Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 392
August 31, 2017
August 30, 2017
Bat Bombs Were In Competition With the Atom Bomb
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
After hearing about the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, Pennsylvania dentist and inventor Lytle S. Adams hatched a scheme to use bat bombs to attack Japanese cities.
The plan was relatively straightforward, strap small incendiary bombs with timers to bats, and release them above Japanese cities. The bats would roost inside buildings and homes, allowing the small bombs to do maximum damage.
Adams happened to know Eleanor Roosevelt, and so his crackpot scheme was not dismissed out of hand. The President’s advisors actually took up the plan with enthusiasm, and wrote to generals reassuringly, “This man is not a nut!”
By 1943, the U.S. Army was conducting serious tests. Thousands of bats were captured with nets, and were placed in ice cube trays and cooled so that they would be in hibernation mode when shipped overseas. As the military did more research, they were beginning to like the plan.
They found that bats can carry almost double their own weight in flight and that their nocturnal behavior made them perfect for sneaking into rooftops and structures undetected. The inventor of napalm served a brief stint on the project and said the bat bombs yielded 30 times the destruction of conventional incendiary bombs.
They were so good at secretly penetrating buildings, that when a few escaped testing, they managed to destroy a fuel tanker, air hangar, and a general’s car. Clearly, more work was needed.
The Marine Corps took over the program as high command wanted one million bats ready to launch on Japan as soon as possible. The bats were to be loaded into bomb shaped cages filled with stacked trays, each payload holding about 1,000 bats. The bombs would be dropped by B-24 Bombers from 5,000 feet, parachutes would deploy at 1,000 feet, and the bats would spread out over a large area to infest buildings.
Project “X-Ray,” as it was renamed by the Marine Corps, was up against stiff competition to finish development. Scientists working on the Manhattan Project were rumored to be close to completing a new and devastating weapon. After 30 demonstrations and $2 million, X-Ray was canceled after projections didn’t anticipate they would complete manufacturing until 1945.
August 29, 2017
This Snake Covered Statue Will Leave You Awestruck!
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Every May, hundreds gather in the Italian town of Cocullo to drape snakes onto a statue in a festival known as Processione dei Serpari. The festival celebrates the town’s patron saint, St. Dominic, who is said to have cleared an invasion of snakes from the town’s fields and cured snake bites during the 11th century.
For hundreds of years, townspeople and tourists have been thanking St. Dominic by parading the snake covered statue through the town and draping it with dozens of nonvenomous snakes—an act believed to protect attendees from snakebites for the year.
Months before the festival, snake handlers known as serpari gather the reptiles from the wild, remove their fangs, and care for them until it is time to celebrate. The snakes are released after the festival, and their fangs grow back.
Believe it or not, snakes congregating around the head are said to predict a good harvest!
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!
August 28, 2017
Lawn Chair Larry and His Balloon Trip to the Sky
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
On July 2, 1982, Vietnam veteran and truck driver Larry Walters of California set out to fulfill his life-long dream of flying. The plan was simple: Attach the 42 helium weather balloons he had purchased at an Army Navy store to his trusty aluminum lawn chair. After strapping on some water jugs for stability, he packed a pistol to shoot out the balloons upon descent, a parachute, a CB radio, sandwiches and, of course, beer.
Larry expected to hover a leisurely 32 feet off the ground, but the balloons were caught by a gust of wind and surged to an incredible 16,000 feet!
After drifting into the path of airliners landing at Los Angeles International Airport, Larry decided it was time to descend and shot out several balloons. One jet on its way to land spotted Larry and radioed Air Traffic Control to report a man in a balloon waving around a gun. Radar technicians got a lock on the balloon chair as Larry dropped his pistol. He could no longer shoot out his balloons, but luckily the ones he had managed to puncture earlier led to a slow and steady descent.
Ninety minutes after lifting off (and becoming entangled in power lines, knocking power out for a an entire neighborhood!) Inspiration I, as Larry christened his flying lawn chair, eventually touched the ground with its sole passenger intact. He hadn’t fallen to his death, been sucked into a jet engine, or even electrocuted; but he was under arrest.
After a welcome from law enforcement, Larry and his lucky landing earned their five minutes of fame, appearing on Letterman and The Tonight Show. His story, however, inspired a generation of lawn chair piloting balloonists.
Kent Couch
Kent Couch has made several lawn chair voyages. In 2008, he flew 242 miles at an elevation of 16,630 feet from his home in Bend, Oregon, to Cambridge, Idaho. With his self-made lawn chair, a ballast system of three 15 gallon containers, a dual drain system and the assistance of 156 helium cluster balloons, he flew for nine hours!
Couch even raced another lawn chair balloonist, John Fris, winning for height, but losing for distance. You can find Couch’s chairs in our Newport, Prince Edward Island, Panama City Beach, and Baltimore odditoriums. Freis’ chair sits in our Amsterdam odditorium after its journey over 70 miles of Oregon.
Balloon chair used by Kent Couch at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Baltimore
August 27, 2017
August 26, 2017
August 25, 2017
How the Massive Niagara Falls Ran Dry
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Everyone knows about the day the music died, but what about the day Niagara Falls ran dry? On the morning of March 30, 1848, people living near Niagara Falls awoke to a spooky silence. What had happened to the falls’ thundering roar? On closer inspection, they saw to their horror that the Niagara River had been reduced to nothing more than a trickle.
Fish lay dead and turtles floundered around helplessly while opportunists walked on the riverbed, collecting guns, bayonets and tomahawks as souvenirs. As the incredible news spread, thousands flocked from nearby cities to witness the bizarre spectacle.
Mills and factories were forced to close because the waterwheels had stopped and worried souls, convinced that the end of the world was nigh, flocked to church, praying for the falls to start flowing again. Then the cause of the mystery was revealed—gale force, southwesterly winds had pushed huge chunks of ice to the extreme northeastern tip of Lake Erie, forming an ice dam that blocked the lake’s outlet into the Niagara River.
Finally, on the night of March 31, a distant rumble sounded from upriver, and a wall of water came rushing down the Niagara and over the falls. The ice dam had cleared. The world was up and running again.
Fall Facts:
It discharges 634,000 gallons of water a second.
It could fill every swimming pool in the US in just 3 days!
It would take 2 million years for all the water in the world to flow over the falls.
It is 95 decibels loud, close to the sound of a jet taking off.
The falls are constantly moving, and will eventually disappear into Lake Erie.
Ripley’s Niagara Falls Odditorium
If you’re visiting the falls yourself, make sure to visit our Odditorium in Niagara, where you can see Justin Bieber made out of candy, a mummy hand, dinosaur eggs, and a 24-year collection of belly-button lint!
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