Weird Universe Archive
December 2024
December 21, 2024
Anti-Thumb-Sucking Glove
This doesn't look safe.Patent No. 2,035,210 granted to Elizar Zinner of Germany.
Popular Science - May 1938
Posted By: Alex - Sat Dec 21, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Babies, Patents, Clothing, 1930s
Christmas Blues
Posted By: Paul - Sat Dec 21, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Holidays, Music, 1960s
December 20, 2024
The National Bureau of Standards measures women
A great deal of effort has gone into trying to come up with standard clothing sizes for women. Organizations such as the National Bureau of Standards have, over the years, measured tens thousands of women.However, precise standards have proved elusive. Instead, according to Wikipedia, clothes makers "follow the more loosely defined standards known as U.S. catalog sizes." And catalog sizes "may vary even among different styles of the same type of garment."
Cincinnati Enquirer - Jan 17, 1971
Hartford Courant - Jan 31, 1971
Posted By: Alex - Fri Dec 20, 2024 -
Comments (5)
Category: Instruments and Measuring Devices, Clothing, 1970s, Women
Equine Hitchhiker
Posted By: Paul - Fri Dec 20, 2024 -
Comments (0)
Category: Accidents, Animals, Death, 1930s, Cars
December 19, 2024
Giant Virgin Mary
Another oddity from my recent southern Arizona trip:About 100 miles south of Tucson, in the town of Hereford, a 31-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary has been erected on the side of a hill. It's so close to the border that, if you stand in the right place, you can see both the Virgin Mary statue and the border wall in the valley below.
The statue was built by Pat and Jerry Chouinard in the 1990s. It stands alongside a 75-foot-tall Celtic cross. But giant crosses seem less odd than giant Virgin Marys. (Unless the crosses are really giant, see our previous post "The largest cross in the western hemisphere").
How does this giant Virgin Mary compare to other giant Virgin Marys around the world? It's not close to being the tallest. The record goes to the Mother of All Asia statue in the Philippines which stands 322 ft high. The American record (9th tallest in the world) goes to Our Lady of the Rockies (90-feet-tall) in Butte, Montana.
source: gcatholic.org
There's a 33-foot-tall statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Windsor, Ohio. That may be the second-tallest in America. Assuming that Our Lady of Guadalupe is the same as the Virgin Mary. I'm not sure if place-specific Marian apparitions are considered to be equivalent to the original Mary.
That would make the Virgin Mary in Arizona the third-tallest in the United States.
More info: Roadside America
Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 19, 2024 -
Comments (3)
Category: Religion, World Records, Statues and Monuments, Arizona
December 18, 2024
Miss Intelligence
In 1968, 20-year-old Evelyn Jacoby was awarded the title of "Miss Intelligence." Or, more specifically, the "most intelligent German woman." A panel of 25 professors of psychology selected her.
Asbury Park Press - May 16, 1968
Culpeper Star-Exponent - May 10, 1968
Posted By: Alex - Wed Dec 18, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, 1960s, Brain
Full Sensory Theater
Only the 1960s would conceive of this. Full patent here.
Posted By: Paul - Wed Dec 18, 2024 -
Comments (2)
Category: Inventions, Patents, Movies, Television, 1960s, Eyes and Vision, Head, Smells and Odors
December 17, 2024
The Thing museum
Yesterday I posted about a recent visit I made to the Last Supper Museum in Douglas, Arizona. On the same trip (in fact, on the same day) I also visited "The Thing" museum, which is off the I-10, about 70 miles north of Douglas (and 50 miles east of Tucson).The two are both weird museums, but share no similarities beyond that.
The Last Supper Museum is the oddball passion project of an individual. The Thing, on the other hand, is highly commercialized and corporate-owned.
The commercialization begins with the numerous billboards advertising the museum up and down the I-10. Then, when you arrive, you find that it's part of a gas station/travel stop complex. To get to the museum itself you have to walk through a gigantic gift store.
The Thing wasn't always like that. It started out sixty years ago as a roadside attraction run by Thomas Binkley Prince. He displayed a few oddities, such as a car that he claimed had belonged to Hitler, as well as a mummified humanoid body that he called "The Thing" (the namesake of the museum).
Prince died in 1969, and the museum was eventually acquired by Bowlin Travel Centers, Inc.
In the 2010s, Bowlin expanded and updated the museum. They evidently decided to capitalize on the "Ancient Aliens" craze, because the majority of the museum is now devoted to telling the story of an extraterrestrial race, the RAH'thians, and their ongoing interaction with life on Earth, beginning with the dinosaurs and continuing through to the present day.
You walk through a winding exhibit hall, past life-size models of extraterrestrials and dinosaurs (and extraterrestrials fighting dinosaurs with laser guns). The models are pretty cool and very professionally done. The problem is that it all comes across as a bit jokey and tongue-in-cheek, which negates the weird factor.
Questions are frequently posed on the walls.
Finally you arrive at a room in which the original Thing is displayed. The connection between the Thing and the preceding dinosaurs and extraterrestrials wasn't clear to me.
It cost $5 to see the entire museum, which isn't a lot. If you happen to be driving down the I-10, I'd say go see it. But I wouldn't make a special trip to visit it.
More info: RoadsideAmerica.com; Wikipedia.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Dec 17, 2024 -
Comments (6)
Category: Aliens, Museums, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures, Arizona
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| Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction books such as Elephants on Acid. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1. Chuck Shepherd Chuck is the purveyor of News of the Weird, the syndicated column which for decades has set the gold-standard for reporting on oddities and the bizarre. Our banner was drawn by the legendary underground cartoonist Rick Altergott. Contact Us |
