Huge Goldfish; TSA Finds Turtle In Man's Pants [Weird News & Oddities] – Patch

March 24, 2025 ndowd

Thomas Carter, New Jersey’s director of the Transportation Security Administration, has seen some things.
“We have seen travelers try to conceal knives and other weapons on their person, in their shoes and in their luggage, however I believe this is the first time we have come across someone who was concealing a live animal down the front of his pants,” Carter said of the incident in early March at Newark Liberty International Airport.
More specifically, the passenger from East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, had a turtle in his pants. As spectacular as that would’ve been, the turtle wasn’t a snapper, but a five-inch-long red-eared slider.
An alarm was triggered when a TSA agent patted down the passenger and determined he was hiding something in the area of his groin.
The turtle was unharmed, authorities said.
“Call me Megalodon,” the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in a social media post sharing a photo of a goldfish that had grown to ginormous proportions after two years in the wild.
The fish the size of a football was found during an electrofishing survey in Presque Isle, Pennsylvania, and authorities shared a photo to raise awareness of what can happen when small, aquarium-sized goldfish are tossed into a stream or lake.
“Goldfish grow massive in the wild, where they can turn lakes and waterways into murky messes, steal food from native fish, and wreck water quality,” the agency said. “If you can’t keep your fish, re-home it. Just don’t let it loose.”
Count on a cheeky 4-year-old boy from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, never living this down: He called the cops and reported his mom for “being bad” and said she “needed to go to jail.”
In a statement on Facebook last week, the village police department said authorities weren’t able to get details before the boy ended the call. As is customary in 911 hang-ups, officers were dispatched to the home to investigate.
Mom’s crime was a big one in the eyes of a preschooler with a sweet tooth. She ate her son’s ice cream.
Police showed up the next day with ice cream and that set off a whole, big thing on Facebook about the kid being the real “criminal”; speculations that, next thing you know, he’ll be calling 911 just so cops will show up with ice cream; and comments by a couple of people that if they’d pulled that, they would’ve been eating oatmeal for the rest of their lives.
“The cold kind when you stick the spoon in,” one person said. “You can pick it all up and bite or lick it like a Popsicle.”
People have literally gone bananas on Long Island, where an elaborate game of hide ’n seek has adults hiding — and finding — a large stuffed Rasta banana.
On a recent day, the banana named Benny visited an elementary school, spent time in the sun and got a treatment at a dermatologist’s office. Now, Benny is getting invitations for celebrity appearances.
It all started when Jenn Rossetti told her son during spring cleaning that it was time to let go of the5-foot tall stuffed banana her son had won on a school trip to an amusement park.
“My kids and I love a good adventure, so we came up with the idea to post it on Facebook with a picture and a hint to its location to see if anyone would take it and keep it going.”
Immediately, Benny hit the road and “Banana Quest” was in full force.
Police in Los Gatos, California, are investigating the theft of a specific item — underarm deodorant — recently stolen from a Safeway store.
Police said two men about $1,600 worth of deodorant from garbage bags they’d plucked off a shelf.
The toiletry thieves made a clean getaway.
St. Patrick’s Day is coming up. Is mischievousness behind the water cascading from the cliffs of I-280 westbound in West Orange, New Jersey? Or is it a scientific phenomenon?
The sight last week was a “what the heck?” moment for West Orange’s public information officer, Joseph Fagan. He doubled back after passing it Tuesday and took some photos from the side of the road.
“I didn’t have a chance to lick the ice,” he joked to Patch.
Even so, the PIO discussed the mystery in a statement that concludes, “And if you happen to crack open a cold one, just know that West Orange’s newest icy wonder has already beaten you to it.”