July 2020
It looked a little different this year, but America celebrated its 244th birthday on July 4, 2020.
12. The Randonauting Craze
Desperate to stay socially distanced but also to get out of the house, the Randonautica trend took off. Even though it led people to spooky places and in some cases dead bodies.
13. Mystery Seeds from China Start Appearing in People’s Mailboxes
Unsolicited mystery seeds started cropping up in people’s mailboxes all across the U.S. The USDA warned against planting them in case they were an invasive species of one kind or another.
However, CBS later reported that the mystery seeds from China were harmless and innocuous varieties of everything from cabbage to morning glories. But why? The motive for the mysterious deliveries may forever remain an unsolved mystery.
August 2020
They don’t happen often, but 2020 was the year of rarities, as North Carolina can attest. They’ve had earthquakes before, but it’d been a minute since the last one. A magnitude 5.1 earthquake rocked Sparta on August 9. The presidential race started heating up and was dominating headlines. But it was also the unofficial start to Spooky Season, which we all knew by then would be different, but we were just hoping it wouldn’t be canceled entirely.
14. Ghost Cruise Ship Draws Tourists
CNN reported that the empty cruise ships just hanging out with no vacation-goers to transport from port to port became tourist attractions in their own right. Not that people could board them, but a savvy ferry operator started taking people to see them.
September 2020
This might’ve been the year’s wildest weather month. Historic wildfires ravaged the west. Record-setting hurricanes battered the east. (There were so many they ran out of names and had to start using the Greek alphabet!) On top of that, there seemed to be a never-ending storm of controversy surrounding the election campaigns, and there was plenty of fallout following the disastrous first presidential debate.
15. Foul-Mouthed Parrots Taken Off Display in the U.K.
This is just a fun wacky story that CNN reported about five African grey parrots that were donated to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park in England by five different owners. When they were put in the park’s public areas, they displayed a knowledge of some very “fowl” language and peppered visitors with colorful terms and insults. Adults fired right back but concern for younger visitors prompted the park to move them out of the public’s eye –er, earshot.
October 2020
POTUS and his wife caught coronavirus, while the wildfires and hurricanes continued. Halloween was definitely different. Major Halloween events like the Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor, Eastern State’s Terror Behind the Walls, Salem’s Haunted Happenings, and Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights were canceled. But a new breed of terrorizing fun cropped up in the form of social distance-friendly drive-in haunted houses.
16. Venomous Caterpillars Invaded Virginia
2020 wasn’t done with creepy insect invasions. Enter stage right: Fuzzy puss caterpillars. Touching one can induce a wave of intense pain followed by possible nausea, fever, vomiting, and muscle cramps. At least they won’t tear your head off.
17. Magician and Paranormal Debunker James Randi Died
18. Rare Halloween Full Moon
A full Blue Moon on Halloween hadn’t happened in 76 years. It wouldn’t be the only rare astronomical event in 2020 though. There was another one to come in December.
November 2020
The election and its results dominated much of November’s news, but there were a couple of fun distractions too.
19. World’s Largest Livestreamed Seance
Really and UK Haunted set a Guinness World Record on November 1, 2020 for the most viewers for a seance live stream on Facebook. 9,317 viewers tuned in for the 90 minute seance.
20. A Mystery Monolith in Utah Appears
From the time the Utah monolith was found on November 18 until the time it vanished on November 27, it caught the world’s imagination. Soon more cropped up and kept on doing it. So many that there’s now a Wikipedia list of monoliths.
December 2020
In a year full of sad news, December brought a glimmer of hope as the coronavirus vaccine was approved and started being rolled out. Here’s hoping that begins ushering in a return back to normal in 2021.
21. Former Israeli General Says Aliens and a Galactic Federation Exists
When a new book was released in Israel, it made worldwide news because it documented that a former Israeli General turned professor, Haim Eshed, claimed aliens exist and so does a Galactic Federation. Of course they do. It’s 2020. What better time for that cat to officially be let out of the bag?
22. Winter Solstice Rare Planetary Alignment
Like the Halloween Full Moon, 2020’s Winter Solstice also brought a rare planetary alignment between Jupiter and Saturn. Great Conjunctions, as their called, happen about every 20 years, but this one was rare because from an astronomical perspective it was the closest the two planets had been since the year 1226. From an astrological perspective, it signaled the end of one era and the dawn of another. For the last 218 years, Great Conjunctions have happened in earth signs. In 2020, they were shifting to a new element: air. The December 21 Winter Solstice was the first time there’d been a Great Conjunction in Aquarius in 600 years.
23. Conspiracy Theorist Bombs Downtown Nashville
On December 25 I woke up early to witness a rare sight in Nashville: a White Christmas sunrise. Overnight, Mother Nature had deposited a dusting of snow around parts of Middle Tennessee, including my neighborhood. I grabbed my phone to snap a pic. That was at 6:45 a.m. I had no idea what had happened 10 miles away in downtown 15 minutes before.
I found out later that morning when two friends texted with the news. We hadn’t had the TV on yet. We were glued to it for the better part of the day. Some people are calling Anthony Quinn Warner a terrorist, others are saying he was motivated by conspiracy theories about 5G and shape-shifting alien lizard people.
Will we ever find out why he did it? I don’t know. Maybe more will be revealed in 2021. But talk about ending the year with a bang.
24. Gingerbread Monolith
Speaking of ending things, let’s finish on a sweet note with another monolith story. This time about one made out of gingerbread, complete with icing and gumdrops, that cropped up in Corona Heights Park in San Francisco on Christmas Day. As you might imagine, it didn’t last long because cookies really aren’t meant to withstand the elements and it wasn’t long before it crumbled.
Check-In
What’s the weirdest thing that happened to you or took place in your city in 2020?
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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A giant gingerbread monolith! That’s awesome. Nah, our area didn’t have any surprising, weird stuff like that.
I thought the gingerbread monolith was the best one yet! lol