Weird World News: Fire and ice meets fired and iced

PHUKET: In this week’s Weird World News Roundup we take a wacky trip from New Mexico over the border into Arizona – and back to New Mexico. Usually home to UFO and alien sightings, this time the focus is on more earthly stupidity as we dive into the worlds of a frozen gun, a police note to the mob, and a mouse out for revenge.

Dead meat packing heat

A bizarre find of a pistol and ammunition in a package of meat at a grocery store in Roswell, New Mexico has law enforcement agencies from two states wondering where the weapon came from.

A worker at a Roswell Albertson’s store on December 5 opened a case of frozen ribs in the meat section on December 5 and made the discovery.

“I have personally never heard of this in 13 years,” said Sgt Jim Preston of the Roswell Police Department.

The worker told his supervisor and turned over the .38 semi-automatic handgun, along with seven rounds of ammunition, to police.

“We could speculate on a lot of things,” Sgt Preston said. “It could have been that someone just dropped it there, or it could have been something that someone put it there trying to hide it for 100 different reasons.”

There are a couple clues to the mystery. According to the police report, the meat package came from the Swift Packing Plant in Greeley, Colorado and was dated June 8, 2011.

Permission not to get wacked

About 600km west of Roswell is Tuscon, Arizona, where, just like everywhere else, kids are told to find a police officer if they need help. It is a lesson that 30-year-old Demarco Alonzo Thomas took to heart.

Thomas was an alleged drug courier who claimed he misplaced US$20,000 in drug money and wanted authorities to write him an excuse note so a Tucson cartel wouldn’t bump him off.

Last month, when Mr Thomas was passing through Tucson International Airport in Arizona he reported to the Tucson Airport Authority Police that he had lost the drug cartel’s money.

Fearing for his life, he asked if an officer could write a note to the local mafia explaining that he had lost the money as such a missive might smooth things over a bit. He believed that If he could show cartel members a receipt from the local police, stating that they had seized the money, then things might be better for him.

But his plan was foiled when the cops searched his belongings and found US$17,000 in a pair of trousers and another US$3,000 in his wallet.

The unsympathetic officers arrested him on suspicion of money laundering and racketeering.

A rodent’s tail

Back in New Mexico, about 150km north of Roswell, comes the strange tale of rodent revenge, when a man threw a mouse onto a pile of burning leaves only to watch in horror as it ran into his house and set the home ablaze.

Luciano Mares, 81, of Fort Sumner, New Mexico discovered the mouse in the house and wanted it out.

“I had some leaves burning outside, so I threw it in the fire. Unfortunately, it too caught fire and ran back inside,” he was quoted as saying by AP.

Though no-one was injured, the house and everything in it was destroyed.

“I’ve seen numerous house fires, but nothing as unique as this one,” Fire Department Captain Jim Lyssy said.

— Isaac Stone Simonelli