Author: MOTW Admin

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Don’t know what this says about the marriage

Forget the controversy about whether or not to wear white to a wedding. These people are deciding between quilted an extra-absorbent. It’s an contest sponsored by Charmin (as in “don’t squeeze the”) where dress designers create a wedding gown out of toilette paper. Why? Who knows? They’ve been doing it for 11 years.

A model walks the runway wearing ‘Garden Party’ a design by Carol Touchstone during the 11th annual toilet paper wedding dress contest at Kleinfled’s Bridal Boutique in New York June 17, 2015. [Reuters/Brendan McDermid]
 The winner was Donna Pope Vincler. Her gown is pictured here.

A woman wearing a white gown with a veil and tophat
The winning dress in Charmin’s 11th annual toilette paper wedding dress contest.

Alright, yes, it’s very fetching. Not many people can pull off wearing toilette paper like that. Most people just use it as an occasional shoe accessory. Of course, this is probably no weirder than the annual duct tape tuxedo contest, where students can win scholarship for showing pictures of prom wear they’ve created with duct tape. Though, if I have to pick my skill for the zombie apocalypse, I think I’d rather be a duct-tape wizard than a toilette paper princess.

Oh, well! It’s art! Have you ever made something weird like this? Tell us about it! Maybe we’ll feature your strange creation.

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More Texas UFOs

The other day I talked about the strange 19th century UFO history of Aurora, Texas. Not all UFO history in Texas is ancient (in Texas years. Those Greeks and Egyptians are just showing off.). Stephenville, Texas has had some really interesting sightings, including one that received a lot of attention in 2008. The Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) released a detailed report on the incident, which included their analysis of RADAR data.

More recently there was a bizarre sighting over Houston that was captured by many people, documented in this news report.

Texas has been identified as a UFO hotspot. There is also a web site dedicated to Texas UFO Sightings. If creatures from another planet do decide to make themselves known, Texas would be a good place to start. We’re friendly here, with some open spaces that would make good landing sites. It’s also important that they get a chance to appreciate proper BBQ first. 😉

Have you ever seen a UFO? Tell us about it or share in the comments!

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Prehistoric Sea Monster Found Alive!

We’re a little early for Shark Week (Who knew this would become a thing?), and we’re past some of the buzz from Jurassic World, so maybe this is the perfect place to mash up the two. On land, most Jurassic creatures—the ones with massive size and sharp knife-like teeth—have become mostly fossils.

The ocean is a different case. Some creatures from the age of dinosaurs still exist down there. Prepare yourself for one of the most bizarre creatures you’ll ever see: the frilled shark.

These creatures are extremely uncommon, which is probably good, because this looks way scarier than a Great White. However, they have been recorded in a variety of locations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

world map showing blue colored areas to mark sightings
Map of Frilled Shark sightings

For something that’s rare, these are pretty widely spread.

In truth, the frilled shark is not actually a Jurassic creature, but a more modern one that has only been dated back to the early Pleistocene epoch. Its traits are very similar to its older ancestors, giving us a good taste of what it would be like to encounter such a beast.

We love monsters! You can see our life-sized King Kong at the Museum of the Weird on 6th street and visit all of our others in the Sfanthor House of Wax on South Congress. Get a combo pass and see both museums for one great price.

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A tiny Texas town with a weird UFO history

You might think that UFO stories about aliens are pretty new, but there’s one in Texas that dates back to 1897. A tiny town called Aurora, just a little north of Ft. Worth (215 miles from the Museum of the Weird), has a mysterious legend about an alien encounter.

photo of an informal grave stone under a crooked tree
Grave site of alleged alien from the crash in 1897

I’m thinking field trip! It’s about a 3.5 hour drive from the Museum. We head out, pay our respects. Maybe we sneak into Ft. Worth for some food and maybe a Stockyard Ghost tour. (There doesn’t seem to be much to eat in Aurora unless you’ve got family there.) I suppose we’d need to stay overnight. It could be a real good time!

Would you go on a weird field trip with us?

There is a full-length documentary about the alien crash in Aurora.

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Man Invents Warp Drive in his Garage

What would you say if I told you that there is a guy in Omaha working on building a warp drive—as in “Mr. Sulu, ahead warp factor 2” kind of warp drive? When we are dealing with science this deep we like to get an explanation from guys like Doctor Michio Kaku. Is warp speed even possible?

OK… so maybe it is. If it is, is it available to us in this lifetime. NASA has apparently been exploring this, but we are pulling for Dave Pares, a professor at the University of Nebraska Omaha, has been working on the warp problem out of his garage! His Space Warp Project is a privately funded effort that may actually get this done. Here is a video where Professor Pares talks about his vision. (It’s a little more low-key that Dr. Kaku.)

So, does this mean we’ll all be travelling at warp speeds soon? We were all promised jet packs and flying cars, but we haven’t seen much from them. We’re optimistic, though. There’s nothing more inspiring than mad science in a personal lab. If we all send a little good mojo maybe we can get off this rock and start exploring the galaxy properly!

 

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Dropping From The Sky In Alaska

When Charles Fort wrote his Book of the Damned, he talked about a number of strange events where things rained out of the sky. There were black rains, red rains, rains of fish, rains of frogs! Apparently that sort of thing still happens. This time it’s bizarre eel-like fish called lampreys in Alaska. (This is not like the rain of spiders that we reported recently.)

There were simple explanations in Fort’s time about all the bizarre goings on, which is what prompted him to write his book in the first place. Here, the official explanation is that seagulls are digging these up and dropping them around. Hopefully we can look forward to photos and video of these bomber birds in action. In the mean time we will also wonder if the lampreys are simply collecting in the Super-Sargasso Sea, the dimension of lost things that Fort proposed.

There must be a lot of keys there…and socks.

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Godzilla receives Japanese citizenship

We love that the Japanese are weird. The give us the best game shows and the most disturbing horror. We’re not sure what to think about this one, though.

Photo of Godzilla receiving an award sash
Shizuo Kambayashi—AP
Godzilla receives a sash of “Shinjuku-ward tourism ambassador” from the Kabuki-cho Shopping Area Promotion Association Chief Director Mototsugu Katagiri of Tokyo’s Shinjuku-ward during its awards ceremony in Tokyo, April 9, 2015.

Japan has granted Godzilla full citizenship. For years, Godzilla has risen from the depths and laid Tokyo in ruins. True, he only did it on his own a few times and was often defending them from other monsters, but still, he’s done a lot of damage over the years. Perhaps granting him citizenship means he’ll be able to pay some of that back in taxes.

Of course, this brings up some important questions. What about all of the other monsters? How many monsters who have thrilled and frightened us over the years are left without any support at all? At the Museum of the Weird we have to keep King Kong hidden away upstairs! Many others are of unknown status. Will the United States finally bring reform that lets the monsters we love call this country their home? Time will tell, but we look for a time when there is equality for all monsters.

You can enjoy our collection of monsters at our sister store, Sfanthor. Get a super pass and enjoy both sites for one great price!

unversal_monsters-citizenship

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Armchair spelunking

As shown in our recent post about weird inventions, technology goes in lots of different directions. In this case, technology will take you somewhere wonderful without every having to leave your chair.

Use your mouse to explore Vietnam's Son Doong cave
Use your mouse to explore Vietnam’s Son Doong cave

National Geographic has created a stunning interactive tool that will let you explore this wonder of nature, walking through each zone and looking around as though you were there. The 360° views let you look all around and up into the dizzying heights of the cave.

If you like armchair exploring, you’re not just relegated to tours. the PhET project provides simulations for physics, biology, chemistry and other sciencey-wiencey stuff.

Do you know a virtual adventure that we should know about? Share it with us!

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Cloning dinosaurs

Hundreds of thousands poured into theatres this weekend to experience Jurassic World. While movie-goers are excited, not everyone is thrilled about the film. Some palaeontologists are preparing themselves for all of the stupid questions they will have to answer about dinosaur cloning. So, do we need to worry about a Jurassic Park disaster?

https://youtu.be/duTJP-ePewU

There you have it. Based on what we currently understand about cloning, we don’t have any way to regenerate a dinosaur. We’re just going to have to rely on time travel. Of course, there are other historic creatures that are within the reasonable DNA half-life, including Neanderthal Man. In this interview with Spiegel from several years ago, scientist, George Church, discusses the plausibility of cloning a Neanderthal Man and other topics that may shock or delight you. Church denied that he was seeking an “Adventurous Woman,”  as some reported, to be a surrogate for a baby Neanderthal. We don’t know if he didn’t get a volunteer or if there were too many. (Can you just imagine the email?)

Photo of Alvin the bearded dragon
Alvin, a bearded dragon, is our official lucky lizard, live and on display

Are these places where science dare not go? If someone discovers a way around the half-life issue or wants to explore brining back a woolly mammoth or Neanderthal should we be worried or buy tickets? As host to the one and only Iceman, we would love to have a pet dinosaur. I guess we’ll have to be content to enjoy our lucky lizard, Alvin, on display in the museum.

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Falling with style

It’s a shame that some inventions never caught on. Imagine how stylish flying would have been if the Hoop-Skirt parachute idea, described in the January 1911 edition of Popular Mechanics, had caught on. It’s possible that the manly men at the time balked at the idea of being seen in something that could at any time resemble a skirt. It’s also possible that the idea didn’t really work and they would simply plummet to their death… leaving a good-looking corpse.

Fiske Reading Machine
Portable library, 1920s style

Another idea in the early 20th century was the first book killer. Long before gadgets like computer tablets, inventors already had their sights set on fixing the problem of carrying around cumbersome books. The June 1922 edition of Scientific American shows one solution. The Fiske Reading Machine printed books in tiny print and provided a modified magnifying glass that you could hold up to your eye to read. One can only imagine how this would work on a bumpy carriage ride.

It’s easy to laugh at these things now, but you never know how the next great thing will appear. It might seem like the famous Inside the Egg Egg Scrambler by Ronco. It might end up being sliced bread.

Think that egg scrambler idea is dead? You haven’t been watching Kickstarter. People will do just anything to avoid cleaning that fork and bowl!