Strange But True: 100 of the World's Weirdest Wonders (Plus: Famous Hoaxes Revealed)

by LIFE

Here are wonders of the animal kingdom, bizarre social practices of the past and present, remarkable and compelling human achievements, and breath-taking tales of nature at its most unpredictable. The photographs do not lie, and this book proves the Seeing is believing.The true details of the famous stories are What's really going on at Loch Ness; what does Roswell, New Mexico, tell us; and, what about that cloud that looked like Jesus during the Korean War? The surprising, little-known tales are here as the window washer who fell 47 floors and walked away; and, the Christmas burglar who got stuck in a chimney .As P.T.Barnum might Strange but True is a colossal compendium of crazy coincidences, peculiar people and astounding animals. Step right up!

Genres: Nonfiction

128 pages, Hardcover

First published October 14, 2008

About the author

Life was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, Life was a wide-ranging weekly general interest magazine known for the quality of its photography.

Reviews

[Amy Dale]

Not quite what I expected, which was mysteries,monsters, etc, there's a lot of everyday stuff thrown in like chameleons and northern lights.

The 'articles' are a page each and by the time you get past the introduction there's room for very little information. They needed to focus on fewer topics and give more attention to them.

Thankfully I got it used and didn't pay $17 for nothing!

[Ani Martinez]

My magazine is the April 2012 issue covering over ufos, crop circles, the shroud of turin, and more. This was alright - its entertaining when you have nun else to read. A very "flash from the past" of the hot topics that were talked about a couple years ago 🤣

[Sylvia]

A little dated by now, but still a lot of interesting information. A quick overview of most of the well known strange or unexplained things as well as some lesser ones.

[Syazwanie Winston Abdullah]

The write-ups were too brief. Mayhap to cater to the 100 weirdest wonders. But it fed my curiousity on some stuff like The Turin Shroud, Lessie of Loch Ness, The Amytiville Horror etc.

[Adiel]

Happened to randomly read this in a hotel in Canada. Much of the information was not particularly interesting along with a lot of it being undecided.

[Donna Zigmont]

I love this sort of book.I've always liked books that dealt with the unknown sort of things.I read this and was really impressed with some of it.The Narwahl was mentioned and I had actually watched The Octonauts with my nephew and this creature was mentioned.Some things considered a hoax were rather obvious at least to me they were.And I did actually learn something.I never knew Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day.

[Angela]

Finally read this magazine book. It briefly touched on many things I am aware of...and I am not sure Strange but True should have been the name of this book. They talked about Bigfoot (maybe true) and Nessie (maybe true) -- these are not TRUE things. Anyway, it was a good diversion, but had little value past that.

[Ken]

This was a very fun overview book of interesting things around the globe. What I really like about this book is that it didn't just focus on the unexplained, but also presented some very cool scientific oddities that I didn't know about.

[Holmes]

Quite an interesting read ... for killing time.

[Chris Webber]

Thoroughly enjoyed the photos and storytelling of this book!