Did you know there’s a special club just for people who have had their lives saved
by an ejection seat?
Pilots who activated their Martin-Baker ejection seats and lived to tell the tale are officially
inducted into the Martin-Baker Ejection Tie Club. After surviving their harrowing ordeal,
pilots receive a tie, tie pin, patch, certificate, and membership card to commemorate the event.
Each item is emblazoned with the red triangle icon that signfies ejection seats.
So far, there are more than 6,000 registered members of the Ejection Tie Club, which is
not a club I’d want to join.
I’m Erin McCarthy, editor-in-chief of mentalfloss.com, and the Martin-Baker Ejection Club is just
the first of many absolutely fascinating clubs and societies you may or may not want to join
that I’m going to share with you today.
The Martin-Baker Ejection Club isn’t the only association for people who have bailed
out of a bad plane situation. There’s also the Caterpillar Club, which was started in
1922. The worldwide organization is for military and commercial aviators who had a life-saving
experience with a parachute. Why caterpillar? At the time, parachutes were made from silk
— so the metaphor of a caterpillar spinning a safe cocoon, then emerging from it to take
flight was an apt one. It’s estimated that more than 100,000 people have been part of
the Caterpillar Club over the years, including George H.W. Bush and Charles Lindbergh.
The Shuttlecock Club has nothing to do with badminton. It’s actually an exclusive society
for anyone who has crashed at the Shuttlecock corner on the Cresta Run sledding track in
Switzerland. One of the last natural ice tracks in the world, the Cresta Run in St. Moritz
spans about three-quarters of a mile with an elevation drop of 514 feet. The Shuttlecock
is an infamous corner of the run designed to stop out-of-control riders. If they can’t
make the corner, riders launch off the side and land in a pile of snow and straw to cushion
the fall. But it’s not exactly a soft landing. People who have “failed” the corner say
it’s like falling out of an aircraft ... although, unless they’re Caterpillar Club material,
we’re not sure how they would know. As consolation, all failures are inducted into the Club and
are entitled to wear a Shuttlecock tie, available at the Cresta Run gift shop.
You can’t really choose to join The Sons of Lee Marvin — genetics choose you, because
the club includes anyone who, according to film director Jim Jarmusch, has, quote, 'a
facial structure such that you could be related to, or be a son of, Lee Marvin,' the American
actor who appeared in films like The Wild One and Cat Ballou.” Known or rumored members
of this club—which was created by Jarmusch—include Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Josh Brolin and Iggy
Pop. Fun fact:Waits once designed business cards for all of the sons.
Chances are, you probably won’t be invited to join The Bohemian Club. (No offense.) The
secretive, male-only club gathers once a year to camp on 2,700 acres they own in the Bohemian
Grove forest in Sonoma County, California. To do what? No one is quite sure, but rumors
abound. It’s said that some of the Manhattan Project was planned at the site. Notable members
and guests have included Herbert Hoover, William Randolph Hearst, Jack London, Donald Rumsfeld,
Henry Kissinger, and Ronald Reagan.
Thanks to YouTube commenter Invisible Lemons for the suggestion! If you want to be featured
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Back to weird organizations: just like the Bohemian Club, you’re probably not going
to get invited to the Belizean Grove. It’s the female-only answer to the Bohemian Club,
but with a more public mission: To help female leaders build trusted relationships with each
other, and to help rising stars get to the top. Members have included Supreme Court Justice
Sonia Sotomayor and U.S. Army General Ann Dunwoody.
Are you a scientist? Do you have a gorgeous mane of hair? Then you might be a great candidate
for the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. There are just four steps standing between
you and membership: • Number One: Photo evidence of said luxuriant,
flowing hair. There is a strict Below-the-Clavicle rule, FYI.
• Number Two: You need to know which hair clubs you want to join — the LFHCS has subchapters
for flowing facial hair, formerly flowing hair, for science journalists, and more.
• Number Three: A link to a site, such as your employer, that legitimizes your scientific
credentials. • Number Four: A pithy statement about why
you belong.
Good luck with your application!
The LFHCS isn’t the only weird club scientists can join. If you’re a scientist, and your
name is Steve, Project Steve may be right up your alley. It’s a somewhat tongue-in-cheek
undertaking by people who wanted to prove that it’s easy for creationists to get hundreds
of scientist signatures on anti-evolution statements. The sheer number can make it seem
like evolution is being seriously questioned by professionals, when it’s really not.
Project Steve shows that hundreds of scientists’ signatures can be gathered without proving
anything ... except how easy it is to get those signatures. If you’re a Steve, Steven,
Stephen with a “ph,” Stephanie, Esteban, or any other variation, you’re welcome to
join Project Steve, which even has its own theme song: “The Steve Song,” of course.
The Order of the Occult Hand is open to any journalist or writer who can manage to work
the phrase “It was as if an occult hand had...” into their writing and get it published.
The strange tradition began in the 1960s and spread as reporters and journalists moved
to new publications.
The phrase has appeared in newspapers like The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, the
Los Angeles Times, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, and many, many more. It’s been used in small-town
crime reports and by Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Greenberg. But since the Order was exposed
in 2004, it’s as if the occult hand has turned on itself — the odd wording doesn’t
turn up as much as it once did. According to Greenberg, the Order has chosen a new piece
of overwrought language journalists must sneak into publications for admission into the club.
Two rejected options were "hanging over the scene like a shroud" and "like a soft, warm,
weird breeze blowing aimlessly through the palms." The phrase actually chosen remains
a mystery.
Lawn Mower Racing is apparently an international phenomenon. The British Lawn Mower Racing
Association was founded in in 1973. As their website says, the pastime has “spread like
crabgrass,” and now you can join Official Lawn Mower Racing Associations in the U.S.,
Germany, Luxembourg, Canada, New Zealand and the Czech Republic. If you don’t necessarily
want to join the LMRA, but you do want to stay current on standings (obviously), be
sure to check out their blog: the Cutting Edge. (ba dum tsssss)
Do you find yourself failing at things again and again, almost comically? Then you would
have been a perfect candidate for the The Not Terribly Good Club. British journalist
Stephen Pile started the club in the late ‘70s for people who were, well, just not
terribly good at things. To prove they were worthy, members had to tell their tales at
meetings. Pile later turned some of the more famous examples into a series of books. 2011’s
The Ultimate Book of Heroic Failures includes a doozy, from 1999, when a family planning
agency distributed condoms stapled to a pamphlet about STDs. The now-perforated condoms were
obviously a not-terribly-good form of contraception. As for the club? It disbanded when membership
surged, making itself successful — and therefore ineligible to exist. Maybe it’s time to
start it back up, using the argument that the Not Terribly Good Club is not terribly
good at following its own rules.
The Association of Dead People isn’t what you think: Being alive is actually a requirement
to belong. In the mid ‘70s, Lal Bihar discovered that he was dead... on paper. In order to
inherit Bihar’s share of the family’s ancestral homeland, a relative of Bihar’s
had had him declared deceased. The underhanded tactic took a staggering 17 years to undo.
Frustrated with the insanely slow process to get himself declared alive again, Bihari
formed an advocacy group to help others going through the same thing — because being wrongly
declared dead is apparently not an uncommon occurrence in India.
Where some people see an unremarkable traffic feature, the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society
sees beauty. Proclaiming the humble circular intersection as an “oasis on a sea of tarmac,”
the UK RAS admires the beauty of roundabouts big and small. Oh, and the president of the
association is called the Lord of the Rings.
If you’re happy and you know it, join the Society of Happy People. Founded in the late
‘90s, a time when it was cool to be blasé, as The Secret Society of Happy People, the
group really found its footing when they challenged Ann Landers on a piece of advice she gave
readers. The columnist told people it was best to keep good news to themselves when
writing holiday letters, which made the Secret Society very unhappy indeed. The press picked
up the clash, and the resulting publicity made membership skyrocket.
Do you love ironing? Do you love rock climbing? Why not combine your two passions with the
Extreme Ironing Bureau, a group of very tidy adventurers. Extreme ironing began in Leicester,
England, when rock climber Phil Shaw decided the chore would be much more enjoyable outside,
and dragged his ironing board out to his garden. The idea exploded from there, and soon, he
had recruited people to fight wrinkles while skiing the French Alps, at the basecamp of
Everest and even while base jumping.
The 20-Minute Society at England’s Newcastle University is all about surprise and delight,
emphasis on the surprise. Every 2 to 3 weeks, its 500 members receive a text providing a
location they must arrive at within 20 minutes. From pub meetups to ice skating, members never
know what they’re in for. The club also holds an annual formal event and has a drawing
for a mystery vacation once a year. The randomness of the society has proved popular, with more
sprouting up across the UK all the time.
Simply having an adventurous spirit isn’t enough to get into The 300 Club. The opportunity
to gain membership in this exclusive group happens when temperatures in Antarctica reach
-100°F. After roasting in a 200°F sauna at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station,
those attempting to join the club must go streaking outside around the ceremonial South
Pole—with shoes on, if that’s any consolation. One participant said it felt like “somebody
was hitting me with a tennis racket full of needles.” Sounds fun!
No one wants a Putney High Tide Club Membership. Members are involuntarily inducted when they
park too close to the Thames in the Putney district of London and fail to move their
cars before the tide comes in. Members are inducted via photos on the official Putney
High Tide Club pages on Twitter and Facebook.
Gatherings of the Rubble Club are probably slightly sad affairs. Members of the club
are architects who created buildings they believed to be permanent, only to see them
intentionally destroyed within their lifetimes. (Accidental fires don’t count.) There’s
no official club membership, the Rubble Club secretary told us, saying, “We are unique
in that self-knowledge is the only route to membership!”
Who doesn’t love a beautiful cloud? Well, the Cloud Appreciation Society takes it a
step further. Their manifesto states that they believe that clouds are unjustly maligned,
that they are expressions of the atmosphere’s moods, and that those who contemplate the
shapes in clouds will save money on therapy bills. If your head is always in the clouds,
this is just the society for you. Your membership will include a pin, a certificate, and a cloud
selector identification wheel.
Don’t forget to drop your List Show-related questions in the comments for our upcoming,
very meta episode of The List Show, dropping on January 29th. And if you haven’t seen
the pilot episodes of our new series, Food History and Kids Vs. Science, check them out.
We had a lot of fun making them, and if you want to know why the French passed a law banning
potatoes in the 1700s or what an experimental physicist can teach us about paper airplanes,
you’ll want to give them a watch. Subscribe to Mental Floss, and check back every Wednesday
at 3pm for new episodes. Bye!