If there was one overarching trend throughout 2017, it may have been that our collective capacity to be taken by surprise seemed to diminish considerably.
Having seen all manner of unusual events the previous year, what would once be deemed unbelievable in the past oftentimes received a nonchalant shrug from a world that appeared to have grown used to the 'weirdest case scenario' being the way things unfolded.
Fortunately, fate found a way to keep pace with our increasing level of ambivalence to the bizarre by frequently taking things to such a strange level that one was forced to sit up and notice.
And so, as we bid farewell to 2017, here are seventeen of the weirdest stories from what was a particularly peculiar year:
- Cyclops goat born in India
- Woman loses fight with snowman
- UK man says Google Maps caught him fighting an alien
- Bosnian healer licks eyeballs
- Meat mystery baffles Florida family
- Psychic cat fetches big bucks
- Saddam Hussein haunts Indian man
- Giant chicken astounds the Internet
- Ouija Board spells trouble for kindergarten teacher
- Lightning kills 32 cows in Missouri
- Attorney's pants ignite during arson trial
- Chunky monkey sent to 'fat camp'
- Meet the Robot Priest 'BlessU-2'
- Cops encounter 'alien' in Georgia
- Psychic enlisted in skunk search
- 'Darth Vader' spotted on Mars
- Florida monkey invasion begins?