This list was compiled by the co-editor of the Fortean Times, a Journal of Strange Phenomena, a monthly British magazine.

1. Bees who pay their respects

Margaret Bell, who kept bees in Leintwardine, about 7 miles from her home in Ludlow, Shropshire (England), died in June 1994. Soon after her funeral, mourners were amazed to see hundreds of bees settle on the corner of the street opposite the house where she had lived for 26 years. The bees stayed for an hour before buzzing off over the rooftops. The local press ran a photograph of the bees hanging on the wall in a cluster.

2. Phantom Car Crash

On December 11, 2002, two motorists called police to report seeing a car veering off the A3 trunk road with headlights blazing at Burpham in Surrey. A thorough search uncovered a car concealed in dense undergrowth and the long-dead driver nearby. It turned out that the crash had actually happened five months earlier when the driver, Christopher Chandler, had been reported missing by his brother.

3. Enigmatic Earth Divot

Am irregular shaped hole, about 10ft by 7ft with 2ft vertical sides, was found on a remote farm near Grand Coulee, Washington State, in October 1984. It had not been there a month earlier. ‘Dribblings’ of earth and stones led to a three-ton grass-covered earth divot 75 ft away. It was almost as if the divot had been removed with a gigantic cookie cutter, except that roots dangled intact from the vertical side of both hold and slab. There were no clues such as vehicle tracks and an earthquake was thought very unlikely.

4. Balloon Buddies

Laura Buxton released a helium filled balloon during celebrations for her grandparents’ gold wedding anniversary in Blurton, Staffordshire, in June 2001. Attached to the balloon was her name and address and a note asking the finder to write back. Ten days later she received a reply. The balloon had been found by another Laura Buxton in the garden hedge of her home in Pewsey, Wiltshire, 140 miles away. Both Lauras were ages 10 and both had three year old black Labradors, a guinea pig, and a rabbit.

5. Hum Misty for Me

A noise a bit like amplifier feedback had been heard for three years coming from the right ear of a Welsh pony called Misty, according to the Vetinary Record (April 1995). It varied in intensity but stayed at a constant pitch of 7 kHz. Hearing a buzzing in one’s ears is called Subjective Tinnitus; much rarer is when others can also hear the noise. This is called Objective Tinnitus and the cause is still largely a matter of debate.

6. Whirlwind Children

A nine-year old Chinese girl was playing in Songjian near Shanghai, in July 1992 when she was carried off by a whirlwind and deposited unhurt in a treetop almost two miles away. According to a wire report from May 1986, a freak wind lifted up 13 children in the oasis of Hami in Western China and deposited them unharmed in sand dunes and scrub 12 miles away.

7. Riverside Mystery

Gloria Ramirez, 31, died of Kidney failure at Riverside General Hospital, California, in February 1994, after being rushed there with chest pains. Emergency room staff were felled by ‘fumes’ when a blood sample was taken. A strange oily sheen on the woman’s skin and unexplained white crystals in her blood were reported. A doctor suffered liver and lung damage, and bone necrosis. At least 23 other people were affected. One hypothesis was that Ramirez, who had had cervical cancer, had taken a cocktail of medicines that combined to make an insecticide (organophospate) but tests yielded no clue.