Unbelievable: Ripley's Believe it or not - 4

The following exhibit had some pictures of Siamese twins and some objects which came out of people's stomachs. Next one was a real 3.179 pound meteorite, found in China in 1958 and believed to fallen on earth in 1592. And there was also a computer-generated picture depicting the view of New York, if the meteorite had fallen there and the crater looked like a complete city could fit into it. 

                                                       Picture of meteor hit New York city

There was also the original american flag taken to moon and a piece of rock from moon (wow!). The next was a life-size exhibit of Shark with its jaws wide open and they had even shown all the strange things inside its stomach which also consisted of two swimsuits (that's funny!).

A dinosaur skull and bones were also on display and then came the exciting part - a room with laser beams falling across and one had to make his way through the beams and go to the other end of the room without touching any laser beam. This was so much fun, as first my husband went in and we could see him in a t.v. outside, it looked just like movies and he was pretty good and touched only 4 beams. After him, it was my turn now, i did pretty well too- only 3 beams, yipee!!.

                                                                                  Dinosaur skeleton

Another interesting twist, we saw there was, there were two doors - one was for coward hearted and the other one a path through a rotating ball leading to the next exhibit. We took the one through the ball, and it was spinning all around and I felt like I was falling on one side. But we made it not just once but five times, it was so much fun.

From the ball, we were led into the the famous room with shrunken heads from Ecuador. This practice of shrinking heads was common amongst the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador, South America. So when an enemy was killed, his head was cut off, skin peeled away from the skull and hot stones,sand were poured into the cavity, then the head was sewn and boiled in herbs till it shrunk to the size of a fist. Then it was smoked over a fire to darken and harden it with feasts and ceremonies going on (Most outrageous of all!).

This visit was definitely the most unbelievable as the things we saw, we could have never imagined. It was a different experience all together. 

Unbelievable: Ripley's Believe it or not - 3

The Torture room, also had a 'Vampire Killing Kit', which was used to kill a suspected vampire. It contained garlic, a mirror, a pistol, an ivory cross, a bible, a mallet and wooden stake. And the funniest part of the exhibit was the pickled heads, there were two empty jars open in the back, so one could put their head inside the jar and look like a pickled face.

                                                       The Vampire killing Kit
The next was the room of Egyptian mummies, where a woman's hand which was mummified with a ring still on it, was on display. There was also a 200-year old mask which was found inside a coffin covering the face of a mummified body and a canopic jar which was used to keep the organs of the mummy, as all the organs of the body were removed before the body was mummified. And the famous mask worn by Pharaohs was also on exhibit. This exhibit was truly fascinating.

Abrahan Lincoln exhibit, followed the Egyptian exhibit. There were pictures of the president, the gun which was used to shoot him and even the piece of the curtain, from the balcony of the theater where he was sitting with his wife when he was killed. And a lock of his hair preserved and the pictures of convicts who were hanged for the assassination. Even more surprising was to see locks of hair of Napoleon Bonaparte and many other presidents of United States. A dress made of egg whiskers, blanket made of brand tags and a jacket made of flags of different countries, were extraordinary.

A bit tired, we sat in the auditorium and saw some of the famous Ripleys videos. After a while, we went to see the other exhibit, there were statues of African gods of fertility and a huge spear carved out of single piece of wood. A corset on a dummy was on exhibit depicting the ill-effects of tightly worn corsets by women in earlier days, when a 13 inch waist was considered best as ordered by a queen. So women in those days used to squeeze into a corset to look acceptable, and they had even mentioned an incidence - where a women with the acceptable 13'' waist, was the center of attraction of a party and after two days she died because she starved herself to fit into the even tighter corset.

Two skulls kept in a glass tank, looked like their heads were molded, and was called as Peruvian Trepany Skull, 500 A.D. These skulls bear the signs of head-binding to beautify and shape the skull and this practice was followed in Peru in those days. The other display shows more cruelty, the Golden Lily Slippers from  19th century China, where the daughters of wealthy families from the age of 3 were made to wear these shoes by breaking their feet and bound so tightly that their toes touched their heels. And because of this, the women couldn't walk properly and standing for long was almost impossible (strange !!).

There were even more cruel ways of beautifying women like the Paudaung Neck Rings, which were worn by women in Burma from the age of 5 to 25, to elongate their necks which was a sign of wealth and status, but it actually deformed their rib cages and the other was the- the disks worn by Ubangi women of Chad, Africa- as these wooden disks were inserted into their mouths which extended their lips to huge proportions as a sign of beauty and status in the tribe.

                   Paudaung Neck Rings and disks worn by Ubangi women of Chad

Unbelievable: Ripley's Believe it or not - 2

The picture gallery led us into a library, with book shelves and a table of Mr. Ripley with globe, maps, old books, watch and a small movie was being played depicting his adventures. Then one of the bookshelves moved and we were led into another exhibit - African face masks. It had all kinds of weird face masks which people in Africa used during ceremonies and rituals many years ago.

There was also the famous two-headed calf, which looked pretty strange. Then there was solid lightning (yes, I mean it !), called fulgurites. 

                                                                        Solid Lightning

In this gallery there was one amazing genuine Allosaurus skull, and we clicked pictures with our hands inside its mouth. It must have been scary in real. And yes, we also got a picture clicked with a dummy dressed as a member of one of the African tribes. There was also on display the strange torture technique in China in early days, as the punishment for lying was to get roasted tied around a pole (outrageous!!). The drawings on Ostrich eggs were pretty impressive.

The Chinese beer jars and kettles were displayed in a huge showcase and on the ceiling one could get inspired by the huge collection of lighters from around the world. The clothes and shoes worn by the tallest woman in the world were on also on display. There was also a big collection of Matchstick Spanish armada fleet miniatures displayed beneath a glass flooring, it looked awesome.

                                  Collection of Matchstick Spanish armada fleet miniatures


There was also a tank full of cockroaches and a glass dome inside it, so one could put its head inside and see cockroaches crawling all over the place. And there were some exhibits from the Titanic too. It was so nice to see things brought up from the seabed of titanic like a thermo-col glass, which had shrunken to a half an inch glass due to the pressure of the water under the sea and a small piece of the ship too.

The next was the Berlin Wall, Ripley's very own piece of Berlin wall, after it was brought down and on the lower part of the wall it was clearly written 'Made in Germany'. The next exhibit was about skulls, masks and necklaces made of body parts. One of the necklace's had 6 human fingers tied with a thread, and this kind of necklace used to be worn by women of some African tribe. These were worn by them, after their husband's death and the fingers of their husbands were cut according to the number of children and made into a necklace. Most of this exhibit was about the rituals women had to carry out after their husbands expired.

This led us into the next exhibit - Torture Room, many ways of torture during the earlier ages were shown here. The first one was a small wooden box, and criminals were locked in those boxes and left to die with only a small window in the box to breathe. In the exhibit, they had even shown a skull hanging out the hole of the box. Then there was the method of electric shock which killed instantly. Another brutal way of torture was  hanging a criminal from a wall, with hands and legs ties with a rope and a heavy chain with weight was put around the stomach; this way the body got pulled from both sides and ripped apart.

The cow mask was another medieval century torture device, and Iron Maiden, a wood structure which had piercing sticks inside and the criminal was made to stand inside it and then it was closed slowly, killing the person immediately in the most gruesome way. As the pointed steel sticks inside were put exactly in the right places to pierce heart, eyes and other parts of the body. There was also a wooden box to hang people and the heavy piece of wood fitted to the ground, with holes for neck and hands was put on culprits to punish them severely. A real Human brain, which was cut out and was there on exhibit, this brain belonged to a criminal in earlier times and it was dissected to see the difference between a normal and a criminal mind. 

Unbelievable: Ripley's Believe it or not

We visited the Ripley's Believe it or not 'Odditorium', NY yesterday. It was a sudden plan and we booked our tickets online right away. It was unbelievable, as we saw such strange and bizarre things; which can make anyone think, 'that its not possible'. 

I should start writing the blog, with something about Mr. Robert Ripley, who started it all. He began by selling a cartoon to the life magazine and after his believe it or not cartoon took off, he became a traveler looking for the oddest things. And odditorium is the place where all his collectibles are showcased to the public. The entrance to the museum is grand with a chinese dragon mega gate. 

A life size horse made of car bumpers greeted us at the museum entrance. On the other side of the entrance was the bearded lady, and then there was the skeleton of the largest crocodile ever coming out of the ceiling. It lived during the Jurassic age, a 40 feet long crocodile from Africa and used to eat dinosaurs (Strange!!). The next was the General Tom Thumb's pictures and shoes, he was the world's most famous midget and was only 3'4'' tall. His shoes looked like tiny doll shoes and in comparison to that there were shoes worn by the tallest man Robert Wadlow, 8' 11'' giant, and his statue looked massive. 

                                                                     Ripley's Believe it or not, NY


The next was the world's smallest car ever driven and a Mercedes made entirely of wood, which was actually not a car but a boat. There was also Johhny Eck, a versatile man born with no legs but could climb a ladder and was also an painter. We tried to measure our hand with the biggest hand possible, a 12.5'' hand of a texan born which is considered the biggest by far. There was also an exhibit of the ugliest woman in the world, with big falling out lips. And there were mirrors too, to see if we could roll our tongues, as it was written there, that 1 in 3 people can roll their tongues, but I was not one of three. And before taking the stairs, there was a giant albino giraffe, on the right, completely white that it didn't even look like the typical giraffes we see. 

From here, we went to the first floor, and there we saw the figure of the heaviest man, Walter Hudson from New York, who weighed 1400 lbs (635 kgs), with just the soda intake of 2 litres per meal (Humongous !!). There were paintings of people like a sadhu from India, women with a long beard and hair, a wolf faced man and the man with three legs, a man whose face looked exactly like Popeye (must be the source of inspiration) and a woman whose could write with both hands backwards and forward, upwards and downwards too (wow!!). More strange pictures adorned the walls, like the picture of a man who dressed differently on half side of his body and a man whose hands and feet were like crab, Siamese twins.

                                               Woman with beard and long hair