at the next stop and called the cops, obviously a little distressed. It turned out to belong to a local John Doe who's body was found on a nearby rubbish tip. Made the local news.
The freeways in the US can be a little spooky as there is no street lighting in some of the rural areas, so to come across that would be decidedly freaky :eek!!!!:
 
Bizarre Finds

A general thread for odd things that turn up.

Bizarre Corio Bay find


Monday, March 8
SAM BISHOP

VOLUNTEERS scouring the Corio Bay foreshore netted one of the more bizarre finds of Clean Up Australia Day 2004 - a safe containing an Australian passport and naturalisation papers.
The safe was found by site co-ordinator David Burrell in scrub near the foreshore in front of the Shell Refinery during the clean-up which yielded enough garbage to fill two mini-skip bins.

The door to the safe was found a few metres away on the sand, and Mr Burrell thought nothing of it until he stumbled on the heavy steel safe while cleaning bottles, cans and papers from under bushes above the tide-line.

``It was definitely one of the more weird finds, yes,'' Mr Burrell said.

The safe, which also contained unopened mail and some soggy papers, was taken to Corio police station where detectives from the Crime Investigation Unit sifted through the papers to find the safe's owner.

Besides the safe, Mr Burrell said the garbage mopped up by his team of volunteers was mostly papers and bottles, while up to 50 syringes were collected from the foreshore.

The safe made it on to the annual list of strange finds, which included a leopard-print lounge suite, a glass eye, dentures, a ukulele, garden gnomes and a pay phone.

........


http://www.geelonginfo.com.au/readarticle.asp?articleid=10795
 
Treasures From The Toilet

Workers Fish Plenty Of Toys And Sundry Items From The Sewage System

Wisconsin State Journal :: FRONT :: A1
Monday, April 26, 2004

Brenda Ingersoll Wisconsin State Journal

Once or twice a year, the chief engineer who runs the Madison Metropolitan Sewerage District takes an urgent call from someone who has lost a diamond ring or false teeth down the toilet, sink or bathtub.

"But I can't remember a time when we've actually been able to find those things," said Jon Schellpfeffer, now in his 30th year at the Nine Springs Wastewater Treatment Plant, a sprawling, 50-acre complex in the town of Blooming Grove and Madison.

"It's just about impossible, with 40 million gallons of water. There isn't much hope," he said pointing out how much waste water the plant treats each day.

But with that much water flowing to the plant, a lot of strange things have washed up over the years: Garfield the cat and Piglet, a bowling ball and golf balls.

And toys. Lots of toys.

Many of these items end up in the first-floor control room at the Nine Springs Wastewater Treatment Plant. There you'll find four shelves, containing scores of objects rescued over the past 20 years, with an explanatory sign: "Toys of the Underworld."

Most of the objects are children's toys, but there's also a man's gold watch, a five-dollar bill and a couple of singles, a set of dentures, sunglasses, dice, golf and pool balls, a set of car keys and a rusty horseshoe.

There's a toy fire hydrant, a toy SUV, little speedboats, a toy telephone receiver, toy soldiers and other small dolls.

"There's probably a lot of kids with broken hearts or, you never know, it was probably sort of a kick watching things go down the toilet," Schellpfeffer said.

The items all washed up against the separator screens that block out solids from raw waste water flowing into the plant. The screens, at each of the system's four major pumping stations in Monona, Fitchburg, at Brittingham Park and on Wingra Drive, are there to prevent objects from clogging the massive pumps.

"Within the last few years, a bowling ball managed to get as far as a pump," Schellpfeffer said. "Someone threw that in a manhole, more than likely."

The separator screens have a raking mechanism that rises along the screen and deposits solids in a bin. Station maintenance men put the contents of the bin on a truck to take to a landfill, but sometimes something bright glimmers amid the "bunch of gooey, raggy material," Schellpfeffer said.

"The guys will fish them out, clean them up and put them on a shelf."

http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=wsj:2004:04:26:370364:FRONT
 
I used to run a playgroup with a woman whose husband had been a drain worker. She had many intriguing tales of 'found objects' in the sewers, including more than one full-term baby. :( These were usually discovered when tenants complained of blocked drains.

Lovely thing to tell a pregnant woman, which I usually was in those days...:rolleyes:
 
Forgotten Legs

HOW?

Swimmers leave city pool legless

Absent-minded swimmers forgot to collect their artificial legs after visiting a Stoke-on-Trent attraction.
Ten prosthetic limbs were among the more unusual items from 3,000 effects left behind last year in lockers at Waterworld in Festival Park.

During an annual review of operations, staff found the lost items list also included false teeth.

Chief executive Mo Chaudry said she was "flabbergasted" to discover such things had been abandoned at the pool.

"We regularly find some of our customers leave behind items of clothing and jewellery but I still can't believe a person can leave the park without their legs," she said.

"We've spent nearly £500,000 improving our changing facilities this year but perhaps we should have just put up signs reminding people to make sure they have their limbs, teeth and other body parts with them when they leave."

All the legs were subsequently retrieved by their owners.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/3709099.stm

:confused:
 
My guess for the scenario is that they go swimming with their friends and family. They leave their leg in the locker and have someone roll them to/from the pool in a wheelchair. When they leave, they change back to their clothes, but in the confusion of everyone getting ready, forget their limb.

oh. ok. I'm at a loss too....
 
Perhaps they like getting legless?

Well someone had to say it

I've also merged this with the general 'Lost & Found' thread.

Emps
 
Ah, the perfect place for my grim story!
My Dad served his engineering apprenticeship for Salisbury Corporation, who, during the 1960s were the arm of the council responsible for the maintenence and repair of car-park lifts, dust-carts ect. They also kept Salisbury's elaborate sewage system running, which due to Salisbury's geographical situation, pumped lots of sewage uphill using valves.
The valves would often block with debris, and the sewage would back up into the street. When it did, the Corporation were sent out in a little Austin van to see what the problem was. After a bit of poking with a long stick, the accumilation of dead leaves, fat or bog-roll would disappear off through the system. One old boy was especially fearless, and would stick his arm down to shift a really sticky lump, till the day he came across a big chunk of something. It was a dead cat so decomposed that the head and skin came off in his hand like a glove, leaving the rest still stuck in the valve!:cross eye
Minging!
There was, like Escargot's story, a dead baby found once, too.

At around the same date my Dad found, and rescued from a skip, the entire set of original keys to Salisbury Cathedral Close, that were going for scrap when they changed the locks.
 
Those keys- wonder what happened to them?

I once found the assistant manager's complete set of keys to the local Nat West Bank in the street. Handed them in to the police and they were recovered right away. Was brought a big box of chocolates by a very relieved bank manager! :D

The keys were outside the bank in the gutter, in a black vinyl pouch. Maybe black is the wrong colour for something as portable and important as bank keys. ;)
 
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