15 Most Bizarre Articles Hiding On Wikipedia

The folks over at Boston's Massachusetts State House are really into their cods. Hanging in the House of Representatives chamber is a four foot, eleven inch wooden codfish nicknamed the "Sacred Cod," and whoever wrote this entry treats the whole thing very seriously.

Just look at the image caption at the top, which describes this wooden fish in the most poetic possible terms: "Humble the subject and homely the design; yet this painted image bears on its finny front a majesty greater than the dignity that art can lend to graven gold orchiselled marble...". That's where it stops, as if the writer was so entranced they became lost in thought.

This cod has been stolen multiple times over the years, and so naturally there's a section on that. Rather than calling it "notable thefts" or something similar, the section is instead called "Cod-napping." Yeah, that's how they're going to refer to it. In this description, it comes across like a genuine national tragedy when the wooden fish was stolen for a brief period of time.

A New York Times article is referenced discussing the first session after the cod went missing, and some legislators wanted to postpone because it didn't feel right without their fish being there. Basically, this cod was like the magic conch shell from Spongebob Squarepants.