It must be true... I read it in the tabloids

▪ A German man who forgot where he parked his car has been reunited with the vehicle—20 years later. The unnamed driver reported his Volkswagen missing in 1997 and assumed it had been stolen. But when police recently notified the man his vehicle had been found in a Frankfurt garage scheduled for demolition, the 76-year-old realized he’d simply forgotten where he parked it. Police said the man chose not to reclaim the rusting VW, which “can no longer be driven and will be sent to the scrap heap.”

▪ A limousine driver is fighting the government for the right to fire himself 1,800 feet above the Mojave Desert in a homemade, steam-powered rocket so that he can prove the Earth is flat. “Mad” Mike Hughes had billed his debut flight as a first step toward ultimately photographing Earth from outer space and proving that previous photos showing a round planet were faked. “I don’t believe in science,” Hughes says. Federal officials blocked Hughes from taking off from public land in Amboy, Calif., so he plans to take off from private property. “It’s not easy,” he says of his mission, “because it’s not supposed to be easy.”

▪ A Virginia woman who thought she hit “something” on her drive to work had a shock when she got out of her car an hour later and found a live, hissing bobcat embedded in the grill of her Toyota Prius. Animal rescue workers sedated the wild cat—which had been stuck in the grill for at least 50 miles— and slowly cut the 19-pound feline free. Remarkably, the bobcat suffered only minor cuts and bruises from its ordeal. “He was completely fine,” animal rescuer Christie Peters said. “It’s insane.” ■