Strange Security Is Back with Cheaters, Impersonators, and Florida Man Men

Today in Security has gone two months without its signature Strange Security edition. The 1 August edition was supplanted by the potentially civilization-shattering story of a macaque crime ring (yes, macaques are a type of monkey) in Bali. And the Strange Security covering August news was pre-empted by the important news of Labubu larceny.

We’re back this month with the news from September (and a bit before), and so your top five Strange Security stories take you from a cheat to two impersonators to three stories of strange burglaries or robberies.

But first our standard disclaimer: security is serious, and even in these stories there are victims, and we do not wish to minimize their experiences.

Stone-throwing Swicks Mar Contest: That’s right, cheaters infiltrated the rock-skipping contest on the tiny Scottish island of Easdale, the self-proclaimed world championship of an activity the women’s champion described as a sport. The cheaters were suspected of tampering with their skipping stones by event officials and confessed when they were approached.

I Wonder Where He Got the Idea to Steal Identities of Old-Time Baseball Players: Could it be his name is George Herman Ruth? No, not the Bambino. He is, we presume, safely interred at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, New York, having died in 1948. But this George Herman Ruth allegedly impersonated several retired former ball players, including some who had died, and was indicted on 91 charges including mail fraud, identity theft, and money laundering.

Was It Impersonation, Or Is That Just What He Sleeps In? Or an alternate question: Can Florida Man also mean someone who has an, um, unusual way to stop a crime? This is the story of a Cape Coral, Florida, burglary that was thwarted, and, well, we’ll let the police statement explain: “Thanks to a quick-thinking neighbor in his Batman pajamas, another burglary suspect was put behind bars.”

Robber Enters Premises by Unusual Vector: In a classic movie maneuver, our subject gets into position in a way they’ll never suspect: by water. Sean Connery did it as James Bond in Thunderball, Sean Connery (again) and Nicholas Cage do it as Navy SEALs in The Rock, and Arnold Schwarzenegger took off his scuba gear to don a tuxedo after boarding a yacht in True Lies. In our case, a bandit used scuba gear to get on board the Paddlefish restaurant at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida (another Florida Man?). The man obscured cameras with a spray can and proceeded to where the staff was closing. He made off with $20,000 cash.

Parent Breaks into Kindergarten to Steal Child’s Artwork: But don’t be too quick to blame the parent. The Craigslea Community Kindergarten and Preschool in Brisbane, Australia, had been in turmoil. Most of the volunteer committee that ran the place had resigned in a dispute. Shortly thereafter, parents got an email that the fingerpainting and other artworks their children had produced would be auctioned off as a fundraiser. One irate parent took matters into her own hands… at least that’s what evidence suggests.

And here are a few more strange security-adjacent stories that caught our eye in the last month or so, beginning with a couple of videos:

• A truckload of wieners spilled and closed down a highway in Pennsylvania.
• Yes, duty of care does extend to a sports team filming its mascot in a river even if the mascot gets chased by a bear.
• Protecting livestock from wolves is a constant battle, but AC/DC and Scarlett Johansson hare here to help.
  
  
• The story of a woman trying to sell Elvis Presley’s Graceland even though she didn’t own it first appeared in Strange Security in 2024. She recently was sentenced to four years. Because the story can never end, we’re betting on a jailbreak.
  
  
• The trend of protesting overtourism continued when people stopped trains to Machu Pichu by putting “rocks of various sizes” on the tracks.
  
  
• The last three nuns who had been tending a convent in Elsbethen, Austria, left their nursing home facility and broke into their shuttered convent.