Museums of the Weird

Why Are We So Obsessed With Dead Bodies?

Body Worlds taps into a long, fraught history of humans displaying the deceased for “science”

April 12, 2017

Where Do the Largest Airplanes Go to Die?

Explore this 1,500-acre aircraft boneyard in the Sonoran Desert

March 30, 2017

California’s Bunny Museum Hops to a New Home

The previous location could not contain the museum’s 33,000 “artifacts”

March 9, 2017

Trending Today

New Foundation is Looking to Level Up Video Game Culture

The non-profit aims to preserve game code and the magazines, marketing materials and culture surrounding video games

March 1, 2017

Trending Today

Museum Displays the Weasel that Brought Down Particle Physics

A stone marten that disrupted the Large Hadron Collider in November goes on display in Rotterdam in an exhibit about human-animal mishaps

February 1, 2017

A Brief History of America’s Most Outrageous Dentist

Painless Parker and his dental circus live on in a Philadelphia museum

December 28, 2016

Cool Finds

Collection of Fossilized Poo Certified as World’s Largest

George Frandsen’s 1,200-piece coprolite collection earns the Florida man a spot in Guinness World Records

November 17, 2016

Cool Finds

A Brief History of Bog Butter

Turf cutters in Ireland regularly find chunks of butter deep in the nation’s peat bogs. What is the stuff doing there?

June 13, 2016

Cool Finds

Help England Crowdsource Its History

Historic England is asking the public for information and photos on 21 weird and wonderful sites on its list of historic places

June 10, 2016

See Over 2,000 Wax Models of Skin Diseases at This Swiss Medical Moulage Museum

It’s hard to look, and hard to look away, at this unique, and medically valuable, collection of wax blisters, hives and sores

June 3, 2016

Cool Finds

Five Fascinating Places to Visit This Obscura Day

Atlas Obscura celebrates all things weird and wonderful worldwide this Saturday

April 14, 2016

Cool Finds

Chicago Is Getting a Pizza Museum

Hold the anchovies: This pop-up is a pizza-lover’s dream

March 31, 2016

American South

How 43 Giant, Crumbling Presidential Heads Ended Up in a Virginia Field

After an ambitious monument went bust, big dreams—and big heads—remain

February 12, 2016

Austria

Embrace the Art of Failure at Austria’s Nonseum

From nosepickers to historic buttonholes, the Nonseum is full of failed inventions

November 10, 2015

The Lonely, Lifesaving Job of Lighthouse Keepers, Revealed at the National Lighthouse Museum

A new museum in Staten Island tells the stories of men and women who ran lighthouses throughout America’s history and shows off some unique antiques

August 7, 2015

One Man’s Obsession With Antique Toys Resulted in a Museum

The Portland, Oregon, attraction is more than just the stuff of Kidd’s play

July 14, 2015

Ride This Bizarre, Old-School Elevator Before They All Shut Down

The paternoster elevators of Europe are weird, a bit scary and getting harder and harder to find. For now, there are still a few you can ride

June 4, 2015

Cool Finds

A Museum Keeps The Fake Noses That Once Replaced Those Missing on Ancient Sculptures

The exhibit is a testament to art restoration’s changing values

May 27, 2015

Urban Explorations

This Obscura Day, Discover the Curiosities in Your Own Backyard

Creepy dolls, KGB secrets and unexpected pinball troves—media startup Atlas Obscura invites readers to explore their own hometowns on May 30

May 21, 2015

Urban Explorations

Inside Los Angeles’s Strangest Museum

Enter the dark and completely unique world of the Museum of Jurassic Technology

March 31, 2015