Comments on: A fond look back at a book of interesting stories that turned out to be bullshit

By: AnthonyC

AnthonyC — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 23:08:00 +0000

Agreed, but “the gold is now radioactive itself” could just refer to impurities.

By: Steve Miller

Steve Miller — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:06:00 +0000

“The Viper is coming.”
“The Viper is coming.”
“The Viper is coming.”
“The Viper is coming.”
“The Viper is coming.”
“Hello, I’m the vindow viper. Do you have any vindows you need viped?”

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:54:00 +0000

Cumsprites in space?

By: princeminski

princeminski — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 20:11:00 +0000

That’s really creepy–great even among paperback covers!

By: Gerald Ocker

Gerald Ocker — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:16:00 +0000

oh wow. that struck a nerve. I have c.b. colby’s “wierdest people in the world” and I loved it. ghost tales and scary stories. my 9 year is now in love with it.

By: fredh

fredh — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:13:00 +0000

Had to look up this Burr Woman tale from your description. http://everything2.com/title/The+Burr+Woman

By: Changasyncadango Robotnik Terh

Changasyncadango Robotnik Terh — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 17:28:00 +0000

Ohh, I love these! I have the hardbound orange book on my bookshelf behind me as we speak! These made a huge impact (dent?) on me as a kid. bullshit or not they’re scary stories. I bought mine at a tag sale a a little kid and the shit made me sleep with the lights on for decades.

By: DreamboatSkanky

DreamboatSkanky — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:09:00 +0000

Here, let me google that for me:

http://www.amazon.com/Frank-Edwards-Strange-World/dp/B001C8MRQY/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359468516&sr=1-5&keywords=strange+world+frank+edwards

By: DreamboatSkanky

DreamboatSkanky — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:07:00 +0000

This is great. Reminds so much me of a similar book I had in the ’70′s, full of of great urban legendry, strange events and what-all. The book was something like “Strange World” or “Stranger than Fiction”, or some such, by a Frank (pretty sure) Miller (I think?)

I’ve been trying to re-unite with this book for nostalgia reasons, and to surprise a little brother. We used to spend hours poring over the stories within.

If anyone else has intersected with this book, I’d love to hear about it.

By: Eric

Eric — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:50:00 +0000

Interesting. I remember a lot of other CB Colby books, mostly about science and engineering topics like airplanes and nuclear power. This seems more like something from Ripley’s believe it or not.

By: Christopher

Christopher — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:42:00 +0000

Books like these both fascinated and irritated me as a kid. On the one hand the stories fascinated me. Well, except for the story of the woman who fell asleep while sunbathing and ended up with a bunch of ants’ eggs in her cheek. That just scared the hell out of me and made me not want to go outside, which was problematic since I heard it at camp.

But they irritated me because I knew that even though they claimed to be true some of the stories simply weren’t. I learned early on not to believe everything I read, but at the same time if I couldn’t believe something that its author said was true what could I believe?

By: Mark Sniadecki

Mark Sniadecki — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:10:00 +0000

When I was in middle school I checked a book out of the library called “Monsters You Never Heard Of” by Raymond Van Over (I finally acquired a used copy a few years ago). Not quite the same as these could-be-true stories, but pretty great. In particular, there is a story called “The Burr Woman” that still remains one of the most disturbing things I’ve ever read.

By: Crashproof

Crashproof — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:07:00 +0000

I can’t help but notice how accidentally phallic that cover is.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:50:00 +0000

I was going to make a witty and humorous comment drawing parallels between people having fond memories of folk-tales and religious affinity – but it’s just too easy.

By: Nathan Hornby

Nathan Hornby — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:45:00 +0000

Er, buy the book.

By: Art

Art — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:20:00 +0000

I immediately thought it was about James Frey.

By: Stooge

Stooge — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 10:52:00 +0000

Is it just me, or did the title make anyone else think Mark was referring to the Bible?

By: planettom

planettom — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 07:40:00 +0000

What always bugged me was my copy (Actually my older brother’s copy), the one with the cover with the eye in the rock on the alien planet or whatever, was the Abridged Scholastic Books version. So somewhere, in shadowy legend, like S. Morgenstern’s original PRINCESS BRIDE, was an UNABRIDGED VERSION!

A few years ago, I hunted down an old unabridged copy at my library.
Result (Also includes various covers of the book):
http://planettom.livejournal.com/287821.html

I note that the book really hit a chord with a lot of people when they were about age 10 or so. In Michael Chabon’s book MAPS & LEGENDS (2008), he tells this elaborate and entirely apocryphal shaggy dog story about the author, C.B. Colby.

By: Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 06:28:00 +0000

I had that book with the photo of an eye on the cover and it was scarey in a dumb way. Didn’t it have the story of the Jersey Devil?

We had some colonial era clay balls in a tin band-aid box, but it never occurred to us to smash them with a hammer, because marbles of various materials were a universal toy of pre-X-box civilizations.

By: Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 06:28:00 +0000

I remember The Whistle. The stories were a lot like the Fortean site’s “It Happened To Me” (IHTM) section.

By: Preston Sturges

Preston Sturges — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 06:24:00 +0000

Which would not work that way, because the neutron activation of metals decays very fast. And even finding something like that would involve trekking through a wasteland and getting toasted by the whole landscape,.

By: eviladrian

eviladrian — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:47:00 +0000

I had the edition with this “lightbulb” cover, but all I can remember is that clay ball story.
Like you, I was pretty indiscriminate in believing the veracity of anything I read in a “non-fiction” book, and gave equal credence to dinosaurs, UFOs and Bible stories. Of course, now I know that none of those were real!

By: Stefan Jones

Stefan Jones — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:36:00 +0000

I don’t think I read Strangely Enough, but there were a whole raft of “unexplained mysteries” type books aimed at kids that I gobbled up in elementary school. Stuff about devil hoofprints, a flooded treasure vault on island off of Canada, Bigfoot, stuff like that.

By: Halloween_Jack

Halloween_Jack — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:33:00 +0000

I remember that clay ball story. The only reason that he didn’t throw away the last ball was because it was so tiny that it was tucked all the way into the corner of his pocket, and it contained a flawless blue-white diamond.

By: Halloween_Jack

Halloween_Jack — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:30:00 +0000

That actually reminds me of a plot point in the late-50s post-nuclear war novel Alas, Babylon. The band of survivors meet someone who is wearing a gold ring or bracelet or something that they looted from a radioactive no-man’s-land; the gold is now radioactive itself, and there’s a band of dead skin underneath the jewelry, plus they’re going to die in the long term from the exposure. They later find a guy who has a whole little treasure chest of the stuff, and died from proximity to his horde.

By: Sean Lavery

Sean Lavery — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 02:53:00 +0000

Your “BS” designation just kind of smacked my inner 7 year old one upside the head. Those stories were real back then…. OK – except for the one where the guy jumped off the lighthouse and was never seen again – that one was BS.

By: WaylonWillie

WaylonWillie — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 02:31:00 +0000

wow, your mention of the clay ball story brought back a rush of memory; I had forgotten that I read that over and over as a kid…..

By: David

David — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 02:27:00 +0000

Reminds me of summers at my step-uncle’s place. We’d go up there for the 4th of July week and eventually everyone would be sitting on chairs on the back porch. The stars would shine brilliantly and you could hear sounds of frogs and bugs My step-dad and his four brothers would start telling WWII stories, truck driver stories, tales of UFOs, etc. It was usually one brother trying to out do another. The stories would always frighten me. It wasn’t until I was an adult and reflected back on them that I realized that they had regurgitated urban legends.

(UFOs still freak me out because of those summers.)

By: gwyllion

gwyllion — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 02:25:00 +0000

also here is the cover on my book – which also really scared me

By: awjt

awjt — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 02:08:00 +0000

The clay ball story reminded me of a dream I had about ten years ago. I was walking alone on a California beach, right next to the San Onofre nuclear plant. Its lights were ablaze. A few trucks were moving around, doing stuff. It was a crystal clear, beautiful night. The surf was low and peaceful. And the beach was absolutely studded with emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds of all colors, shapes and sizes, some as big as golf balls. It was amazing! I felt like I’d found Aladdin’s cave. But then I realized I couldn’t take any because they were all toxic and radioactive. I dropped the handful of gems I had picked up. I felt strange all of a sudden, like I shouldn’t even be walking there, so I turned back and left quickly. End of dream.