10 Very Weird 'Artifacts' & Museums

The Met is quaking

Published 4 months ago in Wow

Priceless paintings. Elaborate sculptures. Sensors that start blaring when you accidentally look a little too hard at "The Starry Night."

Of all the one-of-a-kind items that fill our museums, a few institutions aren't afraid to push the boundaries of what is worth a spot behind the glass. Just ask the curators of the SPAM® Museum, the BibleWalk Wax Museum, and frankly, the Smithsonian institution.

From a dead monkey astronaut to an actual atomic bomb, here are 10 very weird artifacts and museums.

1
The Museum of Bad Art
“When a painting was stolen from the Museum of Bad Art, the museum initially offered a reward of $6.50 for its return. This was latter upped to $36.73. Ten years later, the thief contacted the museum and demanded a $5000 ransom for the painting. No ransom was paid, but it was returned anyway.”

2
Ra Ra Rasputin
“The severed & preserved [appendage] of Gregory Rasputin is on display at a museum in St. Petersburg, Russia."

3
The Throat GOATs
“The Mutter Museum has a collection of over 2000 objects removed from people's throats, esophagi, and lungs by a single doctor- Chevalier Jackson, MD, who kept notes so other doctors could learn how to safely remove things from people's airways. Most of them are on display.”
4
Canned Museum
“There is a museum in Austin, MN dedicated to Spam, and it tells the history of Hormel company, the origins of the canned product, and its place in world culture. The Spam Museum is free of charge, and the volunteer guides, known as Spambassadors, offer visitors tours and free Spamples to savor.”

5
The 'Bubble Boy' Space Suit
Though not currently on display, The Smithsonian Museum has “Bubble Boy” David Vetter’s space suit. Crafted by the Johnson Space Center, Vetter, who was born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, relied on the suit to step out of his isolation chamber.
6
Tom Cruise or Jesus Christ?
“The BibleWalk Wax Museum in Ohio is made up of discarded wax figures. Their Jesus figure was an is still unmistakably Tom Cruise.”
7
Viral Load
Visitors at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, can see a floppy disc containing the Morris Worm, the oldest internet worm in history.

8
One Giant Leap for Monkey-Kind
“The corpse of an astronaut monkey is preserved at Smithsonian Air and Space Museum with its hand placed over its heart.”
9
A Living Snail
“In 1846, authorities at the British Museum glued what they thought was a deceased snail to a piece of cardboard for display. After it seemingly became unglued 5 years later, they discovered it had been alive the whole time.”
10
Little Boy, Big Problems
“The Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC displayed a working 'Little Boy' Atom Bomb that lacked only uranium until 1986. Then the Department of Energy took the bomb from the museum to remove its inner components so it could not be stolen and detonated with fissile material.”