Odd But True Friday: mushroom boat and bus horses

A mushroom kayak crossed the sea, horses boarded a bus and a bobcat hung from a fence in this week’s verified strange stories.

The August 2025 crossing took 12 hours, with a young fin whale trailing him for two hours and morning currents pushing him back at 1.7 mph. “From the island, you can’t see the mainland – and I’m just paddling into the abyss,” he told Guinness World Records.

The 107-pound vessel took seven weeks to grow in a fibreglass mould plus three months of preparation, sealed in shellac and beeswax. “I am not a scientist, I am an artist,” he said.

Two saddled horses were led onto a Detroit Department of Transportation bus near 7 Mile and Strasburg Street on Saturday, walked down the aisle and stepped off through the rear door in a viral video confirmed as real by the city.

Jordan Williams of Urban City Cowboys said he led them on spontaneously after a fundraiser giving children horseback rides. “I hope DDOT looks at it like a joke like everyone else, and hopefully they come out to a rodeo,” he said.

The transport department said it is taking appropriate steps, since the stunt is not consistent with policy and could make rides unsafe. Only trained service animals may board its buses.

A female bobcat was found hanging from a barbed-wire fence near the Tres Belle community in Stuart, Florida, about 7am on November 10, unable to free herself.

Florida wildlife officers joined sheriff’s deputies and animal services officers to cut her down, the Martin County Sheriff’s Office said in a post reported by a local paper.

A local wildlife hospital gave her a clean bill of health and she was released close to the spot where she had been trapped, later that day.

Biologists checking Oswego Harbor for invasive species netted a burbot glowing golden-orange, a native fish showing xanthochromism, a rare condition that suppresses normal pigment.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service called it a “one-in-a-million catch”, photographed by Jake Cochran, and said long-term Great Lakes monitoring helps document such rarities.

A Midlands man who enjoys watching The Price Is Right won US$200,000 on the show’s US$5 scratch-off ticket, bought at the K D store in Ridgeway, South Carolina.

The odds were 1 in 810,000, and two top prizes are still unclaimed. “Life has changed a little bit,” he said of the windfall.

Alvester Perry of Wendell, North Carolina, won US$100,000 on a US$3 Powerball ticket, using numbers he picks with his adult daughter.

He matched four white balls plus the Powerball for US$50,000, doubled by Power Play, taking home US$72,011 after tax. “My wife told me we are first paying off the house,” he told the lottery.