There's been too much about the Isle of Wight in the Post lately. Time for Pittsburgh to catch up. Want to make your town famous? Send Stuff!

Pittsburgh's an idiosyncratic place. Here are the quiz answers.

1. Don Decker was a teenager serving time for receiving stolen property in 1983. What unusual phenomenon was documented at this time?
   
   • Rain spontaneously fell on him from ceilings. (They called an exorcist. Really.)
2. Millions of people spotted the 1965 'meteor' streaking across the sky, but it landed near Pittsburgh, causing a sonic boom. What made the acorn-shaped object look less like a meteor?
   
   • Hieroglyphics on the outside. (This model is outside the fire station, and your guess is as good as ours.)
3. Catawissa, Pennsylvania has about two dozen unusual graves in its cemetery. What's odd about them?
   
   • The graves are in wrought-iron fenced 'cages'. (Perhaps to keep grave robbers out, or vampires in.)
4. According to researcher Michelle Dresbold, what is Pittsburgh's connection to a famous British mystery?
   
   • Jack the Ripper once lived there. (He wasn't very nice.)
5. Why has the B-52 that crashed into the Monongahela River in 1956 never been found?
   
   • It completely sank into the muddy river bottom, never to resurface. (The Mon has swallowed many things over the years, including a lot of cars incautiously left on the parking wharf during high water.)
6. The city of Pittsburgh has four Toynbee Tiles. What is a Toynbee Tile?
   
   • One of a mysterious set of tiles inlaid in city streets across North and South America by an unidentified person. (There is a documentary, and there are Youtubes. We leave you to find them, as well as the tiles, which are laid in asphalt.)
7. Native American legend has it that evil spirits inhabit the waters of the Ohio River. What weird phenomenon has been known to exist in or around the Ohio near McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania since the 18th Century?
   
   • A hole with no bottom in the river. (They say it's there, nobody wants to prove it.)
8. What odd gifts are often left in a Pittsburgh cemetery?
   
   • Campbell's soup cans at Andy Warhol's grave. (Also Coke bottles. It's not litter: it's homage.)
9. There is a weird pyramid in Rosemont United Cemetery in Ross Township, near Pittsburgh. (No, it wasn't Mad Jack Fuller.) What famous religious leader is buried there?
   
   • Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses. (Something else to blame the North Side for.)
10. What two famous travellers set out from Pittsburgh one day?
    
    • Lewis and Clark. (Picked up the boat from Pittsburgh's boat builders.)

When your friends ask you why you know an indecent amount about odd places on the planet, give them the h2g2 link.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

03.07.17 Front Page

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