It’s a strange world, and no one knew that better than Robert Ripley.

From 1923 until his death in 1949, Ripley was the Marco Polo of the Weird, a gifted explorer consumed by a need to map the hidden mysteries of the world. The scope of Ripley’s mission was vast, as he uncovered bizarre human feats, amazing oddities and outrageous bits of knowledge the rest of us knew nothing about.

Ripley’s appreciation of the unusual was wildly successful, spawning a popular radio show that was successful for nearly twenty years, a nation-wide string of popular museums and “Odditoriums”, and the popular Ripley’s Believe It or Not! cartoon strip, which, since its birth in 1918, enjoyed syndication in more than 37 countries including Saudi Arabia, Norway and Finland.

When I was a kid, I used to steal the comics section out of my dad’s newspaper every Sunday while he was outside smoking, just so I could read another installment of Ripley’s legacy. And every week I read, I dug deeper into a world that proved to be more interesting than I ever imagined it could be.

And the best part? It was all true.

But here I am rambling on, when it’s the discoveries I wanted to share with you. Let’s get down to it then; here’s a few of the oddities Believe It or Not! has unearthed:

& The residents of Coober Pedy have built an entire city for themselves in abandoned mine shafts in order to avoid the harsh Australian Outback climate. The city is complete with underground homes, churches, restaurants and even motels.

& In India, priests are ordained into a sect of Buddhism by having all but a few strands of hair pulled out of their head by elder priests. The remaining strands are later pulled in a public ceremony to make the transition official.

& A man once married a statue. Lord Orsery fell in love with the Venus de Medici and legally married it, presenting the statue with a $100,000 ring.

& Liu Ch’ung, of China, was born with two pupils in each eye.

& A black Labrador retriever named Bosco was elected mayor of Sunol, Calif. for over eight years & beating out two human competitors.

& To shrink a head, the Javaro Indians of Ecuador slit the back of the neck and peel the skin away from the skull. Once the skull is removed, they sew the head, including eyes and mouth, back together. Hot stones and sand are poured into the cavity, and the head is boiled in a broth of secret herbs. Finally, the head is cured over an open fire to give it its distinctive leathery texture.

And this barrage of examples is only a small sample of what Believe It or Not! offered readers. As a kid reading those cartoon strips, and even today to a lesser degree, I admire Ripley’s work because he confirmed that this was a world full of secrets just waiting to be discovered, and that’s a terribly exciting idea.

It was exciting anyway. Something’s changed over the years: Maybe it’s our values or society’s definition of “strange”, but the simple truth is that Believe It or Not! doesn’t grab our attention anymore. We no longer are amused by Ripley’s legacy, not like we used to be. Instead, we turn to shows like Jerry Springer for an onslaught of incest, adultery and slobs who enjoying bathing in corn … no joke. I’ve been told Believe It or Not! has a TV show that airs Wednesdays on Superstation, but really, when was the last time you heard someone talk about the show over dinner?

Our love of the unusual has been replaced with a perverse desire to ostracize people’s quirks and shortcomings, and that makes me wonder: Are we running out of those strange, beautiful mysteries Ripley loved to show us, or do we just not care enough to go looking for them?