# I can't believe that really happened, but it did! **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 8, 2013, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-that-really-happened-but-it-did/649665 "2013-02-08T02:23:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-that-really-happened-but-it-did/649665/1 "2013-02-08T02:23:38Z")
Anyone know some crazy real life happenings that sound too crazy to be real? I’ve posted before about how Dan Rather wanted to write a story on heroin, so he went to the police and they shot him up with seized heroin! Then there is this happening where a pioneering urologist decided to exibit his er results: [http://io9.com/5876545/an-eyewitness-account-of-the-most-awkward-urology-lecture-ever](http://io9.com/5876545/an-eyewitness-account-of-the-most-awkward-urology-lecture-ever) > [@](#): > > [Brindley had] injected himself with papaverine in his hotel room before coming to give the lecture, and deliberately wore loose clothes (hence the track-suit) to make it possible to exhibit the results. He stepped around the podium, and pulled his loose pants tight up around his genitalia in an attempt to demonstrate his erection. > > At this point, I, and I believe everyone else in the room, was agog. I could scarcely believe what was occurring on stage. But Prof. Brindley was not satisfied. He looked down sceptically at his pants and shook his head with dismay. ‘Unfortunately, this doesn’t display the results clearly enough’. He then summarily dropped his trousers and shorts, revealing a long, thin, clearly erect penis. There was not a sound in the room. Everyone had stopped breathing. > > But the mere public showing of his erection from the podium was not sufficient. He paused, and seemed to ponder his next move. The sense of drama in the room was palpable. He then said, with gravity, ‘I’d like to give some of the audience the opportunity to confirm the degree of tumescence’. With his pants at his knees, he waddled down the stairs, approaching (to their horror) the urologists and their partners in the front row. As he approached them, erection waggling before him, four or five of the women in the front rows threw their arms up in the air, seemingly in unison, and screamed loudly. The scientific merits of the presentation had been overwhelmed, for them, by the novel and unusual mode of demonstrating the results. > > The screams seemed to shock Professor Brindley, who rapidly pulled up his trousers, returned to the podium, and terminated the lecture. ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-that-really-happened-but-it-did/649665/2 "2013-02-08T02:59:04Z")
A crowd of 20,000 listened to (and didn’t react to) an Exxon presentation about the conversion of human flesh into a fuel product called Vivoleum: > [@](#): > > “Vivoleum works in perfect synergy with the continued expansion of fossil fuel production,” noted “Exxon rep” “Florian Osenberg” (Yes Man Mike Bonanno). “With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left.” > > The oilmen listened to the lecture with attention, and then lit “commemorative candles” supposedly made of Vivoleum obtained from the flesh of an “Exxon janitor” who died as a result of cleaning up a toxic spill. The audience only reacted when the janitor, in a video tribute, announced that he wished to be transformed into candles after his death, and all became crystal-clear. > > […] > > “We’re not talking about killing anyone,” added the “NPC rep.” “We’re talking about using them after nature has done the hard work. After all, 150,000 people already die from climate-change related effects every year. That’s only going to go up - maybe way, way up. Will it all go to waste? That would be cruel.” [http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/vivoleum](http://theyesmen.org/hijinks/vivoleum) ---
**Author:** ![Enkel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/df705f/32.png) [@Enkel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enkel)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-that-really-happened-but-it-did/649665/3 "2013-02-08T03:10:26Z")
Oops… the crowd was not 20,000… 20,000 attended the conference where the talk was given. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-that-really-happened-but-it-did/649665/4 "2013-02-08T04:16:40Z")
> [@](#): > > The screams seemed to shock Professor Brindley, who rapidly pulled up his trousers, returned to the podium, and terminated the lecture. I find this plausible. The professor was thinking about the experiment and in his mind he was showing the audience the results of an experiment not waving his dick at the crowd. The crowd’s reaction must have snapped him out of scientist mode and back into social mode and he realized what he was doing. I’ve heard similar stories about women right after they get nipple piercings or breast augmentations. Women who would never normally flash their boobs in public will unthinkingly pull their tops up so people can check out the results of their operation. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-that-really-happened-but-it-did/649665/5 "2013-02-08T08:38:51Z")
Some years ago I read an article about that conference where the urologist did the show-and-tell demo of his discovery – but the story, as I recall it, had a very different twist. Maybe it was a different conference where he did the same show-and-tell? It was a conference of urologists (no mention of their spouses or anyone else being present), and it seemed from the description that the assembled audience, being professional urologists, were professionally impressed, with various people going Ooh! and Oh!, several even reaching out to touch the demonstration as he walked past. ---
**Author:** ![SciFiSam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/47e85d/32.png) [@SciFiSam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SciFiSam)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2013, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-cant-believe-that-really-happened-but-it-did/649665/6 "2013-02-08T18:44:36Z")
I watched Alive the other day, and 18 people surviving a Winter and avalanches in the Andes, with no food other than the dead humans, and no shelter other than the plane, seemed improbable. Two of them travelling 40 miles across the Andes, with no gear, to get help, defied belief. But it happened.