Believe it or not

ORLANDO, Fla. -- The first thing you'll probably notice is the shark. At 17 feet long, it's the biggest ever caught on rod and reel. What's left of its two terrifying tons now hangs preserved above a dull warehouse floor.

There are also medieval torture devices, human skull drinking glasses, a Coke bottle-shaped coffin and curious mix of embalmed livestock born with too many heads or limbs. These items and many more are stored in a central Florida warehouse -- all without an audience.

But their owner, Ripley Entertainment Inc., is doing its best to change that. The Orlando-based company of "Believe it or Not!" fame has announced rapid expansion plans over the next year and a half, including at least four new locations from Spain to New York City -- where those lonely curiosities might soon find homes.

Ripley has doubled in size every three years for the past 15, and now boasts annual attendance of more than 12 million. Its more than 50 attractions go beyond the standby "Believe it or Not!" museums to include two aquariums, a handful of Guinness World Record and wax museums, haunted houses, a mini-golf course and a moving theater.

And then there is the globally syndicated TV show and rights to a library of bizarre facts licensed for everything from state lotteries to pinball machines. They even do their own wax and costume work out of the company's Florida headquarters.

It all started from the curious pen of founder and adventurer Robert Ripley, who began drawing the "Believe it or Not!" cartoon for newspapers in 1918.

"The difference today from where we were is the magnitude of the projects we're involved in," CEO Bob Masterson said. "We went from doing small attractions -- museum-type attractions, which have been our bread and butter for 50 years -- to building signature inns."

The biggest of those is the under-construction Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara Falls, Ontario, which will feature 406 all-suite guest rooms when it opens next spring, and a 76,000-square-foot indoor water park with a tree-house fort. (The Great Wolf Lodge in Niagara is owned by Ripley's Niagara Water Park Resort through a license from Great Wolf Resorts, which operates other Great Wolf lodges in the U.S.)

"That's so far beyond what we were doing 15 years ago, but it really highlights what's happening in our company," Masterson said. "Life is good for us."

Of course, any new attraction wouldn't be Ripley's without the surreal. And they've got it here in spades -- all just waiting for a wall to hang on.

The keeper, as it were, of those storied treasures is Edward Meyer, a self-described library science dropout who as vice president of exhibits and archives is Ripley's main shopper.

Even his office is weird, with its own collection of oddities including a human scalp, a Mother Teresa figurine made out of chewing gum and a pair of Judy Garland's ruby red Wizard of Oz slippers.

His favorite? Twelve pieces of belly button lint retrieved over time and sent in by one man who thought it strange and noteworthy they were all the same color.

"I get the best mail in the world," Meyer said from behind his cluttered desk.

Walking around the warehouse's endless aisles of shrunken heads, antique East Asian furniture and walking canes made into guns, Meyer can explain each one.

He has acquired an estimated 95 percent of Ripley's collection, and shares the same endless fascination with otherworldly items that made the well-traveled, real-life Ripley an entertainment baron to begin with.

"I put myself in his shoes every day. What would Ripley think? What would Ripley do?" he said.

A few feet away, Meyer walks past a riding lawn mower that was driven across the country, the world's biggest rocking chair, the world's tallest rideable bike and a 1932 Studebaker once modified into a "jockey hearse" to carry fallen riders off horse tracks.

Its neighbors in storage include entire sections of the Berlin Wall and a multimillion- dollar, 1988 Lincoln Town Car covered entirely in gold coins.

But Meyer's prize possession is way in the back -- maybe the last thing you'd see on a winding walking tour: A just-acquired 700-pound elephant head with two trunks, both DNA-tested to ensure they're real and belonged to the same animal.

"He will be THE exhibit," Meyer said in front of the creature, whose skin still prickles to the touch with small hairs.

That is, when they determine just where the peculiar pachyderm will go. Maybe New York City, maybe San Antonio, Texas -- or maybe somewhere else.

Either way, Meyer's constant acquisitions will ensure it won't be the last item to enter and leave the warehouse purgatory of the weird.

"There's got to always be stuff in here," Meyer said, "so we can sell it to the next franchise."

If You Go

Ripley's: To find one of the more than 50 Ripley's attractions worldwide, visit http://www.ripleys.com or call (407) 345-8010. Locations for Ripley's "Believe it Or Not!" museums include Buena Park, San Francisco and Los Angeles, Calif.; Key West, Orlando and St. Augustine, Fla.; Ocean City, Md.; Branson, Mo.; Atlantic City, N.J.; Newport, Ore.; Myrtle Beach, S.C.; Gatlinburg, Tenn.; Grand Prairie and San Antonio, Texas; Wisconsin Dells, Wis.; and Jackson Hole, Wyo. The company also owns aquariums, Louis Tussaud's Wax Museums and other attractions around the country and in Asia, Europe, Mexico, Canada and Australia.