43 mind-boggling photos from 2019 that will make you look twice

• Reuters editors have compiled their oddest pictures of the year collection for 2019, and they’re really strange.
• Some of these mind-boggling photos aren’t what they seem to be.
• Others show us some of the most shocking and unusual creations, events, and phenomena of our time.
• Take a look at the oddest pictures of the year.
• Visit INSIDER’s homepage for more stories.

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Some of these photos are odd simply because the subject matter is odd. Zorica Rebernik is obsessed with the color red. Here she is drinking coffee in her house in the village of Breze near Tuzla, Bosnia, and Herzegovina.

Source: Reuters

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In this photo, doctors arrange tooth-like structures removed from a seven-year-old boy’s mouth inside a hospital in Chennai, India. The boy went to the hospital for jaw pain, and more than 500 “teeth” were removed from the right side of the boy’s mouth.

Source: Physicians Weekly

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This yellow trail is a single-celled organism — otherwise known as slime mold — and it’s forming over a piece of tree bark at the Paris Zoological Park in Paris. It has no brain, but it has the ability to learn. Scientists are calling it one of “nature’s mysteries.”

Source: MSN

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A wallaby mother carries a newborn albino red-necked wallaby joey in their enclosure at the zoo in Decin, Czech Republic. Albino wallabies are extremely rare, according to BBC.

Source: BBC, EuroNews

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Thailand's biggest burger is pictured here at Chris Steaks & Burgers, according to the restaurant. If you can eat the restaurant's 13-pound burger in under 9 minutes, you could win a $330 prize.

Source: Reuters, New York Post

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After the National Museum in Warsaw, Poland, banned an artistic film of a woman eating a banana, a group of people protesting the ban shared some bananas in front of the museum.

Source: Business Insider

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This may be the saddest clown event in the world. Each year, clowns and entertainers gather to attend a service of remembrance in honor of the 19th-century British clown Joseph Grimaldi at the All Saints Church in London.

Source: Daily Mail UK

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People sit inside coffins during a "living funeral" event as part of a "dying well" program, in Seoul, South Korea. This ceremony is trending in South Korea. Participants simulate their own death for a fresh mindset on life.

Source: Reuters, Channel News Asia

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LiLou — the world's first airport therapy pig — stands in front of a departures board at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco. LiLou's airport duties include greeting passengers with her hoof, taking pictures with people, and playing music for them on a toy piano.

Source: INSIDER

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And this rescued pig named Pigcasso paints at the Farm Sanctuary in Franschhoek, outside Cape Town, South Africa.

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Police officers hold a revolver as they ritually offer prayers to their weapons at their headquarters in Ahmedabad, India. This is a part of a Hindu tradition of worshiping instruments.

Source: The Straits Times

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Some of these photos are odd because they show odd creations. Frankie the French mastiff poses while in a lion costume at the Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade in New York.

Source: The Telegraph

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Jared Leto's costume at the 2019 Met Gala included a sculpture of his own head. The Gala's theme in 2019 celebrated artifice, exaggeration, and the unnatural.

Source: Business Insider, INSIDER

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Ezra Miller's 2019 Met Gala costume was even odder, featuring eye makeup as an optical illusion.

Source: Business Insider

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Over in London, fashion gets weirder. Here, a model presents a creation during the University of Westminster MA menswear catwalk show at London Fashion Week Men's.

Source: News18

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At another British fashion show, a model presents a creation that includes several plush Elmo dolls. This is the "On|Off Presents..." catwalk show at London Fashion Week Women's.

Source: The Telegraph

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But it's not just fashion shows that are showing off odd creations. A participant of the international World Beard and Moustache Championships poses before taking part in one of the 17 categories of beard and mustache styles competing in Antwerp, Belgium.

Source: Reuters

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A German man name Rolf Buchholz holds the world record for the man with the most piercings with his 480 piercings. Here he is during the 2019 International Brussels Tattoo Convention.

Source: Daily Mail UK

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No, Smurfs aren't real. These participants dressed as Smurfs are 11 of 2,762 people that broke the record for most people dressed as Smurfs in Lauchringen, Germany.

Source: Gulf News

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An artist called "A Gargoyle" takes part in the festival "Statues en Marche" in Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium. This is the biggest living statue festival in Europe. Artists pose as if they are made of stone on street corners for long periods of time.

Source: New York Post, Hindustan Times

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Some strange sculptures have received worldwide attention, too. Here, people bathe in a decommissioned city bus named "le bus piscine", an artwork by the French artist Benedetto Bufalino in Gosnay near Bethune, France.

Source: NBC

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A life-sized wooden sculpture of US first lady Melania Trump stands in Rozno, near her hometown of Sevnica, Slovenia.

Source: Business Insider, Reuters

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Russian blogger and actor Roman Pritula poses for a picture with his "Dogmobile" near the Smolny Cathedral in Saint Petersburg, Russia. The van's skeleton is an old Volkswagen Transporter, and it resembles a van from the movie Dumb and Dumber.

Source: Reuters

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This perfectly-timed silhouette shot is a sight to see. A man walks past a 1986 fiberglass sculpture commonly named "The Headington Shark," which is embedded in the roof of a house in Oxford, England.

Source: Reuters

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Congressional staffers load Max the Moose into Senator Jeanne Shaheen's office for the 10th annual Experience New Hampshire reception on Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. The annual reception is a showcase for all things New Hampshire.

Source: Reuters, Experience New Hampshire

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Frieden Burda museum employees put Banksy's partially shredded artwork "Love is in the bin" in place at the museum in Baden Baden, Germany. The artwork — previously titled "Girl with Balloon" — self-destructed after selling for $1.93 million. Banksy secretly built a shredder into the painting.

Source: Business Insider

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A French nightclub featured pole-dancing robots, which were created by British artist Giles Walker. The robot "strippers" dance alongside human dancers, and they have cameras for heads and their bodies are made of plastic mannequin parts and vehicle parts.

Source: Daily Mail UK

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A booth for an organization that aims to deliver information and education to North Koreans via flash drives showcased a "subversive" display featuring North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the South by Southwest (SXSW) in Austin, Texas. The movement is called "Flash for Freedom."

Source: Business Insider

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Some of these photos aren't what they seem to be at first, like this photo of a personified machine. "Chomper," a semi-autonomous, googly-eyed, GPS-guided snowblower designed and built by MIT research engineer Dane Kouttron, clears snow after an overnight storm in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Source: The Atlantic

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This robot isn't a nurse, but it's dressed like one, and it's carrying medical documents at Mongkutwattana General Hospital in Bangkok, Thailand.

Source: MSN

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People dressed as penguins play at a playground on the "Rosenmontag" or "Rose Monday" in Cologne, Germany. They're dressed up for the celebration, which is rooted in Germany's history as a celebration of the start of spring.

Source: Business Insider, Aljazeera, The Atlantic

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Pusha the cat adopted four orphaned baby squirrels and feeds and lives with them. Here, Pusha appears to be grooming a squirrel, while other cats might've tried to consume it.

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Yes, those are real guns, although they look comically large. French Army soldiers hold anti-drone guns during the traditional Bastille Day military parade on the Champs-Elysees Avenue in Paris, France.

Source: Voice of America

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No, she's not bathing in a sea of blood — it's tomato pulp at the annual "La Tomatina" tomato food fight festival in Bunol, near Valencia, Spain.

Source: Reuters

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Surprisingly, this isn't Mars, though you're supposed to think it is. This is the C-Space Project Mars simulation base in the Gobi Desert outside Jinchang, Gansu Province, China.

Source: Reuters

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A BASE jumper looks like he's suspended in the air after leaping from Kuala Lumpur Tower on a hazy day during International Jump Malaysia 2019 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Source: The Telegraph

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Other photos are simply and delightfully unexpected. Here, a boy competes in a rodeo event called mutton busting at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa. Mutton busting is when children ride or race on sheep.

Source: Reuters

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Jim, a two-month-old baby gibbon, embraces a teddy bear in a winter enclosure at a zoo in Almaty, Kazakhstan.

Source: The Telegraph

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Two pups named Prince Dudeman and Flofy ride a wave together at the 14th annual Helen Woodward Animal Center "Surf-A-Thon" in Del Mar, California.

Source: Reuters

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An itty-bitty frog is caught in a raindrop on a lotus leaf in a pond after rain in Lalitpur, Nepal.

Source: The Atlantic

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How often do you see a giant balloon of a penguin bobbing along down the street? The larger-than-life character from the movie "Madagascar" was featured during the Balloon Day Parade in Brussels, Belgium.

Source: The Atlantic

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A security staff member attempts to apprehend a pitch invader at an ICC Cricket World Cup game in Emirates Riverside, Chester-Le-Street, Britain.

Source: The Atlantic

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An audience member joins the models for the final walk of Chanel Spring/Summer 2020 women's ready-to-wear collection show during the Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France. Apparently, this was an unplanned prank by the audience member, who happens to be a comedian.

Source: Glamour