Occasionally, people come across a potentially disastrous problem that just doesn't seem to have a solution. In those desperate situations where science and rational thought have been completely exhausted (or in some cases boldly ignored), ridiculous ideas are the only ones left to try. Still, we're wondering just how many of the successful solutions below were first offered out of pure sarcasm.

5 An Aquarium Hires the World's Tallest Man to Save a Choking Dolphin

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The Problem:

You know how puppies will spend the first few months of life just chewing up random objects around the house? Well, it turns out dolphins are the same way. That's why two dolphins at an aquarium in China were chowing down on the plastic lining that surrounded their pool when large chunks of the material became lodged in their stomachs (because, like all higher mammals, dolphins will occasionally do things that don't make one bit of sense). The pieces were too big for the animals to digest, so they just sat piled in their guts like giant lumps of melted G.I. Joes, preventing the dolphins from eating anything else.

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This was an even bigger problem than you'd think -- highly trained professionals could literally find no feasible way to get the plastic out of the ailing animals. Dolphins can expand and contract their stomachs, and they were clenching them pretty well shut in their distress, preventing veterinarians from inserting any medical instruments. The only course of action seemed to be to start looking up dolphin breeders on Craigslist to find a new pair of charming attractions and calling up a tuna cannery to schedule disposal of their two soon-to-be-dead sea mammals.

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"Dude, make it do a back flip. Your cat will clean it up."

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But at this point somebody apparently threw up his hand and eagerly suggested, "What if we just get a really tall guy to reach down the dolphins' throats and pull the plastic out? I saw it in a cartoon one time."

The Absurd Solution:

So, in a last-ditch effort to save the two dolphins from starving to death, the aquarium called up Bao Xishun, a former Guinness World Record holder for world's tallest man, to come reach his absurdly long arms down the animals' throats to see if he could yank the plastic out.