Dateline: IndonesiaA West Kalimantan man has been allowed to register as a voter after proving to election officials that he is not a ghost. The man, identified as Pocong, initially had his application to vote in next year’s elections rejected on the grounds that his Chinese name is also Indonesian for “ghost in a Muslim burial shroud.” The legendary pocongs have become increasingly popular characters in Indonesian and Malaysian television shows and horror movies. Officials assumed the name was a joke, but Pocong filed a formal complaint with the General Elections Commission in Jakarta. “Our officials in Singkawang gave us photographs of Pocong posing with them,” commission chairman Husni Kamil Manik told The Jakarta Post. Once it was established that Mr. Pocong was not a supernatural monster, he was allowed to register. Dateline: CanadaBorder agents at the Montreal airport got a Halloween treat when they discovered three pumpkins a woman was carrying were filled with nearly four pounds of cocaine. The pumpkins were hollowed out, filled with about 2 kilograms of white powder in bags and then glued back together. Canada Border Services agents at the Montreal-Trudeau International Airport became suspicious when the pumpkins seemed a little too heavy. They were sent through an x-ray scanner, and the contents were discovered. The pumpkin smuggler, identified only as a female traveler, was arrested. The hefty 2-kilo haul represents almost 5 percent of all cocaine seized at the airport this year, the border agency said in a statement. Estimates put its street value at between $274,000 and $340,000.Dateline: ArizonaPolice in Glendale had an easy time identifying a suspected copper thief because he left his fingerprint at the scene of the crime. In fact he left his entire finger. An air conditioning employee told Glendale police someone tried to steal copper wire from his truck on Oct. 7. The spool of wire—worth an estimated $399—had been yanked out of the truck. Also there was a human finger tangled up in the wiring. Police took the finger as evidence and were able to trace it back to 29-year-old Joshua Allen Goverman. Goverman told police he lost the finger while working on a car. Nonetheless he was booked on suspicion of theft.Dateline: GeorgiaA disabled man risked his life, rushing back into his burning home to save his beloved beer. Walter Serpit, who walks with a cane, got all eight members of his family out of the house first, then went back in to rescue a case of Bud Light he had just purchased. “I told them to get the kids out and everything. And me myself, being an alcoholic, I was trying to get my beer out,” Serpit told Columbus’ WTVM. “I went back into the house like a dummy and the door shut on me because this backdraft was about to kill me.” Serpit made it out of the blaze without getting burned. Sadly he was only able to save a handful of beer cans. Fire officials believe the inferno was caused by a newly installed water heater. Dateline: ColoradoPolice in Grand Junction are looking for a man who allegedly pepper-sprayed a woman in the face and stole her pet monkey. The woman was traveling from Missouri to Colorado to sell her black cap Capuchin monkey when she met the suspect in the parking lot of a La Quinta Inn. The two had exchanged several emails and phone calls regarding the primate. Instead of paying the woman for the monkey, however, the unidentified man maced her in the face and took off with her pet carrier. It is illegal to own a primate in the state of Colorado. The woman, however, has not been charged with a crime. If caught, the monkey-napper faces charges of robbery, theft and assault.
Compiled by Devin D. O'Leary. Email your weird news to devin@alibi.com.
