I’ll never forget seeing the following headline when I was nine:
Family Flees In Shame After Space Alien Makes Daughters 8 and 9 Pregnant
At the time I was still dumb enough to believe everything I read, and I thought it was true and it scared me.
Heh.
I liked the one where they found the bones of Adam and Eve in Africa…and she was a space alien!
My favorite story ever was one of the short briefing-type yarns:
Most Female Vampires Are NOT Lesbians, Expert Says
I want to hear more about the alien fleas.
What?
Dunno, I must have missed that issue. I imagine the camel got custody.
If you actually read any of the “news articles” in the WWN you will see that they are completely accurate.
The articles never say that there are Alien Cats on Mars (which are very different from the Alien Cats of Titan) but they report that someone is saying that there are these Alien Cats on every sizable body in the Solar System.
Reporting that something bogus is heppening would be irresponsible journalism. Reporting that a self-proclaimed space expert claims to have spotted a **Giant Space Squid Approaching Earth ** is Putzwhiler Prize material.
My favourite front page had the usual sort of layout: a full spread with pictures for one story, and a couple of other headlines top and bottom. Then there was a sidebar up in one corner:
"Find the fake story inside and win $100!"
I almost bought it.
My personal fave from a few years ago: I Watched in Horror as a Giant Jellyfish Ate My Family.
I love this rag, it’s one of the things that make going to the grocery store more enjoyable.
Wouldn’t you love to be the telemarketer or charitable organization that can get your hands on the subscription list for the WWN?
my favorite headline is one of the first ones I saw about 20 years ago
FAMED PSYCHICS HEAD EXPLODES
one of my favorite science articles was
ATLANTIS FOUND IN PACIFIC!
it wasn’t acutally “found”, rather some kook who’d spent 30 years searching for it in the Atlantic, concluded that it MUST be in the Pacific, because he didn’t find it in the Atlantic.
I’m guessing that they do a lot of good drugs. Supposedly, the folks in the offices next to theirs have had to have the walls sound proofed because the laughter coming from the WWN offices made it hard for them to concentrate. I used to buy them and make all kinds of bizarre collages and such things from the pieces. I’ve still got one of them around here, somewhere, I’ll have to see if I can’t find it.
One of my favorites was an issue in 1999 which featured an article about the predictions from eleventy-seven “top psychics” that the world would come to an end at midnight on 31 December (what time zone was not specified, or perhaps it was to he a “rolling wipeout”). A couple pages later was an article about predictions from another group of “top psychics” as to what life would be like in 2020 or thereabouts.
WWN may have its faults, but consistency ain’t one of them.
I haven’t bought an issue in a while, but it seems that both Dottie and the Sabak sisters are no more. A pity. . . .
Do they do, or do they don’t accept contributions? I bet we could really write a good story.