Were langur monkeys in India carrying out revenge against dogs? The world wanted to know. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer)AP

There was good news and bad news in 2021. And then there was strange news.

Not that any of us can figure of what really counts as strange anymore.

So, in this year-end roundup, we’ll have to settle for highlighting news that doesn’t happen every day, even if it feels like it never stops happening. Here’s our Top 10:

The sound the Golden Gate Bridge emits bothers some people -- and inspires others. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)AP

Portland is known as Bridge City, but have any of its spans cut a record?

San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge has.

When guitarist Nate Mercereau learned that some of his fellow San Franciscans had lodged official complaints about the “eerie hum” the famous bridge emitted, he realized they just needed help hearing the beauty of the sounds, which are caused by wind interacting with the structure’s unique architecture.

“It’s remarkably beautiful,” he said of the bridge’s vibrating buzz. “It plays multiple notes.”

Setting up on a Marin County hillside overlooking the bridge, he added his own guitar work to create an album called “Duets/Golden Gate Bridge.” Wrote NPR:

“Mercereau weaves low, slow melodies around the bridge’s ominous tones, which he likens to Tibetan singing bowls.”

A maple syrup shortage? Quebec made contingency plans. (Photo: Michael Russell/The Oregonian)Michael Russell | The Oregonian

Quebec, to put your mind at ease, has strategic maple-syrup reserves.

Now for the concerning part: In November, it had to tap into them to keep the world’s pancakes moist and delicious.

The Canadian province produces most of the maple syrup consumed across the globe, and a big jump in demand -- coming after a low spring yield -- knocked syrup makers on their heels. So they released 50 million pounds of the sweet goo to save breakfast.

That’s nearly half the stockpile, but the Quebec Maple Syrup Producers say you have no need to worry.

“That’s why the reserve is made, to never miss maple syrup,” the trade group’s spokesperson Helene Normandin said. “And we won’t miss maple syrup!”

Lego thievery is on the rise around the world.

Sure, the stock market is going gangbusters, but an even better investment might be … Legos.

If, that is, you have taken adequate security precautions.

The growing prevalence of Lego theft gained attention in Oregon in March when police arrested a man they say stole 25 sets of the iconic toy building blocks from the Washington Square Mall’s Lego Store.

The problem already had taken off in Europe, with French police tracking a Poland-based “international gang of toy thieves” that focuses on Legos.

“They come to France, set up in a hotel in the Paris region, then set about raiding toy stores before returning to Poland to sell off their haul,” an investigator said.

The coronavirus pandemic is partly to blame, experts believe. People are spending more time at home, and that means they’re spending more time playing with Legos. (And some of them are getting really good at it. A 12-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, set a Guinness World Record this year by assembling a “Star Wars” Millennium Falcon kit in 1-minute, 59.72 seconds.)

Limited-edition Lego sets have become highly-sought-after collector’s items.

Collectibles auctioneer Gerben van IJken told NPR: “There is an enormous amount of collectors out there who are missing out on certain sets right now and are willing to pay a lot of money for these sets.”

You probably don’t have to lock up your kid’s toy chest, however.

The truly valuable kits are the ones still sealed in their original containers, with one study determining that “select unopened” sets bring an annual return of 11%. Hence the raiding of toy stores rather than children’s bedrooms.

A German scientist has invented a birth-control device for men. (Photo courtesy of COSO)

Industrial designer Rebecca Weiss invented a “reversible and hormone-free” male birth-control device that renders the user infertile for a couple months at a time. The COSO, an ultrasound “testicle bath,” won Germany’s James Dyson Award -- bringing with it a $45,000 prize -- and finished in the Top 20 in the Dyson international competition.

Here’s how COSO works:

“The user puts water into the device up to the indicated mark which is set together with a doctor according to individual testicle size. Then the water is heated up to operating temperature. ... The user spreads his legs and sits down to place the testicles in the device.”

Sounds almost soothing, but at this point testing has been limited to animals, so it’s only “hypothetically transferred to humans.”

A langur monkey forages for fresh leaves on a tree in India. (AP Photo/Ashwini Bhatia)AP

Langur monkeys spent weeks snatching stray puppies from around the Indian village of Lavool and carrying them up into trees and to rooftops.

Then, it appeared, the monkeys threw the dogs to the ground.

“In the last two to three months, there have been incidents where the langurs roaming in the area would catch puppies and take them to a place with considerable height to throw them from there,” a local man told a reporter. “At least 250 dogs have been killed so far.”

Many residents of the village believe the monkeys were exacting revenge after a dog killed a baby monkey. Studies have concluded that some monkey species do practice revenge.

The reports coming out of Lavool led to hyperbolic headlines about a monkey-vs.-dog “gang war.” One news report called what the monkeys were doing a “hate crime.”

But Indian forestry officer Amol Munde said he didn’t believe the langurs’ actions were about revenge. He insisted there was no evidence that a dog killed a baby monkey in or near the village, and that it was more likely the langurs catching puppies were trying to look after them.

“They take care of puppies,” Munde told a TV station.

Government officials weren’t taking any chances. They announced in December that they had captured two aggressive monkeys in Lavool and relocated them to a nearby forest.

Ian Brackenbury Channell is no longer Christchurch's official wizard. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)ASSOCIATED PRESS

The New Zealand city of Christchurch fired its wizard.

For the past 23 years, Ian Brackenbury Channell has earned a public paycheck for “acts of wizardry” in the city of nearly 400,000.

Channell spent a long time auditioning for the gig, crossing the country in flowing robes and pointy hat, performing for tourists and children. In 1990, the country’s prime minister at the time, Mike Moore, declared him “the Wizard of New Zealand, Antarctica and relevant offshore areas.”

But while beloved by many New Zealanders, Channell views himself as a provocateur and so has made myriad comments over the years that caused offense. On a TV show in April, he went too far.

“I love women, I forgive them all the time,” he said. “I’ve never struck one yet. Never strike a woman because they bruise too easily is the first thing, and they’ll tell the neighbors and their friends.”

The Christchurch city council said it ended its contract with Channell because it wanted to launch a new promotional effort that would “showcase a vibrant, diverse, modern city.”

Channell’s view of his dismissal:

“It’s just they don’t like me because they are boring old bureaucrats, and everyone likes me and no one likes them.”

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗜𝘀 𝗘𝗴𝘆𝗽𝘁 🇪🇬🔥 The Pharaohs Golden Parade OFFICIALLY began starting from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir#Egypt #AncientEgypt #History #Egyptology #Pharaoh #thePharoahsGoldenParade | #موكب_المومياوات_الملكية #المتحف_المصري pic.twitter.com/CblyfBKVdV

More than 20 royal mummies made their way through downtown Cairo in April.

The elaborate, multimillion-dollar nighttime procession, dubbed “The Pharaohs’ Golden Parade,” saw 18 kings and four queens slowly driven three miles from the Egyptian Museum to their new home at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization.

The mummified remains of 22 #pharaohs travelled seven kilometres across #Cairo from the iconic Egyptian Museum to the new National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in a procession dubbed the "Pharaohs' Golden Parade" 📷 @khaled_desouki pic.twitter.com/rbbcCoyzId

The mummified travelers, transported “in chronological order of their reigns,” included King Ramses II, the legendary 12th century BC ruler who fought the Hittites before negotiating a momentous peace treaty.

The roads along the route were repaved specially for the event.

The royals didn’t get to enjoy the sights (not only were they long-dead, they were encased in nitrogen-filled boxes), but many thousands of people around the world did. The parade was streamed on the internet.

Said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi: “This majestic scene is new evidence of the greatness of this people, the guardian of this unique civilization extending into the depths of history.”

Kemp's ridley sea turtles are showing up in places they shouldn't be. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)AP

Climate change is confusing rare tropical turtles, sending them far afield. Experts say the critically endangered turtles are losing their way thanks to strong currents and increasingly warm Atlantic waters.

Kemp’s ridley turtles have started washing up dead on Great Britain’s frigid shores, more than 4,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, where they’re supposed to be.

“The cold and windy weather here is unsustainable for such species of turtles to survive,” North Wales’ Anglesey Sea Zoo says.

Kemp’s ridley turtles, the world’s smallest sea turtles, “are commonly found in temperatures of around (77 degrees Fahrenheit) and above -- much warmer than the average sea temperatures of (42.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in north Wales at this time of year,” the BBC points out.

Now the good news: a man walking on a beach in Wales early this month found a juvenile Kemp’s ridley turtle alive on the shore. The turtle, now named Tally, is recovering at the Anglesey Sea Zoo.

Tally is undergoing “rehydration therapy” and receiving vitamins and antibiotics.

If the turtle continues to recover, it will catch a flight over the ocean and be released into the Gulf of Mexico.

This story is evolving from unusual to commonplace by the day. Last week, more than two dozen “cold-stunned” Kemp’s ridley turtles were being cared for in Baltimore’s National Aquarium after washing up in New England. They, too, will be flown back to the Gulf of Mexico after recovering.

Windsor Castle on Christmas Day. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)AP

The queen’s security is strangely lax.

In 1982, a man famously broke into Buckingham Palace and confronted Queen Elizabeth II in her bedroom. The incident was featured last year on an episode of “The Crown.”

Yet the queen’s guards appear to have learned little from the ongoing notoriety of this event.

In May, a couple somehow managed to wander onto the grounds of Windsor Castle before being discovered “near the spot where the queen walks her dogs,” The Washington Post reported.

And then, on Christmas Day, police arrested a 19-year-old man carrying a crossbow who used a rope to scale a fence at Windsor Castle while the queen was in residence there.

The man reportedly had posted a video to social media in which, dressed in black and masked, he stated, “I will attempt to assassinate Elizabeth, queen of the royal family.” He said he was seeking “revenge.”

The man made it over the fence unseen, but he was captured and arrested soon after entering the castle’s grounds. The queen, 95, was unharmed.

Pro-Trump supporters storm the U.S. Capitol following a rally with President Donald Trump on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images/TNS)TNS

While some of 2021′s strangest news stories were quirky, the hands-down strangest one had serious implications for the U.S.

On Jan. 6, thousands of Americans, driven into a frenzy by then-President Donald Trump’s bellicose lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him, stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., battering police officers as they pushed their way into the complex. Many of them chanted “Hang Mike Pence” and “Bring out Pence,” incorrectly believing the then-vice president had the power to overturn the election results.

This story is so strange and distressing -- as well as being unprecedented in U.S. history -- that a lot of Americans couldn’t believe what they were seeing unfold live on their television screens. Since then, others have been working hard to ensure their fellow Americans never believe it. One Trump-supporting congressman, captured in a Jan. 6 photo gawping in fear near a barricaded door in the House chamber, later called the mob’s deadly actions a “normal tourist visit.”

These events have alarmed many observers. The Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance has for the first time deemed the U.S. a “backsliding democracy.” It called the U.S. Capitol violence and the various outlandish conspiracy theories about the election -- such as the claim that an Italian defense company used satellites to change votes from Trump to Joe Biden -- a “historic turning point” for the country.

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