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Most Bizarre Guinness World Record Holders
Since 1955, Guinness World Records have been tracking everything from the oldest living person to the largest pumpkin ever grown, but believe it or not, in recent years the record-keeping service has expanded its qualifications to include some pretty bizarre records that almost seem orchestrated by one obsessed individual looking to accomplish something.
However, that doesn’t make the feat any less marvelous, as the biggest group to ever do one thing, or someone accomplishing something so obscure, you couldn’t even dream it up on your own is truly something to behold. These are the most mind-boggling Guinness World Records that almost don’t seem real, but very much are.
Masking Time
In Taipei City, Taiwan in 2013, 1,213 skin care enthusiasts broke the record for the most people to apply a facial mask at once, and proceeded to wear it for 10 minutes. While this was like a part of these individuals’ daily routine, it must’ve been nice to all participate in the public cleansing together.
Longest Fingernails
If you’ve been looking for the human with the longest fingernails, look no further than Chris “The Duchess” Walton, who hails from Las Vegas, Nevada. She spent 18 years growing her nails without cutting them, allowing them to reach 10 feet, 2 inches on her left hand, and 9 fett, 7 inches on her right. We certainly have questions.
Hula Hoopers
The Guinness World Record for most people hula hooping at once was set in Bangkok China in the Thammasat University stadium. 4,483 people participated at once on a beautiful February day in 2013, and all wore the color pink! We have to say, it seems quite organized to have that many people calculated into a confined space like that.
Magnetic Spoons
You wouldn’t ever think there’d be such a thing as a record for most spoons on a human body, but lucky for you, there is. And that record is held by none other than Etibar Elchiyev, who is from Tblisi, Georgia. Elchiyev affixed 53 spoons to his body, which he claims to have strong magnetic properties. Not everyone is convinced, though.
Snow Man
While there may be various records involving ice submersion challenges, Jin Songhao from China put his own spin on the record, being the first man to have his full, bare body in full contact with snow for 46 minutes and 7 seconds. He apparently enjoyed a nice meal and beverage while doing it, too.
Fried Rice
People in Costa Rica must love their fried rice, because in 2013, 52 chefs came together to cook up the largest single amount of Cantonese fried rice ever prepared, weighing in at 3,000 pounds. This astounding pot of rice would go on to feed over 7,000 people, which is pretty remarkable, and certainly a communal gesture at the same time.
Chainsaw Juggler
In one of the more “absolutely do not try this at home” records, Milan Roskopf takes home the prize for man who’s juggled motored chainsaws the longest. And that total result was a successful 62 times in a row, which seems increasingly harder to believe the more you think about it. He also shattered his own previous record of 35. The Slovakian made his country proud.
Bare Amusement
Next up on group activities you never would have conceived, let alone for a Guinness World Record, are these English hooligans who all convened in the southeast part of the country to become the largest group of individuals to ever ride amusement park rides fully nude. They must’ve had to clear the park and pay extra in addition to some waivers, but by the looks on their faces we’ll assume it was worth it.
Heaviest Onion
The farming must be ripe for success in England when it comes to onions, because Pete Glazebrook was able to not only win a local contest, but also take home the Guinness World Record for heaviest onion when his masterpiece weighed in at 17 pounds. Quite an ambitious feat, but no one’s going to want to be standing nearby when they decide to cut the thing.
Bee Weight
Looking for more nightmare fuel? Well, look no further than Beekeeper She Ping from China, who allowed a whopping 73 pounds of bees to cling to her body, which blew away a previous record that stood at 59 pounds. This must be what beekeepers do in their free time, but some would say this may be a little bit over obsessive of your job. But all the more power to She Ping.
Tent Dragon
Do you and 899 of your closest friends all have a blue tent? Well then you’re in luck, because you can replicate this world record setting dragon that was created on a beach in Qingdao, Shandong province in China back in 2012, when the Chinese were celebrating the year of the dragon. While this is peculiar and quite niche, you have to admit this is a cool gesture and image.
Tallest Mohawk
There’s tons of people with cool hairstyles out there, but perhaps none cooler, and surely none taller, than that of Japanese fashion designer Kazuhiro Watanabe, who has a mohawk that reaches a perplexing height of 3 feet, 8.6 inches tall. Now, realistically, this means he’s walking around just short of 10 feet in total height from mohawk to toe, so we can foresee some difficulties in his daily life.
Largest Flag
The country that holds the record for largest national flag is none other than Romania, who decided they needed one so big, they had to photograph it in a farm’s field from an airplane. The final dimensions totaled 1,146 feet long by 744 feet tall, and was located just outside the bustling capital of Bucharest, in a town called Clinceni.
Aquarium Peaks
Located on Sentosa Island in the country of Singapore is the world’s largest aquarium, which contains a massive 42.9 million liters of water, over 800 different species, and 80,000 animals in total. But what’s even more fascinating is that’s not where the records stop – S.E.A. Aquarium also holds the Guinness record for largest acrylic panel,” which only makes sense considering the largest aquarium should have the largest tank.
Sumo Suit Run
If you were ever wondering who and where they set the record for most people running in sumo suits, you would find that record to have been set in London back in 2010 when over 200 people all showed up and ran a 5K in order to raise some money. The race took place at Battersea Park, and there have since been numerous attempts in countries around the world. Probably not something you’d do in any kind of heat.
Gigantic Suitcase
To honor the 100th anniversary of the Export Commodities Fair in Guangzhou, China, creators unveiled what would be crowned the largest piece of luggage ever created. The massive orange suitcase measured 5 foot 9 inches tall, 3 foot 9.3 inches wide, and 1 foot 6.1 inches deep. Safe to say this isn’t fitting on any plane, and you’d be hard pressed to be able to carry it without a few helping hands. But hey, it looks cool I guess.
Oldest Tattoo-ee
Meet Isobel Varley from Spain, who became the world’s most eldery tattooed woman after she was inked up during the Expotatoo fair in Gijon, northern Spain. As a septuagenarian, she’s certainly been around the block as displayed by the immense amount of art covering her body, but continuing that kind of practice, let alone making the space for more, certainly takes dedication.
Ice Wine Flute
Looking for arguably the single easiest way to become inebriated? Well, take a stroll down to the Niagara Icewine Festival, where back in 2011, the Marynissen Estate and 29 other Ontario wineries contributed 27 liters of ice wine into a four foot tall flute. This achievement is pretty cool, especially as a collaboration effort, but it certainly begs the question – what exactly did they do with all that wine?!
Aerial Tightrope
If you’re a thrill seeker and enjoy walking on very thin surfaces at enormous heights, this world record is for you. Chinese stuntman Samat Hasan broke this record by walking on a rope with a diameter of just 1.2 inches and set at a 39º gradient for 2,300 feet (700 meters). It’s by far the largest and most difficult distance anyone’s attempted at that height, and let’s be real, why would the average person even want to?!
Most Bridesmaids
It’s likely you’re going to have, or literally be the richest bride ever to break this world record, because we can only imagine the expenses. Nisansala and Nalin, who hail from Sri Lanka, broke a previous record set by a Thai couple when they had 126 bridesmaids be a part of their wedding day. That wasn’t all, as they also had 25 best men, 20 page boys, 23 flower girls and clearly a whole lot of other family members.
Monkey Run
We bet you probably didn’t know there was a Guinness world record for fastest 100m run by a human on four legs, and you likely never would’ve guessed the record-holder developed his skills by studying the style of the African Patas monkey. Kenichi Ito, who’s spent nearly two decades perfecting his craft, set the pace at 16.87 seconds, beating his own record of 17.23.
Loudest Bark
While this achievement is pretty cute and surely an impressive feat, even for a dog, we can only imagine the owners were taken aback once they first realized this good boy’s potential. Charlie, this incredibly vocal golden retriever, was awarded by both Purina and Guinness the world record for loudest bark, measuring in at 113.1 decibels.
Thinnest Contraception
We told you these records were going to be bizarre, and this one attests to that statement. In Hong Kong, AONI, a condom manufacturing company, produced the world’s thinnest rubber latex condom, with its ultra-thin 001 model averaging a thickness of 0.001417 inches.
Largest Ball Pit
If you were looking to reinvigorate your inner-child, this world record for largest ball pit probably would’ve made an excellent place to do it. The ball pit was in the Kerry Hotel in Pudong, Shanghai, and was actually part of an event raising awareness for and promoting breast cancer prevention. A total of 1 million balls filled a 82 ft. by 141 ft. swimming pool, which honestly sounds daunting to get in if you have any sort of claustrophobia.
Beauty Treatment
As we noted from the beginning, a lot of people doing the same thing at once is certainly a theme when it comes to Guinness World Records. Here, once again in China, 1,000 women received a 30-minute facial while gathering inside a sports arena in Jinan. 1,000 women also means 1,000 estheticians, meaning this group of 2,000 people is the most to ever give and receive facials in one place, at one time.
Cork Art
Saimir Strati is an Albanian artist who specializes in a very specific type of craft – giant murals constructed completely out of corks. And that’s also what he’s now the Guinness World Record holder of, the largest piece ever created with simply corks. His masterpiece is called “Romeo with a crown of grapes playing guitar while dancing with the sea and the sun.” A mouthful, we know, but it measures 42.5 by 23 feet, and is made up of 229,764 corks. It took him 14 hours a day for 28 days to complete.
Most Expensive Dessert
How much would you guess the most expensive dessert in the world would cost? Well, if you predicted $25,000, you’re correct, but you probably wouldn’t have guessed it would be the Frrrozen Haute Chocolate from Serendipity-3 located in New York. As you can see from the picture, the gold chocolate flakes and presumably top-notch dairy quality is something of a splurge, to say the least.
Oldest Salsa Dancer
You may recognize her from Britain’s Got Talent, because Paddy Jones is known worldwide for being the oldest professional salsa dancer, and at 88, she’s shown no signs of slowing down. Her partner Nico is 40 years to her younger, but the two have become quite the team, as they’ve been known to compete in a variety competitions around the globe.
Longest Handshake
Got 12 and a half hours on your hands? Jack Tsonis and Lindsay Morrison did, as they surpassed the world record at 12 hours but just over 30 more minutes, and they did so for a good cause. Not only did they raise charity along with their attempt, they also did it on the United Nations’ International Day of Peace, in a gesture to show just how far someone is willing to go in the lengths of friendship.
Biggest Sneaker Collection
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Meet Jordan Michael Geller, who not only holds the world record for largest sneaker collection, but also has his own museum in Las Vegas where you can go see them for yourself called Geller’s Shoezeum. The collection is mostly an homage to Nike, as his nearly 3,000 shoes are all Nikes, save for eight special pairs. He also has every model of Air Jordan’s ever made, which alone could be valued at many tens of millions themselves.
Steepest Coaster
To no one’s surprise, the steepest roller coaster in the world is located in Japan out to the west of Tokyo at the Fuji-Q Highland amusement park in Fujiyoshida. It’s called Takabisha, and has a free-falling angle of 121º, which with any knowledge of geometry, is so inverted that it can be assumed the thrill is matched with fear. It took the equivalent of $30 million to build.
Biggest Ornament
It probably goes without saying that nobody in any normal circumstance is going to be able to use this practically, but Franz Paternosta doesn’t care, because he had his sights set on the Guinness World Record. He artfully managed to create the largest glass Christmas tree decoration ever recorded for his glassblowing company Joska in Bavaria, Germany. It weighed in at 44 pounds, and contained a diameter of 25.6 inches.
Longest Float
You surely don’t see a parade like this every day, because if you attended the Lantern Festival in Gutian Township, China, you’d thinkeveryone in town was a part of just a single float. We’re talking about the “dragon march” of course, which features thousands of people carrying planks of wood that connect the decorated bamboo and paper mache resembling the world’s longest dragon. And it is the largest float on record, measuring 2,596.8 feet!
100-Year-Old Cycler
Somehow the world doesn’t acknowledge super impressive athletic achievements as much as it should outside the olympics, because there’s certainly some impressive feats. Take cyclist Robert Marchand for example, who set the world record for distance covered in an hour for an athlete over the age of 100. Yes, you read that right. The Frenchmen set the new bar at 15 miles, which he accomplished at a 200 meter indoor velodrome in Switzerland. Marchand was born in 1911, and set the record in 2012 at the 100.
Largest 3-D Painting
If you’re curious about where you can find the world’s largest 3-D painting, you’ll have to travel to London to see the masterpiece created by Joe Hill, located at Canary Wharf. The piece, which features an epic waterfall and sharp cliffs with mini ledges measured to an enormous total of over 12,000 square feet.
Cable Walker
You probably didn’t know people tried tightrope walking up cable car ropes on the way up to mountains, and surely you didn’t think they fought over world records for it. But Freddy Nock is the reigning champion, as the Swiss stuntman was able to walk up the cable car path of Germany’s tallest mountain at the southern Bavarian resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. His ascent up Zugspitze totaled 9,718 feet, which he traveled along a 3,264.4 foot long rope.
Most Body Modifications
When you first lay your eyes on Rolf Bucholz, you can’t help but be baffled by the sheer number of piercings he has, which is for good reason. Bucholz is not only the world record holder for most piercings with over 450, but he also now holds the record for most body modifications period, which includes the piercings, but also industrial, gauges, implants, and other bodily constructs.
Largest Swimsuit Shoot
Leave it to Australia and their famous beaches to deliver this next Guinness World Record, which saw the most people ever gathering for a single swim photoshoot when 1,010 women gathered on the iconic Bondi Beach in 2007. It was probably a pretty cool event to be a part of, but we’d probably guess it’s kind of hard to be able to find yourself in the photo.
Longest Cigar
Both of the world’s longest cigars were rolled by the same man, fittingly from Cuba, named Jose Castelar Cairo. The tobacco reached a length of 268 ft. and 4 inches, which nearly spans a football field, and it had to be displayed in an old Spanish fort called El Moro due to its size. It was rolled as a part of the International Tourism Fair Cuba holds every year, where they display their prowess in this craft, among many others.
Most Big Macs Eaten
Next up on categories you probably don’t want to be the record holder in, but somehow this guy does – Donald Gorske holds the Guinness achievement for most Big Macs eaten in a lifetime. His total now stands at over 32,400, and he has literally eaten a Big Mac every day for the last. 50. years. Think about that… He attributes his daily walking routine as the reason behind his good health, but an even crazier stat is he scaled back from eating 9 a day to 2, meaning he consumes about 14 a week.
Largest Rubber Band Ball
When Joel Waul set out to construct the largest rubber band ball of all time, he knew he would not be stopped until he received the Guinness World Record. In total, he used 700,000 rubber bands spanning every size conceivable, and the outcome was what he dubbed “Megatron,” or a 6 ft. 7” ball weighing a whopping 9,032 pounds.
Longest Plank
Do you think you have the physical and mental strength to plank for even 1 minute? For most of us, this is even tough, yet achievable. While it looks easy, planking requires you to balance on your forearms and toes to exercise your core, and takes a lot out of you quickly. Not ex-marine George Hood though, as the American man lasted a wondrous 8 hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds in the position, which is as much as a whole day’s work. This sort of strength is unfathomable to most.
Longest Sung Note
Richard Fink IV is a vocal educator of over a dozen years, and his 168 days of practice through all sorts of elements helped prepare him for the biggest moment of his life. That was singing a continuous “C” note for a Guinness World Record 1 minute and 53 seconds, eclipsing the previous record by a mere 1 second, showing just how hard this achievement was.
Longest Chant
A Hindu Hanuman temple in the Dallas suburb of Frisco set the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous chant. Led by Hindu spiritual leader Sri Ganapathy Sachchidananda Swamiji, 582 total people chanted for a total of 24 hours, 10 minutes and 8 seconds. You can only imagine how good they all slept after that!
Heaviest Sword Swallowed
Not only is sword-swallowing so common that the record can only go so far, but there’s also an entirely separate record for “heaviest” object swallowed in the style. And you can give that award to Thomas Blackthorne, who swallowed a turned-on Dewalt jackhammer and bit that totaled 83 pounds, 12 ounces, holding it there for over 3 seconds. Not only does that seem incomprehensible, but also painful!
Biggest Lincoln Logs
If you played with Lincoln Logs as a kid, you’re familiar with their snap-in like pieces, allowing you to craft all sorts of building types. Well, the Popadynec family took their building hobby to a whole new level, where they set the Guinness World Record for the largest single structure created from the popular toy. They constructed the Empire State Building model, which stood over 18 feet in height.
Longest Music Solo
In another one of the crazier musical achievements you’ll ever hear about, Kuzhalmannam Ramakrishnan from the southern Indian state of Kerala performed what would be the longest continuous solo performance ever. The mridangam drum player performed on his percussion for 501 straight hours, or the equivalent of 21 days straight. How did he do this? Well, with some help from technology, of course.
Widest Tornado Path
Tornados are no joke, and if you’re anywhere near tornado alley in the center of the U.S., you know this all too well. Especially those who live in Oklahoma, who not only get regular touchdowns during the storm season every year, but they also experienced the widest tornado in history on May 31, 2013. It expanded to over 2.6 miles in diameter, and may have contained the highest winds ever recorded, but technology wasn’t able to read too close due to its severity.
Largest Bounce House
Fancy yourself jumping in the largest bounce house known to man? Well have no fear, because the biggest one around actually tours across the United States, and is called Big Bounce America. It was started by Grahame Ferguson and Cammy Craig, and the inflatable monstrosity totals 11,433 square feet. Oh, and it’s not limited to just children!
Synchronized Scratch-Offs
In perhaps one of the oddest, yet more attainable world records on this list, the Idaho Lottery broke the Guinness record for largest synchronized lottery scratch-off, when 479 people gathered to celebrate the organization’s 30th anniversary. We wouldn’t necessarily say it’s the best decision to promote gambling, but luckily scratch-offs tend to be cheaper and less risky.
