Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 267
June 18, 2019
Inside The Most Off-Limits Places – Ripley’s Believe It or Notcast Episode 002
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
WARNING: This story contains the descriptions of off-limits places where people are not allowed to go. Listen, but watch your step. Things could get dangerous.
For even the most seasoned travelers—the ones who have been to every state and every continent—there are still places that for whatever reason—be they geographical, political, or even for your own personal safety—you just can’t visit.
We’re taking you all the way from Snake Island in Brazil to the Vatican Archives to find out what makes these places off limits. Lonely Planet destinations editor Ben Buckner joins in to explain his favorite places no one is allowed to go, and aerospace historian Peter Merlin even discusses the mystery site of Area 51.
An A12 aircraft similar to the one seen by that uncleared electrician. This photo was taken of an inverted, unpainted A12 at Area 51.
How The U.S. Once Hijacked A Soviet Space Satellite
Be sure to check out the full article Ryan mentioned about US operatives stealing and reverse-engineering a Soviet satellite overnight.
An Area 51 warning sign.
For more weird news and strange stories, visit our homepage, and be sure to rate and share this episode of the Notcast!
Source: Inside The Most Off-Limits Places – Ripley’s Believe It or Notcast Episode 002
June 17, 2019
Bigfoot: The True Believers Vs The Hoaxers
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Let’s talk about Bigfoot. Just about every region in the world has its own version of an overly-elusive, fuzzy fiend—or friend—frolicking in the forest. Even more interesting than these myths are the cultures that were built surrounding them. Ripleys.com was able to speak to noted skeptic Brian Dunning and Sasquatch aficionado Patrick Epistemon to develop a clearer picture of those who want to leave a big footnote on if maybe the widespread lack of belief in Bigfoot ever Sas-squashes its self-esteem?
Bigfoot has many names. Some of the most noteworthy include Sasquatch in the wilderness of the Pacific Northwest; Skunk Ape in the Florida Everglades; Abominable Snowman or Yeti in the snowy mountain-top peaks of the Himalayas; Yowie in the Australian Outback; and Harry and the Hendersons out in Hollywood. Some interpret folklore from diverse worldwide cultural sources dating back to the 15th century as describing various encounters with hirsute hominids and ape-men (and -women) that stand anywhere from seven-to-ten feet tall, weigh between five hundred to two thousand pounds, and emanate unbelievably offensive B.O.
“Well now you will be amazed when I tell you that I’m sure that they exist.”—Jane Goodall, world renowned primatologist.
Thousands worldwide, both amateur adventurers and reputable scientists alike, take up the mantle of cryptozoologists. Cryptozoology is the zoological study of cryptids, creatures that are believed by some to exist but have not been properly documented or otherwise embraced by the mainstream scientific community.
McConkie Ranch Petroglyphs featuring “Bigfoot”/CC Tricia Simpson
The cryptozoological community that believes in the possibility of Bigfoot’s existence is not just limited to the stereotypical conspiracy theorists reminiscent of the Lone Gunmen from The X-Files. In fact, reputable mainstream figures, including Dr. Jeffrey Meldrum of Idaho State University, a professor of anatomy and anthropology and expert on foot morphology, holds an unwavering belief in the existence of Bigfoot. He attributes this to studying available casts of footprints attributed to the cryptid. World-renowned primatologist Jane Goodall has also put in her vote of confidence for the wandering simian. Some scientific recognition has also come for Bigfoot in the form of ZooBank, the worldwide standard for animal classification. Even protection laws can be found in areas of Washington, where it is illegal to kill a Sasquatch, who they view as a member of an endangered species.
Purported Yeti footprints photographed in 1951.
In an effort to learn firsthand about big(foot)-game hunting, Ripley’s tracked down dedicated Bigfoot researcher and founder of The Bigfoot Portal Blog Patrick Epistemon to see what drives the endeavors of him and other field researchers: “The age bracket for Squatchers is mostly older, forty-five-to-seventy,” Patrick tells us. “Empty-nesters with time and resources to pursue the mystery, but still ambulatory enough to get out there. What keeps me interested is the enduring curiousness of it all, and the people: Squatchers are great people and it’s a lot of our social lives, camping groups with a cause.”
The allure in pursuing a yet-to-be undiscovered creature right in our own geographical backyard is readily apparent. Brian Dunning, host of the award-winning podcast Skeptoid and a subject matter expert on all things skepticism, also weighs in on the appeal: “Everyone enjoys the hunt, the chase, the puzzle, the promise of treasure at the end of the rainbow. What’s important is the ability to keep it in perspective. Group camping trips centered around a Bigfoot hunt can be lots of fun and build wonderful memories and are worth doing on that merit alone. However, the fact is that such a hunt is not going to lead to an actual find, because these creatures simply do not exist. Therefore, it is so, so important for any healthy cryptid hunter to keep their mind open to this possibility. Not enough of them do, in my experience.”
CC Branson Convention and Visitors Bureau
The Myth… And The Men Behind It.
In the United States, the alleged creature now known as Bigfoot first reared its shaggy head as a nationwide phenomenon after the 1958 discovery of gigantic, sixteen-inch footprints found by construction workers in northern California’s Humboldt County a few years after the Yeti craze had taken off. The incident is was what led to the cryptid being called Bigfoot, andwas later be debunked as benign tomfoolery conducted by a known local prankster, Ray Wallace. Wallace had wooden feet created to spook a buddy, but by the time that was revealed nearly half a century later, the name “Bigfoot” had taken on a life of its own and was already plastered in the American pop culture zeitgeist.
Fascinating anecdotes of abductions and tall tales of cryptic encounters abound—even President Theodore Roosevelt was alleged to have written one. The Human-Bigfoot War of 1855 cropped up around the same time. This “war” began in a native village of the Choctaw Nation in the Great Plains region during antebellum times. As the story goes, bandit raids on food and livestock severely worsened to the abduction of the village’s children. A contingent of three dozen mixed US and native cavalrymen led by French-Choctaw general Joshua LeFlore pursued the furry bandits on horseback for fourteen hours before arriving at the pillagers’ home base. The cavalrymen smelled them before they saw them: the fetid smell of death emanated from a wooden clearing where, surrounding a mound of the dead, the hitherto unseen marauders stood… only they were not men, but Bigfoots (Bigfeet?). Though the simian terrors were unphased by bullets, the ensuing battle saw their eventual defeat—albeit at the cost of LeFlore, who was decapitated by one of his gargantuan adversaries.
The Choctaw called their Bigfoot the Shampte.
Though records seemingly indicate that Joshua LeFlore was a real person who died in 1855, the rest is unsurprisingly unverified—but it makes for a great story.
“… at the cost of LeFlore, who was decapitated by one of his gargantuan adversaries.”
Not all Bigfoot stories share the same violent pomp and circumstance as the aforementioned. Some are simple sightings that skeptics argue are simply misidentifications of other previously identified fauna. For example, a picture caught on a hunter’s automated camera might be seen as Bigfoot to a believer, but just a bear with mange to everybody else.
True believer Patrick identifies misidentification as one of the biggest problems among those who report Bigfoot sightings—alongside confirmation bias, wishful thinking, and pareidolia—the tendency for people to perceive patterns out of which there are none (such as mistaking a shadow in a dark forest for a Maricoxi—the South American Bigfoot): “These folks do not intend to hoax, but get it wrong and then are jumped on by the community as hoaxers.”
Hunters And… Hoaxers?
While the people Patrick described may have no ill will, hoaxers do exist. Humboldt County makes a return to Bigfoot lore yet again, less than a decade removed from Ray Wallace’s eponymous stunt and a year prior to 1968’s Planet of the Apes, when the world’s most famous Bigfoot footage ever filmed was captured. We now know that what was previously and widely lauded as the best evidence of Bigfoot’s existence, the Patterson-Gimlin footage, is believed by Brian Dunning, among others, to be a hoax—allegedly, in a real-life Breaking Bad scenario, the film proved to be little more than a successful “get rich quick” scheme from a dying conman who sought to leave to his soon-to-be-widowed wife an unexpected windfall, hoping to provide some material comfort in his passing.
But on the contrary, Squatchers such as Patrick are skeptical in their own right about this declaration: “That’s a huge assumption. Good arguments for the film are that the state of the art costuming in ’67 was the Planet of the Apes. The tech to make such a costume was not invented yet.”
Not all who report encounters possess altruistic intentions. One serial hoaxer received mainstream attention when, in 2008, and again in 2014, he claimed possession of a poached Bigfoot corpse. Both cases were determined to be nothing more than admittedly captivating and lifelike costumes—mere forgeries. One unrelated stunt even culminated in the unfortunate death of the would-be perpetrator.
So, we’ve got to ask, what’s with all the fakes?
True believers such as Patrick find hoaxes to be just as distasteful as the public-at-large: “It’s annoying because it distracts from legitimate work and adds to the stigma of the topic. It also is a huge hindrance to progress, as it prevents good people from sharing their results. They don’t want to be accused of being hoaxers.”
The world of Bigfoot is full of conmen, pranksters, and artists, alongside its genuine supporters. For the former, the financial incentive of advertising evidence or even the remains of a Bigfoot is readily apparent. As is the recognizable joy found in a mischievous prank, like in the heretofore discussed case of Ray Wallace. Seeking out notoriety in the form of fifteen minutes of fame is also understandable. When asked who else may be susceptible to committing these Bigfoot forgeries, Brian Dunning had an interesting answer: the true believers.
“There is at least one very interesting manifestation of this,” Brian tells us. “When we know something to be true in our hearts, most of us are not above a little bit of unconscious exaggeration to persuade others. We see this with people who believe in hauntings: sometimes, when they know their house to be haunted (in their mind, anyway), they will sometimes stage little weird events in order to bring others over to their way of thinking. It is a bit of dishonest behavior that is easily rationalized and justified, because to the hoaxer, they believe they are doing the right thing by persuading people of the truth (as they see it). So I would not be at all surprised for a Bigfoot true believer to make up stories or to greatly exaggerate them. In their mind, they’re doing the right thing—a fib is a good thing if done for the right reason.”
When asked if the lack of definitive proof or having other evidence dismissed as “pseudoscience” in any way dampens the fervor felt by he and his fellow Squatchers, Patrick had this to say: “The question of proving their existence is more of an outsider’s question. An eyewitness doesn’t need to ‘prove’ their existence. Seeing is believing.”
Despite the best efforts of cryptozoologists, no concrete evidence has yet to turn up to confirm the existence of these wise men of the mountain. That is not to say the absence of evidence is evidence of absence. Afterall, look no further than at the discovery of the coelacanth by a fishing boat, captured 66 million years after its purported extinction. Species both new and…sometimes even old are being uncovered all the time.
Believe It or Not! because at the end of the day, you can’t prove a negative. Whether you believe in Bigfoot or not is immaterial, because the cultures, friendships, and memories that grow surrounding it all are very real—and you can believe that.
By Kris Levin, contributor for Ripleys.com
Kris Levin is a professional wrestling referee and everybody’s favorite nephew. He can be seen internationally on IMPACT Wrestling as their most junior official, #KidRef, and on social media at @RefKrisLevin .
June 16, 2019
June 15, 2019
June 14, 2019
Star Trek Logo Spotted On Mars
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
This Week
[June 9-15th, 2019] A giant wolf head, Star Fleet on Mars, shame bags, and the rest of the week’s weird news from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Where No Man Has Gone Before
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter hasn’t found life on Mars—at least not yet—but it did find a rather familiar symbol on the planet’s rocky surface. A feature that looks very much like the Starfleet symbol in Star Trek. Given the show’s frequent use of time travel, some fans see it as a sign, but researchers explain it was formed by wind and lava.
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Preserved Severed Wolf Head
While hiking the shore of the Tirekhtyakh River in Yakutia, Russia, one man noticed something strange poking out of the permafrost. Upon further investigation, it was found to be a severed giant wolf’s head, still bearing fur and a wicked snarl of teeth. Scientists determined the head was roughly 40,000 years old. The head alone is about half the size of a modern wolf’s entire body, and was so well preserved by the ice that researchers will able to extract DNA.
Albert Protopopov, Republic of Sakha Academy of Sciences
Shame Bags
In an effort to cut down on plastic waste generated from plastic grocery bags, Vancouver’s East West Market in Canada implemented a bag fee for people who wanted plastic bags, but it didn’t seem to do very much to curb waste. Now they’ve opted to make their bags as embarrassing as possible to dissuade customers from using them. Bags now have graphics like, “Into the Weird Adult Video Emporium,” “Dr. Taew’s Wart Ointment,” and “Colon Care Co-op.”
ISS Bed And breakfast
While space tourism has been around for nearly two decades now, the prices have always been high and the trips very short. NASA’s looking to change that. They’ve announced private trips to the International Space Station are coming as early as 2020. Prices are estimated to start at $58 million with a stay on the space station lasting up to 30 days.
D-Day Veteran Reunites With Lost Love
Army veteran K. T. Robbins fell in love with a French girl in 1944. Now at 97, he’s finally reunited with her. Invited to attend a memorial ceremony for the D-Day Invasion’s 75th anniversary, a team of journalists helped track down Jeannine Ganaye, his long-lost lover. They reunited on the beach where Robbins had served, with Ganaye saying she had never forgotten him.
Source: Star Trek Logo Spotted On Mars
Hippo Meat Nearly Became An American Food Staple
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
During the start of the 20th century, a group of eclectic men decided to tackle America’s meat crisis by introducing hippopotamus into the American diet. Hippo steak may have become a common menu item today had they succeeded.
In the early 1900s, meat was in high demand due to a growing population and overgrazed land. Bison had become nearly extinct, so there weren’t any animals left to hunt. But a man named Frederick Russell Burnham was convinced hippo meat was the solution.
Frederick Russell Burnham
Burnham was an American adventurer, soldier, and chief of scouts for the British army during the Second Boer War. He moved to Africa in 1893 and was the inspiration behind the Boy Scouts and the big-screen action hero Indiana Jones.
Burnham was a proponent of eating hippopotamus meat because animals such as cows, sheep, poultry, and pig were not native to the United States yet they were a large part of the American diet. Also, African animals such as ostriches and camels had easily adapted to certain areas of the United States, and Burnham believed hippos could do so as well.
Louisiana Congressman Robert Broussard also supported the importation of hippos because he thought the mammals could help solve a problem he had in his district. In 1884, a Japanese delegation gave water hyacinths to the city of New Orleans as a gift, but the plants were very invasive and killed many fish. Broussard, nicknamed “Cousin Bob,” hoped the hyacinth-loving hippopotamuses would take care of the issue. Plus, hippos could live in the bayou unlike cattle, which needed grasslands to feed.
Broussard enlisted the help of notorious conman Frederick “Fritz” Duquesne to set their plan in motion. Duquesne was a South African Boer and big-game hunter. He dubbed himself “The Black Panther of the Veldt” in reference to the predatory skills of the panther. He was also Burnham’s enemy.
Fritz Duquesne
Duquesne was a soldier and a spy who did whatever was required of him to get ahead. At one point he was ordered to kill Burnham, then chief of the British Scouts, during the Second Boer War. Simultaneously, Burnham was ordered to kill Duquesne. Neither carried out their orders, and several years later Broussard tapped on Duquesne’s knowledge of African animals to help him and Burnham seek authorization to import hippos to America to boost the meat supply.
Broussard introduced H.R. 23261, a.k.a. the Hippo Bill, in 1910 to secure $250,000 in funding for the import of useful animals, including hippos, into the United States. The New York Times coined the phrase “lake cow bacon,” describing the flavor of the hippo meat, and some believed it would only be a short time before it was readily available in America.
William Newton Irvin from the U.S. Department of Agriculture was also an advocate of hippo importation and testified on the men’s behalf. What they may not have realized is that hippos have a reputation for being aggressive and territorial and probably wouldn’t have settled in very nicely in the Louisiana bayou.
The bill failed. To meet meat demand, meatpackers increased supply, grazing lands became feedlots, and wetlands were drained to form grasslands for cattle.
Following the defeat, Burnham went on to prevent an assassin from shooting President William Howard Taft and was invited by Theodore Roosevelt to lead a delegation in France similar to the Rough Riders. The division never got off the ground, but the adventurer eventually struck it rich after discovering oil in California.
Broussard, meanwhile, served eight terms as a congressman and one as a senator. As for Duquesne, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen before becoming a spy for Germany. The FBI arrested him and his spy ring in 1941, and Duquesne served 14 years in prison.
By Noelle Talmon, contributor for Ripleys.com
June 13, 2019
Goldfish Have Much Longer Memories Than You Think
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How Long Is A Goldfish’s Memory?
Goldfish have memories that last several months, not a few seconds like many believe. Believe It or Not! scientists say the popular pets can remember things that happened as long as five months ago. To prove this, researchers conducted a couple of studies that have concluded the fish are not as forgetful as many think…
In one study, scientists put a lever in a fish tank that doled out food. Eventually, the goldfish learned how to use it, and they specifically pressed the lever when they were hungry. The scientists were then able to train the fish one step further. The lever only dispensed food during a one-hour period. The goldfish figured it out and returned each day at the same time to get their snack.
In another study, researchers played a specific sound when they fed the fish, teaching them to connect the sound with food. The scientists then released the fish into the wild. The fish came back to their original feeding spot five months later when they heard the sound.
They Also Have Fairly Long Lives
There’s something else you may not realize about goldfish, and it has to do with their life span. If you win one at a carnival, you may be watching it, cleaning its tank, and feeding it for many years. If you properly take care of a pet goldfish, it can potentially reach the age of 10 and a few lucky pet goldfish have lived for decades!
Siblings Matthew and Hayley Wright won two goldfish in 1977 at a funfair in Brockworth, Gloucester, England, naming them Splish and Splash. When the kids grew up and moved out of the house, their dad Richard Wright took over their care. In 2015, one of them, Splash, became the oldest living goldfish at 38 years old!
Still, Splash does not hold the record for being the oldest living goldfish of all time. That honor goes to Tish, who died in his fishbowl at the age of 43 in 1999. His owner, Hilda Hand, said at the time, “I’m sure Tish recognized me. He always knew when it was feeding time and I used to talk to him.”
Tish’s story is similar to Splish’s and Splash’s. Hilda’s son, Peter, won Tish and another goldfish, Tosh, at a funfair in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England in 1956. When Peter left home to get married, Hilda and her husband took over pet duty. Tosh died in 1975.
You would think a fish that old would be pretty big, but Tish was just 4.5-inches long. It’s a myth that goldfish grow only as big as their tanks. Their size is based on genetics, not the diameter of their fishbowl. “Tank suitable” goldfish generally get as big as 10 inches long, while “pond suitable” goldfish can grow up to 18 inches long.
By Noelle Talmon, contributor for Ripleys.com
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