Jockstrip: The world as we know it

Pickled baby alien model baffles U.K.

GUNTHORPE, England, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A man who found a pickled model of a space alien while cleaning out an attic in England thinks the U.S. military had a hand in creating it.

Barney Broom was renovating his cottage he bought several months ago when he made the startling find -- a 12-inch figure of a large-eyed baby alien stored in a pungent liquid with some kind of a U.S. serial number painted on its four-toed foot.

He told The Guardian he found it odd that is was in an old toffee jar wrapped in a copy of the Daily Mirror dating from October 1947. In July of that year, officials at the U.S. air base of Roswell, N.M., reported and then denied finding the remains of a flying saucer.

His cottage at Gunthorpe is 45 miles from two large air bases at RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Air Force said it had never made such models of an alien, the figure was not government property and the serial number could mean it had been catalogued by a museum.

"It's a hoax," the spokeswoman told the newspaper.

Dating site now offers couples counseling

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Couples who pay to find one another on a popular U.S. dating site can now pay even more for help when their relationship hits a rocky patch.

Monday, EHarmony.com rolled out a service in which couples fill out 310-item online questionnaires concerning communication, romance, sex and other topics. They then receive a computer-processed marriage profile that points out strengths and possible problem areas, The Los Angeles Times reports.

"We call it a marriage wellness service," said company founder and pitchman Neil Clark Warren, 71, whose TV commercials have been parodied by Jay Leno and on "Saturday Night Live."

Additionally, a series of instructional online videos, with Warren as host, can be added to the package, bringing the total to $239.

However, there are no discounts for couples who met on the Pasadena-based site, the report said.

Super Bowl party had strippers at halftime

HARVEY, Ill., Feb. 7 (UPI) -- The organizers of a big Super Bowl party at a banquet and recreation hall in Harvey, Ill., are unrepentant about their halftime entertainment -- strippers.

While the 72,000 football fans at Detroit's Ford Field gyrated to the venerable Rolling Stones at halftime, those watching the game at a park district recreation hall were being entertained by scantily clad women, the Daily Southtown reported.

The newspaper said some police officers were present at the Sunday night party when the strippers performed, but a city official said no on-duty officers were present and no city police officers provided security at the event.

Father buried in yard; funeral too costly

TAKAMATSU, Japan, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- A Japanese mother and son told police they buried the man's father in their back yard because they couldn't afford a funeral.

Police in Takamatsu dug up the skeletal remains of the 93-year-old father during the weekend.

The 59-year-old son allegedly told police in additional to not being able to afford a funeral, he buried his father in the yard because he didn't want the man's pension benefits to stop coming. The father died last September.

Police said they found the body following a tip from a relative, the Kyodo news agency said.