These unusual trivia questions and answers are all on the record: an island that was never there, a cat with a railway job, a cheese that moves. Each answer comes with its reason.
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Bizarre trivia questions, every one true
Strange places has a tree said to own itself and an island that was never there. Odd science, nature and food asks about exploding fruit, the color of the universe and a pie that stares back. Peculiar history has a laughing school and a mayor with whiskers. Hoaxes, words and in-jokes covers the jokes that fooled people.
Odd trivia questions and answers to print
A tap on a choice shows the answer and its reason. After ten questions, Print question sheet prints 20 weird trivia questions. Open More options there for Topic, to stay on one round, and for Print answer key.
Tips
Strange places is the gentlest round by our estimate and suits a mixed table.
The food questions in Odd science, nature and food are not for the dinner table: one cheese is alive.
Questions and answers
Are these strange trivia questions with answers all true?
Yes. Each answer restates a fact from the encyclopedia article linked under it, read on October 3, 2026. Where the subject is a legend or a hoax, such as the green children of Woolpit, the question says so.
Was there really an island on the maps that was never there?
Yes. Sandy Island was charted in the Coral Sea for over a century. In November 2012 a research ship passed through the area and found no island, and it was removed from many maps. The question is in Strange places.
Is there really a tree that owns itself?
According to legend, yes. A white oak in Athens, Georgia, is said to have legal ownership of itself and of all land within eight feet of its base. The question is in Strange places.
What are the weirdest trivia questions in the pack?
By our taste: what fell from the sky over Kentucky in 1876, what a railway gave its station-master cat in place of a salary, and why one tree is nicknamed the dynamite tree.
A hill in New Zealand is known for a name 85 characters long. From which language does the name come?Answer: Māori. Source: Wikipedia: Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu
According to legend, a white oak in Athens, Georgia, has legal ownership of what?Answer: Itself. Source: Wikipedia: Tree That Owns Itself
The Catatumbo lightning returns on 140 to 160 nights a year over a lake in which country?Answer: Venezuela. Source: Wikipedia: Catatumbo lightning
Lake Hillier, on an island off Western Australia, is notable for being which color?Answer: Pink. Source: Wikipedia: Lake Hillier
Sandy Island was drawn on charts of the Coral Sea for over a century. What did a research ship find at the spot in November 2012?Answer: No island at all. Source: Wikipedia: Sandy Island, New Caledonia
The Scottish village of Dull is paired with which town in Oregon?Answer: Boring. Source: Wikipedia: Dull, Perth and Kinross
The self-declared Principality of Sealand occupies what kind of structure in the North Sea?Answer: An offshore platform. Source: Wikipedia: Principality of Sealand
Webster Lake in Massachusetts has also been known since 1912 by a much longer name. How many letters does it have?Answer: 45. Source: Wikipedia: Lake Chaubunagungamaug
What gives Blood Falls, in Antarctica, its red color?Answer: Iron oxides. Source: Wikipedia: Blood Falls
What moves the "sailing stones" that leave long tracks across a dry lake bed in Death Valley?Answer: Thin sheets of ice pushed by the wind. Source: Wikipedia: Sailing stones
Odd science, nature and food 17
The "banana equivalent dose" is an informal unit, meant for teaching, of exposure to what?Answer: Radiation. Source: Wikipedia: Banana equivalent dose
The "Bloop" was a very loud underwater sound detected in 1997. What is it now put down to?Answer: Moving and breaking ice. Source: Wikipedia: Bloop
A natural nuclear fission reactor, made by geology and not by people, was first confirmed in 1972. In which country?Answer: Gabon. Source: Wikipedia: Natural nuclear fission reactor
Astronomers averaged the light of over 200,000 galaxies to find the color of the universe. What is that whitish beige called?Answer: Cosmic latte. Source: Wikipedia: Cosmic latte
Breaking sugar crystals or peeling adhesive tape can produce a faint what?Answer: Light. Source: Wikipedia: Triboluminescence
Buddha's hand is a citrus fruit split into finger-like sections. What does it lack that other citrus fruits have?Answer: Pulp and juice. Source: Wikipedia: Buddha's hand
Casu martzu, a sheep milk cheese from Sardinia, is known for containing what?Answer: Live maggots. Source: Wikipedia: Casu martzu
Drops of water skitter across a very hot pan without boiling away at once. What are they riding on?Answer: A thin layer of their own vapor. Source: Wikipedia: Leidenfrost effect
Hákarl, a national dish of Iceland, is which fish, fermented and hung to dry?Answer: Shark. Source: Wikipedia: Hákarl
How are cube watermelons given their shape?Answer: They are grown in boxes. Source: Wikipedia: Square watermelon
In 1776 an Italian biologist named the water bears Tardigrada. What does the name mean?Answer: Slow walkers. Source: Wikipedia: Tardigrade
In an experiment begun in 1927 at the University of Queensland, what takes several years to form a single drop?Answer: Pitch. Source: Wikipedia: Pitch drop experiment
The Mpemba effect is the observation that a very hot liquid can sometimes do what more quickly than a colder one?Answer: Freeze. Source: Wikipedia: Mpemba effect
Shake a container of mixed nuts and the largest end up on top. What is this called?Answer: The Brazil nut effect. Source: Wikipedia: Granular convection
Unexplained lights have been seen floating through the Hessdalen valley since at least the 1930s. In which country is it?Answer: Norway. Source: Wikipedia: Hessdalen lights
What pokes up through the crust of a Cornish stargazy pie?Answer: Fish heads. Source: Wikipedia: Stargazy pie
Why is the sandbox tree of the American tropics nicknamed the "dynamite tree"?Answer: Its fruit explodes when ripe. Source: Wikipedia: Hura crepitans
Peculiar history 11
A calendar proposed in 1902, the International Fixed Calendar, divides the year into months of 28 days. How many months?Answer: 13. Source: Wikipedia: International Fixed Calendar
A legend of 12th-century England tells of two children who appeared in the village of Woolpit. What was unusual about them?Answer: Their skin was green. Source: Wikipedia: Green children of Woolpit
In 1907 a German apothecary invented a way of taking photographs from the air. What carried the camera?Answer: A homing pigeon. Source: Wikipedia: Pigeon photography
In 1962 a boarding school in Tanganyika was forced to close after an outbreak of what?Answer: Laughter. Source: Wikipedia: Tanganyika laughter epidemic
On the Yap islands of Micronesia, what was treasured and used as money?Answer: Large stone disks with a hole in the center. Source: Wikipedia: Rai stones
Stubbs was the honorary mayor of Talkeetna, Alaska, from 1997 until 2017. What was Stubbs?Answer: A cat. Source: Wikipedia: Stubbs (cat)
Tama, a calico cat, was station master of a railway station in Japan. What did the railway give her in place of a salary?Answer: A year's worth of cat food. Source: Wikipedia: Tama (cat)
Timothy Dexter, a businessman of the 1700s, wrote a book of 8,847 words. What did it lack?Answer: Any punctuation. Source: Wikipedia: Timothy Dexter
Under the decimal time used in France from 1794 to 1800, how many hours were there in a day?Answer: 10. Source: Wikipedia: Decimal time
The Voynich manuscript has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century. What has nobody managed to do with it?Answer: Read its script. Source: Wikipedia: Voynich manuscript
What fell from the sky for several minutes over part of Bath County, Kentucky, on March 3, 1876?Answer: What appeared to be chunks of red meat. Source: Wikipedia: Kentucky meat shower
Hoaxes, words and in-jokes 10
A humorous internet standard released on April 1, 1990, proposed carrying data by what?Answer: Birds such as homing pigeons. Source: Wikipedia: IP over Avian Carriers
A made-up entry placed in a reference book to catch copiers is sometimes called a Mountweazel. What was the invented Lillian Virginia Mountweazel said to be?Answer: A fountain designer turned photographer. Source: Wikipedia: Fictitious entry
A satirical conspiracy theory, first posted online in 1994, claims that which German city does not exist?Answer: Bielefeld. Source: Wikipedia: Bielefeld conspiracy
A standard test model in 3D computer graphics, created in 1975, is a model of which household object?Answer: A teapot. Source: Wikipedia: Utah teapot
A theorem says that three objects in space can each be cut exactly in half by one flat slice. After which lunch is it named?Answer: A ham sandwich. Source: Wikipedia: Ham sandwich theorem
A tongue-in-cheek internet standard published on April 1, 1998, sets out a protocol for controlling what?Answer: Coffee pots. Source: Wikipedia: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol
A well-known parody calls for a ban on "dihydrogen monoxide". What is that chemical?Answer: Water. Source: Wikipedia: Dihydrogen monoxide parody
The Cardiff Giant, dug up by well diggers in New York State in 1869, was a hoax. What was it claimed to be?Answer: A petrified man 10 feet tall. Source: Wikipedia: Cardiff Giant
In 1835 a New York newspaper ran six articles that claimed the discovery of what?Answer: Life on the Moon. Source: Wikipedia: Great Moon Hoax
The nonsense phrase "etaoin shrdlu" sometimes turned up in old newspapers by accident. What kind of machine produced it?Answer: A typesetting machine. Source: Wikipedia: Etaoin shrdlu
How this list was compiled
Written for this site; nothing was copied from another list. Questions and wrong choices are our own. Each explanation restates, in our own sentences, a fact from the English Wikipedia article named and linked beside the question (https://en.wikipedia.org, text under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license). There is one article for each question, and the subjects were chosen from the lists kept at Wikipedia:Unusual articles. The text of each article was fetched on October 2 or 3, 2026, and on October 3, 2026 the passage that states each fact was read in it before the question was kept. Every question is about something odd that is nonetheless on the record: a place, an animal, an event, a hoax, a word or a dish. Where a story is a legend or a hoax, the question says so. Left out on purpose: living people, company and product names, record-book claims such as largest or smallest (they change hands), and anything gory. Levels are our estimate: easy is fair for any table, medium suits people who know the subject, hard will stump most tables. Each question also carries the date its article was read (checkedOn). Licence: own work