Monday 11/05/12

Human Interest News   —   Posted on November 5, 2012

Remains of pigeon found carrying WWII message

LONDON — Experts say the skeletal remains of a pigeon discovered in the chimney of a house in southern England carried a mysterious, long-forgotten message from World War II. 

Historians at Britain’s Second World War-era code breaking headquarters say the bird was almost certainly returning from Nazi-occupied France during the June 1944 D-Day invasion.

Bletchley Park says that a radio blackout imposed on Allied forces at the time meant that messages about the progress of the invasion were dispatched by pigeon across the Channel.

What the message says remains unknown. It was coded, an unusual measure generally reserved for the most sensitive secrets.

Bletchley Park said Thursday that one of its curators is now trying to unravel the message using World War II logbooks.

Black and orange lobster caught off Mass.

BOSTON — A Massachusetts fisherman has caught a rare lobster known as a “split” that is colored to match Halloween.

The New England Aquarium says the one-pound female lobster has an orange side and a black side, with the colors perfectly split down the middle.

Officials say such coloration is estimated to occur once in every 50 million lobsters.

The fisherman who caught the seasonally-colored crustacean is from Beverly.

Aquarium officials say that in the last 10 years, splits have been caught in Maine, Rhode Island and Nova Scotia. 

Smugglers attempt to drive OVER US-Mexico border fence

US Border Patrol spokesman Spencer Tippets says agents spotted the SUV perched atop the fence early Tuesday near the border between Arizona and California.

Two people on the Mexican side were trying to free the Jeep when the agents approached. They ran further into Mexico.

The Jeep was empty, but agents say it was probably filled with contraband like marijuana before it got stuck.

The smugglers had built ramps that looked like long ladders to drive up and over the fence.

In Austria, crime partially pays.

A bank manager busted for stealing $241,000 in cash and gold bullion in 1993 is getting to keep $82,000 of the loot after a court decided to return it to him.

The bank declined to take it after being reimbursed by an insurance carrier, which in turn also declined to accept it because the gold that had been recovered had substantially increased in value.

 

From The Boston Herald and London’s Daily Telegraph.