Evansville's Ohio River camper featured alongside Pete Davidson in 'The Weekly World News'

Jon Webb, Evansville Courier & Press
·2 min read
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EVANSVILLE – Move over, Bat Boy: a famous Evansville landmark has landed in "The Weekly World News."

The fiction-filled black-and-white tabloid, which graced grocery store checkout lines for years and warned of the end of the world every couple weeks, featured the Ohio River camper in posts to its Facebook and Instagram pages Tuesday morning.

The post was yet another joke about the feud between Kanye West and “Saturday Night Live” alum Pete Davidson, who briefly dated West’s ex-wife, Kim Kardashian. It shows Davidson standing on a sandbar as the camper – christened the “P**n Saloon” – looms in the background.

“Pete Davidson Seen Leaving a Questionable Establishment in Utah’s West Desert,” the headline says.

"With Kanye stalking him," a caption read, "he (sic) to hideout somewhere."

'The best thing':The Ohio River camper captured Evansville's attention. Why?

Changing the camper’s location isn’t the biggest deviation from the facts “The Weekly World News” has ever taken.

The tabloid, which ceased publication in 2007 but restarted online a few years later, is known for fictional, outlandish headlines. In its pages, Hillary Clinton adopted an alien baby, Elvis lived on, and the end of the world was constantly around the corner.

Its greatest creation, though, was Bat Boy: a half-bat-half-boy found in a cave who has purportedly gone on to form a rock band, get knighted by Queen Elizabeth II and fight in the Iraq War.

What's next for the Ohio River camper?

In this July 28 photo, the camper sits on an Ohio River sandbar. Several days later, the Ohio River levels rose, sweeping the camper downstream to Henderson.
In this July 28 photo, the camper sits on an Ohio River sandbar. Several days later, the Ohio River levels rose, sweeping the camper downstream to Henderson.

The camper now enters that fray. It created a stir in Evansville when it showed up on a sandbar in July, prompting visitors, scores of social media posts, and scorn from local and federal law enforcement, who saw it as a danger as Ohio River waters rose.

The camper eventually sank. And when two Kentucky-based rescue services pulled it from the water, it broke apart on a boat ramp.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Ohio River camper of Evansville featured next to Pete Davidson of SNL