Weird News: Top IL Stories That Made Us Say What? In 2024 – Crystal Lake, IL Patch

December 28, 2024 ndowd

ACROSS ILLINOIS — From a cicada invasion across the area to Chicago’s beloved rathole, the past year saw plenty of interesting and endearing stories that made us say, “What?” And “Wow.”
As the year comes to an end, it’s a good time to look back and enjoy some of the weirdest moments from the past year captured in Patch.com stories. Here are some of our favorites.
It was the summer of cicadas, and some in the area went a little crazy over the little insects.
In the rare event that hasn’t happened since 1803, two broods — the 17-year cicadas in Brood XIII, known as the Northern Illinois Brood, and the 13-year cicadas in Brood XIX, or the Great Southern Brood — emerged.
Billions of the bugs rose from the ground earlier this spring and unleashed their deafening mating calls. Businesses jumped on the opportunity to recognize the bugs, making and selling everything from cicada cupcakes to cicada-infused Malört.
And even when the bugs started to die off in recent months, they weren’t completely done with Illinois. When the adult cicadas died, large piles of the insects “can accumulate under trees and can smell unpleasant, similar to roadkill,” according to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Illinois Extension.
Winslow Dumaine is tethered enough to social media to understand what kind of posts possess the potential to blow up and overtake the plethora of images of sunsets, puppies, and culinary discoveries that tend to flood the Internet these days.
So, when the Chicago-based artist and comedian innocently enough snapped a photo of an indentation in a sidewalk in the city’s Roscoe Village neighborhood that resembles a rat, he had an inkling that the local “rat hole” could perhaps find its place in social media infamy. He had just no idea of how this particular Chicago rat could potentially be the G.O.A.T in city landmarks in a town that already has a bit of a rodent-friendly reputation.
Since posting the photo in January, Dumaine’s photo drew millions of views on X (formerly known as Twitter) and has garnered more than thousands of “likes” on the X and Instagram.
You can read more about Dumaine’s viral pic here.

The rat hole received plenty of attention this year, inspiring weddings near it and prompting city officials to remove it after determining the section bearing the imprint of an animal was damaged and needed to be replaced.
The FBI-Chicago Field Office turned to the public to ask for help this past fall after a bank robber — dubbed the “Bare Chested Bandit” — robbed three banks in the Chicago-Loop area. He wore a different disguise for each robbery, and was “the first incident in recent years where we have observed a suspect changing clothes on public transportation,” the FBI said in a written statement.
You can read more about the bare-chested bandit here.

It started big, and it’s only gotten bigger. But, isn’t that how Clark Griswold would do it?
Ted Ray, 33, of McHenry, has definitely taken his love for the beloved holiday classic “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” to the next level. It’s a movie adored by many but only truly embodied by a few special Christmas aficionados like Ray.
Ray has been lighting up his neighborhood with his Griswold-inspired holiday lights at 2201 Country Lane, McHenry, for the past five years. It started with 500 lights and increased to 4,750 lights last holiday season and his electric bill last December topped off at $850.
Last December, his electric bill was $850.
In 2022, he took it a step further and acquired the most Griswold-like station wagon he could find. Initially, he planned to just use the vehicle as a prop in his driveway.
But after spending months updating the 1990 Ford Taurus GL, which is the exact make and model of the station wagon in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation;” putting vanity plates on it that read “Griswold” and then securing a tree, roots and all, to the roof, he decided to take it for a little spin.
From there, things have just gotten bigger and better for Ray.
The station wagon has been a huge hit, drawing crowds who want a picture of it or a selfie with it. He’s been pulled over by police officers who just want to talk to Ray about the car and get a picture with it.
You can read more about Ray’s adventures here.
Candy corn might not be everyone’s favorite Halloween candy but it definitely got a moment in the spotlight at the Great Wolf Lodge in Gurnee this past year. Great Wolf debuted its new family suite after teaming up with BRACH’S to create the room.
You can take a peak at it here and learn more about the why behind the candy corn-inspired suite.
Police found and captured a wild cat that has been wandering the suburbs in October. The caracal was located under a resident’s deck in Hoffman Estates and was not harmed, police said.
Police are not sure where the animal came from, and employees with The Valley of the Kings Sanctuary and Retreat in Sharon, Wisconsin, ended up taking the cat in.
Police said they “are sure (the caracal) will have a healthy and happy life far away from Hoffman Estates.” Caracal are native species to Asia, not common to the United States and are an internationally protected endangered species.
It all started during the pandemic. Residents bored from quarantining and working at home started visiting the deer at St. Casimir Catholic Cemetery along 111th Street for a breath of socially distanced fresh air. Standing apart from many deer roaming among the headstones and wetlands of St. Casimir was a peculiar buck with a crooked antler and a slight limp.
The deer began to become a staple at the cemetery, and caused a stir after embarking on a recent journey outside St. Casmir in Chicago. The deer ended up returning right before Christmas.
“It’s a Christmas miracle,” said a longtime gravedigger and groundskeeper Mike Nommensen, who named the deer Special.