THIS DAY IN WEIRD

On This Day in Weird, January 23...

1556: History's deadliest earthquake kills 830,000 people in Shensi Province, China.

1944: Actor Rutger Hauer—known for roles in Blade Runner, Ladyhawke, The Hitcher, Bone Daddy, 'Salem's Lot, Dracula III: Legacy, and Dracula 3D—is born in Holland.

1949: Burt Leckington and his wife see a UFO 10-15 feet in diameter over Highway 101, south of Tillamook, Oregon.

1959: Radar tracks a UFO passing over Panama.

1960: The bathyscaphe Trieste reaches the Pacific Ocean's floor in the Challenger Deep, at 35,814 feet.

1961: A giant squid washes ashore at Oi, Hirata-shi, in Japan's Shimane Prefecture. It measures 8.5 feet and weighs 91 pounds.

1965: Motorists traveling on U.S. Highway 6 north of Williamsburg, Va., see a "mushroom-shaped" UFO 75-80 feet tall and 10-25 feet wide, hovering over a roadside field.

1971: Two students parked outside Flagstaff, Ariz., report a 5-foot-tall Sasquatch peering into their car.

1974: An aerial explosion shocks residents of Llandrillo, Wales. Rushing outside, they see blue and orange lights circling over nearby Cader Mountain. Police and RAF personnel soon arrive and cordon off the area, sparking rumors of a UFO crash.

1975: Rookie policeman Rim Dunn sees a "skunk ape" while on patrol in Miramar, Fla.

1975: Witnesses report a UFO over Indianapolis, Ind.

1977: Two hunters fire shots at Bigfoot without result, at Blewett Pass, near Ingalic Creek, Wash.

1980: A workman at the Nevada Test Site (home of Area 51) sees an apelike creature six to seven feet tall cross a desert roadway.

2012: A husband and wife photograph oversized humanoid footprints on their rural property near Albany, Illinois.