Goodbye 2012: Top Non-Local Stories

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

Here's a short list of those not-necessarily-local, but nearby, stories that you 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, 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.) This story about the misidentification of a Hoboken man as the shooter in Newtown, Conn., garnered a top spot on the list.