Presents an illustrated collection of unusual phenomena and oddities, grouped into such categories as curious creations, incredible animals, fantastic feats, and unusual tales.

An illustrated collection of oddities that are sure to shock the reader.

An encyclopedia of oddities features unexpected and unimaginable people, places, and creatures from around the world.

Following hot on the heels of last year's best-selling edition, Ripley's Believe It or Not! 2012 offers an entirely new compendium of bizarre facts and features in a stunning new design, including a section on the wacky and amazing feats of the Olympic games past and present, and an 8-page pull-out featuring Ripley's first ever odditorium, which opened in 1933. For the legions of dedicated Ripley's fans, and anyone else on the planet who loves unbelievable facts and jaw-dropping images, the latest annual in the bestselling series is a feast of delights. Meet the man who chews molten lead, the cat that can predict death, the vending machine that dispenses live crabs and the artist who paints portraits with burger grease. Intriguing interviews with some of the astounding individuals who feature in the book spotlight their achievements and reveal their motivations, and informative 'Ripley's Research' boxes give the scientific explanation behind some of the most incredible tales, such as how people have turned their fingers into magnets.

Minute Mysteries [Detectograms] by H. A. Ripley has been regarded as significant work throughout human history, and in order to ensure that this work is never lost, we have taken steps to ensure its preservation by republishing this book in a contemporary format for both current and future generations. This entire book has been retyped, redesigned, and reformatted. Since these books are not made from scanned copies, the text is readable and clear.

One of the most successful entertainment figures of his time, Robert Ripley’s life is the stuff of a classic American fairy tale. Bucktoothed and hampered by shyness, Ripley turned his sense of being an outsider into an appreciation of the weird and wonderful. He sold his first cartoon to LIFE magazine at eighteen, but it was his wildly popular ‘Believe It or Not!’ radio shows that won him international fame, and spurred him on to search the globe’s farthest corners for bizarre facts, human curiosities and shocking phenomena. Ripley delighted in making preposterous declarations that somehow turned out to be true – such as that Charles Lindburgh was only the sixty-seventh man to fly across the Atlantic or that ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ was not the USA’s national anthem. And he demanded respect for those who were labelled ‘eccentrics’ or ‘freaks’ – whether it be E. L. Blystone, who wrote 2,871 alphabet letters on a grain of rice, or the man who could swallow his own nose. By the 1930s, Ripley possessed a wide fortune, a private yacht and a huge mansion stocked with such oddities as shrunken heads and medieval torture devices. His pioneering firsts in print, radio and television tapped into something deep in the American consciousness – a taste for the titillating and exotic, and a fascination with the fastest, biggest, wackiest and weirdest – and ensured a worldwide legacy that continues today. This compelling biography portrays a man who was dedicated to exalting the strange and unusual – but who may have been the most amazing oddity of all.

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