Weird Seattle News of Late
Image: Seattle Met Composite
Singular Sensation
Jeopardy! host (and Seattleite) Ken Jennings got to remind America about the proper spelling of one of our local landmarks when a contestant wrongly answered “What is Pike’s Place Market?” on the game show. “We are sticklers in Seattle—it’s Pike Place. No s,” Jennings said, docking the contestant $1,000. Good thing there weren’t any clues about Nordstrom’s.
Water Ways
Forget hydroplanes—what about hydrofoils? According to The Seattle Times, multiple ventures are underway that would revive Seattle’s old mosquito fleet for a new generation. Kitsap Transit is developing its own electric foil ferry program for regional passengers. And Northern Ireland–based Artemis Technologies is already testing out an electric ferry that rides above the water, making for smoother passage around the Puget Sound.
Hive Mind
It’s bad enough when a semitruck crashes, causing damage and backups even when nobody gets hurt. But it especially stings when that semitruck is transporting 70,000 pounds of pollinator hives and honeybees. Yet that’s exactly what happened near Bellingham, allowing 14 million bees to escape and prompting a frantic effort by local sheriff’s deputies and master beekeepers to reunite as many as possible with their queens.
Walk This Way
It feels like Amazon is everywhere these days. You can’t walk down the street without bumping into a Rivian van filled with individually packaged consumer goods. Or surf the web without landing on a site hosted by Amazon Web Services. Or cross the street in South Lake Union without hearing Jeff Bezos talking to you through a crosswalk button. Wait, what? Yep. Several crosswalk buttons in town were hacked to play a message from a voice sounding suspiciously like Bezos’s imploring pedestrians with a message that may be near to his heart: “Please don’t tax the rich.”
Summer 2025
A Hard-boiled Crime
The avian flu has our national egg supply dwindling and even has local thieves thinking outside the, um, shell. Two miscreants in a white van broke into West
Seattle’s Luna Park Cafe and made off with more than 500 eggs, plus additional ingredients from the restaurant’s walk-in. Owner Heong Park told Fox 13 that he was able to interrupt the heist after he got a call from a landlord and still open for breakfast that day after desperately sourcing replacement eggs.
Sign of the Times
Even free speech has a price. The parcel of land in Lewis County that includes the infamous Uncle Sam sign known for its provocative conservative messages along I-5 has been listed for $2.5 million. The sign currently reads “How many Americans will we leave behind in Ukraine” to southbound drivers and “No one died in WW2 so you could show papers to buy food” to northbound drivers. Maybe the next owner can use the billboard to promote the Cascadian independence movement.
Nothing Slow Can Stay
Elsewhere along I-5, after more than a year WSDOT crews finally removed a giant stuffed sloth that had been perched on a tree overlooking the interstate near Lake Samish. The sloth had become a subject of fascination to Reddit users in Bellingham, who dubbed him Slothy. “Slothy DOES remind us that it’s important to slow down,” WSDOT wrote on Facebook. But the agency said he also caused a dangerous distraction to drivers. No word on where the eight-foot mammal is living now.
Spring 2025
Image: Courtesy FBI and Seattle Met Composite
The Point of No Return
One of the perks of being an REI co-op member is the store’s generous return policy. If you don’t like a water bottle, or a jacket, or a pair of hiking boots, you have 365 days to bring it back—or at least most of you do. The retailer recently sent notice out to a small fraction of its members (less than 0.02 percent) who, REI says, abused the company’s generosity, returning the vast majority of their purchases, often after having used them. The message? No more returns for you.
He Walked in Beauty
Lord Byron, a Capitol Hill cat who became internet famous after its owners created a website where residents could document seeing him around the neighborhood, has died. He was a beloved cat who, boasting an AirTag tracker on his collar as he wandered his domain, endeared himself to locals, often hung out in random businesses, and accrued thousands of admirers on Facebook. May he rest in peace.
We Got Him This Time
An outbuilding in rural North Carolina. An old parachute that fits the description. A family with decades of suspicion. Could these be the clues that finally lead investigators to confirm the identity of iconic hijacker D. B. Cooper? The children of Richard Floyd McCoy II believe so, and claim their late father, who pulled off a similar heist in Utah five months after Cooper jumped out of that plane in 1971, was the man America has spent decades looking for. Of course, the FBI doesn’t seem think so.…
Mergers and Acquisitions
We’re used to hearing about grocery chains and telecom companies merging—not institutions of higher learning. But that’s exactly what’s happening as Cornish College of the Arts and Seattle University announced a plan to meld into a single institution. The smushing together comes at a time when private universities across the country are struggling with low enrollment and financial duress. This is probably a better fit than, say, Bastyr and Seattle Pacific Universities would be, but still weird.
Winter 2024
Bird Watching
When the Storm selected Sue Bird with the first pick of the 2002 WNBA draft, expectations were high. Two decades later, Bird retired as a five-time gold medalist, four-time league champion, and the kind of Seattle icon kids and adults admire equally. Now, she’s also the kind of icon who gets placed under the tree as a Christmas gift. The “Barbie Sue Bird Inspiring Women™ Doll” features Bird rocking not Storm colors, but a red, white, and blue jersey with her iconic number 10, and includes a little basketball, too.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Kinkajou
Drivers stopping for a breather at a rest area near Yakima on Interstate 82 were treated to a rare sight recently—a small, raccoon-like creature with sharp teeth, a long tail, and big round eyes clinging to a signpost. The animal turned out to be a kinkajou—a tropical rainforest mammal whose habitat stretches from Mexico to Brazil. How it ended up in an arid valley in Central Washington remains a mystery. But it was rescued by the Department of Fish and Wildlife and sent to the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma for care.
Tower Time
For a long time, the most iconic building in Seattle wasn’t the Space Needle—it was the Smith Tower, once the tallest building on the West Coast, with its pyramid pointing up to the sky. Since its construction in 1914, the skyscraper has lived many lives. For two decades, it was owned by local restaurateur Ivar Haglund, then by Samis—the foundation left behind by the eccentric Pioneer Square landlord Sam Israel. Now it has been purchased by a group of investors led by holding company GT Capital. No word yet on what they have planned for the penthouse.
Fall 2024
Twice Is Nice
We’ve been playing baseball or some form of it for more than 150 years. And yet the sport will always give you something you’ve never seen before. Case in point: Mariners fan Josh George caught a foul popup from third baseman Josh Rojas in the first inning of a home game against the Royals. Then, on the very next pitch, George got another foul popup off the bat of Rojas. The next day, the Mariners invited the lucky fan out to throw not one, but two ceremonial first pitches.
Ramps to Nowhere No More
For decades, foolish Seattleites have jumped off the “ramps to nowhere” at the Washington Park Arboretum and into the murky waters below. The ramps were a remnant of a north-south freeway project that was halted by community activists in the ’60s and ’70s. And now, finally, they have been removed: casualties of the 520 bridge replacement. The city kept one of the former bridge supports in place, with plans to make it a monument to the successful freeway revolt.
A Striped Star
It started out as a novelty. Then it grew into a phenomenon. Four zebras escaped from a trailer pulled over off I-90 in North Bend, sauntering out into the woods. Three were captured relatively quickly. But the fourth didn’t turn up. For days. “He could be going to Cle Elum by now, he could be up by Rattlesnake, he could be taking a drink out of the lake…we don’t know,” North Bend mayor Mary Miller told FOX 13 Seattle. On social media, pictures of Shug the zebra appeared on a ferry, atop the Space Needle, at Dick’s. It turned out he was just hanging around North Bend, where eventually local residents found Shug—a female, contrary to early reports—in good health.
Summer 2024
Bombs Away
You never know what’s laying around in the neighbor’s garage. A Bellevue resident passed away recently and left his neighbor in charge of his belongings—including a rusted, military grade missile. After the neighbor called a museum in Ohio to ask about it, the museum reached out to local police. Turns out the missile, a Douglas Air-2 Genie designed to carry Cold War–era nuclear warheads (but not carrying one), was inert.
Carroll Carousel
The 2024 Seattle football landscape will look a lot different. But not that different. Only a week after legendary Seahawks coach Pete Carroll was ousted after 14 years, and the only Super Bowl victory in franchise history, the Washington Huskies hired his son Brennan to be their offensive coordinator. (They also added Steve Belichick, son of former Patriots coach and Seahawks nemesis Bill, to lead their defense.)
Testing, Testing
Four years after the country’s first known case of Covid-19 was confirmed in Washington, our state is introducing vending machines to dispense free test kits, among other health supplies. Close your eyes and think back to early 2020. This is not the future you would have imagined. The machines, unveiled by the Department of Health, will be in public places, managed by local health jurisdictions and Tribal nations.
Spring 2024
Barging In
A runaway barge drifting perilously close to tourist attractions on the Seattle waterfront? Sounds like a scenario dreamed up for a Grey’s Anatomy episode. But it actually happened late last year. Before the massive barge loaded with empty containers could smash into the Great Wheel or Seattle Aquarium, the captain and crew of a nearby King County Water Taxi acted fast, using their own vessel to push the barge north toward an isolated area. Remarkably, nobody was injured.
Radio Radio
For the past three decades, Seattle’s beloved indie radio station KEXP has been slowly growing its footprint: increasingly large transmitters, a new home in Seattle Center, a popular YouTube channel for its live performances, ownership of a second radio station in the Bay Area. Wait, what? Yep. KEXP purchased KREV 92.7 out of receivership for $3.75 million. The new KREV will broadcast KEXP programming in and around San Francisco and eventually launch a local Bay Area music show. How did KEXP pay for it? With help from a $10 million bequest left by an anonymous donor—so don’t worry, Amplifiers, your dollars are staying local.
Pac-2
The once-storied West Coast college sports conference that was home to the University of Washington, UCLA, Stanford, and others has been cannibalized by bigger, wealthier conferences with more lucrative TV deals. The result is that 10 of its 12 programs are on their way out the door, leaving only Washington State University and Oregon State University holding the (empty) bag. The logistics are complex, and the legal fight is ongoing. But look for Pac-2 football in 2024, while the Huskies break new ground in the Big Ten, which is actually going to be closer to a Big 20.
Bartell Them Goodbye
A pandemic-era Capitol Hill landmark is gone, and a historic local chain is struggling. The Rite Aid with the “Come Get Sh_t_ Here” marquee became the latest in a wave of closures among Seattle-area drug stores since the pharmacy giant declared bankruptcy. Rite Aid—which bought Seattle-founded Bartell Drugs in 2020—has been shuttering locations of both chains for months, including stores in Everett, Bellevue, and Redmond.
Winter 2023
Cretaceous Race
Hundreds of vicious dinosaurs (people in large, inflatable costumes) descended on Emerald Downs racetrack for the T-Rex World Championship Races, which included both kid and grownup events. Amid the stumbling adult dinos, a trio sprinted to the front of the pack for a photo finish in the final contest. “I’ve been training for this all my life,” said winner Boto Rex (real name Ocean Kim) from atop the podium, his little dino arms hoisting a massive green trophy.
Stepped in It
It’s a dirty job but somebody’s got to do it. Pooper Trooper, based in Lynnwood, filed suit against Scoop Troop, a Spokane company, for infringing on its brand identity and trademark. Both businesses specialize in dog waste removal, a surprisingly lucrative and competitive industry. The case was settled out of court when Scoop Troop agreed to change its name to Swoop Scoop—which they don’t believe will throw their customers for a loop.
Game Misconduct
This one is honestly hard to explain. The Seattle Kraken found themselves mired in a social media controversy after embracing a subset of romance novel fans on TikTok who cast pro hockey players in steamy subplots as a form of fan fiction. The Kraken invited TikTok users to games and posted memes featuring their players—but then some folks got carried away. Felicia Wennberg, the wife of Kraken center Alex Wennberg, asked fans to stop posting “predatory” and sexualized messages. Influencers shot back. Maybe we all need some time in the penalty box to cool off.
Roll Up
Hot dog. Chicken bake. Sashimi? The Issaquah Costco became the company’s first U.S. location with its own in-house sushi counter featuring real live chefs cutting fish and assembling rolls for daily purchase. So far, fresh sushi hasn’t appeared in any other local Costcos.
Fall 2023
Point Break In
On May 25, a group of wet suit–clad burglars broke into an occupied waterfront home in Yarrow Point at about 4am. They stole approximately $20,000 in cash from a safe, made their way onto kayaks, and paddled off into the darkness. Officers from the Clyde Hill Police Department said they believed the burglars were headed north on Lake Washington toward, of all places, Kirkland.
Doodle Dandy
Rebecca Wu, a Bellevue sixth grader, won the annual “Doodle for Google” competition, with her drawing called “My Sweetest Memories.” In addition to seeing her artwork on Google’s homepage for a day, she also won a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 grant for her school. Wu says her winning entry was inspired by her sisters.
Fleeced?
In a battle between two brands at the heart of Seattle’s identity, Patagonia is suing Nordstrom for selling what it claims are counterfeit items at Rack stores. Patagonia claims that, after an 11-year partnership between the companies ended, Nordstrom Rack continued to sell thousands of mislabeled sweatshirts and T-shirts, often made from inferior materials.
The Next Apple
Horticulturalists from Washington State University have unveiled the state’s newest apple variant. Currently dubbed WA 64, it is a hybrid of two popular varieties: the Honeycrisp and the Cripps Pink (also known as the Pink Lady). The WA 64 is the product of years of development and will take still more years to hit your local farmers market, as trees get planted and mature. By then it will have a catchier name.
Summer 2023
Road Rank
It’s not your imagination: Washington is one of the worst states to drive in, at least according to personal finance website WalletHub. The Evergreen State came in 49th place in a 2023 ranking that accounted for traffic, infrastructure, safety, and the cost of owning and maintaining a vehicle. Hey, at least we beat Hawaii.
Buckling Down
Seattle is suing Kia and Hyundai because, as city attorney Ann Davison puts it, the car manufacturers “cut costs at the expense of their customers.” The lawsuit alleges that a lack of anti-theft technology in those vehicles is why the city’s seen a 363 percent increase in stolen Hyundais and a 503 percent surge in pilfered Kias from 2021 to 2022.
Sounders F-U
In January, the Sounders announced Providence as their main kit sponsor…and it did not go over well. Supporters decried the religiously affiliated health organization’s anti-abortion and anti-transgender stance—something at odds with the football club’s public overtures to the LGBTQ community. Some fans even went so far as to create their own custom “pro-choice” jerseys.
Night Streaking
A green fireball—brightly blazing space debris that explodes in the upper layers of Earth’s atmosphere—lit up dash cams and home security systems across Western Washington last January. As proud residents rushed to post their footage on Twitter, the American Meteor Society simply recorded it as Event 314-2023 in its fireball log. Way to make us feel special.
USPS SOS
Local porch pirates have apparently set sail for wider waters as a string of mail truck thefts last winter sent police officers scouring Beacon Hill and West Seattle for the boxy white vehicles. In all instances, the mail carriers were unharmed and the trucks were eventually recovered—sans a few packages.
Spring 2023
Flipping the Bird
Elon Musk’s chaotic Twitter takeover included an endeavor to sell blue verification checkmarks for $8, leaving brands to deal with IRL fallout from digital impersonators. A fake account for Redmond-based Nintendo of America posted a pic of its iconic Italian plumber extending the middle finger.
Misinformation Mystery
Internet scuttlebutt of a serial killer on the loose in Seattle seemed to spread faster than one could say “fake news” this fall. A notable Instagram account with 157,000 followers at the time posted about the rumor, and concerned service industry vets passed word on to patrons. A University of Washington researcher later picked apart the report’s zero sources and dubious gossip network growth.
Ticket to Refund
Seattle’s parking enforcement officers have finally found a permanent spot—back with the Seattle Police Department—after a shift to the Department of Transportation under former mayor Jenny Durkan led to a massive mistake: a legal technicality that forced the city to nullify nearly $4.5 million in parking tickets.
Supermarket Sweep
Shareholders of grocery store chain Albertsons will have to wait a little longer for a $4 billion payout from a proposed merger with Kroger. Washington’s attorney general Bob Ferguson filed for a temporary restraining order until state regulators could review the deal. According to The Seattle Times, more than half of Seattle-area households frequently shop at a store owned by the two companies.
What a Hoot
“Warning Aggressive Owl” read signs posted by the Department of Fish and Wildlife at North SeaTac Park, where a hostile bird protecting its nest was reportedly harassing passersby. Walkers were encouraged to slowly wave their arms overhead, wear a hat or helmet, or deploy an umbrella if they had to cross paths with the feathered defender.
Winter 2022
Slimy Seattle
For weeks Reddit ran wild with theories about a mysterious red goo clinging to sidewalks in Wallingford. Was it Tubifera ferruginosa, a raspberry mold? An homage to a wacky podcast sketch? Just melted candy? One brave soul appears to have confirmed the globs are Swedish Fish, the Wallingford Red Goo Instagram account reports. But its origins remain unknown.
Amazon vs. Microsoft Canceled (Literally)
After the Museum of Museums announced a call for art exclusively from Amazon and Microsoft workers, many social media commenters dragged a show designed “to recalibrate the narrative around what a big tech worker is,” citing the industry’s ties to the gentrification pushing artists out of the city. The exhibit, slated to debut this fall at the First Hill art space, was swiftly nixed.
Bahhhhd Decisions
A Nigerian Dwarf goat was stolen from the Grays Harbor County Fair. The suspects then took Penny to a Walmart in Lacey (naturally) before the local sheriff’s office recovered the three-month-old animal and returned it to its owners. The heist wasn’t the only local goat drama. A few days later, three runaways trotted alongside Highway 12 in Brady. A state trooper gave them a ride home.
The AI Singer
Forget about those Dall-E Mini art memes. Artificial intelligence is also coming for the performing arts. A recent New York Times feature captured the oddity of watching a jazz fusion band perform on Maury Island with a machine, Desdemona, as its lead vocalist. The not-yet-sentient singer crooned about the day when engineers can no longer control their creations.
Weird Flex
In late August, the third Seattle-area location of a “premier assisted stretching boutique” opened in Issaquah. StretchLab offers personal training sessions with Flexologists and touts a machine that, after just three squats, can assess one’s mobility, activation, posture, and symmetry. Memberships start at $179 per month.
Fall 2022
Hybrid Commuting
E-bike batteries. A stripped-down mobility scooter. An old love seat. Put it all together and you have the motorized couch Kass Hodorowski has jury-rigged to wheel around the City of Destiny. The three-mile-per-hour joy rides of Tacoma Couch Guy have both amused social media and highlighted the sorry state of local sidewalk accessibility.
Hulled Up
Angelyn and Richard Burk, formerly of Tukwila, will spend their retirement years living exclusively on cruises. Angelyn, an accountant, says it’s more affordable to perpetually ship off for Sydney and other coastal locales than to stomach the bonkers cost of living on shore.
Drawing the Lines
The Seattle Department of Transportation has removed a “guerrilla crosswalk” at Greenwood Avenue North and North 83rd Street, The Seattle Times reports. Thick white lines showed up one September day across a thoroughfare that’s overdue for a permanent crossing. It’s being called an act of tactical urbanism.
Et Tu, Apple?
Neglected produce in warehouses and shipping containers will get wasted less now, thanks to a local startup recently featured by GeekWire. Strella Biotechnology uses sensors to monitor levels of ethylene, a gas that fruits exude, to track which Granny Smiths are ripe or rotten as they slog through the supply chain.
Cat-Paw-Tol Hill
The wanderlust of an orange tabby cat has captured the imagination of a Seattle neighborhood. A rapidly growing Facebook group devoted to Lord Byron, a five-year-old feline named for the adventurous British Romantic, documents sightings everywhere from street corners to inside random people’s homes. Lord Byron’s owner told The Seattle Collegian the cat has even hopped into the cars of unsuspecting drivers.
Summer 2022
Boxed In
Police rescued an 80-year-old woman in Illinois from a hostage situation after her Seattle-based daughter noticed she hadn’t texted her daily Wordle score. Unanswered messages prompted her children to alert the authorities. No indication of how many five-letter words the former teacher thought of during the many hours a naked, scissors-wielding man locked her in a bathroom (she was uninjured), but some four-letter ones must have come to mind.
KOMO Axes Its Tourism Bureau
Broadcast news fixated on crime downtown early in 2022, and nobody was more obsessed than KOMO reporter Jonathan Choe. During one dispatch, he stood across from police on Third Avenue and queried a visiting couple, “You guys aren’t afraid to walk through all this?” The tourists, befuddled, kept walking. Choe was later fired after multiple incidents.
Flightmare Fuel
Pilots have experienced some unexpected air traffic in the vicinity of Jet City. The rollout of AT&T and Verizon’s 5G wireless services grounded all passenger flights at Paine Field earlier this year because it potentially interfered with vital safety equipment. And someone trained a green light on multiple planes approaching Sea-Tac in dangerous (and criminal) “laser strikes.”
Stuck on KUOW
A glitch in Mazdas of a certain age recently tested the limits of our public radio fandom. Drivers turning to the NPR station in cars made between 2014 and 2017 sent their infotainment systems into a new iteration of the Seattle Freeze. The problem remains something of a mystery, but local dealerships have begun installing replacement parts free of charge to appease the aggrieved tote-clutchers.
Not a Prime Delivery
Jeff Bezos has offered to pay for the deconstruction of a historic bridge in Rotterdam, Netherlands, to accommodate the shipment of his $485 million superyacht. In protest, thousands of Facebook users have pledged to egg the 417-foot vessel as it makes its way through the Dutch port. In unrelated news, Bezos’s ex MacKenzie Scott has donated more to charity since their split than the Amazon founder.
Editor’s note: This list is updated quarterly with news items of questionable import but indubitable resonance in the Seattle zeitgeist. If you have any odd local anecdotes to share that haven’t made headlines yet, feel free to send them to [email protected].
