Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 382
October 22, 2017
October 21, 2017
October 20, 2017
Depressed Fish and Trainy McTrainface
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
[October 15-21, 2017] A train named Trainy McTrainface, language enhancing alcohol, and fish depression.
5. Trainy McTrainface is Sweden’s Newest Train
After a shutout victory in a popular vote to name the newest locomotive in Sweden, Trainy McTrainface will be riding the rails this week. Unlike the British government, who thwarted a vote to call a research ship Boaty McBoatface, the Swedish railway has embraced the name and will be painting on the side of the train engine.
We were so mature during the vote
October 19, 2017
Extreme Body Modification: the Dragon Lady
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Eva Tiamat Baphomet Medusa, otherwise known as the Dragon Lady, has undergone extreme body modification in order to transform into a dragon.
A former banker now living in Texas, Tiamat has had her nose and ears removed, her tongue bifurcated (split), her eyes stained green, almost all her teeth extracted, and horns implanted on her head. The 56-year-old also has extensive tattoos that resemble reptilian scales covering her face and body.
“I was born again to my reptilian parents, which are the western diamondback rattlesnakes.”
She’s undergone 22 years of modification to get where she is now, but doesn’t anticipate finishing her transformation until 2025!
You can see more of the Dragon Lady’s transformation in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Shatter Your Senses! which includes a full interview delving into her unbelievable transformation.
Cheese Tea Has Come to the U.S. — Plus Here’s How to Make It at Home
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Cheese tea is not only something that actually exists, it has now come to the U.S. That’s right, if you love cheese AND you love tea, then you’re certainly not alone. But would you be willing to try the two together in one tongue-tingling recipe?
Served at the Little Fluffy Head café in Los Angeles as well as at Happy Lemon which has locations in New York, Boston, and San Francisco, cheese tea (or zhī shì chá as it’s called in Mandarin) originated in the street stalls of Taiwan before finding its way through China to Singapore, Malaysia, and now to North America.
Those in the U.S. who are brave enough to try this unexpected delight (or culinary dare?) can order a range of cheese teas (A.K.A. Fluffy Tea), including ones made with chocolate, matcha, oolong, and jasmine tea or regular ol’ black tea, green tea, or milk tea. From there, baristas will top the beverage with a deep layer of sweet and salty cheese. Um, yum?
October 18, 2017
Edgar Allan Poe Likely Died From Rabies
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Author Edgar Allan Poe spent much of his life fabricating macabre mysteries in his many works of fiction, but Poe’s greatest mystery was the circumstances of his own death. One group of doctors believe Poe’s death was actually caused by rabies, after studying his symptoms 147 years after the author died.
Alcoholism
Theories abound as to what caused the writer to die. He was found passed out and incoherent, wearing second-hand clothes, taken to a hospital where he went in and out of manic fits, then died.
The most popular story about Poe’s death is that he simply drank himself to death, having been found collapsed outside a saloon. This goes along with the perception most people have that Poe was a depressive drunk, but this theory is flawed.
Despite facing problems when he was younger with alcoholism, at the time of his death, he was a teetotaler and he didn’t drink. His doctor remarked that his temperance had gone on for so long, that a single glass of brandy would make Poe violently ill. Some people think, a break in his temperance then is what caused his severe delirium and death! But doctors disagree. Even if Poe had drunken himself to poisoning, or a withdrawal reaction, his four-day hospital stay was inconsistent with a bender induced sickness.
A Rabid Poe(t)
While in the hospital, Poe had tremors, hallucinations, slipped in and out of a coma and was combative with staff and friends. When Dr. Robert Benitez of the University of Maryland School of Medicine received an anonymous case at the Clinical Pathological Conference, he had no idea the initials E.P. stood for Edgar Poe. Objectively analyzing the recorded evidence, he came to the conclusion that the patient had most likely died from rabies.
Dr. Benitez says that rabies death was fairly common at the time, and Poe’s intermittent bouts of confusion, high pulse rate, and temperature matched reactions to rabies. The average time to death after the onset of rabies symptoms is also four days, the exact number of days it took Poe to die after being found.
Historians and biographers have doubted some of the rabies theory. Hydrophobia is a tell-tale sign of rabies, and hospital records show Poe was drinking water, though his doctors noted it was with great difficulty. People also question why a bite mark wasn’t apparent on his body, but according to one survey, only 27% of people who die from rabies remember being bitten, and some were infected up to a year before they experienced symptoms.
October 17, 2017
A Coral Skeleton You Have to See to Believe!
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Filipino artist Gregory Raymond Halili spent three years creating a life-size skeleton out of pieces of washed-up coral!
Halili gathered all the coral he needed along the beaches of Calatagan, Anilao, and Bolinao in the Philippines, spreading out his search as the types of corals found differ in each area.
“The hardest “bone” to find was the skull. There are many corals that are shaped like a cranium but are not the right size. I wanted to be honest with the work, so I looked for a long time and finally found it on a Calatagan beach.”
Coral turns white when it dies, creating an eerie resemblance to bones and making it the perfect medium for Halili to work with. The mock bones in Halili’s piece appear to hover a few inches above a 7-ft-long driftwood table, an illusion he accomplished by drilling the wood and coral pieces, then connecting them all together with steel needles and superglue. He found the perfect coral pieces to fit together like a puzzle!
Sensing You Want More?
Filled with remarkable photos and over 1,500 all new—all true—stories to immerse yourself in, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Shatter Your Senses! is the newest book in the bestselling series from Ripley Publishing—so incredible you won’t believe your eyes…or ears…or nose!
Spark your senses here, on the blog, weekly for a feature from the 2018 annual, Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Shatter Your Senses! and follow us on social media for a chance to win a copy, among other unbelievable prizes!
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