As we close out another wildly successful year at Wall Patch, we thought we'd take a look at some of the surprise stories that garnered big attention from Wall Patch readers.

It's a given that Wall Patch will bring you the most comprehensive and useful news and information about Wall Township, but we also know there's a whole big world out there beyond the boundaries of the township, difficult as that may be to believe. We try to bring you some of the major stories going on in the outside world, too. Sometimes, they catch fire.

Here's a short list of those not-necessarily-local stories that you, Wall Patch readers, viewed the most:

1.) PHOTOS: Boat Struggles In Shark River Inlet:
These photos of a boat nearly capsizing while fighting the rough surf ahead of Hurricane Sandy were enormously popular, and for good reason.

2.) Butterflies Fluttering By: Red Admirals "Irrupting'' All Over The Place: This one stunned us, honestly. One day, we noticed an abundance of butterflies flying past Wall Patch World Headquarters, so we made a couple of phone calls and wrote a quick story. Apparently, everyone else in the known world was noticing the same thing, because this was one of the most popular stories of the year.

3.) VIDEO: Venus Transit 2012 from Super Hi-Def NASA Camera: Space. It's the final frontier, someone once said, and it still holds the fascination of lots of people, as evidenced by the popularity of this story.

4.) PHOTOS: Space Shuttle Enterprise Sails to Intrepid Museum: See what we mean? Space. Popular.

5.) Ryan Lanza, Wrongly Named As Mass Murderer, Left To Grieve: This story about the misidentification of a Hoboken man as the shooter in Newtown, Conn., garnered a top spot on the list.