Believe it or not! [1929]

In Short

This volume compiles extraordinary global curiosities, historical oddities, and natural marvels gathered through worldwide travel and relentless correspondence. Rather than presenting a conventional narrative, it marshals documented eccentricities—from men serving thousand-year prison sentences to fish that climb trees—to challenge the boundaries of human belief. It has lasted because it feeds a universal appetite for wonder, proving that the world is filled with phenomena so startling that skeptics routinely mistake documented truth for blatant lies. In doing so, it turns human skepticism into a celebration of life's endless, baffling complexities.

The Story

The book opens with a direct assertion of authorial purpose: to show that truth regularly outstrips fiction, and that being called a liar by skeptics is the highest compliment a gatherer of facts can receive. From this foundational premise, the work embarks on an expansive global expedition across sixty-four countries, beginning with an investigation into the strangest subject in creation—humanity itself. The journey travels first to the holy city of Benares on the Ganges, examining how religious devotion drives ascetics to perform extreme physical mortifications, including prostrating like inch-worms in the dust, elevating arms until their limbs wither, and wearing massive, heavy brass collar coils in the hills of Burma.

Moving from religious fervor to the mechanisms of human justice, the exposition uncovers the shocking absurdities of legal systems and historical records. It documents staggering prison sentences, such as a German brewer named Otto Nodling condemned in Mainz to nearly fifteen thousand years for unpaid tax fines, alongside the tragic absurdity of Paul Hubert, a French convict who served twenty-one years in solitary confinement for murdering a man who turned out to be himself. Historical betrayals further illustrate human greed and cruelty, epitomized by Francisco Pizarro filling a massive room with gold for the Inca emperor Atahuallpa's ransom, only to burn the monarch alive afterward.

The argument then shifts outward toward the bizarre phenomena of the natural world, demonstrating that earth and sky are equally unpredictable and strange. It details documented atmospheric anomalies like rains of red blood in France and Mongolia caused by airborne desert dust, black rain in Ireland, and showers of living fish and frogs sucked into clouds by violent waterspouts. Nature's eccentricities extend deep into animal behavior, shown through Malaysian fish that climb trees to hunt insects, black bass leaping from rivers to swallow birds, and Irish oysters that trap invading rats by their snouts until the tide drowns them.

In its concluding phases, the text turns toward mathematical paradoxes and historical misnomers to prove that common human knowledge is thoroughly flawed. It demonstrates how a single five-dollar bill yields trillions of theoretical permutations of change, how the finite combinations of one hundred typographical symbols bound all possible literature, and how standard history misidentifies iconic figures, such as overlooking John Hanson as the actual first president of the United States in Congress assembled in 1781. The arc finishes by confronting human mortality through bizarre demises and eccentric final acts, concluding with Francois Rabelais leaving nothing to the poor because he owned nothing and owed much. Through this sweeping progression from human eccentricity to natural wonder and mathematical truth, the work establishes that reality remains endlessly, gloriously unbelievable.

How It Unfolds

The author defends his trade The narrative opens with the author explaining his livelihood as a collector of unbelievable realities and a drawer of syndicated cartoons. He claims that receiving angry letters calling him a liar serves as proof that readers have encountered a fact beyond their limited comprehension.

Sacred physical penances Traveling into India, the text explores Benares and the Nepalese Temple, documenting ascetics who subject their bodies to severe physical mortifications. Religious devotees crawl for years like inch-worms to reach shrines, while others hold their arms aloft until the muscles wither completely away.

Judicial absurdities and blunders The chronicle turns to legal anomalies across Europe, highlighting prison sentences that stretch across centuries and wrongful convictions. Instances include a German brewer sentenced to fifteen millennia for unpaid taxes and a man buried alive who revived to live another seventy years.

Historical plunder and bloody betrayals Focusing on historical atrocities, the narrative recounts Francisco Pizarro’s conquest of Peru and the extortion of the Inca ruler Atahuallpa. Despite receiving a room filled seventeen feet by twenty-two feet with gold, Pizarro executed the captive monarch regardless.

Atmospheric and biological marvels Turning to nature, the text catalogues bizarre meteorological events such as red rains that panic populations in France and Mongolia, as well as showers of living fish. It complements these skyward anomalies with strange creatures, including Malaysian fish that climb trees using leg-like fins.

Mathematical puzzles and historical facts The final sections challenge accepted knowledge through numeric paradoxes and overlooked historical records. Calculations show the infinite impossibility of making change for five dollars in a lifetime, while historical documents reveal that John Hanson served as American president years before George Washington.

The People

Rather than traditional narrative characters, the book presents real historical figures driven by extreme desires. The author himself acts as the primary guiding figure, seeking unbelievable truths across sixty-four countries while constantly defending his integrity against thousands of skeptical readers who accuse him of lying.

The Inca ruler Atahuallpa wants nothing more than his freedom after being captured by Spanish conquistadors. He offers to fill his massive prison chamber with gold as high as his arm can reach, but Spanish treachery stands in his way; despite delivering twenty million dollars in gold, he ends up executed at the stake.

The actor Charles Francis Coghlan desires a final resting place, but after dying in Galveston, a catastrophic hurricane washes his coffin out to sea. Prevented from resting in Texan soil, his casket drifts two thousand miles in ocean currents until it eventually lands on Prince Edward Island, his Canadian birthplace.

In Germany, a brewer named Otto Nodling seeks to avoid paying an exorbitant tax fine of eighty-two million marks. Standing in his way is an uncompromising legal system that converts his debt into prison time, leaving him serving a fifteen-thousand-year sentence in a Mainz jail.

Finally, the Lithuanian scholar Elijah, the Gaon of Vilna, desires complete mastery over sacred literature. Hindered only by human memory limits, he achieves absolute retention, memorizing two thousand five hundred entire volumes so thoroughly that he can quote any passage at will.

In Its Own Voice

While describing his massive daily mail delivery filled with suspicious letters from readers hoping to catch him in a factual mistake, the author explains his unusual personal reaction to public skepticism.

When I am called a liar by a reader of my cartoons I feel flattered!

Commenting on the puzzling absurdities of human behavior observed throughout his extensive international travels across sixty-four foreign nations, the author offers a sharp, witty assessment of humanity's place in creation.

The world was made in seven days, and man in a perpetual daze.

While reflecting on popular contemporary crazes like marathon dancing, coffee drinking contests, and pole-sitting, the author candidly reveals how public foolishness directly sustains his prosperous commercial enterprise.

A man may be too foolish for his own good--but not for mine.

What It's Really About

Beneath its cabinet-of-curiosities surface, the book presents an argument about the limits of human knowledge and the fallibility of common sense. It asserts that human beings live in a state of intellectual blindness, routinely dismissing verifiable truths simply because those facts conflict with established habits of thought. By contrasting religious asceticism, legal absurdity, and natural marvels, the text questions what truly constitutes sanity and progress. It suggests that human pride is inherently foolish, as demonstrated by emperors who perish ignominiously and societies that choke themselves on rigid dogmas. Ultimately, the work asks readers to cultivate open-minded skepticism toward their own assumptions, proving that reality is far larger, stranger, and less predictable than any single culture or intellect can comprehend.

Why Read It Today

Enthusiasts of historical trivia, bizarre natural history, and cultural oddities will find this collection endlessly entertaining. Reading it feels like browsing an eccentric museum of forgotten lore, filled with snappy anecdotes, startling statistics, and unbelievable historical footnotes. What stays with the reader is a heightened sense of wonder at the sheer variety of human behavior and environmental phenomena.

However, modern readers must navigate notable difficulties inherent to its 1920s origin. The text reflects period attitudes that manifest in harsh, culturally insensitive generalizations, particularly regarding Asian and African traditions, such as labeling entire religious populations as degraded or cursed. Additionally, its fragmented, snippet-based structure lacks a narrative spine, which can feel jarring over longer reading sessions. Calculations and scientific explanations, such as early theories on sand vibrations or atmospheric dust, also reflect the scientific understanding of its era rather than modern consensus. Nevertheless, for those interested in early twentieth-century popular culture and the enduring human fascination with the bizarre, it offers a fascinating, unfiltered window into how wonder was curated and consumed in a previous age.