# Quarantine Diversions -- What's the Creepiest Thing in your Museum's Collection?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quarantine-diversions-whats-the-creepiest-thing-in-your-museums-collection/852437>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [April 23, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quarantine-diversions-whats-the-creepiest-thing-in-your-museums-collection/852437 "2020-04-23T14:19:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2020, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quarantine-diversions-whats-the-creepiest-thing-in-your-museums-collection/852437/1 "2020-04-23T14:19:41Z")

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Here’s what a bunch of museums responded with.

Can’t wait to see what the Mutter museum comes up with – their entire collection is creepy

> **[Try Not To Freak Out At This Museum’s Creepy Lockdown Challenge](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/museum-creepy-objects-challe_n_5ea18b13c5b699978a344867)**
>
> These objects in museums around the world cannot be unseen.

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**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2020, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quarantine-diversions-whats-the-creepiest-thing-in-your-museums-collection/852437/2 "2020-04-23T14:31:32Z")

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The Curiosity Museum in Alton IL should enter. They changed their name. Historic Museum of Torture Devices is what they called it when I visited.

> **[The Soul Asylum, Alton, Illinois](https://www.roadsideamerica.com/story/42077)**
>
> Formerly the Historic Museum of Torture Devices, then the Curiosity Museum. Has chastity belts, "the much-dreaded Chinese Death Cage," cursed dolls, and more. Claimed to be in the most haunted building in the most haunted town in America.

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2020, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quarantine-diversions-whats-the-creepiest-thing-in-your-museums-collection/852437/3 "2020-04-23T15:08:11Z")

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I submit the Peabody-Essex Museum Penguin. Not really creepty, but very weird

[http://explore-art.pem.org/object/natural-history/EIMS1219\_1/detail](http://explore-art.pem.org/object/natural-history/EIMS1219_1/detail)

they claim it’s the first penguin every exhibited in the United States. The taxidermist had never seen one before, so he had idea what it was supposed to look like. Hence the long, thin sorta goose-like neck.

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**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\
**Post date:** [April 23, 2020, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/quarantine-diversions-whats-the-creepiest-thing-in-your-museums-collection/852437/4 "2020-04-23T15:11:56Z")

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The Giant Colon in the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia.

Hard to believe this was coiled up inside a human being. as someone once said, it doesn’t look so much like an internal organ as it does a Sandworm from Arrakis in Frank Herbert’s _Dune_.  
[https://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/article/2573](https://www.mdlinx.com/internal-medicine/article/2573)

The museum sells a plush toy interpretation of it!

> **[Mega Colon Plush](https://www.muttermuseumstore.org/products/mega-colon-plush)**
>
> Let us introduce you to the Mega Colon, a special exclusive plush made in collaboration with Philadelphia's Mutter Museum! If you've never heard of the real Mega Colon, it's a phenomenal specimen housed at the museum -- a nine-foot-long diseased...