400 years old Church

In 2015, the remains of a Colonial-era church emerged from the receding waters of a river in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The Grijalva River watershed was hit by a drought this year, which caused the water level in the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir to decrease by 82 feet. 

The church was built in the mid-16th century by a group of monks (led by Friar Bartolome de la Casas) in the Quechula region, which was formerly inhabited by the Zoque people. It was originally lost to the waters of the Nezahualcoyotl reservoir in 1966 when it flooded.

Railway carriages into Holiday Homes

It's a first class idea that is also an original alternative to other accommodations out there. The Old Station in Allerston, North Yorkshire used to be a working railway station, but it has been converted into a family home and guest houses. The idea has proved to be a hit with visitors, and the houses evoke romantic images of the great age of steam trains as seen in Brief Encounter and The Orient Express. The homes are owned by Carol and Mark Benson. Mark, 55, who still has a day job as a surveyor for Network Rail, made the railway station their home.

Decorating cues from "The Simpsons"

A fridge full of Duff beer would make Joel Hamilton and Marcia Andreychuk's kitchen even more “excellent.” But for now, the Calgary couple are fine with transforming it into a replica of the one from the Simpsons, complete with orange and purple cupboards, lime green appliances, and carrot adorned curtains.

Hamilton, 35, is a lifelong fan of the show that's spanned 26 seasons and is part of the pop culture lexicon. A framed picture of the cartoon kitchen hangs on the wall as their inspiration, and the couple figures their real-life tribute is about 80% complete. The cost so far? About $2,300 estimates Andreychuk, 43, who noted the checkered floor made up the bulk of the price tag.

Andreychuk sewed the carrot curtains herself. The countertops, appliances, and cupboards have been touched up with colorful contact paper. Andreychuk said they weren't planning to extend the tribute to the living room and bedrooms.

Home into an Airplane

Lovebirds Steve and Vicky Everson took their marriage to new heights after spending £40,000 ($60,000) to turn their modest home into a plane. The pair transformed the two-up two-down terraced house in Bacup, Lancs into a replica of a Boeing 737.

The aviation project started in 2009 after they created a flight simulator in the spare room of their previous home in Milton Keynes. After moving north, they put it back together again. It was so big it stretched from one side of the house to the other.

The couple, who even tied the knot in a Concorde four years earlier, regularly take up to 12 passengers in their "airplane," on simulated “flights” to New York and Hong Kong. Broadcast engineer Steve, 42, said: “Everyone thinks we're a bit eccentric, but you have to do what makes you happy.”

Massive Indoor Aquarium

We all love fish, right? Well, maybe not as much as Martin Lakin, who almost destroyed his house to install a 5,000-liter aquarium right in the middle of it.

An architect warned him the bizarre renovation would make his whole house collapse. He went ahead with it anyway and tore the house in Rochester, Kent, apart, as his bemused wife Kay and son James looked on. Apparently the tank was so huge they could even swim in it before the fish arrived.

The tank cost around £50,000 ($75,000), but with the half ton of live coral, complex machinery (including an automated sunroof), pumps and computers that run the aquarium 24 hours a day, Martin reckons the total cost is around £150,000 ($230,000). Now that it is complete, it's home to more than 120 fish.

The men who held Charlie Chaplin's body for $600,000 ransom

In 1978, two men stole the corpse of Charlie Chaplin from a cemetery in the Swiss village of Corsier-sur-Vevey, located in the hills above Lake Geneva, near Lausanne, Switzerland. 

Immediately after the body snatching, Chaplin's widow, Oona, received a ransom demand of some $600,000, which she refused to pay, saying that her husband would have thought the demand “ridiculous.” The callers then made threats against her two youngest children. 

After a five-week investigation, police arrested two auto mechanics—Roman Wardas, of Poland, and Gantscho Ganev, of Bulgaria. Busted, the criminals led police to Chaplin's body, which they had buried in a cornfield about one mile from his family's home in Corsier.

In December 1978, Wardas and Ganev were convicted of grave robbing and attempted extortion. Wardas and Ganev apparently stole Chaplin's body in an attempt to solve their financial difficulties. 

Wardas, identified as the mastermind of the plot, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years of hard labor. Ganev was given an 18-month suspended sentence, as he was believed to have limited responsibility for the crime. 

As for Chaplin, his family reburied his body in a concrete grave, where he remains, in peace, to this day. 

The famous family who staged a phony grave robbery in order to move a body to the place of their choice

Did Elvis Presley's family stage a plot to snatch the King's body after he died in 1977? An FBI informant says yes, and was also allegedly involved in the scheme. 

The goal was to persuade Memphis officials to move Elvis from the public cemetery to Graceland, which is now a $15 million-a-year tourist attraction. 

The late Vernon Presley, Elvis' father and executor of his estate at the time, wanted his son buried on the mansion grounds, but it was in an area not zoned for burials. Three weeks after Elvis died of a heart attack, Vernon had lawyers for the Presley estate petition the Memphis and Shelby County Board of Adjustment for a zoning variance. They cited what they called an attempted theft of Presley's body several days earlier and the expense of round-the-clock security.

Obviously, the grave robbery was a hoax, but nonetheless, three men were arrested on August 29, 1977, near the Forest Hill Cemetery mausoleum where Elvis was entombed in a 900-pound copper coffin. One of them was Ronnie Tyler, who later became an FBI informant.

Tyler “had been in cahoots with a crooked deputy sheriff, who swooped down and ‘captured' the thieves,” said Ivian C. Smith, former head of the FBI's Arkansas office.

On September 28, 1977, the board OK'd Presley's request to move his son's body to Graceland. The singer was reburied there on October 2. 

More than 600,000 people, at about $77 a head, visit Graceland and Elvis' gravesite each year.