Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures
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
The Dinosaur and the Missing Link
Posted By: Paul - Mon Jun 13, 2022 -
Comments (0)
Category: History, Unexplained Historical Enigmas, Movies, Science, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures, 1910s
King Dinosaur
The Wikipedia page.
Posted By: Paul - Mon May 31, 2021 -
Comments (1)
Category: Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Movies, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures, Science Fiction, Space Travel, 1950s
I Was a Teen-Age Caveman
Posted By: Paul - Sat Sep 26, 2020 -
Comments (2)
Category: Antiques, Anachronisms and Throwbacks, Antisocial Activities, Music, Violence, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures, 1950s
T-Rex Race
Posted By: Paul - Thu May 07, 2020 -
Comments (0)
Category: Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures
The Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter
Read online here.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jul 14, 2019 -
Comments (4)
Category: Animals, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures, Antiques, Anachronisms and Throwbacks, Authorities and Experts, Eccentrics, Conspiracy Theories and Theorists, Curmudgeons and Contrarianism, Science, 1970s
Lawyer consumption rates of Tyrannosaurus rex
A science question inspired by the scene in Jurassic Park in which the T rex ate the lawyer:How many lawyers would it take to properly feed a captive T rex for an entire year?
The answer: if the T rex is warm-blooded it will need to eat 292 lawyers a year. If cold-blooded, only 73 lawyers.
From The Complete Dinosaur, edited by James Orville Farlow, M. K. Brett-Surman.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 23, 2018 -
Comments (3)
Category: Law, Science, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures
Carnival in Trinidad: Then and Now
I don't mean to sound like an Old Fart, but the 1957 Carnival just seems to me so much more charming and weird and ingenious--look at those bipedal seahorses with the mermaid--than the current version, which seems to be about nothing more than bare flesh. Maybe the 2015 videographer simply did not film the weird costumes--but then again, every other video of the 2015 carnival on YouTube features the exact same stuff. Now, I like bare flesh as much as the next voyeur, but I would really prefer to see a papier-mache Godzilla any day.
Posted By: Paul - Sun Jan 10, 2016 -
Comments (2)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Costumes and Masks, Music, Parades and Festivals, Sexuality, Outsider Art, Foreign Customs, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures, 1950s, 2010s, Caribbean, Body Painting
Парк Юрского периода
A lab in Russia is working on cloning a wooly mammoth. China and South Korea are supposed to participate in the project. Perhaps they will build their own Парк Юрского периода.
Posted By: Alex - Tue Sep 01, 2015 -
Comments (5)
Category: Experiments, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures
Bollywood King Kong
More info here.
Tip of the hat to my pal Lawrence Person.
Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 14, 2015 -
Comments (6)
Category: Ineptness, Crudity, Talentlessness, Kitsch, and Bad Art, Movies, Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Creatures, Asia
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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, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. 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. Contact Us |