Dec. 4, 2025

Chicago's Rat Hole? It was never a rat! This is what it was...

Show Notes
Transcript

First, Chicago's viral 'rat hole' turns out to be an eastern gray squirrel fossil. Next, a Roman tombstone, thought lost after WWII, was discovered in a New Orleans backyard. Natalie, an 80-year-old from New Jersey, becomes the oldest woman to finish the Iron Man World Championship. Henry the polar bear enjoys a 1400-pound pumpkin at Ontario's Cochrane polar bear habitat. Finally, a diaper-wearing sheep on a high-speed train in Poland grabs attention.

5 Good News Stories is a daily podcast with five positive, uplifting news stories to brighten your day. New episodes every day. Follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Part of the Caloroga Shark Media network

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Caalaroga Shark Media. Hey there, I'm Johnny Mack with five

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good stories. Remember Chicago's famous rat hole if you know,

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and I'll tell you about it. Well, anyway, it turns

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out it wasn't a rat after all. Yeah, there was

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this patch of sidewalk in Chicago that appeared to bear

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the outline of a rat that had been like crushed

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into wet cement decades ago, leaving behind an urban fossil.

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This went viral a year ago after a comedian posted

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it that drew a lot of crowds. The crowds got

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so intense, neighbors complained, and the city workers removed the

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rat hole. Come on, guys, that's no fun. They did

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put a plaque there, but come on, what are you

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doing anyway. Researchers from the University of Tennessee, New York

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Institute of Technology, and the University of Calgary, So this

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is three different universities get involved with the rat hole.

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They say the rat was never a rat at all.

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They compared photos and measure of the rat hole with

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local animal specimens. They concluded it was probably an Eastern

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gray squirrel. They called out the creature's long fore limbs

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and hind paws too big for a rat. They propose

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the specimen be re christened the Windy City Sidewalk squirrel,

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which is not as much fun as rat hole. Let's

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keep the urban legend. Come on, scientists, and hey, city,

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just put it back. In New Orleans, a family was

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clearing weeds from their backyard. Can you guys come over

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if you've got some free time. They made a discovery

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a nineteen hundred year old Roman tombstone in New Orleans.

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What at first glance it looked like a marble tablet. Daniella,

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a Two Lane University anthropologist, noted the Latin inscription, including

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the phrase spirits of the dead. She was like, huh.

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The fact that it was in Latin gave us pause.

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I mean, you'd see something like that and you go, okay,

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this is not an ordinary thing. Her colleague, Susan, who's

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a classical archaeologist, confirmed, oh, this is the long lost

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grave more marker of a Roman sailor named Sexus Congenius Verus,

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who died at forty two years old after serving two

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decades in the Imperial Navy. Don't forget we're in New

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Orleans here. What happened the tablet had gone missing from

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an Italian museum decades ago, who was thought lost after

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World War two bombing destroyed much of the museum's collection.

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Scientists compared the measurements. They matched perfectly and said, you

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can't have better DNA than that. All right, what's the mystery?

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Aaron was watching this story on the news and said,

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I know that stone. Aaron and her ex husband had

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once used it as a Gordon decoration. She said, none

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of us knew what it was. We're watching the video

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kind of in shock. Aaron's grandparents had brought it from Italy,

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where her grandfather was stationed during World War Two. Officials

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are trying to get this thing home. Wow. Congratulations to Natalie,

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who's eighty years old and from Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.

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She became the oldest woman ever to finish the Ironman

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World Championship. Now, if you're not familiar with the iron Man,

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you swim two point four miles, okay, then you hop

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on your bike into one hundred and twelve, and then

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you run a marathon. Coach Michelle said Natalie didn't even

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learn to swim until she was sixty. She's truly gritty.

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Natalie is the definition of grit and gratitude. Grateful to

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make it to the start line, grateful to get to

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do something she loves every day, and grateful to aspire

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so many others. Sixteen hours, forty five minutes and twenty

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six seconds. I don't know how you do it. I've

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done the math on like how fast I run, so

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assuming I don't fatigue, and I've done the math on, Okay,

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if I started this thing and I swim and then

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I bike, and then I run my usual marathon pace,

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ignoring that I've already swam and biked, and assuming I

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don't fatigue at all, I can't do this thing before sunset.

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This is so impressive to me. Congratulations. Henry the polar

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Bear had a good day. He had a meal, a

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fourteen hundred pound pumpkin. You got to do something with

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these pumpkins, right. Henry lives at the Cochran Polar Bear

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Habitat in Ontario. He was walking around and he was like, hey,

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what's this? Was it? Big giant pumpkin? And first he's like, yeah,

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I'm not gonna eat that, but then he was like,

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does look tasty. Amy works at the habitat and said

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one of My staff was driving up from down south

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and ended up directly behind this pumpkin as it was

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on the highway. She said, if she didn't take it, it

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was going to head to the compost. So what do

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you do? You feed it to the polar bear. Of course,

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you don't just drive by the giant pumpkin. You grab

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it and you feed it to a polar bear. The

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polar bear did seem to enjoy it, however, polar bears

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need fat heavy meals like baby seals, and pumpkins are

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all fiber. No gain. Regardless, it made for fun Instagram videos.

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All right, John, what happened on your commute today? Well,

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you see, I'm there on the train right and then

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all of a sudden there was this sheep wearing a diaper.

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A diaper wearing a sheep aboard a high speed train

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in Poland went viral. You think a member of parliament

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posted the video. He was not amused. He said, I'm

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currently on a train of Warsaw and I wonder is

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this still a passenger train or a cattle car. He

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criticized the sheep's owner for the unconventional means of transport

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and as well as the train service for a lot it. However,

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the train company rules do allow for animals to be

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transported on its trains provided and I'm not making this up,

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I'm not making a joke, providing that they're properly ticketed

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and wearing diapers. And those are five good news stories today.

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Have a good one.