A bizarre story about a "miracle" stingray pregnancy in North Carolina made it as far as "Saturday Night Live." (Photo by: Will Heath/NBC via Getty Images)
These are the five North Carolina news stories that had everyone talking last year.
North Carolina may not be known for the crazy antics of its residents—we have no meme equivalent to Florida Man, after all—but those who have lived here long enough know there is no shortage of weird news coming out of this state.
Now that 2024 has passed, we can look back and say that we had plenty of “WTF” moments. With news cycles rotating at record speed, however, it can be hard to recall all the stories that made us gasp in disbelief or shrug our shoulders in a state of confusion.
Below, we’ve compiled a list of the five strangest stories to come out of the Tar Heel State this year, from big-name politicians exposed to a miracle stingray impregnated. We’ll take you through the list chronologically to see what you remember.
1. UFOs in Uptown Charlotte
While the year may have ended with national headlines about suspected drones flying over New Jersey and other areas, that was old news in North Carolina, where 2024 kicked off with viral videos depicting some sort of unidentified aircraft that appeared to be shooting flames from its wings.
“You seeing what I’m seeing flying in the sky?” asks a man in footage recorded over Uptown Charlotte. “What in the world is going on? Bruh, I don’t know what that is.”
For a time, nobody did. It didn’t help that nobody knew when the guy shot the footage, which seemed to detach from his account, spreading through the internet through other parties who couldn’t answer any questions about it.
Enter WSOC’s Joe Bruno, who debunked all the crazy claims with a simple sentence-long tweet on Jan. 20 that read, “This is a video of the planes that did the flyover for the outdoor Charlotte Checkers game.”
As it turns out, Charlotte’s minor league team had played their first outdoor night game in Uptown’s Truist Field on Jan. 13 and wanted to mark the occasion with a special flyover. They brought on the Raleigh-based Bandit Flight Team, a team of long-time pilots that specializes in formation flyovers using smoke and pyrotechnics.
2. Charlotte the Stringray, a Miracle of Science
America first met Charlotte the Stringray in February, when Team ECCO’s nonprofit Aquarium & Shark Lab in Hendersonville announced that Charlotte had apparently become pregnant through a rare but known biological process called parthenogenesis.
Her “miracle pregnancy” was held up as an example of asexual reproduction, and America fell in love with the single mom-to-be. People drove for hours to the Hendersonville aquarium, hoping to see Charlotte and/or her pups.
After garnering even more attention through coverage on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” and even a Weekend News Update sketch featuring Ego Nwodim on “Saturday Night Live,” supporters began to wonder why there were no updates coming in. ECCO announced some bad news in May: Charlotte had developed a rare reproductive disease that negatively impacted her reproductive system.
“The findings are truly a sad and unexpected medical development,” read a Facebook post from the aquarium. “While the research of this disease is limited, we hope that Charlotte’s case and medical treatment will positively contribute to science and be of benefit to other rays in the future.”
Charlotte passed away on June 30.
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3. The Mythical North Wilkesboro Moonshine Cave
Many NASCAR fans know that the sport has its roots in the Appalachian mountains, where illegal moonshiners souped up their cars to outrun police.
The North Wilkesboro Speedway just so happens to be one of NASCAR’s original tracks, opened in 1947 in the heart of moonshine country. The track was abandoned in 1996 due to drainage issues and other concerns, then reopened for a slate of races in 2010 before closing again.
In 2023, it was announced that NASCAR would return to North Wilkesboro for the All-Star Race in May 2024. There was plenty of work to be done, and during renovations, construction crews created a sinkhole in the grandstand after noticing cracks in the original concrete. The 700-square-foot hole immediately inspired rumblings about a moonshine cave that was rumored to be located under the bleachers for decades. Hell, the race track even sent out a press release about it.
“When we began renovating and restoring North Wilkesboro Speedway in 2022, we’d often hear stories of how an old moonshine still was operated here on the property under the grandstands,” said Steve Swift, senior vice president of operations and development at Speedway Motorsports. “Well, we haven’t found a still (yet), but we’ve found a small cave and an interior wall that would have been the perfect location to not only make illegal liquor, but to hide from the law as well. We don’t know how people would have gotten in and out, but as we uncover more, there’s no telling what we might find.”
Enter Jeremy Markovich, founder of the NC Rabbit Hole newsletter. The mix of NASCAR, North Carolina history, and a literal large hole in the ground made this the perfect case for an NC Rabbit Hole investigation. Markovich visited the track and found that the “cave” was likely just a result of the longstanding drainage issues. And it surely was a coincidence that the story broke just as the track was trying to build up buzz for NASCAR’s big return. Marketing at its finest.
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4. Mark Robinson’s Internet Past Comes Back to Haunt Him
Then-Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s chances of becoming governor of North Carolina were already all but floundering in September when CNN published a story revealing a new round of disturbing remarks that Robinson apparently made on a website called Nude Africa between the years of 2008 and 2012. After that, his race against then-Attorney General Josh Stein was kaput.
That said, it’s worth revisiting this story for the fact that even those who thought they could no longer be surprised by the shocking things the extremist candidate would say were taken aback by the details laid out by CNN.
In a slew of posts, Robinson, a Black man, reportedly called himself a “black NAZI” and voiced his support for the return of slavery, adding, “I would certainly buy a few.” He also admitted to enjoying transgender porn, which contradicted his vehement and often hateful opposition to anything related to the LGBTQ+ community, especially trans rights.
The post included a number of other disturbing claims and revelations, including one in which he stated that he would still, as an adult, fantasize about an experience in which he claims to have spied on naked women in a washroom as a teen. In another, he described a supposed sexual dalliance with his wife’s sister in vivid and vulgar details.
Robinson, for his part, denied ever making the comments. He would go on to sue CNN, but experts said he had a weak case from the beginning. At the time of this writing, the suit hasn’t gone anywhere. Robinson went on to lose his race against Stein in a landslide and claims that he has no intention of running for office again in the near future.
5. A Giraffe Steals the Spotlight on Zillow
We’ll end this on a wholesome and lighthearted note—with a long neck. Zillow browsing has become one of America’s favorite pastimes in recent years, and one $400,000 home for sale in Greensboro began to turn heads when it was listed in November thanks to visitor caught in a few of the inside photos: Gerry the Giraffe.
Some of the home photos, including a few of Gerry, were included in an Instagram post from the popular Zillow Gone Wild account with the caption, “Swipe for a surprise,” and the virality only picked up from there.
The son of the former homeowner, who passed away in 2024, told WFMY that his mother was in Africa when she became aware of an elderly giraffe who was to be put down due to his destructive nature (OK, maybe not the most wholesome or lighthearted, after all). A lover of giraffes, she offered to be the one who put Gerry down, and after the deed was done her boss had the animal taxidermied and sent to her home in the States.
The son said that Gerry had always been famous on a hyperlocal level but the headlines that closed out the year for him took things to a new level.
“It’s made Gerry actually more famous than the house itself,” he told WFMY. “My mom loved Gerry the Giraffe and the neighborhood, all the neighbors know about Gerry and they all wanna know where Gerry is going to go because it’s a close knit neighborhood, so it’s been cool in that way that mom’s legacy with the giraffe lives on.”
Realtor Kathleen Falls told WFMY in early January that the home is under contract but the giraffe will be removed from the home and placed in storage if the deal goes through.
@kimmie.manning After going viral on @Zillow Gone Wild and I realized it was here in Greensboro, I made it my mission to find Gerry the Giraffe!! And wow, was he MAJESTIC 🦒 (And yes, former owner’s son was super nice!) Story on WFMY: https://youtu.be/3Gqmk3DLTJ8?si=XOjn9j6aq_RCpDrV #zillow #zillowgonewild #giraffe #viralvideo #viral #localnews #journalist #Vlogmas #fyp #taxidermy #giraffes
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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