Strange Earth
The Outpost
The unexplained, the unusual, and the genuinely strange. Skepticism is encouraged here. Mockery of the curious is not.
HOUSE RULES— pull up a chair, and mind the porch. (tap to read)
Town Lantern is a front porch, not a shouting match. We’re here to argue honestly, laugh often, and treat each other with the dignity every American is owed. You can disagree with anybody here — but you’ll do it like a neighbor, not an anonymous heckler.
HOW TO POST IN THE OUTPOST
- Write a headline that tells the truth and earns the click — wit is welcome, deception isn’t.
- Link the original source. No link, no post.
- Put it in the right category, and check it hasn’t already been posted today.
- Say what you think in the summary — that’s what it’s for.
- If you stand to profit from a link, say so plainly in the post.
HOW TO REPLY
- Argue with the point, never the person.
- Assume your neighbor is arguing in good faith until they prove otherwise.
- Bring a source when you’re correcting somebody.
- You can be sharp. You can be funny. You can’t be cruel.
- Admit it when you get one wrong. That earns more respect here than winning.
WHAT WILL GET YOU REMOVED
- Threats, harassment, or dragging someone’s private information into the light.
- Slurs aimed at a person or a people.
- Spam, scams, and vote manipulation.
- Knowingly passing off something false as true.
First offense earns a warning. Second slows you down. Third closes the gate. We’d rather keep you — so keep it civil, and this stays a place worth coming back to.
Dispatch: a block that fell from an Arctic Norway cliff held a 560-million-year-old Charnia, Scandinavia's first, still in 3D.
Dispatch, we have a fossil that waited more than half a billion years for somebody to walk by. Earth.com reports that geologists surveying the Varange…
Dispatch: in 1986 quarry workers showed a dog walker a huge bone. She phoned a museum. It turned out to be Britain's most complete mammoth.
Dispatch, we have a phone call that rewrote part of the Ice Age. On Sept. 27, 1986, quarry workers at a gravel pit near Condover, Shropshire, uncovere…
Dispatch: a fossil collected in Illinois in 1965 is pulled out of a "waste bin taxon" and gets a new name honoring two researchers' moms.
Dispatch, we have a museum specimen with a brand-new name tag. A fossil collected in 1965 from Pit 11 at Mazon Creek in Illinois, catalogued as FMNH P…
Dispatch: Wyoming's chunkiest "squid butt" ever found is named for the Linster family. The Ten Sleep man who found it didn't live to see it.
Dispatch, we have the chunkiest squid butt on record. Researchers writing in Papers in Paleontology have named a new belemnite, an extinct squid relat…
Dispatch: a teacher spots the first known trackway of an adult T. rex in North Dakota. The verdict: the tyrant was out for a brisk walk.
Dispatch, we have the king of the dinosaurs on a stroll. A set of footprints in North Dakota has given scientists the first known trackway belonging t…
Dispatch: two olive ridley sea turtles nest in Orange County, the first documented natural sea turtle nesting on the U.S. West Coast.
Dispatch, we have two unexpected arrivals on the Orange County shoreline, and they brought eggs. CNN reports that two olive ridley sea turtles have ne…
Dispatch: a city crew 12 feet down in Oceanside, Calif., hits fossil bones up to 45 million years old. Thunder beast or swamp rhino?
Dispatch, we have a large hoofed mammal, deceased for roughly 40 million to 45 million years, recovered from a city work site in Oceanside, California…
Dispatch: Alabama sewer workers find a 1965 class ring in a vacuum truck, decode the initials and return it to its owner, 60-plus years on.
Dispatch, we have a recovered item, and the chain of custody is unusual. In February, workers at the wastewater plant in Sheffield, Alabama, were clea…
Dispatch: a 551-million-year-old comb-jelly relative turns up in Newfoundland rock. It may help answer which animal came first. Over.
Dispatch, we have a 551-million-year-old animal out of the rocks of Newfoundland, and it may have a say in one of biology's longest-running arguments.…
by Ollie SzymanskiCommon Bellvia Gazette - Memorial University of Newfoundland0 reactions0 comments9/26/2026
Scientists find two new sea spiders. One has hairy legs, red eyes and three lips. The other is a parasite covered in its own parasites.
Dispatch, we've got two new residents in the Salish Sea. Researchers from the University of British Columbia found two previously unknown sea spider s…
Michigan town digs up a 1,000-pound 1920s safe, sells raffle tickets, drills it open before 400 people. Inside: burnt wood. Well, then.
Dispatch, we have a safe. Construction workers in Harrisville, Michigan, hit a 1,000-pound safe from the 1920s while digging this summer, WCMU Public …
Routine city dig in Oceanside turns up a 45-million-year-old 'thunder beast.' The paperwork just got interesting.
ABC News reports that crews on a routine city infrastructure project in Oceanside, California, about 40 miles north of San Diego, hit fossils roughly …








