We take a look back at the archives of the Weekly World News and the strange New York stories:
GIANT TURTLES
In 1997, The New York uncovered a nest of giant turtles in the New York sewer system capable of snapping off a man’s hand in a single bite. One specimen was captured at a Bronx treatment plant and sent to the Bronx Zoo where it was declared patently ‘prehistoric’.
But where did these monsters come from? “The Hudson River gets too much water and gates are opened to allow the water to flow into the East River.”
SAUCERS OVER BROOKLYN
The Blizzard of 1888 immobilized the city, responsible for the deaths of hundreds and shutting down almost every element of New York infrastructure. It was such a devastating storm that there could only be one cause — beings from outer space.
As proven in the photograph above, obtained by the Weekly World News in 2007 from a source at the Brooklyn Eagle, flying saucers menacingly hung in the air over South Brooklyn during the storm. “We were being tested,” claimed a representative from the government’s Unexplained Phenomena Bureau. Apparently, we passed.
The New York GHOST PRIDE PARADE
A gathering of phantoms terrorized socialites along Fifth Avenue in 2006 as they marched down the street in a parade, walking through traffic and alarming law enforcement. A police barricade at 57th Street proved useless as the spectral community simply passed right through it.
“It was surreal. I saw a Civil War soldier, an ancient Roman, a cavewoman and other strange apparitions. There were even a few celebrities, like Laurel and Hardy and Mark Twain.”
DUCKMEBA
It is particularly irresponsible of the city to cover up the deadly event which occurred on Coney Island in July 2007, when an ‘undulating amoeba’ with the head of a duck and webbed feet rose from the ocean and attacked people along the boardwalk.
The beast apparently destroyed the Cyclone — it was swiftly repaired — and viciously went after the Parachute Jump before its ‘viscous body’ evaporated before the eyes of stunned police officers. Certainly you remember Mayor Bloomberg’s lame story about this event being ‘an aberrant form of ball lightning’? Well, the News blows that lie right out of the water.
SEWER GATORS
A popular urban legend is given forceful historical credibility by the tabloid, exploring the long history of alligator sightings in the New York sewers. In the 1930s, sewer workers were authorized to “shoot, poison or drown every one they could track down.” There were so many sightings in the 1950s, claims the paper, that sanitation workers purportedly demanded “protection from attacks.”
FRENZIED WOLFMEN
In 2002, a man viciously attacked his girlfriend in her apartment by biting her in the face. Or, as the News reported it, “gorged himself on chunks of her flesh!”
Clearly a telltale sign of lycanthropy, the News helpfully adds “The case recalls the mythical creature explored in folklore and in such Hollywood films as I Was A Teenage Werewolf.”
FISH MOBSTERS
The aquatic population of the East River is not immune from organized crime, as one Lower East Side resident discovered in 2007 when he awoke one morning to discover seven dead trout in his bed.
Officials tracked the crime to a deadly internecine war among the ‘trout, carp and bass’ of the river. “We think they have fishermen on the payroll,” said one detective.
But it’s not been all horror and doom for New York City in the pages of the Weekly World News. According to a 2002, article, the legendary Fountain of Youth was discovered underneath the streets of the city. One catch — it’s in a subway toilet.
Read more at Bowery Boy History