Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 345
May 8, 2018
The Explosive Gunpowder Art Of Dino Tomic
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
We’ve previously featured Croatia-born artist Dino Tomic for his art using granules of salt, but he’s back with a BOOM! Similar to his salt portraits, he’s delicately arranging granules, but this time it’s gunpowder. When he’s done, he lights the art on fire, causing a fiery explosion that leaves the imprint of his delicate arrangement permanently burned into the surface of his platform. This gunpowder art is truly unique because no burn will ever be the same.
Dino is always looking for ways to makes his art stand out. He says that it blends the best characteristics of ephemeral and permanent art together, creating a fully artistic experience.
“I needed to figure everything out, step by step, myself.”
His first step is to come up with an image that fits the process and make alterations on the fly to make it fit the two-tone style he uses. He arranges the powder on wooden plates, which make it easy to see the black powder and readily accepts the heat of the burn. Dino can vary the “line” thickness by using denser piles of gunpowder, but shades can only be implied with the thickness of negative space between burns. At the same time, the pieces have to be close enough to each other in order to continue the burn, as pieces that are too far away won’t be ignited.
Depending on the level of detail, a piece can take hours or days of work. After working with gunpowder for a year, Tomic noted that there’s no guidebook for the medium, requiring him to constantly experiment. He fills plastic bottles with the gunpowder grains to help spread them evenly and quickly and then uses a combination of surgical scissors and his fingers to arrange them into place. He has to remain focused the entire time. One false move, sneeze, or even sigh of annoyance can send the delicate grains flying. All of that, of course, is on top of being careful not to get burned with he lights it all on fire.
“Working with gunpowder requires a lot of patience.”
Dino currently lives in Norway, running his own tattoo shop. He’s a master of mediums, doing everything from hyper-realistic paintings to glow-in-the-dark work. We’ll be keeping an eye on his Instagram to see if he adds any new mediums to his repertoire, but you can check out his work along with our growing collection of exceptional artists in our new book, Odd Is Art.
From paintings by an artist with no arms or legs to sculptures made entirely of salt, you’ll find some of the most fascinating and unbelievable pieces of art from the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! collection. Designed as an elegant art book meets the eclectic one-of-a-kind Ripley’s archives and exhibits, Odd Is Art is a visually stunning book that will delight and amaze art lovers and Ripley fans alike.
Ancestor Head From Papua New Guinea
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Tribes along the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea practiced a unique form of ancestor skull worship. Taking clay and mud from the riverbed, they would coat the skulls, giving them a new skin. In some cases, the ancestor heads were mounted atop a carved figure, giving a “body” to the ancestor.
These earthy vestiges of the past were then painted, traced with designs, and decorated with wood, bone, fiber, real human hair, fur, and shells. When decorating the skull, it was believed that the spirit and vitality of the deceased would channel through the head, and help advise living descendants and imbue them with power.
During debates within the clan-house, tribesmen would sit in a chair watched over by the ancestor heads, and give arguments. The role of the ancestor was to give credence to every word spoken.
Only male tribe members would be preserved as ancestral heads, and they would even be kept in a village house reserved for men alone. Only on special occasions would they be removed and shown publicly in the sight of women or children.
According to some studies, it’s believed that the skull of the deceased wasn’t immediately preserved, but instead only underwent over-molding once the body had been mourned and even buried for a time. Only when the grave was dug up later would the now-exposed skull be cleaned and adorned with clay and decorations.
Tribes along the Sepik River, most notably the Iatmul, experienced frequent flooding. Their houses were built on stilts and they mostly traveled by canoe. The winding river would leave some exposed “islands” of land which served as the only spots for cultivation, allowing them to grow various palm trees.
Fish made up a majority of their diet, but they also hunted small mammals and crocodiles. The land itself was believed to be contained within a crocodile’s open mouth—its top jaw the sky and teeth mountains. When a boy was swallowed by the crocodile, it’s said he became a man when he was regurgitated.
Ancestor heads were important for connecting the traditions and people of the past to tribes in the present, solidifying their relationship with the tribe as a whole.
May 7, 2018
The Curious Case of Multiple Madeleine Morès
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In 2004, Madeleine Morès moved back to her native France to discover that ‘she’ already lived there and was drawing her pension!
The Impossible Mystery Begins
This intriguing story begins in 1924, when Madeleine was born to Albert and Anna Morès in the village of Meurthe-et-Moselle. You wouldn’t expect this birth in a sleepy village to be the start of something extraordinary, but somehow, there wasn’t only one Madeleine Paule Hélène Morès born that day.
Fast forward to the 1960s, and Madeleine—let’s call her Madeleine A—has married a railway worker and moved to Algeria. It’s on her return in the mid-2000s that the mystery was first brought to light.
On her return to France, the Vittel native set off to arrange the renewal of her ID card and her pension from the government. To her shock and dismay—and the authorities’ befuddlement—the system revealed that Madeleine Paule Hélène Morès was already claiming the money, living in Saint-Étienne for the past two decades!
Perfect Proof… From Both Sides
Initially, of course, the police suspected a simple case of identity theft. In 2006, however, detectives arranged for the two women to meet face to face, in the hopes that one or the other would panic or make a slip and reveal their deception. Instead, things took a further turn for the unbelievable. As The Telegraph reported at the time, Madeleine A and Madeleine B both adamantly reeled off the details of their birth and lives.
Now, that’s one thing, but they each separately produced a range of documentation—from birth certificates to pay slips—proving their claims. Not only were both women Madeleine Morès, they were the same Madeleine Morès.
According to their stories, both women had the same parents and were both given away to foster families as small children. For all intents and purposes, from an administrative point of view, they were the same person. Faced with the stalemate, DNA testing was arranged. DNA from the claimant’s brother, René Morès, was compared with that of the two women. Eventually, Madeleine A was found to be the ‘genuine’ article, but then comes the most impossible part of this mystery. The two knew each other prior to their meeting in 2006, but neither have any memory of it.
What Became of the Two Madeleines?
A photograph of Madeleine A was taken at an orphanage in Orleans, long ago. Who’s sitting next to her in the shot? That’s right, Madeleine B. About the one and only thing that both women agreed upon was the fact that they’re both in the shot, but they have no memory of meeting before 2006, nor of the photo being taken.
So, what’s the situation here? What is this mysterious childhood connection these two Madeleines seem to have shared? Even as the case was ‘solved,’ it just brought up more unanswered questions. With no more possible leads or avenues to investigate, nobody really knows. Is this just the result of the longest, most impractical con of all time, or is there something much stranger at work here?
By Chris Littlechild, contributor for Ripleys.com
May 6, 2018
May 5, 2018
May 4, 2018
The Enigma That Is Nicolas Cage And His…Eternal Cage?
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
He’s had teeth pulled, eaten a live cockroach, and purchased a haunted house—all just to get into character. His talent and eccentricity make him one of Hollywood’s most unique actors, and has granted him a cult following, including Redditors who call him the One True God. The award for most Ripley’s actor goes to…Nicolas Cage—today, on Cool Stuff Strange Things!
Watch the video for the full story!
The Eternal Cage
New Orleans’ oldest cemetery, the famous St. Louis Number One, holds the remains of the city’s first mayor and beloved Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau. The cemetery is iconic for its ancient mausoleums built to withstand the city’s high water table. Despite its age and attraction of tourists, one living man has a plot there as well. Who else but Nic Cage?
At nine-foot-tall and peculiarly modern amidst crumbling crypts, Cage will carry on his loopy legacy after death. In 2010, he began construction on this monstrous cement pyramid for his future self. There is no name on the grave yet, but it is adorned with “Omni Ab Uno,” Latin for “Everything From One.”
Cage hasn’t spoken publicly about why he has chosen this as his final resting place, but the popular theory is that he purchased the tomb close to the Voodoo Queen in order to protect him from a curse.
Source: The Enigma That Is Nicolas Cage And His…Eternal Cage?
The World’s Oldest Spider Didn’t Just Die, It Was Murdered
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
[April 30-May 5th, 2018] A beach turns blue and comes alive, China releases a new weapon in the war on jaywalking, the world’s oldest spider dies, and the meatballs are a lie.
Living Blue Beaches
The beaches of Barcelona, Spain, are thick with strange and mysteriously jiggly sea creatures. Thousands of jellyfish-like clusters of what are called velella have strangely washed ashore from the Mediterranean. Known for their “little sails,” these creatures don’t actively move, but ride the sea winds, making it odd that so many of them were found away from open waters.
Miles de medusas han invadido este fin de semana las playas de Barcelona https://t.co/Z2qCNWgtP8 pic.twitter.com/eIlL67nrR2
— Oriol Serra (@OriolSerra_) April 29, 2018
War On Jaywalkers
Jaywalkers aren’t usually the first priority on law enforcement’s list, but a new system automatizes punishment. Chinese officials have installed poles that yell at jaywalkers through speakers and blast them with water. They have sensors that activate when a crosswalk is red, soaking jaywalkers if they try to cross at the wrong time.
How do you stop people crossing on red lights?
Traffic police in one Hubei city think spraying jaywalkers with water is the best deterrent. pic.twitter.com/ceJHoXONcQ
— Sixth Tone (@SixthTone) April 19, 2018
Banned Soccer Fan Watches From Crane
A Turkish soccer fan wasn’t going to a let a ban from his local stadium stop him from watching his favorite team. Ali Demirkaya was ousted from the stadium where his team, the Denizlispor, were playing for undisclosed reasons. He quickly ran out and paid about $80 for a crane rental, and positioned himself above the seats of the stadium. Unfortunately, police made him leave before the game finished.
1 yıl uzaklaştırma alan ” Yamuk Ali ” Vinçten 3lü #denizlispor @TrollFootball @tribundergi @AltLiglerTR @ciddiyettenuzak pic.twitter.com/abTZDj9MVD
— fehmi metin (@fehmimetin20) April 28, 2018
Swedish Meatballs Aren’t Swedish
If you’ve been to Ikea, you’re probably familiar with Sweden’s iconic ambassador: a plate of meatballs soaked in gravy. If you happen to have dined on Swedish meatballs, you have eaten a lie. The Swedish Institute admitted this week that the recipe was actually brought over by King Charles XII from Turkey in the 1700s. Fans of the dish are outraged, with some even thinking it’s a late April Fool’s prank.
Oldest Spider Dies
Simply named Number 16, the oldest known spider was revealed to have died this week. The trapdoor spider had been under observation since 1974, clocking in 43 years. Sadly, Number 16 didn’t die of natural causes but was attacked by a wasp in her home. The second place record holder was a Mexican tarantula and only lived for 28 years.
Source: The World’s Oldest Spider Didn’t Just Die, It Was Murdered
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