The 3,100 Pound Pumpkin, Thieves Steal $1M In Pokémon Cards: Weird News & Oddities

The Great Pumpkin Commonwealth, the international organization that sets competition rules and sanctions weigh-offs for giant pumpkins and other oversized produce, and Guinness World Records have spoken.

Ron Wallace of Coventry, Rhode Island, grew the biggest pumpkin ever in the world this year. No one gave him a crown, but he is one of the undisputed kings of pumpkin growers.

The ginormous gourd weighed 3,156 pounds. That’s about the same as a full-grown female hippopotamus and only slightly easier to manhandle. At nearly 1.6 tons, it easily outweighs a full-grown, 2,000-pound Clydesdale horse.

Wallace entered his pumpkin in the Southern New England Giant Weigh Off at Frerichs Farm in Warren, Rhode Island, on Oct. 10. It’s the first ever to top 3,000 pounds, and it broke the previous world record by nearly 300 pounds, setting a cultivation milestone.

Wallace was already considered royalty when it comes to smashing pumpkin records. His pumpkin weighing more than 1,500 pounds set a world record in 2006, and in 2012, he became the first grower to go beyond 2,000 pounds with a 2,009-pound gourd.

• Read more about this: Ginormous Gourd Beats Girth Of Last Pumpkin For New World Record

Only Friendly Ghosts Allowed

The handymen hear knocking, go looking for the source and find nothing. Sometimes, the noise seems to move elsewhere in the house, according to paranormal investigator Brandy Stark. An unsettling renovation? Perhaps. But for a St. Petersburg, Florida, bungalow being reincarnated into the Museum of Haunted History, it fits the business plan.

The bungalow had defied death — well, demolition anyway — three times before Stark bought it.

She told Patch her team also recorded what they describe as unexplained voices and picked up the name William through a spirit box. That happens to be the name of one of the home’s original owners in 1939. Stark suspects a resident ghost.

And the ghost may have company, including Irene, a reportedly haunted wedding dress, and dolls said to have friendly spirits attached. Stark is selective about the supernatural baggage she brings home.

“I only go for the friendly ones,” she said, passing on dolls with purportedly darker attachments. “I don’t have time for that.”

The museum was scheduled for a weekend soft opening.

• Read more about this in a Patch exclusive: A Reportedly Haunted House Becomes A Paranormal Museum

Small Cards, Big Heist

A nearly $1 million heist sounds like diamonds, jewelry, maybe an armored truck full of cash. In Santa Ana, California, the loot included Pokémon cards, little cardboard monsters kids — and some adults — can’t get enough of.

Thieves broke into a FedEx truck and hauled away two pallets of trading cards, including sports cards, Santa Ana police said. This was no shoebox collection from the back of somebody’s closet.

The driver reportedly left the truck for roughly 60 to 90 minutes near Professional Sports Authenticator, which grades and authenticates collectibles, and returned to find a broken lock and missing packages. A third pallet had been disturbed, too.

Police initially valued the Oct. 13 haul at $963,000, pending an accounting of the remaining boxes.

• Read more about this: Thieves Steal $1M In Pokémon Cards From FedEx, Police Say

A Prehistoric Pain

Neanderthals had no email, no robocalls, no passwords to reset. They may have had the headaches anyway.

Glenview, Illinois, neurologist Dr. Lawrence Robbins explores that possibility in his new book, “Neanderthals Had Headaches: Evolution Meets Medicine.”

It makes sense they may have. They metaphorically carried a lot on their shoulders just to survive, but their skull anatomy and powerful neck and jaw muscles may have contributed to head and neck pain. And they also didn’t have ibuprofen to dull the pain.

Robbins also looks at whether bits of DNA some people inherited from Neanderthals, linked to pain sensitivity and inflammation, could help explain why they’re prone to headaches.

Then there’s the business of walking upright. Freeing up the hands was handy, but the spine, knees, feet and pelvis had to get with the program. Robbins explores what those changes may have meant for back pain, joint trouble and childbirth.

• Read more about this: New Book Explores Whether Neanderthals Had Headaches

There Was No There There

A New Jersey man accused of claiming nearly $60,000 in federal unemployment benefits for a job he never showed up for is facing federal wire fraud charges.

Alfonso A. Zamarra, 58, of Rutherford, was charged Tuesday with 28 counts of wire fraud, according to U.S. Attorney Robert Frazer’s office. Each count of wire fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years’ imprisonment and a fine of $250,000.

Zamarra was hired as a seasonal park worker by Hudson County, New Jersey, in 2019. Prosecutors say he never showed up for work but collected unemployment totaling $57,021 over four years, including additional benefits in 2020 under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act.

Investigators believe Zamarra had an accomplice within the parks department who would sign him in at work. During some of the time he was supposedly working in June and July of 2023, United Airlines flight records show him on a nine-day trip to Naples, Italy. The handwriting for Zamarra’s signature also appears to vary, according to court documents.

• Read more about this: Feds Say Seasonal Parks Worker Collected Nearly $60K In Benefits, But Never Showed Up

Pecks Of Pickled Trouble

Thousands of jars of pickled peppers have been recalled after a video on social media appeared to show a dead mouse in a sealed container.

The recall covers nearly 45,000 32-ounce jars of Mezzetta Golden Greek Peperoncini peppers distributed in 22 states — a veritable peck of pickled pepper problem.

Mezzetta asked the consumer for the jar for examination and began investigating production, sanitation and food-safety records. No findings explaining the apparent contamination have been publicly released.

• Read more about this: More Details On Claim Of Dead Mouse In Peppers

A Fugitive With Hooves

A cow in Pikesville, Maryland, had other plans for Wednesday afternoon, and going quietly with police wasn’t among them.

The bovine fugitive left Hidden Waters Farm around 1 p.m. and took a neighborhood excursion that brought Baltimore County officers out to negotiate the return trip. Photos showed officers apparently getting the upper hand.

The cow may have considered that a temporary setback, an obstacle to be overcome in the flight to freedom.

“When officers located the runaway suspect, it refused to cooperate and fled through the woods,” police said.

Freedom was fleeting. The bovine isn’t living its best life in a woodland retreat. Officers helped return the cow to its owner on Interstate 695.

• Read more about this: A Runaway Cow Evades Police In Maryland Neighborhood

An Oversized Fishing Buddy

Capt. Howard Bogan has seen only seven whale sharks in 45 years of offshore fishing. This one stayed for 45 minutes, apparently in no hurry to become another fleeting fish tale.

Anglers aboard the Jamaica, out of Brielle, New Jersey, got the rare company while fishing for tuna in Hudson Canyon. Capt. Erik Bogan, running the boat with his father, said it was only his third whale shark sighting.

The world’s largest fish species can reach 40 feet or more, but whale sharks are docile filter feeders. This visitor cruised around the boat, occasionally diving and resurfacing, without tangling the fishing lines. The tuna kept their appointment, too.

“We had our first tuna bites at 7:26 a.m., right when the shark was next to the boat,” Erik said.

• Read more about this: Massive Rare Shark Circles Fishing Boat On NJ Coast

And, just in time for Halloween, we close with this macabre tale of birds on opposite coasts:

When The Buffet Closes

If the vultures in Maryland deprived of daily meals by a court order could fly across the country to the Santa Monica Pier, nature might find itself more in balance.

It’s seriously out of whack now.

Vultures hanging out in a Columbia, Maryland, neighborhood haven’t had to work too hard to survive, and thus have been derelict in their duty to clean up dead animals and spare more squeamish humans from having to do it themselves. The humans want the lazy vultures to get back to work.

And a court effectively ordered that when it told a Columbia woman who has, off and on, fed the vultures up to 200 pounds of raw, bone-in chicken a day that she cannot go back to her usual habit. In the winter, she would go through more than 10,000 pounds of meat at her backyard smorgasbord.

Neighbors had complained about a putrid stew of rotting meat, vulture poop dripping down trees, porches and roofs, and regurgitated chicken bones scattered across their yards.

The court agreed, turning down her appeal and upholding an earlier order that she stop feeding the birds and pay a $2,500 fine.

• Read more about this: Court Orders Maryland Woman To Stop Feeding Vultures

These vultures used to the good life could conceivably fly to the Santa Monica Pier, where pigeons are dying after getting caught in netting.

At 140 miles a day, a roughly 2,600-mile trip west would take about 19 days. That’s a long way to go for dinner, especially for birds accustomed to backyard service.

The more immediate problem is that netting meant to keep pigeons out from under the Santa Monica Pier has become a place for them to die.

UCLA doctoral researcher Sierra Glassman counted 20 dead pigeons tangled in it during one visit about a year ago and says she keeps finding more. City officials knew by Oct. 29, 2025, when an engineer acknowledged the netting was repeatedly breached and no longer doing its job, Santa Monica Patch reported.

“Death by entanglement is a very cruel way to die,” Glassman said.

Nearly a year later, removal is a priority without a date attached. The city says it is evaluating how to take down the damaged netting and considering bird wiring, which discourages birds from settling without enclosing the space beneath them. That replacement would have to compete for funding and a place on the city’s project list. As of mid-October, officials had set no timetable for either step.

• Read more about this in a Patch exclusive: Santa Monica Pier Netting Meant To Deter Pigeons Becomes Their Death Chamber