Category:
World Records

How many green beans would you eat for $1.50

A question for the ages.

Detroit Free Press - May 2, 1971



This raises the question of how many green beans would someone eat just to claim the world record for eating them? According to the site MajorLeagueEating.com, Crazy Legs Conti holds the record for eating the most: 2.71 pounds of them in six minutes.

That doesn't seem like that much to me. And in the video below "tannermancan" eats 5.125 lbs of green beans in less than 5 minutes. He doesn't acknowledge setting a new record. But it seems to me like he must have.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Jan 15, 2025 - Comments (0)
Category: World Records, Advertising, Vegetables, 1970s

The most coconuts smashed around a person blindfolded in one minute

How many coconuts can a blindfolded man smash with a sledgehammer? For added interest, those coconuts are positioned around another man's body.

The new world record for this challenge, certified by Guinness, is 69 coconuts.

I assume the blindfolded guy can actually see. But if that's the case, why is Guinness certifying the record?

More info: upi.com

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jan 04, 2025 - Comments (5)
Category: World Records

Giant Virgin Mary

Another oddity from my recent southern Arizona trip:

About 100 miles south of Tucson, in the town of Hereford, a 31-foot-tall statue of the Virgin Mary has been erected on the side of a hill. It's so close to the border that, if you stand in the right place, you can see both the Virgin Mary statue and the border wall in the valley below.

The statue was built by Pat and Jerry Chouinard in the 1990s. It stands alongside a 75-foot-tall Celtic cross. But giant crosses seem less odd than giant Virgin Marys. (Unless the crosses are really giant, see our previous post "The largest cross in the western hemisphere").





How does this giant Virgin Mary compare to other giant Virgin Marys around the world? It's not close to being the tallest. The record goes to the Mother of All Asia statue in the Philippines which stands 322 ft high. The American record (9th tallest in the world) goes to Our Lady of the Rockies (90-feet-tall) in Butte, Montana.

source: gcatholic.org



There's a 33-foot-tall statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Windsor, Ohio. That may be the second-tallest in America. Assuming that Our Lady of Guadalupe is the same as the Virgin Mary. I'm not sure if place-specific Marian apparitions are considered to be equivalent to the original Mary.

That would make the Virgin Mary in Arizona the third-tallest in the United States.

More info: Roadside America

Posted By: Alex - Thu Dec 19, 2024 - Comments (3)
Category: Religion, World Records, Statues and Monuments, Arizona

Thickest Tongue

Ambra Collina of Italy recently earned a Guinness World Record for having the thickest tongue.

I've never seen anyone be able to thicken their tongue like she does. It's definitely not an ability I possess. No matter how hard I try, my tongue remains the same circumference. Is this some unique, bizarro talent she possesses, or are many people able to thicken their tongue?

More info: upi.com

Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 13, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Body, World Records

The youngest person to bicycle across the United States

In 1973, 11-year-old Becky Gorton bicycled from Olympia, Washington to Boston, Massachusetts in 47 days. She was accompanied by her entire family. Though her dad (who was attorney general of Washington) got hit by a car en route, so he had to complete part of the journey in a car.

Becky Gorton and her family at the end of their trip.



Longview Daily News - July 21, 1973



The feat earned her a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest person ever to bicycle coast-to-coast. But since then Guinness seems to have stopped tracking this record. Probably because it didn't want to encourage ever younger children to attempt the feat.

However, younger people definitely have subsequently biked across the country. Though it's difficult to say who's officially the current record holder.

In 2014, 9-year-old C.J. Burford got some publicity for biking cross-country. But I don't think he set the record because in 1995 8-year-old Starr Moss was reported as having biked across the country with his 13-year-old brother.

The SF Chronicle article about their feat never mentioned that Starr set a record. So perhaps there's someone even younger who managed to do it.

If this is the same Starr Moss, he's now, appropriately, working as a "Bike Share Planner" for Lyft.

Posted By: Alex - Thu Aug 01, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Bicycles and Other Human-powered Vehicles, World Records, 1970s

Miniature Golf Record



Page 18 of Pawtucket Times, published in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on Tuesday, November 4th, 1930





Posted By: Paul - Thu May 30, 2024 - Comments (0)
Category: Sports, World Records, 1930s

Gilbert Young, most rejected author ever

Gilbert Young first came to the attention of the British press in the 1960s as a crusader for a single world government. He ran repeatedly for various political offices but never won an election.

Below is an ad he placed in the papers seeking new members for his "World Government Party."

Bristol Daily Press - Jan 29, 1964



But his real claim to fame came in the mid 1970s when the editors of the Guinness Book of Records learned that, for years, Young had been trying to get his book published but had only received rejections from publishers. His book, World Government Crusade, had, by 1974, been rejected 80 times. So Guinness listed him in its 1975 edition as the record holder for the "greatest recorded number of publisher's rejections for a manuscript."

Bristol Daily Press - Sep 26, 1974



Guinness Book of Records 1975



For over fifteen years Guinness continued to list him as the holder of this record. Every few years it would update the number of his rejections. By 1990 his book had been rejected 242 times.

Guinness Book of Records 1991



I thought that perhaps Young's book would now be available to read or purchase somewhere on the Internet. But no, as far as I can tell it's still unavailable.

Posted By: Alex - Tue May 14, 2024 - Comments (3)
Category: Eccentrics, Politics, World Records, Books

Harmonica Record

Obscure world record: longest time playing the harmonica while sitting in a chair balanced on top of three wine bottles. Set by Michel Perrigaud in 1959, who played for seven-and-a-half hours.

Albuquerque Journal - Jan 29, 1959

Posted By: Alex - Mon Apr 08, 2024 - Comments (1)
Category: Music, World Records, 1950s

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Who We Are
Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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