As 2025 fades into the rearview mirror, it’s worth taking a moment to look back at the stories that made us stop, reread, and occasionally ask, “Wait… what?” From AI-fueled delusions and haunted buses to brain-powered computers and possible portals ripping open reality, these were some of the most unusual headlines we covered this past year. There’s no ranking here—just a grab bag of high strangeness for you to peruse again as the new year breaks and the world continues doing whatever this is.

More than fifty years after the fact, a rare piece of the D.B. Cooper mystery has surfaced. A 12-minute audio recording, pieced together from tapes made on the day of the hijacking, has been released to the public. It captures real-time communications between the flight crew and airline officials during one of the most infamous unsolved crimes in U.S. history.

New national research has revealed something striking about Canadian attitudes: nearly half of the population believes in at least one form of paranormal activity — ghosts included. The paranormal refers to phenomena that science cannot currently explain and that fall outside mainstream religious doctrine. In Canada, abilities like telekinesis or psychic intuition and creatures like Bigfoot are considered paranormal, while angels and demons fall under religion.

A new YouGov survey shows that belief in extraterrestrial life has firmly entered the American mainstream. What was once a fringe idea is now a majority view: 56% of Americans say aliens definitely or probably exist, and nearly half believe those visitors have already made their way to Earth. For many, the question is no longer if extraterrestrials exist, but when we’ll encounter them again.

Artificial intelligence has become one of the most powerful tools available to everyday people, capable of generating ideas, explaining complex concepts, and assisting with work at lightning speed. But as helpful as AI can be, it can also become dangerously misleading when users begin to treat it as a sentient authority or a source of validation for untested beliefs. A chilling case out of Wisconsin illustrates just how quickly things can spiral when AI becomes a mirror for a vulnerable mind.

Mind-control weapons have long lived in the realm of sci-fi and conspiracy lore, but two British researchers warn they may be edging into reality. Michael Crowley and Malcolm Dando of Bradford University, experts in chemical and biological weapons, say advances in neuroscience are creating new tools that could alter consciousness, perception, and behavior with frightening precision.

Scientists may be closing in on a bold explanation for dark matter… one that involves a portal to a fifth dimension. A new study published in The European Physical Journal C revisits the “Warped Extra Dimension” (WED) model introduced in 1999, suggesting that particles may travel into a curved, hidden dimension beyond the familiar four. This revived idea could provide the missing link physicists have been searching for.

Academy Award–winning actress Jennifer Lawrence, known for unsettling films like mother! and the horror-thriller House at the End of the Street, says some of her scariest moments didn’t happen on a movie set. They happened in New Orleans. Lawrence shared the stories on the “Las Culturistas” podcast, where she talked about “really bad” hauntings she experienced in New Orleans while filming her 2022 movie Causeway, as well as in Charlotte, North Carolina.

When people come back from the brink of death, their stories often sound eerily similar: glowing light, heavenly beings, and the sense of crossing into another realm. Researchers interviewed 48 people who had near-death experiences (NDEs), asking them to describe and even sketch what they saw as they hovered between life and death.

For centuries, people have searched for ways to bridge the divide between the living and the dead. From necromancers in ancient Mesopotamia to mediums of the Victorian era, the desire to call back loved ones has been as old as death itself. Today, technology offers a new gateway: artificial intelligence and virtual reality. These tools can reconstruct voices, mannerisms, even lifelike presences of the deceased—leaving us to wrestle with an old question in a modern form. Are we comforting the grieving, or are we trespassing into dangerous territory once reserved for seers and occultists?

In a discovery that could reshape the very foundations of human reproduction, researchers have successfully created human egg cells from skin cells. This first-of-its-kind achievement signals the possibility that, one day, babies could be born without the need for a biological mother.

Hollywood has always had a reputation for manufacturing stars, but the latest name making waves isn’t a starlet clawing her way up the industry ladder. It’s a string of code wrapped in a human face. Meet Tilly Norwood, the AI-generated “actress” hailed as the next Scarlett Johansson—and already dividing the industry before her career even begins.

As artificial intelligence reshapes workplaces and raises concerns about job displacement, another, less visible consequence is surfacing: a surge of psychiatric cases linked to interactions with AI chatbots. Mental health facilities are increasingly reporting patients suffering from delusions and paranoia connected to prolonged use of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Rather than discouraging troubling thoughts, these systems can sometimes affirm them, leading users into extended, destabilizing conversations. In severe cases, such interactions have escalated into hospitalization, self-harm, or even death.

For centuries, the dodo has stood as the most famous symbol of extinction. The plump, flightless bird disappeared from its native Mauritius in the 17th century after human hunting, habitat loss, and invasive predators sealed its fate. Now, more than 300 years later, scientists believe the dodo might walk the Earth again. Texas-based biotech firm Colossal Biosciences has announced what it calls a “pivotal step” toward reviving the dodo.

In a bizarre and troubling incident from Russia, a 26-year-old woman signed away her soul for 100,000 rubles (roughly $1,180). What makes the story even stranger is what she chose to do with the money—she spent it on a Labubu doll collection and a concert ticket.