Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 384
October 12, 2017
October 11, 2017
The New Zealand Coffin Club
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Across the north of New Zealand, a small number of strange clubs have popped up. Members are usually elderly and have set themselves to the task of making coffins…their own coffins! These coffin clubs are a place for the elderly to mingle, stay death-positive and construct the casket they’ll eventually be laid to rest in.
Geraldine painted New Zealand nature scenes on her coffin.
The clubs grew out of a movement within the Rotorua University of the Third Age. New groups were being formed to encourage fellowship and learning, and a single member raised her hand and said she wanted to build her own coffin. Her request was followed by dead silence…
Eventually, she and a couple others got together at her house and began working on their own coffins. As the group grew, they were able to borrow some workshop space and expand into a close-knit group of 100 members. In 2013 the group broke away from the University and officially became the Kiwi Coffin Club.
Members meet every week from 8 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Once the basic design has been completed in the shop, the owner finishes and decorates the rest however they choose. Many adorn their new underground furniture with elements of their life or things they care about.
Volunteers and veterans stick around to help others, and the whole process helps keep many elderly social. It also helps make the process of discussing funeral arrangements and death with family members more open. Coffin club members feel good knowing they are in charge of their lives and have new friends to keep an eye on them as they age.
Fantasy Coffins
Ripley’s is no stranger to creatively made coffins. The fantasy coffins of Ghana are also made to celebrate the deceased’s life. We actually have many of these coffins in our many odditoriums around the world
Outside the Kane Kwei workshop in Accra, Ghana where they craft about 300 fantasy coffins a year!
Source: The New Zealand Coffin Club
October 10, 2017
Arachnophobes Beware! Samurai Spiders!
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
As the fear of spiders affects over 30% of Americans, it is safe to suggest that you don’t plan a vacation to Kajiki, Kagoshima, Japan, in June. Each summer, the city partakes in Kumo Gassen, directly translated to mean Spider Battles, a tradition going back 400 years!
Townspeople young and old buy or capture female Argiope amoena spiders, affectionately called samurai spiders, rearing and training them in their homes. Some even allow their prized pets to roam freely around their living quarters!
The large purple and yellow spiders fight two at a time in a tournament, and the last spider standing is the winner.
There are three ways to win:
Bite first
Wrap your opponent in a web
Snap your opponent’s thread
Not to worry! The spiders don’t kill each other, and sharp-eyed referees stop aggressive fights— with their bare hands—before the spiders can hurt each other.
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!
October 9, 2017
Vampire Bats Found Feasting on Human Blood
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
People have always taken solace in the idea that vampire bats only consume the blood of animals in the wilderness, but new evidence proves that vampire bats also feast on humans.
Hairy-Legged Vampire Bats
The Diphylla ecuadata, or hairy-legged vampire bat makes its home in the Brazilian rainforest and was long thought to only feast on bird blood. Avian blood is thinner and more watery and fattier than mammal blood, which made most scientists think the bat would be incapable of thriving on human blood. After analyzing the feces of these bats, however, they discovered the bats had been feasting on people!
According to tests performed by the Federal University of Pernambuco, over 20% of the bats they surveyed had traces of human blood in their guano.
Hairy-legged vampire bat/CC Gerry Carter
This species of bat is one of just a few that subsists solely on blood, and as their traditional prey has become hard to find, they’ve found a new food source. Humans have developed into their territory, vast flocks of birds have disappeared, leaving behind swarms of hungry vampire bats.
The bats feed by cutting into flesh using a pair of sharp incisors and then laps up blood with their long tongues. Their saliva even contains chemicals to keep the blood from coagulating as they slurp their meal. Vampire bats have little ability to store fat, so it must eat every day to survive. Vampires can consume several times their body weight in blood in a night and will share if some bats don’t find any food by vomiting up blood for their hungry brethren to eat. Providing food this way is considered a serious favor, and bats who don’t return it in the future are spurned by the bat community.
The Vampire’s Bite
While real-life vampire bat bites don’t pose the same threat of making the victim into an undead thrall, they do have the potential to spread rabies and other diseases.
Previously, these bats have chosen to go without when goat or pig blood was the only blood available. Their newfound appetite for mammals seems to only be for humans. Unlike other bats—but like vampires—the hairy-legged vampire bat hunts alone and relies on its eyesight, not echolocation. Also like vampires, researchers believe the bats drink the blood of their victims in their sleep, coming in through holes in roofs or biting people sleeping outside in the rainforest.
October 8, 2017
October 7, 2017
October 6, 2017
A Radioactive Boar and Butterflies on Radar
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
[October 1-7, 2017] A toilet seat museum goes up for sale, a radioactive boar is shot in Sweden, and daredevil Travis Pastrana achieves a world first on the Thames River.
5. Butterfly Swarms on Radar
National Weather Service radar in Boulder, Colorado, began picking up a strange swirling mass of what it thought was migrating birds, but the real culprit was a massive swarm of butterflies. Huge quantities of the Painted Lady butterfly were spotted moving above the city. These small, winged insects are capable of traveling hundreds of miles each day above the clouds on their way to Northern Mexico as the cold creeps into the American West.
4/4: Migrating butterflies in high quantities explains it. Today, the butterflies are staying close to the ground. #cowx #Science pic.twitter.com/rkpwmPRnsi
— NWS Boulder (@NWSBoulder) October 4, 2017
4. Toilet Seat Museum Owner Relinquishes Throne
Barney Smith has been operating the Toilet Seat Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, for 50 years. Now 96, he says he’s ready to pass on his mantle as the “King of the Commode” and his collection of over 1,300 toilet seats. Admission to the museum has been free, he just asked that you call to make an appointment for your visit in advance. The museum is filled with uniquely decorated toilet seats made by Barney, and they’re themed around everything from Batman to the Berlin Wall.
3. Whitewater Rafting on 6 Rafts
One raft just wasn’t enough got Covey Baack, who rafted down class four rapids on top of six stacked rafts. The rafts were strapped together and fitted with custom 20-foot oars for Baack to navigate down rough water in Gold Hill, Oregon.
2. Radioactive Boar Shot in Sweden
Nearly 31 years after the meltdown at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, the toxic radiation released on the region is still there. Though the disaster happened in Russia, winds quickly pushed large clouds of radiation into Sweden. A boar shot by hunters in Sweden had a radiation level over ten times the safe limit! Food safety experts have said that these radioactive boars are quite common in the region, with only about 15% being edible.
1. Thames River Barge Backflip
Travis Pastrana, of the Nitro Circus, completed a world first when he jumped from one barge to another performing a backflip on the famous Thames River. Pastrana will be featured in next year’s Ripley’s Believe It or Not! book, but was gracious enough to sign a few copies of this year’s annual, which we are giving away!
Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog
- Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s profile
- 52 followers
