Shoving an astronaut suit out of an airlock and into space might seem like a scene from a movie, but it really happened. In 2003, an empty spacesuit was thrown into space, nicknamed Ivan Ivanovitch (or Mr. Smith), stuffed with old clothes and a radio transmitter.

The idea was that old spacesuits could be used as satellites. SuitSat-1, as it was named, went on to spend several months in silent orbit before entering Earth's atmosphere and burning up on September 7, 2006.

Image: Sieuwert Otterloo

In this strange psychological experiment, researchers asked participants to watch a video of people passing a basketball and count how many passes were made. The catch was that, during the video, a person in a gorilla suit walked into the frame, stopped to pound its chest, and then walked out.

The study revealed a curious phenomenon known as "inattentional blindness": people were so focused on counting the passes that they failed to notice the gorilla.

Image: Mike Arney

In 2011, scientists sent two golden silk orb-weaver spiders on a 45-day trip aboard the ISS. They were kept in an adequate habitat, and both spiders adapted beautifully, continuing to spin their webs and hunt for food.

But not everything was normal. In microgravity, the spiders spun their webs differently—flatter and rounder—compared to the more three-dimensional, asymmetrical structures that orb-weavers spin on Earth.

Image: Vidar Nordli-Mathisen

In 1942, a professor conducted an experiment with boys who had been diagnosed as chronic nail-biters. He used a phonograph with the recorded message "My fingernails taste bitter," playing it over and over at night in the room where the boys slept.

At the end of the summer, the professor examined the boys' nails and concluded that 40% of them had kicked the habit.

Image: Nick Karvounis

In 2004, sixteen people with varying swimming skills swam in both a regular pool and a pool of guar syrup, which is twice as thick as water, for an experiment conducted by the University of Minnesota. The differences in their recorded times were negligible.

Image: Arwin Neil Baichoo

People encountering bearcats have noted that these animals smell like movie theater popcorn. A non-profit organization tested the bearcat's urine, and the results showed the presence of a chemical compound called 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline.

As it turns out, this is the same compound that gives popcorn its signature smell.

Image: Corina Rainer

Hoping to find out whether the 24-hour sleep-wake human rhythm was merely a habit, two scientists spent 32 days in a cave to avoid any external reference to day and night.

They tried out a 28-hour day, sleeping for 9 hours, working for 10 hours, and having 9 hours of leisure time. The younger scientist adapted within the first week, while the older one failed to adapt.

Image: Ocean Ng

A fake doctor delivered a lecture in 1970 to a crowd of assembled experts titled "Mathematical Game Theory as Applied to Physician Education." His performance impressed the audience so much that nobody noticed he was an actor who didn’t know anything about game theory.

The researchers behind the experiment wanted to find out if a great delivery technique could fool a group of experts—and it did.

Image: Hunters Race

The most famous experiment on our list is also one of the strangest. In 1752, Benjamin Franklin flew a kite in a thunderstorm to demonstrate the electrical nature of lightning.

While many believe otherwise, no lightning hit the kite. Instead, ambient electrical charge moved through the hemp wire, and when Franklin touched the key attached to the wire, he felt a spark, thus proving the existence of such electricity.

Image: Brett Wharton

As we've learned, Americans like taking things to outer space and then bringing them right back. The Apollo 14 mission carried hundreds of tree seeds into space. These "moon trees" were then planted across the country by the US Forest Service.

Unsurprisingly, the trees grew just like any other tree of the same species.

Image: David Dibert