it's happened again. everyone at the cocktail party is talking about their favorite absurd/esoteric incidents again and you aren't conversant in any of them. thank god you have this thread of absurd/esoteric incidents handy
Weβll start with one some might call basic. I call it foundational. Dylatov Pass incident: Nine Soviet hikers enter the pass, all run from their camps, freezing to death in the night, fleeingβ¦ something. en.wikipedia.org
Less morbid is the likewise foundational Balloonfest '86. Only "less" morbid, because it still led to the death of two fisherman. A massive cloud of balloons was released over Cleveland, causing a disaster en.wikipedia.org
The JetBlue flight attendant incident: in 2010, a flight attendant grabbed some beers and made an emergency exit on the tarmac at JFK. It's unclear why he did this β the eyewitnesses all denied his explanation that a passenger had been awful to him. en.wikipedia.org
The Jimmy Carter rabbit incident βΒ in which then POTUS was pursued by a wild rabbit escaping some dogs. The rabbit made a beeline towards his fishing boat. Maybe a Soviet plant? No one believed him about it until they saw the photo. en.wikipedia.org
The Bloops is perhaps not an incident so much as a phenomenon; discerning cocktail party attendees may call you out. Regardless, it's worth listening to the bizarre noise made in the dead silence of the ocean in 1997, the source of which is still unknown. en.wikipedia.org
If anyone at the party is from the Second City, they'll be sure to talk to you about the Dave Matthews Band Chicago River incident. The band bus dumped nearly half a ton of Dave Matthews Band feces & urine on an unsuspecting tour boat below in August 2004. en.wikipedia.org
Make sure there are no children around when you bring up the Pinyan incident, or more commonly, the Enumclaw horse sex case. The death of a Boeing engineer after intestinal perforation from anal sex w/a horse led Washington to change its bestiality laws. en.wikipedia.org
If you, like me, live in DC, many cocktail parties will be teeming with counterproliferation specialists and military enthusiasts. They may already know of that time in 2007 when the US Air Force lost six nukes for about a day and a half. Oopsie! en.wikipedia.org
Every well rounded incident-knower is necessarily a student of history. Brush up on the Dancing Plague of 1518, when crowds of inhabitants of Strasbourg started dancing. And dancing. And dancing. Until they died. Demons? Food poisoning? A hoax? en.wikipedia.org
Oh this one is just really funny Bush sr. just barfed all over the prime minister of Japan one time en.wikipedia.org
In 1995, some scientists launched a rocket that, if you were a Russian missile defense agency, looked a lot like an incoming US Minuteman III nuke. Yeltsin watched with the nuclear briefcase active; the Russians eventually saw it was flying away from them. en.wikipedia.org
(The above incident is an excellent follow-up to anyone bringing up another classic, foundational incident, which almost saw modern human society wiped out but not for the intervention of a rational Soviet officer. en.wikipedia.org)
4,000 people were exposed to radiation from cobalt-60 melted down from radiation therapy equipment and reused in rebar that was then distributed across Mexico and the US in 1984. en.wikipedia.org
It's bedtime, but rest assured, there are more incidents I have to educate you with tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a list of a list of incidents at Disney resorts. These incidents are relatively minor on their own. Incident hors d'oeuvres. en.wikipedia.org
I'm actually starting an incident consulting service. if you want me to start an incident for your birthday party, wedding, corporate event, etc., DM me. Incidents with a zero death guarantee starting from $7,950. If you can tolerate a death or two or twenty, as low as $3,500.
"Pepsi Number Fever" entailed mass riots in the Philippines after Pepsi accidentally made it appear that thousands of people had one a bottle cap prize of $40,000 in 1992. Riots and bombings ensued. en.wikipedia.org
In 2009 a British guy named Steven got super hammered and drunkenly placed trades for over 7 million barrels of crude oil (about half a billion dollars, Β£340 mil) causing the global prices to spike over a two-and-a-half hour period. en.wikipedia.org
In 2005, World of Warcraft accidentally introduced a digital plague, creating a very fascinating experiment in epidemiology. en.wikipedia.org
a very good one, Fat Steve Buscemi. 34 years ago, someone hijacked two Chicago-area TV stations in separate spells one night. One showed someoneβs butt getting spanked. The FCC never figured out who did it or why.
It should go without saying, but sophisticated people don't just /know/ incidents. For unsolved mysteries, they should have working knowledge of at least two major explanatory theories. They should be able to connect them to other incidents to encourage the flow of conversation.
For example, if an acquaintance brings up the Mexican cobalt-60 incident, it is only natural to at least mention a similar occurrence in Brazil. Don't overdo it, though. It's important that incident conversations don't dwell on a singular genre. en.wikipedia.org
A sophisticated incident conversationist knows mass casualty incidents are impolite to discuss if they are less than 150 years old. Remember that events, phenomena, and affairs are different. They can be discussed in certain circumstances, but do not pretend they are incidents.
The Tunguska event (like the Bloop) is not an incident. It does not involve human folly, intervention, mistakes, mysteries, or the silly little institutions & norms we entertain. Thus, the impact that flattened >800 sq. miles of Siberia was not an incident en.wikipedia.org
Hopefully you are now prepared to discuss incidents at the next ball. In the meantime, ponder: is the explosion and implantation of an iron rod into the skull of Phineas Gage an incident? Is his survival an incident per se, or merely the initial accident? en.wikipedia.org
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