The Most Viral And Interesting News Stories Of 2017

Published December 26, 2017
Updated January 5, 2018

In the last year, we've brought you the most interesting news from around the globe, dealing in a vast and diverse array of issues.

Dinosaur ‘Mummy’ Unveiled With Skin And Guts Intact

Interesting news Nodosaur dinosaur mummy
The Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Alberta, Canada recently unveiled a dinosaur so well-preserved that many have taken to calling it not a fossil, but an honest-to-goodness “dinosaur mummy.”

When this dinosaur — a member of a new species named nodosaur — was alive, it was an enormous four-legged herbivore protected by a spiky, plated armor and weighing in at approximately 3,000 pounds.
Robert Clark/National Geographic

Jack The Ripper Identified? Diary Containing Confessions Proven Authentic, New Research Claims

Interesting news Jack The Ripper Suspect James Maybrick
Author Robert Smith is set to publish a new book, 25 Years of The Diary of Jack the Ripper: The True Facts, in which he claims to have verified the authenticity of a document containing James Maybrick's confession to being Jack the Ripper.

Smith’s research claims to have proven that the diary was actually found in Maybrick’s former home in Aigburth and that it was written by Maybrick himself in 1888 or 1889.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images

NASA Scientists Discover Mysterious Life Forms Hibernating Inside Giant Mexican Cave Crystals

Interesting news Mexico’s Naica crystal mine
Dormant for thousands of years, researchers have found microbes hiding in tiny pockets of liquid buried inside the giant crystals residing within Mexico’s enormous Naica Mine.

Apparently, these microbes have been hibernating there for up to 50,000 years, eating iron, sulfur, and other chemicals to survive.
Alexander Van Driessche/Wikimedia Commons

D.B. Cooper Mystery Finally Solved Thanks To New Physical Evidence?

D.B. Cooper Sketch
A group of volunteer investigators claim to have discovered what “appears to be a decades-old parachute strap” on the location where a “credible source” stated that D.B. Cooper landed after his daring heist.

This new physical evidence may shed light on the fate of D.B. Cooper after his daring mid-flight robbery of a commercial airplane in 1971.
Wikimedia Commons

Couple Gone Missing In 1942 Found In Melting Swiss Glacier

Francine And Marcelin Dumoulin In A Glacier
75 years after Francine and Marcelin Dumoulin disappeared in 1942, authorities suspect two “perfectly preserved” bodies uncovered on a melting Swiss ski resort likely belong to the long-missing couple.EPA

Lost Languages Discovered In One Of The World’s Oldest Libraries

St. Catherine’s Monastery in desert
St. Catherine’s Monastery, one of the world’s oldest continuously running libraries, holds a number of palimpsests, or manuscripts that have been written over multiple times.

A team of researchers photographed the manuscripts using different parts of the light spectrum and ran the images through an electronic algorithm, letting them see the oldest writings on these parchments, and discovered a number of ancient writings, including one in Caucasian Albanian, which hasn’t been used since the 8th century.
JTB/UIG/Getty Images

Balmy 77-Degree Oasis Found In Antarctica

Mount Erebus Ross Island Caves
Researchers have discovered a web of hidden ice caves beneath Ross Island’s Mount Erebus that play host to a hidden oasis, where the air temperature hovers around 77 degrees Fahrenheit.

The volcano’s heat combined with the continent’s below freezing temperatures created the surprisingly pleasant conditions.
Bettman/Getty Images

Ancient Ruins Older Than The Pyramids Discovered In Canada

Researcher in ancient Canadien settlement
A team of Canadian Ph.D students discovered an ancient village that dates back 14,000 years ago, making it significantly older than the pyramids of Ancient Egypt, which were built about 4,700 years ago.

The team began investigating the area for ancient settlements after hearing the oral history of the indigenous Heiltsuk people, which told of a sliver of land that never froze during the last ice age.
Grant Callegari/Hakai Institute

Giant Trove Of Hidden Nazi Artifacts Found In Argentina

Nazi Artifacts In Argentina
The largest collection of Nazi objects in Argentina’s history was discovered outside of Buenos Aires in April 2017.

Among the disturbing items were magnifying glasses engraved with swastikas, a bust of Hitler, a box of harmonicas, and a scary-looking medical device used to measure heads (a pseudoscientific technique used by Nazis to distinguish “Aryans” from Jews).
Twitter/AP

Scientists Finally Solve Mystery Behind Antarctica’s Blood Falls

Antarctica’s Blood Glacier
Since its discovery more than a century ago, scientists have been puzzled by the deep red liquid seeping out of Antarctica’s Blood Falls.

A new study finally explains that the red liquid is water containing oxidized iron that originates from a strange million-year-old lake beneath the ice.
Wikimedia Commons

NASA’s $1 Billion Probe Just Sent Back Photos of Jupiter Like You’ve Never Seen It Before

Juno's Jupiter Photo
Roughly the size of a basketball court, NASA's Juno probe departed in 2011, hurtled through space for five years, and finally made itself comfortable in Jupiter's orbit in July of 2016.

Now, at about 415 million miles from Earth, it has made its fifth close flyby of the Gas Giant and the images of Jupiter it sent home are breathtaking.
Gervasio Robles/PUBLIC DOMAIN

Girl Finds Sword In Lake Where King Arthur’s ‘Excalibur’ Was Thrown, According To Legend

A girl finds a sword in Dozmary Pool
Matilda Jones, aged seven, from Doncaster, England was on a trip to Dozmary Pool in Cornwall, where King Arthur was said to have disposed of Excalibur according to legend, with her father when she discovered a sword at the bottom of the pool.

The sword was later revealed to have been owned by a Cornwall resident who threw it there in the 1980s as part of a Celtic ritual.
SWNS.com

Scientists Finally Figure Out What Killed Off History’s Most Terrifying Shark

Megalodon Teeth
New research from the University of Zurich shows that a previously unknown mass extinction killed off up to 55 percent of marine mammals, as well as the megalodon shark.

The nature of the extinction event is uncertain, but researchers suggest that it involved habitat loss due to shifting sea levels.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images

Kidney Stones Fly Out Of People On Roller Coasters, Surgeon Discovers

People On A Roller Coaster
David Wartinger, a urological surgeon in Michigan, recently confirmed that a whirl on on a rollercoaster is sometimes all it takes to pass a painful kidney stone. Public Domain Pictures

1,200-Year-Old Viking Sword Discovered On Norwegian Mountain

1,200-year-old viking sword
Reindeer hunter Einar Åmbakk and two friends were hunting in the high mountains of Oppland County, Norway, when they stumbled across a 1,200-year-old Viking sword.

Why the Viking was traveling in this desolate countryside, and how the sword, an incredibly valuable tool and commodity at the time, came to be left there, we will never know. However, researchers theorize that it may have been left there after a Viking got lost during a particularly horrible blizzard.
Einar Åmbakk

Hospital Serial Killer Known As “The Angel Of Death” Murdered In Prison

Serial Killer Donald Harvey
Donald Harvey, a serial killer and former hospital worker who haunted the halls of the sick during the 1970s and 1980s, was murdered in his Ohio prison cell by another inmate in March 2017. Wikimedia Commons

A Teen Magazine Printed An Anal Sex Guide And People Freaked Out, Especially This Lady

An Angry Mom With Teen Vogue
In an effort to educate teens about all kinds of sex (since a lot of people aren’t into the whole penis-in-vagina thing), Teen Vogue published “A Guide to Anal Sex” this year.

Numerous conservatives spoke out against the article on social media, including one blogger who burned the magazine in her backyard.
YouTube/Screenshot

Some Are Saying This Video Shows The Extinct Tasmanian Tiger Alive And Well

Tasmanian Tigers
Recently released footage from a group that attempts to track Tasmanian tigers, also known as thylacines, claims to show one in the wild, even though the last known living member of the species died in 1936.

The video was shot in the Tasmanian bush in November 2016, but the cameramen are keeping the location of this sighting a secret to prevent others from disturbing the animal.
Wikimedia Commons

Jury Convicts Killer Of First Missing Child On Milk Carton Four Decades Later

Etan Atz on the milk carton
Pedro Hernandez was convicted on Feb. 14, 2017 of killing six-year-old Etan Patz in 1979.

Etan Patz was one of the first children to appear on milk cartons during the statewide manhunt for the missing boy.
National Child Safety Council

Researchers Find Hidden Space In Great Pyramid Of Giza Using Cosmic Rays

The Pyramids Of Giza
Scientists used cosmic-ray imaging to discover a hidden space in the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The void sits above the pyramid’s Grand Gallery and is roughly 30 yards deep with a similar shape to the gallery below it.
Wikimedia Commons

Jimmy Hoffa Mystery Finally Solved, Criminologist Claims

Jimmy Hoffa
The mystery of what happened to union leader Jimmy Hoffa has baffled the public ever since his disappearance from a Michigan parking lot 42 years ago.

James Buccellato, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Northern Arizona University, has a new theory that Hoffa was murdered at a home in Bloomfield Hills near where he disappeared, and that his body was then cremated at a nearby funeral home owned by the mob.
Robert W. Kelley/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

UFO Hunters Capture Closest Photos of Area 51 Ever

Area 51 Photos
UFO hunters who run the popular YouTube channel “UFO Seekers”, hiked up the 1.4-mile high Tikaboo Peak, a mountain 25 miles opposite the mysterious military base, in order to capture the closest images of Area 51 ever.

From the peak of this mountain, this duo of UFO hunters used specialist telescopic lenses to get clear photographs of the buildings and vehicles inside the top secret government site.
YouTube

When You Die, You’ll Know You’re Dead, Say Scientists

A Brain MRI
Scientists at NYU’s Langone School of Medicine in New York City have discovered that in the moments after the body ceases to function, the brain continues to. So, theoretically, you could hear your death being announced by a doctor.Wikimedia Commons

New Footage Finally Reveals What Narwhals’ Tusks Are For

Narwhal looking for food
Newly released drone footage of a narwhal in action reveals the tusk’s (actually a tooth — one that can reach nine feet in length) true purpose once and for all.

The video shows a narwhal using its tusk to stun its prey before eating it.
YouTube

In First-Ever Australian Deep Sea Investigation, Researchers Discover Unbelievable Marine Life

Bizarre Ocean Spider Species
In June, a group of 40 scientists from seven countries returned from an expedition to the dark and freezing abyss 14,000 feet below the ocean’s surface with a catalog of newly discovered species.

Their inventory includes sea spiders the size of dinner plates, a faceless fish, glowing sea stars, fire-red horned shrimp, hermaphrodite lizard fish, a herd of sea pigs, and fish with photosensitive plates on its head.
Caroline Harding

The Mystery Of The 600-Year-Old Voynich Manuscript Has Been Solved, Says U.K. Academic

Page from the Voynich Manuscript
Since its discovery in 1912, researchers around the world have been puzzled by the Voynich manuscript, that dates back to between the 14th and 15th centuries and contains mysterious drawings, and writings in an unknown language or code.

Now, Nicholas Gibbs, a British academic and expert on medieval medical manuscripts, claims that the document is actually a health guide for women looking to treat gynecological conditions.
Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library/ Yale University

Vets Surgically Remove Nearly 1,000 Coins From Sea Turtle’s Stomach

A giant sea turtle in surgery
Surgeons have successfully removed nearly 1,000 metal coins from inside “Piggy Bank,” a Thai green sea turtle with a tremendous bellyache.

Tourists searching for good fortune fed the 25-year-old sea turtle 915 coins over the course of her life, chucking the money into the pool where she lives in Sri Racha, Thailand.
Faculty of Veterinary Science/Chulalongkorn University

First-Ever Footage Reveals Japan’s System Of Sex Slavery During World War II

Korean sex slaves
The Seoul National University Human Rights Center has released footage, that depicts Chinese and American troops liberating Korean sex slaves from one of the Japanese “comfort stations” (military brothels) in Songshan, Yunnan Province, China in 1944.

Scholars estimate that, during World War II, the Imperial Japanese Amry forced as many as 400,000 “comfort women” from Korea and elsewhere in Asia into prostitution and sexual slavery.
YouTube

Researchers Uncover Ancient South American Combs Used For A Pretty Disgusting Purpose

Ancient double sided comb
A recent study has found that the double-sided combs unearthed in archaeological digs in northern Chile were indeed used to get rid of lice.

It was a shock to many that the often ornately constructed ancient combs had a fairly unsavory purpose.
Bernardo Arriaza/Universidad De Tarapacá

A Real Grasshopper Was Just Found In The Paint Of A Van Gogh Masterpiece

Van Gogh's Olive Trees
Art curators at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo. found the remains of a dead grasshopper embedded in the layers of paint in a Van Gogh painting.

The insect, missing its abdomen and thorax, was discovered on the canvas of Van Gogh’s painting Olive Trees, in the brown and green paint in the forefront of the image.
Wikimedia Commons

50,000-Year-Old Extinct Lion Found Frozen In Time With Head Resting On Its Paw

Frozen Eurasian cave lion cub
The perfectly preserved body of a Eurasian Cave Lion cub, or Panthera leo spelaea, one of an extinct subspecies of lions that roamed across Europe, Russia, and even Alaska from 370,000 to 10,000 years ago, was recently discovered in Siberia.

The approximately one-year-old cub was frozen alive, with his head still resting on his paw.
The Siberian Times

Reconstruction From Ancient Skull Reveals What Humans Looked Like 9,500 Years Ago

Ancient skull and 3d face
Researchers at the British Museum have used an ancient skull uncovered in Jericho, in the modern-day West Bank, to reconstruct what the human face looked like 9,500 years ago.

The museum used digital scanning and facial reconstruction technology to create a 3D rendering of the deceased’s head.
ATI Composite/Trustees of the British Museum/RN-DS Partnership

For the last twelve months, we at All That Is Interesting have been providing our readers with a steady stream of some of the weirdest, most bizarre, and downright unbelievable and interesting news from across the world.

In the last year, we've told you about the uncovering of a mummified dinosaur, revelations on the possible identity of Jack The Ripper, and the discovery of hundreds of new species.

Above all, we've brought you the most interesting news from around the globe, dealing in issues as vast and diverse as history, science, nature, crime, and politics. Throughout it all, we've made sure to bring you stories that shock, excite, and inspire you.

These stories inform you of all the new, crazy discoveries we have been making about the past, and the world around us, as well as some of the strangest things humans have done.

Here is a roundup of some of our favorite news stories from the year of 2017. Hope you enjoy a look back at these strange stories and are geared up for another year of outlandish, interesting news in 2018.


Enjoy this article on the interesting news stories from the past year? Next, read about the time WWI soldiers stopped fighting in the 1914 Christmas Truce. Then read about the surprising origins of the Christmas Tree.

author
Gabe Paoletti
author
Gabe Paoletti is a New York City-based writer and a former Editorial Intern at All That's Interesting. He holds a Bachelor's in English from Fordham University.
editor
Gabe Paoletti
editor
Gabe Paoletti is a New York City-based writer and a former Editorial Intern at All That's Interesting. He holds a Bachelor's in English from Fordham University.