Something Offbeat

On this week's Offbites, Lauren and Chris discuss a Florida man who wrangled an alligator near a busy shopping strip, a person regularly using the bathroom at a Michigan cemetery, and how several horses got loose on the streets of London.

It’s cicada-mania! For the first time in more than two centuries, two broods of North American cicadas will emerge from the Earth at the same time. One hasn’t been up in 13 years and the other has been underground for 17 years, and they are both different from the typical cicadas we hear every summer. “Something Offbeat” host Mike Rogers caught up with Tom Tiddens of the Chicago Botanic Garden to learn more about the broods and explore some of the mystery around cicadas. Mysteries like what they are doing for all those years underground.

Two weeks ago, much of the country stopped for a few minutes in the middle of the day to watch at least a partial solar eclipse. And in the path of totality, researchers were keeping an eye on animals to see how four minutes of darkness changed their behaviors.

This week on Something Offbeat, Dr. Adam Hartstone-Rose, a professor of biological science at North Carolina State University, joined Mike Rogers, to discuss his findings from April 8.

Lexington, Ky., recently started something it calls “the world’s first interstellar tourism campaign,” trying to attract extraterrestrials to the city, and the Associated Press wrote about it. Roswell, N.M., has long been a destination for UFO tourism, and “Something Offbeat” talked with Dennis Balthasar of the International UFO Museum and Research Center there about why people love aliens. 

This week on Offbites, Lauren and Chris break down which city's remote work relocation package is the most appealing (hint: Lauren may soon be a Rochester resident), discuss the ethics of a gas station hack, and hear the heartwarming story of a community that came together to support a young girl.

Last month, the New Orleans police superintendent told the city council that police headquarters needed a lot of upgrades. But one comment stuck out: "They're all high." It had nothing to do with anyone in the city, but with rodents in the department's evidence room.

This week on Something Offbeat, Audacy's Mark Menard, a Louisiana native, joined Mike Rogers to discuss the saga at the New Orleans Police Department.

Glass has been around for more than 35 centuries, but the process to make it can still boggle our minds. Humans use their own lungs to breathe life into glass pieces such as those seen on the Netflix show “Blown Away”. The fourth season of the show just premiered, and a collection of the pieces featured on the program are on display at the Corning Museum of Glass. “Something Offbeat” host Mike Rogers talked with Eric Meek – the senior manager of hot glass programs at the museum and is a longtime glassblower. 

This week on Offbites, Lauren and Chris discussed a story sent in about a nude cruise, a gym fight that resulted in a man getting stabbed in the butt, a lost structure found on the sea floor and a rocket launcher found hidden in a car.

The biotech company Loyal is working to develop drugs that would slow the process of aging in dogs, aiming to extend the healthy lifespan of our four-legged friends. Dr. Brennen McKenzie, Loyal's director of veterinary medicine, joined Mike Rogers to discuss how the drugs would work and how he'd answer people who question whether Loyal is tampering with nature.

Late last year, a UFO journalist released previously-unseen photo and video of two different unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAPs, captured in the Middle East. One was called the chandelier and the other was called the jellyfish.

To get the latest on the search for extraterrestrial life and UAPs seen from Earth, Mike Rogers visited with Harvard's Dr. Avi Loeb, the founder of the Galileo Project, which he established in 2021 to search for this very thing.