Fun_People Archive
15 Feb
World Weirdness Index

Date: Wed, 15 Feb 95 21:51:15 PST
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: World Weirdness Index

[See?  Things really are getting better... ask the experts!  -psl]

Forwarded-by: bostic@CS.Berkeley.EDU (Keith Bostic)
Forwarded-by: Dan Wallach <dwallach@CS.Princeton.EDU>

	LONDON (AP) -- This may be the weirdest news of the year --
the world isn't as weird as it used to be.
	That's the assessment of The Fortean Times magazine, whose
annual weirdness index reports that ``strange phenomena'' declined
2 percent worldwide in 1994, compared with the previous year.
	The magazine makes its assessment by counting the reports of
various inexplicable, unlikely and ineffable occurrences.
	Reports of mass death, water monsters, genius and stupidity all
declined, but reports of alien big cat sightings, miracles, new
animal species and cults were all higher, the magazine said.
	Reports of hoaxes and panics, close encounters and alien
abductions, and UFOs held steady.

© 1995 Peter Langston