Remember when Seattle Mazda drivers got their radios stuck on KUOW in February + we all thought it was a joke but… it wasn’t?
In honor of April Fools’ Day, we’ve rounded up some other bizarre news stories over the years that made Seattleites do a double take.
Let’s start with:
14 million spilled bees on I-5 🐝
Around 3:30 a.m. on April 17, 2015, a semi-truck traveling on I-5 with $92,000 worth of honeybees rolled over the median near the 405 interchange and spilled its cargo. All. Of. The. 14 million. Bees. No one was hurt in the crash itself, however State Patrol Sgt. Ben Lewis said, “Everyone’s been stung.” Drivers were encouraged to keep windows and vents closed while beekeepers worked to collect the insects.
THC in Seattle water ‘Highest detected in the world’ 💧
A 2016 University of Washington study tested Seattle’s wastewater (yep…the gross stuff) to determine how much locals were using marijuana. An average gram of weed contains about 18 milligrams of THC — the study found that there were roughly 416 milligrams per 1,000 people. We’re gonna skip a whole bunch of math here, but that equals out to about 17,000 joints worth of THC hanging out in Seattle’s water. Talk about reefer madness.
Mystery Windshield Damage Spreads in Seattle and County 🚗
In 1954, a group of Bellinghamsters found tiny holes carved into their cars’ windshields without any obvious explanation behind the cause. After the story hit the papers and even more folks found the same damage to their cars, the news spread to Seattle where a total of 3,000 dinged windshields were reported.
Ungodly fast pig on the loose in Tukwila 🐷
This is one of those things you just don’t expect to have to deal with when you show up to work. In January 2018, a black pig named Monty was named a felon by the Tukwila Police Department after expertly evading cops for days. “So far, we have wrangled a few dogs, cats, a raccoon, a goat and a peacock. Yet we have met our match with [Monty],” the department wrote on Twitter.
Woodpecker almost pecks through whole utility pole 🐦
Hungry are we? In 2017, a Bothell resident called to report damage on a nearby utility pole that had been caused by a bird. When Snohomish County Public Utility District headed out to check on the damage, he likely wasn’t expecting something that looked more like the work of a beaver than a woodpecker. Luckily, the pole was changed out hours after the call in and before any power was knocked out.
