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Believe it: Ripley's Lurid Lures Snare Beach-Goers
 | | Courtney Tasker | | Behold the world's fattest man - in wax. |
No amount of salt water taffy or French fries could lure me off the beach and into a museum – until I spotted a 50-foot-long animated shark thrashing above Ocean City’s Boardwalk.
But then Ripley’s Believe It or Not! is no ordinary museum. I knew of Ripley’s from the TV series with actor Dean Cain, but it was the wayward shark crashing through the wall of the big building at the edge of the Pier that drew me and countless others inside.
I wasn’t disappointed. One of Ocean City’s newest attractions, Ripley’s boasts more than 500 one-of-a-kind curiosities like an authentic shrunken head, a portion of the Berlin Wall, torture chamber devices and artwork made of lint and toast.
The Ocean City museum, which opened in 2001 on the Boardwalk after nearly a 20-year hiatus from the resort, is one of more than two dozen Ripley museums around the world. The collections at each museum vary, though most feature a human oddities room with replicas of the world’s tallest man and the world’s fattest man.
The Ripley museums boast more than 25,000 items in their vast collection, most of them obtained by Robert Ripley, a self-taught artist and adventurer during his 40 years of traveling the world. He visited nearly 200 countries during his lifetime, and found endless fascination in the Far East and the Orient. Many of the unusual items on display in Ocean City and elsewhere reflect that affinity.
After entering the two-story museum off the boardwalk, visitors wind their way through a series of themed rooms: primitive man, the medieval world, animal oddities, space exploration and art, to name a few. In most rooms, the dimmed lights focus your attention on illuminated artifacts, by turns, strange, shocking, even beautiful. Illusions, state-of-the-art technology, video and special effects accentuate the bizarre.
One of the first unusual items to captivate me: a genuine shrunken head from the Jivaro Indians of Ecuador. The softball-size head looked like it belonged on the shelf of a Halloween-theme store. The exhibit offered a brief explanation: The heads of slain warriors were claimed as symbols of bravery and shrunken as part of a ritual that had been handed down through generations.
But how do you shrink a head? When I asked a museum guide, she couldn’t answer. But I took no offense. Ripley’s doesn’t overwhelm with history and details about these artifacts, just enough to entertain.
Equally unnerving were a genuine vampire-killing kit, circa 1850, a medieval “witch-catcher” from the 16th century and a Royal Castle of Nuremberg torture chair with nails on the seat, back and arms.
You can read about people like Robert Wadlow, but you don’t really have any perspective until you’re standing in the shadow of a wax likeness. Wadlow, who died in 1940 at age 22, stood 8 feet 11 inches, weighed 440 pounds and wore a 37AA shoe. The human oddity gallery also includes a wax re-creation of one Walter Hudson, who weighed 1,400 pounds and had to be extricated by firemen from his New York City apartment.
Even if you’re ambivalent about viewing art collections, Ripley’s gallery will rivet your attention. Take the portrait of Queen Victoria, which might fit right in at staid museums – if it weren't made of lint. Enrico Ramos’ replica of “The Last Supper” contains 650 miniature pictures of Biblical scenes, everything from Noah’s Ark to the Apocalypse. Then there’s Degas’ “Woman in Bath,” recreated out of toast. Honest.
 | | Courtney Tasker | | A 50-foot animated shark thrashes above Ripley's entrance. |
Other oddities abound: a two-headed lamb, a headless chicken, a mummified cat, a meteorite from Mars worth more than $1 million. I even saw locks of hair from Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy encased and displayed on a wall.
By the time I had wandered through the fascinating maze of exhibits, I had long forgotten about the shark. Never mind the museum’s exhibit includes the mammoth jaw of a Megalodon shark, a relative of the Great White that was bigger than a World War II fighter plane. I’ll catch it next time.
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Other Stories by Greg Tasker
Inn Is Oasis Amid Boardwalk Bustle
Assateague Cruise Delights, Inspires
The Bonfire's Tantalizing 100-foot-long Buffet
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