truTV: Not Reality. Actuality.

An international team of biblical scholars learned recently that the sect thought to have been responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls (the Essenes) became extinct because they were too modest about their toilet habits. According to a November report in London's Independent, the researchers found evidence of heavy fecal bacteria in a secluded area (which was also a graveyard) and deduced from the scrolls that the Essenes rejected defecating in the open (which would have allowed sunlight to kill the bacteria).

An international team of Biblical scholars learned recently that the sect thought to have been responsible for the Dead Sea Scrolls (the Essenes) became extinct because they were too modest about their toilet habits. The researchers found traces of fecal bacteria in a common, secluded area and deduced from the Scrolls that the Essenes rejected open defecation (which would have allowed sunlight to kill the bacteria).

Creme de la Weird: The super-reclusive, 280-person German cult Villa Baviera, holed up in Chile since 1961 and worshiping of former army nurse Paul Schaefer (now age 81, with whereabouts unknown), broke into the public eye in a November Reuters dispatch describing how most members have finally, after four decades, come to realize that they were mistaken in their belief that Schaefer is God's messenger on Earth. The cult lived frozen in time, with few modern conveniences, wearing clothing from the 1930s, and in total obedience to Schaefer, who had imposed many idiosyncratic policies, including an ironclad no-intimacy rule.

In November, a 46-yr-old man climbed into an enclosed area at the Taipei (Taiwan) Zoo, apparently to attempt to convert a pride of lions to Christianity by informing them that Jesus is their savior. According to witnesses, the lion king sauntered over and briefly sank his teeth into the man's leg, but then, according to one account, "got bored" and returned to his previous state of lounging, as Zoo personnel hustled the intruder away.

Questionable Judgments: In October, the school board in Puyallup, Wash., canceled Halloween activities because of complAin'ts from local Wiccans that the pointy-nose, broomstick-riding "witch" icon of the holiday was offensive to their religion, which refers to its priestesses as witches. (In several other cities, in response to complAin'ts from Christians, officials moved trick-or-treating day to October 30 because October 31 fell on a Sunday, which might be inappropriate to celebrate what to some is "The Devil's Night.")

Among the latest "miracles": a fiberglass statue of Jesus, which washed up on a sandbar on the Rio Grande River near Eagle Pass, Tex., and which has now drawn thousands of worshipers (September); an inflated balloon with a rubber smudge in the image of the Virgin Mary, decorating the car lot of Payne Weslaco Motors, Weslaco, Tex. (giving at least one worker there "chills") (August); and the spontaneous falling over of the statue of the Virgin Mary at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, which was taken to be a holy signal that the church, which had been scheduled for closing by the Boston Archdiocese, should remain open (October).