The origins of the Moroccan Wall can be traced back to 1975, when the Spanish occupation of Western Sahara ended. As Spanish troupes retreated from the region, neighboring countries Morocco and Mauritania swooped in to divide the territory between themselves, ignoring the wishes of the local Sahrawi people who had been fighting for independence since 1960.

In 1976, the Sahrawi formed a national liberation rebel movement called the Polisario Front and declared the independence of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR). Armed conflicts erupted in the region, and although Mauritania withdrew in 1979, Morocco continued its occupation.

After suffering significant military losses, Morocco began the construction of a defensive line stretching 2,700 kilometers (1,680 miles) through Western Sahara. When construction ended in 1987, the Berm separated the region into two. The eastern part was controlled by SADR, and two-thirds of Western Sahara, where almost all economic activity was concentrated, remained under Moroccan control.

The completion of the Moroccan Wall, along with the implementation of various counterinsurgency tactics, significantly reduced the effectiveness of SADR’s guerrilla war and led to a stalemate that continues to this day. Since 1991, the territory adjacent to the wall has been under the control of UN forces monitoring the ceasefire.

The Sahrawi people, who advocate for the independence of Western Sahara, call Morocco’s fortification the “Wall of Shame,” considering it an obstacle to the integration of the two parts of a single nation. 

Unfortunately, the millions of mines buried beneath the sand and the large quantities of unexploded ordnance from the war routinely cause serious injuries and deaths among the local population.

Interestingly, the Berm is not only the world’s longest minefield, but also the second longest wall in the world, after the Great Wall of China.

“I was about to go to Dubai to move there. I was living between countries and I thought, ‘I don’t want to put his ashes in a suitcase,'” Claire said on ITV’s This Morning program. “I thought, ‘Oh, I’m getting my eyeliner tattooed and I’m sure people have their loved ones tattooed into body tattoos, so why not just have it in my eyeliner?'”

Hobson knew her idea was a bit “bonkers,” but she approached a close makeup artist and they agreed to oblige. The fact that they had recently lost a pet as well probably played a part in that decision as well. They mixed a bit of Patch’s ashes into the eyeliner ink and proceeded to needle into Claire’s eyelids.

“Dogs, they’re loyal, they’re consistent, they show up every single day and they kiss you when you come home from work and, like, it’s the purest form of love,” Hobson said. “There’s no malice. There’s no manipulation. They’re happy to see you every single day for 20 years.”

Although the eyeliner tattoo isn’t permanent, it does last a few years, and when she eventually needs a touch up, she has more of Patch’s ashes to use. “He’s going to be there a long time,” the makeup artist said.

Police in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina recently reported one of the most bizarre identity fraud cases in its entire history. A 37-year-old woman was discovered impersonating a 12-year-old girl with a history of abuse in an attempt to convince a local family to adopt her. An investigation found that the woman was a repeat offender who had previously impersonated minors in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Minas Gerais.

Amanda Maria Souza de Oliveira reportedly started her elaborate identity fraud by tricking the pastor of a church in Joinville, the largest city in Santa Catarina, that she was a 12-year-old girl named Gabriela who had run off from an abusive family in the state of Pará. After successfully gaining the trust of the pastor and members of his congregation, she not only received financial assistance but was also referred to a local family who took her in.

During her time with her new family, the 37-year-old woman deliberately maintained a childlike image, drinking milk out of a baby bottle, using a pacifier to relax, and even requesting a comfort blanket to fall asleep at night. She also spoke in a high-pitched voice and faked night terrors to make her new parents believe that she was truly a “child who needed to be taken care of.”

Many wondered how the family fell for Amanda’s lies, considering that she actually looked her real age, if not older. However, the 37-year-old woman had an explanation for that as well. She claimed to have been forced to take hormones as a child, which had had an effect on her physical appearance, and also that years of abuse from her father had taken a toll on her.

The family believed everything Amanda told them, and they showered her with love. They threw her a 12th birthday party, paid for obesity medication, and planned to legally adopt her. They never suspected foul play, but the people around them did, and one relative actually reported the case to the police and asked them to look into the girl’s history.

It was eventually discovered that 12-year-old Gabriela was actually a 37-year-old adult woman who had pulled similar stunts in different parts of Brazil, living off of families who felt sorry for her. In 2023, she impersonated a 12-year-old girl and claimed to have been subjected to witchcraft rituals. To convince people that she was a victim, she inserted around 100 metal needles into her skin.

The suspect reportedly confessed during her interrogation and was charged with fraud and identity theft, and was subsequently transferred to Joinville Prison. Her attorney has requested a psychiatric evaluation, suggesting that Amanda might be suffering from a mental illness and is not fully responsible for her actions.

It’s amazing what modern technology can do in the right hands, even when it comes to everyday problems most of us struggle to deal with. Case in point, a tech-savvy Reddit user who built an autonomous water gun turret that recognizes pigeons when they approach his balcony and starts shooting jets of water at them.

Pigeons may be adorable when they fight for bread crumbs in busy city squares, or when they fill the skies overhead, but many consider them annoying pests that are extremely tough to get rid of. The protagonist of our story also found himself exasperated by pigeons covering his balcony with droppings, but he decided to take a tech-oriented approach that proved surprisingly effective.

Using an electric, battery-powered water gun, an Orange P 5 mini-computer, a USB camera, an open vocabulary object detection neural network (yolo_world_v2l), 2 servo motors, rezistors and a transistor for turning on the water gun, the hero of our story built an AI-powered water gun turret design to spot and shoot at pigeons.

The system is very straightforward; a USB camera spots the pigeon when it approaches the turret’s perimeter, the neural network spots the pigeon, the servo motors turn the water gun and fire it straight at the intruder, driving the m away.

A short clip demonstrating how well the DIY anti-pigeon turret works went viral on social media, with many users claiming that they would buy it in a heartbeat if it ever became available.

“This is amazing haha! You should make this a real product, I bet it would sell!” one Reddit user commented on the video.

“Brilliant! I’ve been speccing a very similar idea for trying to prevent cats from shi**ing all over my lawn. Care to share any more details?” someone else asked.

The creator didn’t mention any plans of commercializing the AI water gun turret, but if they ever did make it available, there would definitely be a day-one buy for so many people. Plus, you can train the model to recognize animals, or even people, if you’re trying to keep them in check

The Teoca Amateur League features 10 teams, each representing a single family from Santa Cecilia Tepetlapa. There is no age limit, so it’s not uncommon to see teenagers playing alongside pensioners. Although women do not currently play on the field, they take part in the spectacle of football by encouraging their favorites from the sidelines.

The Field of the Gods was born out of necessity rather than eccentricity or spirituality. Santa Cecilia Tepetlapa is surrounded by steep mountain slopes, so the nearby extinct volcano provided the straightest surface available for a football field.

Interestingly, while the pitch may look worn at first glance, its upkeep is a source of local pride, with villagers taking turns to ensure that it is in the best condition possible. They take care of everything themselves and fiercely refuse Government assistance for a very simple reason.

“We take care of it as best we can. The league is completely self-governing,” one local told the AP. “We don’t ask for municipal support because if the local government invests in this, they’ll try to claim ownership. 
This hill is communal; it belongs to the people, and we maintain it because it’s ours. By keeping the government out of it, we keep the field for ourselves.”

The Field of the Gods is just one of the several unusual football fields we have featured on Oddity Central over the years. We once wrote about a Chinese football field with a large tree growing in the middle of it, as well as about the world’s most beautiful five-a-side field, located in a lush jungle.

The fortress of Pekovatka is the property of local businessman and developer Vladimir Galaganov, who first went viral in Russia in 2021, when he first tried selling it via online real-estate platforms. Back then, he said that he had always dreamed of building his own castle, and this project was as close as he was ever going to get.

Due to unspecified reasons, Galganov never got around to building the castle of his dreams, but he hopes that whoever ends up buying his medieval-style fortress will complete his project.

“I thought about holding Cossack and knightly tournaments there. After all, in the Middle Ages, a castle was not only a dwelling and a defensive structure, but also a kind of cultural center,” the businessman told V1.RU. “But it never came to knightly tournaments. It turned out that building a fortress isn’t a very quick process.”

The initial asking price for the property was 33 million rubles. A month later, the price dropped by half a million, and then gradually declined until the summer of 2023, when the asking price for the buildings and land was 27.7 million rubles. Now, the property is back on the market for a whopping 40 million rubles ($550,000).

“I built it for myself, but circumstances have changed—I need money now, so I decided to put it up for sale,” the businessman admitted. “Perhaps someone would want to live here, or run a hotel business. Perhaps we could turn it into a tourist camp or a recreation center.”

In June 2020,  a woman surnamed Wang went to the Meixi Cosmetic Surgery Clinic in Suzhou City, China’s Jiangsu Province to undergo double eyelid surgery. Also known as Asian blepharoplasty, this is a relatively common cosmetic procedure that creates or enhances an upper eyelid crease. However, in this particular case, the effect was not the desired one.

After paying 12,000 ($1,800), Wang was operated on by a surgeon called Meng, who claimed to also be the clinic’s marketing director. Wang was discharged that same day, but that very night, she started experiencing severe pain. She called Meng and was casually told that everything was fine and the pain would disappear in a matter of days.

Unfortunately, as time went by, Wang’s symptoms worsened. Not only did the pain not subside, but her eyelids had begun to turn outward, and her eyes began secreting large amounts of fluid that continuously dripped down her face. To make matters worse, Meng stopped answering her calls, and she had to seek help at a local hospital.

Doctors at a major hospital discovered she had damaged my tear ducts and performed the eyelid surgery incorrectly,” Wang said. “They advised me to have another surgery to correct the mistake.”

The young woman did get corrective surgery at one point, but she was still left with eyelid damage that prevented her from fully closing her eyes, even when she slept. In 2022, following an assessment by a local agency, Wang’s eye injury was determined to be a level 9 disability, with 10 being the most severe level.

“The surgery left me with serious consequences. I was so ashamed that I didn’t dare go to work or meet anyone. Afterwards, I suffered from depression and insomnia,” the woman recounted.

Wang ended up suing Meng after investigators found that she did not have a medical license, while the clinic she worked at also lacked a legal business license. Before the Court issued its verdict, the accused sent her lawyer to negotiate a settlement with Wang, in order to avoid a possible prison sentence.

In the end, the two parties reached an agreement. Meng was to pay Wang 850,000 yuan in damages ($125,650), but Wang had to delete all her social media posts regarding her ordeal and pledge not to seek legal action again or speak about her surgery to any media outlets. The agreement stated that, if she failed to meet these conditions, she would have to pay Meng 400,000 yuan ($59,000).

Wang thought that, after signing the settlement agreement, she could go back to leading a normal life, but she soon learned that Meng had started posting videos on social media insulting her and accusing her brother of fraud, among other things. Her sister-in-law fought back, posting documents proving that Meng had practiced medicine illegally, and Wang herself appeared in several videos to recount her story and clear her name.

The moment Wang went online and spoke about her plastic surgery ordeal, she broke her agreement, and Meng immediately took her to court. Earlier this year, a judge ruled in favor of the surgeon, ordering Wang to repay 400,000 yuan as per the terms of their agreement. Despite efforts to have a higher-level prosecution agency review the case, Wang’s request was rejected on May 23rd, and she now has to pay Meng 400,000 yuan.

“Protecting my rights is really difficult. Let me be a lesson for all you ladies out there. Think carefully before undergoing cosmetic surgery, because it could lead to lifelong regret,” Wang recently warned on social media.

Divorces can get messy, but you don’t often hear about people destroying their own houses just because their marriage fell apart. However, one marital dispute in Butler County, Pennsylvania, got so out of hand that the husband used an excavator to partially demolish his own house after hearing that his wife wanted to divorce him.

We’ll probably never know exactly what prompted Eric Pierwsza’s extreme reaction to his wife’s divorce filing, but according to CBS News, it occurred after a night of drinking. After allegedly telling his wife, “If it’s over, I’ll tear the house down,” the 48-year-old man climbed into an excavator and started tearing down chunks of the house.

Shockingly, the man’s wife and two daughters were still inside the home while he was tearing into it with the construction machinery, and sounds of the demolition could be heard during the spouse’s desperate 911 call. Luckily, they were not injured.

After destroying the back of his family’s house, Pierwsza allegedly went inside, took his gym bag, and went into town, where he was apprehended by police and taken into custody. He now faces several legal charges, including causing a catastrophe, reckless endangerment, and disorderly conduct.

Although the damage done to the house doesn’t look irreparable, investigators told reporters that the structural damage was so severe that the whole place will probably need to be demolished for safety reasons.

Iron Sand Palm is a famous Shaolin conditioning method that combines hard qigong with physical striking of various abrasive mediums to dramatically increase bone density, tendon strength, pain tolerance, and striking power. A side-effect of sustained Iron Sand Palm training over several years is the visible thickening of the hands.

After Zhang Longxiang met Yang Xinchuan, a kung fu master known for the Iron Palm technique, he was impressed by the size of his hands and dreamed of having the same visual impact on other people. He spent seven years learning the art, and another eight as a formal apprentice of Yang. He practiced diligently every day, even when it got tedious.

“Practicing is boring and painful. I had to hit the sandbag 6,000 times a day,” Zhang said. “There is no secret. The more you practice, the better you will be. I can’t count how many times my hands have been injured hitting a sandbag full of steel balls, but I never put my hands into a wok of hot sand because it is a fiction fabricated by some kung fu movies.”

During his training, Zhang continuously patted, struck, and chopped at sandbags containing small steel balls with his palms, while simultaneously applying a traditional medicinal wine given to him by his master to his palms. He claims this wine played a double role; on one hand, it protected his palms from serious injury, and on the other hand, it promoted the thickening of his palms.

Practicing at least two or three hours per day for several decades caused Zhang Longxiang’s palms to thicken, and thick calluses to develop on the backs of his hands, palms, and finger joints. Today, his right palm is 8 cm thick. Most people can’t match that even if they pressed both their hands together.

Zhang Longxiang’s thick palms aren’t just for show! He often participates in martial arts exhibitions where he breaks stacks of bricks with his bare hands or pummels iron nails into wooden boards. He won events in annual national martial arts competitions for five consecutive years between 2006 and 2010, and is considered one of the greatest masters of Iron Sand Palm.

Rat Oddity Gizzard has been using taxidermied rats to create their unique oddities for years, but last October, the main designer behind the brand had the brilliant – although some would call it ‘sick’ – idea to sew one of these taxidermied rats onto a piece of women’s lingerie. She posted the result on Instagram, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Named LingeRAT by their creator, these unique pieces of underwear are not designed to be worn, for obvious reasons, although some people have declared themselves more than eager to do so to surprise or simply horrify their partners.

Because of the shock factor, many have wondered if LingeRAT items were real or just a clever bit of marketing. We reckon that they are a bit of both. The lingerie is real; you can buy a pair for A$190 ($137), but it also brought a lot of attention to the store as well.

As you can imagine, the attention these unusual garments brought Rat Oddity Gizzard wasn’t all of the positive variety, despite the brand’s best efforts to be as transparent about the source of the rats as possible. Then again, with shocking pieces like this, that sort of controversy is to be expected.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering, Rat Oddity Gizzard offers international shipping for its LingeRATs.