The Real Seabiscuit: Arabian Horse Rescued After 3 Mile Ocean Swim

Photo Courtesy Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol

A beautiful Arabian stallion spooked during a photo shoot on a beach decided he would take a little swim in the ocean, which turned out to be over three miles!

The seven-year-old grey Arabian named William apparently became spooked by the sound of the crashing surf on a beach in beautiful Santa Barbara, California. For some reason, he decided to run toward the sound of the pounding waves against the sand and went into the ocean.

Undeterred, he continued swimming out to sea, until he was three miles out! Meanwhile, on dry land, the horse's owner, film producer Mindy Peters, had called out the Calvary to save her beloved horse. A team of four from the Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol, Carpenteria-Summerland Fire Water Rescue, and California State Parks set out to find the suddenly nautical horse.

The group of rescuers made their way out to sea to find the Arabian, just as the sun began to set. Looking for William was like finding a needle in a haystack, but after a half hour, they saw him, struggling against the current and exhausted. He was startled to see the rescue boats, but didn't put up a fight when his rescuers created a makeshift harness to slip under his saddle and tie to the side of the rescue boat to keep him buoyant in order to pull him back to shore, which took a grueling two hours.

So far, William doesn't seem any worse for wear after his marathon swimming session in the Pacific. Owner Mindy Peters says her horse had never been swimming before in his life, and she hopes he won't be anxious to hit the surf again!

Fire in the Sky: Information on Sunday's Exploding Meteor Over Nevada & California

More information is coming to light regarding the large bolide meteor believed to have exploded in the atmosphere over Reno, Nevada and the Sierra Mountain Range of California early on Sunday morning, April 22, 2012.

According to respected scientific web site SpaceWeather.com , the loud, concussive explosion caused by the meteor impacting Earth's atmosphere, rattled homes and was heard in a broad area covering more than a thousand square miles. The explosion caused a flurry of calls to emergency services from concerned citizens across the region.

According to Bill Cooke, head of NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office, the source of the blast was a moderate meteor roughly the size of a minivan. "The energy is estimated at a whopping 3.8 kilotons of TNT, so this was a big event," Cooke states. "I am not saying there was a 3.8 kiloton explosion on the ground in California. I am saying that the meteor possessed this amount of energy before it broke apart in the atmosphere." 3.8 kilotons would be approximately one fourth of the energy released by the "Little Boy" atomic weapon dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, at the end of WWII.

As for the conjecture that this bolide meteor event was a part of the yearly Lyrid meteor shower, Cooke is not convinced: "This meteor was probably not a Lyrid; without a trajectory, I cannot rule out a Lyrid origin, but I think it likely that it was a background or sporadic meteor." The Lyrid meteor shower is believed to be the remnants of Comet Thatcher, which disintegrated as it neared the sun.

Does a Bear Text in the Woods? Texting Man Has Close Encounter with Bear

Of all the inherent dangers of texting on your phone and not paying attention to your surroundings, the one you would least likely anticipate would be an encounter with a bear in the city. Yet, that's exactly what happened to one young man in Glendale, California...

It seems a brown bear has made the upscale California neighborhood his local stomping ground after the beast was spotted eating frozen dinners out of a garage refrigerator a few weeks ago. After acquiring a taste for yummy human food, the male brown bear was spotted again today, this time trailed by local television helicopters!

As the helicopters followed the animal in quick pursuit, he suddenly turned down an alleyway where local resident Vaz Terdandenyan was walking and using his phone to text his boss that he would be late to work due to the police activity surrounding the bear hunt. Terdandenyan happened to look up from the phone in time to see the 500 lb. bear ambling toward him. Needless to say, he made a hasty retreat in the opposite direction and ran to safety! Luckily, Terdandenyan is a good runner, having recently trained for a marathon.

Animal control agents were able to safely tranquilize the bear with two darts to ensure that he slept peacefully while they worked to get him into a cage to transport him back into the wild. When the bear awakes, he will be released to an undisclosed location deep within the Angeles National Forest.

In the Belly of the Whale: Surfer Almost Swallowed Whole by Humpback Whale

A female surfer in Santa Cruz, California, almost played out a real life version of the classic Bible story Jonah and the Whale when a large humpback whale almost swallowed her whole!

The bikini-clad surfer was enjoying a beautiful Halloween day as her friend recorded her activities. As the surfer approached two people in a kayak for a conversation about the fascinating creatures, a whale breaches the water mere feet from where she is paddling on her surfboard, momentarily looking as if she had been swallowed up by the feeding humpback whale as it scoops up a large school of fish into its enormous mouth! There were actually two whales in the video, exhibiting "lung feeding" behavior, as they hunt in pairs, herding anchovies and other fish and shooting straight up out of the water with their mouths wide open to catch as many fish as they can at a time.

It was a shocking close encounter with Mother Nature we are sure the surfer will never forget: