Ripley Entertainment Inc.'s Blog, page 86
May 22, 2022
May 21, 2022
May 20, 2022
University of Michigan Professors Pee-cycle for Peonies
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Peonies in the University of Michigan’s Nichols Arboretum had a wee bit of help blooming this year after environmental engineering professors showered them in and unlikely fertilizer — human urine!
Researchers and professors Nancy Love and Krista Wigginton are passionate about pee, especially when it comes to peonies.
After receiving a $3 million National Science Foundation grant in 2016, the duo began testing advanced treatment methods and spreading the word about the environmental and economic benefits of utilizing urine as a fertilizer at the Nichols Arboretum’s show-stopping heirloom peony garden.
Peony Festival at Nichols Arboretum. Credit: Santosdo via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The Arboretum makes for a beautiful landscape to demonstrate the power of pee fertilizer! Containing over 270 American, Canadian, and European 19th- and 20th-century peony varieties, the Arboretum rounds out to about 800 peonies — nearly 10,000 flowers when in full bloom!
Pee for the PeoniesLike all good marketers, Love and Wigginton knew that the best way to garner attention for a cause is with a great catchphrase. The phrase began as “pee on the peonies.” They soon realized that their catchy slogan was being taken literally by some weak-bladdered whiz kids and changed it to the more accurate “pee FOR the peonies.”
The dynamic duo will be spending weekends in May and June hooking visitors with the slogan before reeling them in with the cold hard facts about the nutrient flows, efficiency, and sustainability of urine-derived fertilizers.
“In general, people think it’s funny at first, but then they understand why we’re doing it, and they support it,” said Wigginton of the public’s response thus far.
What’s So Special About Urine?Many alternatives to chemical fertilizers can help your garden grow, including eggshells, wood ashes, pet hair, and even fish carcasses. Still, urine is the liquid gold of them all, as it contains nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus that help crops thrive — and it is easily accessible.
A pair of University of Michigan researchers are putting the “pee” in peony. https://t.co/f8DeqcHINs pic.twitter.com/hBApPsGAhu
— KATV News (@KATVNews) May 13, 2022
Prior to the experiments at the Arboretum, Love co-authored a study detailing her findings that urine diversion and recycling, or “pee-cycling,” resulted in significant reductions in energy and greenhouse gas emissions.
Love is committed to the idea of a “circular economy of nutrients,” in which human urine is collected to create renewable fertilizers, contributing to environmental sustainability.
Power to the Pee-pleBefore you drop those drawers to cultivate a garden of your own, it’s important to note that urine must be treated to be effective.
Though the fertilizer currently being used at the University of Michigan hails from Vermont, a collection toilet bowl is being housed in an engineering building on campus.
The split bowl helps keep pathogens from crossing streams, sending solid waste to a treatment plant while urine flows to a holding tank. Once the pee piles up, it’s treated to dilute trace amounts of bacteria collected in the bladder and aged to eliminate DNA that can spread antibiotic-resistant infections.
When collection efforts came to a halt due to the university’s COVID-19–induced closure, the research team used the time to improve their process by upgrading their freeze concentrator and adding an energy-efficient pasteurizer to the operation.
Love and Wigginton hope to have local fertilizers available next year.
By Meghan Yani, contributor for Ripleys.com
EXPLORE THE ODD IN PERSON! Discover hundreds of strange and unusual artifacts and get hands-on with unbelievable interactives when you visit a Ripley’s Odditorium!Source: University of Michigan Professors Pee-cycle for Peonies
North Carolina Man Crafts 25-Mile-Long Paper Chain
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In an unsuspecting town in rural North Carolina, an astonishing feat was accomplished — a paper chain reaching nearly 25 miles in length and heavy enough to need floor reinforcement. Butch Baker, the man behind this absolutely monstrous undertaking, worked on the crafty creation over the course of 40 years!
Now, the monumental creation has found a new home at Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
Are You Yanking My Chain?Four Oaks is a small town in Johnston County, North Carolina, and is home to 82-year-old Butch Baker. Butch has lived a relatively quiet life spending most of his days working in automotive repair. It’s in his free time that Butch has been able to create something extraordinary!
It all began on a snowy day in 1979, when Butch began cutting and folding small pieces of paper into a chain to pass the time while he watched television. The process was so easy to do that he began adding to the chain every day after work.
That singular snow day led Butch to begin a process that he would continue as a pastime for over 40 years!
It didn’t take much time for the chain to grow substantially. Before long, the chain stretched down the hallway and out the door. Butch decided to form his work into a ball that would sit in the corner of his living room, right next to the easy chair he sat in daily to build the monumental construction!
Over the years, Butch’s contributions to his paper chain became so consistent and sizable that he began taking trips to find brochures, cigar boxes, greeting cards, and more to cut and use for their sturdy paper. Coincidentally, some of those brochures are from Ripley’s Believe It or Not! attractions!
After four decades of growth, the paper chain measured about 25 miles long and was so heavy that it damaged the floor at Butch’s house. Believe It or Not!, Butch had to reinforce the flooring of his living room to support the massive size of the paper chain!
Chain ReactionThe Ripley’s team connected with Butch in 2019, and he agreed to add his paper chain to the Ripley’s collection. The process of obtaining the chain and breaking it down so it could be transported to the Ripley’s Warehouse in Orlando, Florida, took over 100 hours of labor!
The Ripley’s team hard at work breaking down the chain.
The Ripley’s team devised a method of wrapping the chain in large spools by feeding it out of Butch’s living room window. The spools were then loaded onto a truck for smooth transportation back to the Warehouse.
Although Butch was sad to see his work go, he was proud that his chain would live on as an unbelievable exhibit at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Butch can rest assured that his astonishing paper chain will be admired by people all over the world.
EXPLORE THE ODD IN PERSON! Discover hundreds of strange and unusual artifacts and get hands-on with unbelievable interactives when you visit a Ripley’s Odditorium!
May 19, 2022
Ripley’s EqualiT-REX + Limited Time Exhibit
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
Perched atop Ripley’s Believe It or Not!, Hollywood Boulevard’s resident dinosaur is rawring with pride in a fabulous new outfit!
Celebrating Dino-versityIn the spirit of Pride, Ripley’s EqualiT-REX is an extension of our celebration of differences and diversity.
Along with featuring incredible artifacts, historic relics, and pop culture memorabilia, Ripley’s is committed to fostering inclusivity by uplifting people who accomplish extraordinary feats, including folks in the LGBTQ+ community.
Achieving the unbelievable is an admirable feat, and to do so in the face of adversity is all the more remarkable!
Ripley’s well-dressed dino is not only ready to welcome the LA Pride Parade, but also the opening of a limited-time exhibit highlighting Marilyn Monroe!
That’s right, beginning Memorial Day weekend, Marilyn Monroe’s historic “Happy Birthday” dress — now also Kim Kardashian’s 2022 Met Gala look — will be on display at Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Hollywood!
Come see the sparkle of Monroe’s dress firsthand and get a behind-the-scenes glimpse of Kim’s Met Gala look. You are not going to want to miss the variety of memorabilia from Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy also included in this exhibit!
You can see THE dress up close at the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! in Hollywood for a limited time beginning Memorial Day weekend!
Not near Hollywood, California? Although Ripley’s T. rex is pretty much attached to its roof, the “Happy Birthday” dress — now valued at over $10 million — will be touring Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Attractions worldwide through 2023! Stay tuned as it could soon come to a Ripley’s Believe It or Not! near you!
To learn more about about the exhibit and ticketing, visit
EXPLORE THE ODD IN PERSON! Discover hundreds of strange and unusual artifacts and get hands-on with unbelievable interactives when you visit a Ripley’s Odditorium!The Mysterious Beast That Once Terrorized France
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
In a remote French village, where snow, wind, and thunderstorms frequently made life in the sparsely populated area difficult, villagers had more to fear than the elements. Lurking in the shadows was The Beast, a monster that stalked women and children at the edge of town.
Bone-Chilling TalesTales and fear of the monster spread far and wide. A wolf-like creature plagued the people living in the region, and its descriptions grew more and more gruesome with each telling. Sure, it might sound like a tale to frighten children, or even the plot of “Little Red Riding Hood,” but fiction doesn’t explain the very real deaths of as many as a hundred people!
La Bête du Gévaudan (the Beast of Gévaudan) terrorized townsfolk from 1764 to 1767. Life in Gévaudan, which no longer exists by that name, was hard but peaceful before the monster began to devour the residents.
The first known victim, according to Smithsonian, was a 14-year-old girl named Jeanne Boulet, who had been tending to sheep in the countryside.
Sadly, Jeanne would be just the start of many more victims to come.
Credit: Public domain via Wikimedia.
Howling in FearThe people of Gévaudan and the surrounding areas were used to seeing wolves. In fact, according to a paper titled “The Wolf Threat in France from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century,” wolves attacked people more than 5,000 times in France between the 16th and 19th centuries alone! The strange thing is, although residents of Gévaudan were highly familiar with wolves, the way witnesses described the creature’s attacks did not resemble that of a typical wolf.
Descriptions of the creature, which came to be called The Beast, ranged from a wolf or hyena with the tail of a cat to a creature the size of a bull, with some claiming The Beast to be a strange lion-lizard hybrid. Some firsthand accounts claim The Beast was silent as it hunted its prey, namely young girls of the village, while others claimed it sounded like a horse neighing.
It wasn’t enough that The Beast was slaughtering residents of Gévaudan — to make matters worse, rumors spread that The Beast was hunting and seeking out humans, rather than maintaining the usual careful distance of a common wolf.
18th century print depicting the Beast of Gévaudan. Credit: Public Domain via Wikimedia.
A Story Told Across the WorldThe gruesome tale gripped the attention of illustrators, and the story became one of the first widespread news stories as it was picked up from country to country. The caption of one artist’s rendering read, “Picture of the monster desolating the Gévaudan, This Beast is the size of a young Bull, it likes to attack Women and Children, it drinks their Blood, cuts off their Heads, and carries them off.”
The same image described a reward to any hunter that could slay The Beast. The reward grew even larger when the story caught the attention of King Louis XV. The legend continued to grow, with people claiming The Beast could deflect bullets from its fur!
With money and pride to be had, many men descended upon Gévaudan. Although thousands of professionals tried to end the region’s terror, they remained unsuccessful. People began to whisper that supernatural elements were at play and speculated that maybe The Beast was doing a human’s bidding.
Besting The BeastMany were said to have wounded or confronted The Beast, from a group of young boys to a 20-year-old woman named Marie-Jeanne Valet, who became known as the Maid of Gévaudan. A statue of Marie-Jeanne stabbing The Beast in the chest was erected, despite its escape.
Credit: kochiz30 via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Eventually, one of King Louis XV’s men killed a large wolf with scars believed to have come from attack victims defending themselves. The animal was stuffed and sent around for the royals to observe, and many put the tale to rest. Unfortunately, after a brief period of peace, the attacks resumed. People came to wonder if a second wolf was on the prowl, or if the wolf that was killed was an imposter.
Then in the summer of 1767, a local hunter named Jean Chastel shot a wolf, and an autopsy revealed the creature had human remains in its stomach! Not long after, the attacks that had once haunted the village came to an end.
In the end, the legendary creature known as The Beast attacked more than 200 people, about half of which were killed and at least partially eaten. And while most agree the culprit was likely a wolf, there are still those who believe The Beast was something more.
By Kelsey Roslin, contributor for Ripleys.com
EXPLORE THE ODD IN PERSON! Discover hundreds of strange and unusual artifacts and get hands-on with unbelievable interactives when you visit a Ripley’s Odditorium!
May 18, 2022
May 17, 2022
2,000-Year-Old Roman Bust Bought For $34.99 From Texas Goodwill
Featured in Ripley's Believe It or Not!
As successful shows like PBS’s Antiques Roadshow and History’s American Pickers attest, one person’s trash is another one’s treasure. There’s something incredibly satisfying about discovering a hidden gem in a pile of junk, especially when it comes with big money, acclaim, or both. Some people, like antique dealer Laura Young, do this for a living, honing their eye for things that others have unthinkingly tossed aside.
But even Young was in for the shock of a lifetime after discovering that a beautiful marble bust she scoped out at a Texas Goodwill turned out to be two millennia old! Here’s the story of this incredible find.
The Head Under the TableYoung spotted the marble head on the floor under a display table, and it caught her eye because of its aged appearance. She also noted that it was made of carved marble. Fortunately, she didn’t have to buy the item based on weight because it came in at 52 pounds. Instead, she paid just $34.99 before unceremoniously buckling it into the back seat of her vehicle for the drive home.
The seasoned antique dealer’s next move involved researching the item. Was it a Victorian garden decoration? Or perhaps a piece from the 18th century? The possibilities felt tantalizing. But Young could never have prepared for what she ultimately discovered about the gorgeous sculpture that she stumbled upon in that thrift store in Austin.
The Find of a LifetimeNot only did Young learn that the marble bust in her possession was much older than initially thought, but she even found the name of the man whose 3D portrait she now possessed. He was Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, although he also went by Drusus the Elder or Drusus Germanicus.
The piece dated to the Julio-Claudian era, making it an astounding 2,000 years old. In the midst of her research, Young even discovered that the man portrayed in the bust looks a lot more like the famed Roman General Pompey (who went head-to-head with Julius Caesar at disastrous personal cost) than Drusus Germanicus.
Young had the bust’s provenance traced by friends at a London auction house. They found a century-old catalog from a German museum known as the Pompejanum in Aschaffenburg, where the bust had been listed (via KUT 90.5). How did the figure go from a German museum to a Texas secondhand store? Thanks to World War II. It was brought to the United States by a soldier who either looted it or bought it from a looter in the chaos and confusion of the war’s end.
A Bittersweet PartingAlthough Young has uncovered many incredible finds in her line of work, the marble bust takes the cake. She explains, “He’s probably the coolest thing I’m ever going to find. The most special. There’s a lot of history,” according to ABC 13. Unfortunately, the marble head’s ancient backstory ultimately meant that Young couldn’t keep it.
But she’s got a year to enjoy seeing it on display at the San Antonio Museum of Art before it makes its way back to Germany. While Young feels excited that the statue is going back to the place where it belongs, she can’t help but admit she’s got mixed feelings about the whole thing. “It’ll be a little bittersweet to see him in the museum, but he needs to go home. He wasn’t supposed to be here,” per Texas Public Radio.
Keeping a Little Piece of Dennis with HerView this post on Instagram
A post shared by Laura Young (@templeofvintage)
That said, she’s experienced trouble parting with the head that once graced her abode. Positioned on a small credenza in the entryway of her home, she passed him every day. And over time, she became attached. She even named him Dennis Reynolds, based on her favorite narcissistic character from the television series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
As Young explains, “He was attractive, he was cold, he was aloof. I couldn’t really have him. He was difficult. So, yeah, my nickname for him was Dennis” (via DH News). Her affection for the bust translated into one final act of sentimentality. She had a half-sized replica of the statue made on a 3D printer that she keeps with her collection of statues, many of which are also thrift-store finds like Dennis.
By Engrid Barnett, contributor for Ripleys.com
EXPLORE THE ODD IN PERSON! Discover hundreds of strange and unusual artifacts and get hands-on with unbelievable interactives when you visit a Ripley’s Odditorium!Source: 2,000-Year-Old Roman Bust Bought For $34.99 From Texas Goodwill
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