Weirdos represent

This close to Halloween, getting the heebie jeebies from real-life, weird phenomenon just seems like the thing to do. Good thing there’s a new Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! book.

Seeing Is Believing, put out by (who else?) Ripley Publishing ($28.95), features pretty much everything the world has come to expect from this company that catalogs the unusual: anomalies of nature, technological novelties, food feats and shocking human proclivities.

Nestled amongst the historical profiles of long-dead circus freaks and newborn two-headed animals are some local stories: Independence man Ray Ettinger‘s 3,523-foot scarf; Kansas City-wed couple Dan and Jennifer Wells, who lost everything but her wedding dress in a tornado days before the ceremony; and Shawnee fellow George Chandler who didn’t realize when a 2 1/2-inch nail was lodged into his skull.