WEEKLY WEIRD NEWS – Page 18 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on September 5, 2014 by MOTW Admin

Welcome to Hell, Pennsylvania

The town of Centralia located in the mountains of central Pennsylvania, was once a busy town filled with people, banks, a theater, their own school district, you know…town stuff. That is, until hell rose from the depths and took over.

Ok, yes, I’m being rather hyperbolic here, but the town was hellish enough to serve as inspiration for the film adaptation of the “Silent Hill” video game, as well as feature prominently in a number of horror novels. What turned this prosperous little community into a smoking ruin?

In 1962, and nobody knows exactly how it started, the extensive abandoned coal mines under the town caught fire. And NOTHING could be done about it. The streets cracked open, fire and burning steam poured out, eventually making the town all but unlivable. By 1981, things had gotten out of control. Sinkholes were opening up, toxic carbon monoxide gas was billowing out of the cracks in the road…something had to be done. In 1984, Congress allocated money to relocate the residents and most of them gladly accepted the offer. By today the town has ten (stubborn) residents and all but a few of the original buildings are gone.

You can still visit the town, more hellish in the winter as the heated steam is that much more visible in the cold weather. The roads are undrivable, cracked so wide open and covered with graffiti. Strangely the graveyards remain immaculate; former residents pay to keep their loved one’s final resting places in good shape. It does one speculate as to why more horror movies don’t get filmed there. Looking for a Hellmouth? We got your Hellmouth.

Posted on September 4, 2014 by MOTW Admin

The Museum of the Weird Recommends: “Dr Mütter’s Marvels”

Many of our website’s/museum’s fans are no doubt familiar with Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum. Started from the collection of oddities donated by Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter in 1858, the museum has since grown significantly and attracted a wide range of visitors, from medical students, for whom the museum was originally intended for, to seekers of the strange and unusual.

The museum’s collection houses such strangeness as a nine foot human colon that belonged to a sideshow act named “The Human Balloon”, the Hyrtl skull collection (gathered to disprove the claims of Phrenologists that skull shapes dictated personality), the conjoined liver from famous Siamese twins Chang and Eng, a two-headed baby, and many more genuine examples of the medically weird. But who was Dr Mütter and how did he figure into the history of medicine?

Such is the subject of the new book “Dr Mütter’s Marvels” by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, who also wrote an award winning (but still unproduced screenplay about the good doctor. And I mean, good doctor, as opposed to most of the rest of his peers performing medicine in the early to mid-19th century.

Dr Mütter was a compassionate man who went abroad to Paris to study and found a medical community that was both appalling and inspiring. Some of the most advanced surgery in the world was practiced there but there was no consideration for patient care outside of the surgery itself; patients were routinely shipped home immediately after their surgeries, considerably endangering the delicate subjects. There were many contradictions, for example: while Paris had two hospitals for treating those sick with Syphilis, but one of them required all patients to be publicly whipped before and after their entrance to the hospital.

When Mütter returned to America with what he had learned, already formulating ideas on advancing medicine and patient care, he was met with much hostility from a medical community that resisted change with arrogance and ego. Nevertheless, Mütter became one of the first plastic surgeons in America, revolutionizing treatment of those with deformities, burns and scarring with his new treatments, many of which are still in use today.

He butted heads with many contemporaries over his insistence on proper pre and post surgical care of patients, his early adoption of modern anesthesia, as well his insistence that doctors thoroughly wash up before treating patients. It’s hard to believe today, but doctors of the time, thinking even more of themselves than they do today, considered that a ‘gentleman’s hands are clean’ by default. Ever heard that old joke about God thinking he was a doctor? Ugh.

Mütter’s story is a fascinating, and long overdue to be told, one that Aptowicz infuses with charm and can’t-put-it-down readability. The man who is best known for his sizable collection of bizarre medical oddities should really have been known for bringing humane practices to modern medicine.

Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz

Buy “Dr Mütter’s Marvels” right here!

Posted on August 31, 2014 by MOTW Admin

The Weirdest Disaster in American History

On January 15th, 1919, in the north end of Boston, a 50 foot tall tank of molasses burst open and flooded the streets with the sticky sweet stuff. While it sounds like an alternate ending for “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”, the effect of the 25 foot tall tidal wave of sweetener was anything but delicious.

Molasses was then the standard for sweetener in the US and was used to ferment rum and even create munitions. Some authors suggest the tank was overfull due to increased alcohol production as the owners tried to outrace the upcoming prohibition laws about to take effect Regardless, as the tank began to fail, witnesses claimed to hear sounds like a machine gun firing that were the overstressed rivets exploding out of the structure. As the tank ruptured, the giant wave moved through the streets at 35 miles an hour (so much for ‘slow as molasses’) ….

From the Boston Post at the time: “Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage … Here and there struggled a form—whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was … Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings—men and women—suffered likewise.”

The force of the wave caused people and vehicles to be hurled into the air, railway cars to topple, and ultimately killed 21 people and injured 150. Some of the corpses were so glazed in molasses they were near-unrecognizable. Eventually, clean up crews used salt water to clear the molasses away and sand to absorb it but it took weeks to clean up just the immediate area of the disaster; the outlying areas took much longer. Even the clean-up effort tracked molasses throughout the rest of the city: “Everything a Bostonian touched was sticky”.

The property where the tank once stood is now the site of a recreational complex but it has a marker to remind Bostonians of the horrible day of the killer sweets. Locals still claim that on a hot summer day, the area still smells strongly of molasses.

Posted on August 30, 2014 by MOTW Admin

Human Skull Donated to Goodwill

There are many ways to dispose of a body, but donating pieces of it to a Goodwill is probably not one of them.

A Goodwill employee, when going through their donations box discovered the skull and alerted the police. The Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office determined that the skull was indeed real and from an adult who may have died two years ago. Causes of death, sex and race are still unknown currently.

“We think it was probably something that belonged to the person who donated it, to a relative of the person who donated it and it was part of a collection or an anatomical model or something like that. It could have been something that was kept by someone who was a student of anthropology, a student of medicine, dentistry…any of those things,” said Detective Derek Israel with APD’s Homicide Unit. Which begs the question: if it’s two years old, does it seem likely that it was a ‘collection’ or part of an ‘anatomical model’? Seems kinda sketchy to me. I have a feeling we’ll be seeing more on this story as we get to the real bones of it.

Posted on August 29, 2014 by MOTW Admin

How to Make a Shrunken Head

Have you ever had a chance to visit The Museum of the Weird? I mean, this is the website for the Austin, TX attraction so if you made it this far, maybe it’s time to plan for a trip. Amongst all our two-headed animals, mummies, haunted skeletons, and oddities of man and nature, we’ve got two genuine shrunken heads on display. And they are indeed a creepy sight to behold.

Head shrinking (not the psychology kind) has been rumored to take place in many places all over the world but so far is only confirmed with a few small tribes in Peru and Ecuador, called there tsantsa. The tribes created them to keep vengeful spirits from being born from their enemies. They also served as a pretty powerful deterrent to other outsiders wandering close to the village. Of course, when it turned out that visiting Westerners had an interest in trading for the heads, the murder rate suddenly went up rather significantly in the region. But what’s the process these grotesqueries are made by?

Check out this great post at mentalfloss.com. They get down to the specifics step-by-step, from decapitation to the stripping of the flesh, the boiling of the remains, to …okay, now even I’m getting a little nauseous. But check it out for yourself. That’s the internet for ya. We’ve even got lifehacks for shrinking human heads. What an age we live in.

Posted on August 28, 2014 by MOTW Admin

Man’s Cutting-Edge Collection Nails It

I get the collector’s instinct. Oh boy, do I. My house is absolutely filled with comics, action figures, and 15 bookshelves of movies and TV shows. Yes, somehow I’m even in a successful relationship. But my lady probably wouldn’t be quite so keen if my collection was cast off-pieces of my own body.

This is Richard Gibson, a 59 year old man who decided back in 1978 that he was going to save all his toenail clippings. Originally born of just curiosity, wondering how long it would take to fill up a small box, Richard just kept going. And going. And going. “I have no idea how many nails are in the jar,” Gibson said. “It’s well into the thousands.”

Richard wasn’t exactly proud of his hobby. He’s kept it hidden both from his ex-wife and friends for years. But now that Ripley’s Believe it or Not is interested, Richard is coming out in the open with his odd and pretty gross collection. It’s featured in Ripley’s new book “Reality Shock”. “This is the first time I’ve made it into one of the books,” he said. “It’s not like winning the Oscar, but I’m proud.”

Posted on August 25, 2014 by MOTW Admin

The Boy with the GIANT hands

A 8 year old boy in India named Kaleem is suffering from an extremely rare (so rare doctors aren’t really sure what it is) condition that has caused the otherwise healthy child to grow two REALLY REALLY big hands.

Already oversized at birth, twice the size of a normal child’s, they’ve now expanded tremendously to 13 inches from the bottom of his palm to the tip of his middle finger. He can’t even feed himself because he cannot properly close them and has to have help with multiple daily tasks. Not to mention the daily razzing he takes from other children. “Even when I tried to get Kaleem into the school,” his father Shamim said, “the headmaster told me to put in writing that the school would not be responsible if the other children were afraid of his hands or bullied him or laughed at him”. Kaleem said, “I do not go to school because the teacher says other kids are scared of my hands. Many of them used to bully me for my deformity. They would say “let’s beat up the kid with the large hands”. One can only speculate how dumb some of these kids must be; even without a fist, I suspect Kaleem could muster one helluva slap.

Kaleem’s family wants help for their child; his condition could potentially be dangerous as well. Dr Krishan Chugh, from a modern research institute near Dehli, believes increased growth could damage his cardiovascular system, which could considerably shorten his life. His parents have sought help to get their child into surgery, but their extreme poverty, they earn about 15£ a month, has left them without options. “We have tried several places with no solutions so far,” said Shamim. “But I have a feeling there is a way to get the resources to give my son a normal life.”

I wish there was some easy solution to help Kaleem and his family but it looks like they might have a ways to go before they find the help they need. I can only hope by writing about it here someone might see it who’ll know how to lend a hand.

Terrible puns aside, we hope Kaleem really does get the help he needs.

Posted on August 24, 2014 by MOTW Admin

When Pirates of the Caribbean was FILLED with Dead Bodies

Although the rumors of Walt Disney’s cryogenically frozen corpse being stored underneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride in Disneyland are decidedly untrue, the popular attraction since 1967 apparently held a dark secret of its own.

Built in 1967, the iconic boat ride that spawned four movies, was the last ride overseen by Walt himself; sadly he didn’t live to see it open. It’s unclear as to whether he was involved with the ghoulish decision that was made by the Imagineers for the ride’s design, but either way, are you ready for this?

…Originally all the skeletons in the attraction were actual human bones.

Yup, sounds like a story generated by the internet, but it’s apparently true. The Imagineers were not happy at all with the fake skeletons they had made for the ride and obtained actual cadavers from the UCLA Medical School which were put in all the classic poses all OVER the ride even as you see it today.

The bones stayed in place for a good long while, although it’s not exactly clear how long that was. What we do know is the grand majority were eventually removed and replaced with more convincing fakes…but not all of them.

Not the skeleton in the bed, but the crossbones behind him? Yup, real dead dude parts. I can only guess they left them behind as a reminder of the history of the ride as a hidden in-joke for Disney folks. Either way…still eerie.

Posted on August 23, 2014 by MOTW Admin

The Secret Nazi Base in California That Still Stands

Did you know the Nazis had a secret training base hidden out on a ranch in Rustic Canyon, Los Angeles? No kiddin’. This isn’t some alternative history fiction, although I’m sure it’s been integrated into more than a few. The Murphy Ranch was originally build by a widow before WWII as a 22 room mansion with electric generators, a 20,000 gallon diesel fuel tank and a 300,000 gallon water tank. A fire damaged much of the property and she abandoned it only for it to be bought by…NAZIS!

Where was Indy when we needed him?

Norman and Winona Stephens bought the ranch, who were supporters of the Silver Legion of America, or “The Silver Shirts”, a pro-fascist organization, that were modeled after Hitler’s Brownshirts. By 1934, the group had over 15,000 members and begun reparative construction on the Murphy Ranch. The group pictured it as the fortified world headquarters of the Nazi party after the inevitable point when they took over the globe.

But the plans all fell through. Shortly after Pearl Harbor, some of the construction workers working on the property noticed paramilitary troops being trained by a German man on the property. The powers that be came in and shut it down, after arresting its German military officer for sending secret messages to Germany. And the rest, of course, is history.

You can see still the remains of the compound. While overgrown with weeds and covered with graffiti, one still can find decaying buildings, and even secret passages still being discovered by hikers, all over the property. Check out the link from one of our favorite sites, Roadtrippers.com, for directions to the ranch and more information and pictures.

Posted on August 21, 2014 by MOTW Admin

British Designer Makes Texturally “Human” Furniture

Feeling lonely? Wish you had someone to cuddle up with? Well, a British furniture designer might have just the solution for you (that won’t involve getting an account on Match.com). Introducing from Studio 9191, “A Body of Skin” line…

These seats aren’t made out of real human flesh, they’re just leather, but the fleshiest leather you ever sank into. Their creator, Gigi Barker, didn’t want the odd shapes of her meat seats to conjure what the experience of sitting in them would, but everything else did, “That made the viewers question how to interact with the shapes and to form their own conclusion”.

Gigi created the chairs by tracing a man’s midriff and then, “abstracted the shapes of his form so as to remove some of the immediacy of such a literal representation and allow the viewer to form their own conclusions”. She sculpted the models in clay, then created the seats themselves out of silicone because it “reacts to our bodies, matching our body temperature as well”. She implanted pheromones and aftershave in the seats and then covered them with molding leather with the suede section facing out to complete the effect.

Your choices for purchase are a two-part seat ($2500) or a smaller seat ($750) but more are on the way. Gigi even made and wore a dress out of the material for the opening night of her show. “Work regarding the human body is very personal and we all have a very immediate reaction to it so the reactions have reflected this. I have my own personal relationship with it, which is based on my own personal history. Just as someone else will. I think this project is more about the people and the bodies rather than the skin itself,” said Gigi.

This seems like a pretty niche market for seats…until you think about Japan. Have you seen the full body pillows of the girls from anime they’ve got now…

I’m just saying…million dollar idea. You can write me a check later, Gigi. I’ll just try not to picture anyone actually ENJOYING one. Creepy.